Thursday, 17 July 2014

Read, Write Love


The Remingtons ~ Romance

THE REMINGTONS are a 5-book contemporary romance series featuring alpha male heroes and sexy, empowered women. They're flawed, funny, passionate, and very relatable to readers who enjoy new adult romance, contemporary romance, and women's fiction. 
       

                                                                               



READ, WRITE LOVE
Book Five, The Remingtons
Bestselling author Kurt Remington lives to write. He spends twelve hours a day in front of his computer, rarely leaving the seclusion of his beach-front property, where he’s come to finish his latest thriller—that is, until free-spirited Leanna Bray nearly drowns in the ocean trying to save her dog. Kurt’s best-laid plans are shot to hell when he comes to their rescue. Kurt’s as irritated as he is intrigued by the sexy, hot mess of a woman who lives life on a whim, forgets everything, and doesn’t even know the definition of the word organized.

About the Author


Melissa Foster is a New York Times & USA Today bestselling and award-winning author. She writes contemporary romance, new adult, contemporary women's fiction, suspense, and historical fiction with emotionally compelling characters that stay with you long after you turn the last page. Her books have been recommended by USA Today's book blog, Hagerstown Magazine, The Patriot, and several other print venues. She is the founder of the Women’s Nest, a social and support community for women, the World Literary Café. When she's not writing, Melissa helps authors navigate the publishing industry through her author training programs on  Fostering Success. Melissa has been published in Calgary’s Child Magazine, the Huffington Post, and Women Business Owners magazine. 
Melissa hosts an annual Aspiring Authors contest for children and has painted and donated several murals to The Hospital for Sick Children in Washington, DC. Melissa lives in Maryland with her family.

Visit Melissa on The Women's Nest, Fostering Success, or World Lit Cafe. Melissa enjoys discussing her books with book clubs and reader groups, and welcomes an invitation to your event.
Authors Links:

Overall tour giveaway of 3 x ecopies of Slope of Love (previous novel in the series).

a Rafflecopter giveaway

My Review


Of all the Remington book so far, this one is my favourite. I’m not sure if it’s because the hero, Kurt, is a writer, and we get to see gentler side to the hero instead of pure Alpha male or maybe it’s because the setting is Cape Cod.  I can imagine myself on the deck gazing at the sea although I’m sure I wouldn’t be as disciplined a writer as him.  Although I’ve never been there, Melissa Foster does a great job of taking the reader along with her.
I really liked Leanna too and the dilemma she faces. Her cottage industry, Luscious Leanna’s Treats, is about to expand. What will happen at the end of summer? I love that way that Kurt and Leanna are opposites and how she brings mess and confusion into Kurt’s precise, orderly life. There are lots of steamy moments but underlying it all, it’s still quite a sweet romance.
This is a great summer or beach read which will inspire you to go to the sea, perhaps with a dog, in search of your own hero.

5/5

Wednesday, 16 July 2014

Michelle Read

I'm delighted to welcome Michelle Read to the blog today, author of 'Long Lost'






Long Lost
Sometimes the past can be your future

Emily Case is a lonely woman. No family, few friends, job she hates and is single. Life is one long struggle for her.

Then one morning she wakes up two hundred years in the past and her whole world is turned upside down, as she is faced with a new era she knows nothing about. However, she soon finds that she likes her new lifestyle, and the people in it.
On meeting William Chester, owner of The Westfield estate, she quickly falls for him, until she is threatened by a rival for his affections.

But when she realises this life is all she's ever wanted she is torn away from it and back to her life two hundred years into the future.

Not willing to accept that the twenty-first-century is where her destiny lies she endeavours to seek out the truth of the life she led in the nineteenth-century.
What will she discover on her journey? Was it reality or all just a dream?


                                                                 About the author

                                                                               

Michelle grew up in a small town in South Wales but moved to Dorset in her early teens, and it’s where she has lived for the past 22 years. In her spare time she enjoys visiting stately homes, castles, museums, archaeology sites, food festivals, reading copious amounts of books, and chatting on Facebook and Twitter. She works as a full time administrator but still manages to fit researching and writing novels around her busy day.

Michelle first started writing 3 years ago when the idea for her romantic nineteenth century trilogy came to her after researching her own family tree. Long Lost is the first instalment of ‘The Centuries of Love trilogy’ and her first self-published novel.

To find out more about Michelle and The Centuries of Love Trilogy go to:

Amazon £1.99


Facebook


Twitter @chelle52

Thanks Michelle, jsut make yourself comfortable and we'll start.


   Can you tell us what prompted you to first start writing? What was the first thing you wrote?

My first book, Long Lost, was the first thing I wrote, other than silly plays when I was a child. I first started writing to banish feelings of melancholy but I soon caught the writing bug which developed into something more than a hobby. It became my passion, my reason for being.
  


Can you summarise your latest work in just a few words?

Long Lost is about a young woman who is stuck in her dreary life in the twenty-first century, until she wakes up in the nineteenth century and is faced with the prospect of a whole new exciting future.




 
 What was the inspiration for this book?

I was researching my family tree when the idea of time travel to the nineteenth century came to me. Reading and finding out about my ancestors really inspired me. I also became interested in everything to do with Jane Austen and fell in love with her world. I also love Pride and Prejudice and wanted to write my own love story based on that concept.


Did you do any research for the book?

I love history anyway so doing research for my book was no chore. I visited many stately homes and museums. As I live in Dorset, on the border of Hampshire, I’m surrounded by nature and the countryside, so I often wander through the countryside to immerse myself in nineteenth century England. I also visited Jane Austen’s house and tomb for inspiration. I bought so many books on the nineteenth century and did lots of online research.


 
How do you decide on the names for your characters?

For the Centuries of Love Trilogy, Long Lost being book one, all the characters names have come from my family tree, as that was what had inspired me to write the story in the first place.


  Which writers have influenced your own writing?

I’m not sure if my writing is influenced by any one person as I have so many favourite authors, though I doubt my writing style is anything like theirs. Marian Keyes, Freya North, Lisa Jewell and Jane Green have always been my staple book diet over the years.


  What has been the best part of the writing process…and the worst?

I love losing myself in a fantasy, forgetting all my troubles and immersing myself in a make believe world with the possibilities of them coming true.

Imposing self-inflicted deadlines is what I hate the most. But if I don’t set them then my book will never get anywhere. I prefer to go with the flow and not be rushed as I’m quite a laid back person, but eventually there comes a time when I really need to knuckle down.

Do you plot your novels or allow them to develop as you write?

I usually have a vague idea of the plot but the story usually develops as I’m going along. Sometimes what I had planned for the story in the beginning will turn out very differently by the end. I don’t write in sequence either, I prefer to wait for the story to come to me, no matter what order that is. Sometimes it could be the middle and end that gets written first and beginning can be the last.


Do you have any advice for new writers?

Enjoy the process. Don’t get too bogged down with rules, grammar etc, it will all come together at the end as you learn your way through writing your novel. Listen to your heart and not other peoples’ opinions; you know what’s best for you and your writing.