Hi All!

I just signed a contract with Second Wind Publishing to publish my Historical Regency romance Trial Of Love. I am so excited! The Slave Bound Series is one of my favorite series I have written to date and I can’t wait to share the lives of these characters with you. The publication date for Trial of Love is yet to be decided but once I get that information from the publishers I’ll be sure to let you know.

So far, I’ve completed 3 out of 6 books in this series, Lady Nancy, Trial Of Love and A Lady Unbecoming.

Until then, here is a brief blurb on Trial Of Love

Melanie’s life in America is full of heartache since her mother died, but she has never allowed herself to fall into a depression- she had to care for her father. A few years later Melanie’s father marries another woman, Geraldine- a woman too wicked to be considered a mother. But she still has no time to wallow in her sorrows, she has two siblings to care of. After years of pain and abuse, her only option is marriage, but Geraldine does not allow her that chance. Sold off to slave traders, Melanie finds herself in an English whore house, her virtue being auctioned to the highest bidder!

***

Christopher, new Earl of Ashworth has only one goal in life- restore the family image to its former glory and bring back respect to his family title that his father had successfully ruined. He doesn’t believe in love and mistrusts everyone, he only believes in getting what he wants no matter the cost.

After being sold as a slave, Melanie luckily escapes an auction and hides in the carriage of Christopher Wimberely, Earl of Ashworth. Their romance is rocked with mistrust that proves to be their undoing.

Reblogged from Nicole Storey's Chaotic Thoughts:

Reblogged from Author M.J. Kane:

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Welcome and congratulations to  new 5 Prince Publishing author, Susan Lohrer!

Physical therapist Nancy Anne Robertson has her sights set on her dream promotion. Problem #1: she’s engaged to one of her patients, and if her secret gets out, she’ll lose her job altogether. Problem #2: her ex-fiancé is back in town, shooting for the same promotion. Complicating matters are two mothers (and one fiancé) with alarming secrets, an autistic brother with a penchant for wandering off at the most inconvenient times, and four rings—the fake diamond kind, the stolen kind, the sticky wax kind that belongs under a toilet .

Read more… 1,654 more words

Neil takes Sam to Lang Downs, the sheep station Neil calls home. There, Sam learns that life as a gay man isn’t impossible. Caine and Macklin, the station owners, certainly seem to be making it work. When Caine offers Sam a job, it’s a dream come true.

Jeremy Taylor leaves the only home he’s ever known when his brother’s homophobia becomes more than he can bear. He goes to the one place he knows he will be accepted: Lang Downs. He clicks with Sam instantly—but the animosity between Lang Downs and Jeremy’s home station runs deep, and the jackaroos won’t accept Jeremy without a fight. Between Sam’s insecurity and Jeremy’s precarious position, their road will be a hard one—and that’s without having to wait for Sam’s divorce to be final before starting a new life together.

Excerpt:

Threedays later, Neil met his brother Sam at the bus station in Yass. The lines of stress and worry on his brother’s face made him frown. “You look like shit.”

“Good to see you too, arsehole,” Sam replied, hugging Neil more tightly than necessary.

“Come on,” Neil said, grabbing Sam’s sole suitcase. “Let’s get out of here. We’ve got a long drive ahead of us. Or do you want to eat something first?”

“How long?”

“Five hours or so,” Neil said, “and most of that is through the tablelands, where there’s nowhere to stop if you get hungry. I can shout you lunch, here or in Boorowa in an hour or so, if you don’t think you can wait until we get home.”

“Lunch would be good,” Sam admitted. “I… haven’t been eating well.”

Neil had noticed how gaunt Sam looked, but this confirmed it. “Kami, the station’s cook, will get you sorted in no time, but for now we can go to the Yass Hotel. It’s nothing fancy, but it’ll fill you up.”

“What about that one?” Sam asked, pointing to a small restaurant across from the bus station.

“We don’t eat there,” Neil said, his voice cold. “One of our jackaroos nearly got killed there last spring, and nobody lifted a finger to help him. His brother had to come running to the hotel for help.”

“In a town this size?”

“They didn’t take well to him being a poofter,” Neil explained.

Sam didn’t reply. Neil gritted his teeth when he saw the tense look on Sam’s face. He didn’t want to fight with his brother, especially when he was down and out, but Sam was going to have to keep his opinions to himself. Neil wouldn’t tolerate slurs against Caine and Macklin from his brother any more than he would from any of the other jackaroos on Lang Downs.

“So tell me about the station,” Sam said once they’d reached the Yass Hotel and had ordered lunch. “I mean, I know it’s kind of remote and I know you raise sheep, but that’s as far as it goes.”

“That’s about all there is to tell,” Neil said. “I told you about Molly when we got engaged. Everything else is pretty much what you’d expect from a station. Well, except Caine. He’s a Yank. He owns the station.”

“How did that happen?”

“His great-uncle founded the station. When he died, it passed to Caine’s mum in the States, but she’s not young and wasn’t going to move here to run it, so Caine came. Last year at Christmas, she gave it to him outright. You know, I bet he could use a hand figuring out all the paperwork, taxes and shit. He’s got a head for business, but he’s still a Yank. You could keep your hand in.”

“If he’ll let me help,” Sam said with a sigh.

“Why wouldn’t he?” Neil asked. “You lost your job because the owners retired. You weren’t fired or laid off or anything like that. It’s not your fault you couldn’t find a new job.”

Sam shrugged. “He sounds like a good bloke. Is he married?”

Neil choked on his beer. He’d been hoping to put off this conversation until later, but short of lying, he didn’t see a way around it. “Last time I checked, two blokes can’t get married here. Macklin’s name is on the deed, though, and he moved out of the foreman’s house and into the big house a year ago, so I figure that’s close enough.”

“You work for a gay couple?”

“Sam, you’re my brother and I love you, but if this is going to be a problem, you need to tell me now so I can get you a hotel room in Yass.”

“No, it’s not a problem,” Sam said quickly. “I’m just surprised. We didn’t exactly grow up in a tolerant house.”

Neil shrugged. “Caine saved my life and nearly died doing it. And he did it after I found out he was gay and said every nasty thing I could think of to him. He’s earned my loyalty.”

The arrival of their food forestalled Sam’s reply, and he ate with such gusto that Neil didn’t press for more of a reaction. He wasn’t in the mood to listen to all the homophobic bullshit he’d grown up with. He was a different man now, a better one, he hoped. If Sam could just give Caine and Macklin a chance, he’d see they deserved his respect.

They finished eating and headed north toward Boorowa. “Do you need anything?” Neil asked. “Supplies of any kind? Once we leave Boorowa, there’s nowhere to stop.”

“No, I’m fine,” Sam said. “Alison let me keep everything of mine.”

“One suitcase?” Neil responded.

“I left some stuff with friends,” Sam said. “I didn’t figure I’d need suits on the station.”

“No, you won’t,” Neil agreed. “So tell me. What happened with you and Alison? Last time I saw you, I thought you were happy.”

“She wanted someone with a job, and I wanted…. It doesn’t matter what I wanted. She wanted out, and I’m not going to fight her.”

“Is there someone else?” Neil asked.

“I didn’t ask her,” Sam said.

“What about you?”

“No one that matters.”

“You slept around and it didn’t even mean anything? That’s low, Sam.”

“It wasn’t like that,” Sam insisted. “I….”

“You what, Sam?”

“I married her because it’s what Mum and Dad expected. I didn’t feel like I had a choice, and at least I liked Alison. We got along well enough, but that’s it. I never really loved her. I don’t know if she loved me, but she doesn’t anymore, and I’m fine with that. Dad’s gone. He can’t be disappointed in me now, so it doesn’t matter anymore.”

“What are you talking about? Why would you marry Alison if you didn’t love her? You could have found someone else.”

“You already said it,” Sam said. “It’s not legal for two blokes to get married.”

“You’re gay? Why didn’t you say something?” The words were out before Neil could consider them, the only thing he could think of to say in the wake of such surprising news. Sam had been married! Neil had never dreamed his brother might be gay.

Sam shot him a look of such incredulity that Neil flushed. “Sorry, that was stupid. Of course you didn’t say anything while Dad was alive, but you still didn’t have to get married. I didn’t. Not until I met the right girl.”

“Yeah, but you aren’t gay. You might not have met the right girl, but you knew you would someday. I didn’t have that, and you were gone. You didn’t have to listen to him constantly after you left, going on and on about the family name and being a man and getting married and having children. Thank God Alison and I decided to wait to have kids.”

“Did she know about you?”

“Not when we got married. After I lost my job and couldn’t find another one, things got… tense at home. Money was tight. I felt like a failure for living off her income. We fought all the time. We agreed to a trial separation nine months ago, with her helping me out with the rent, but I think that was almost worse, because she was supporting me completely. I wanted to feel good. I wanted to spend a few hours with someone who didn’t make me feel worthless.”

“So you did what? Hooked up with some random guys?”

“Yeah, pretty much,” Sam said. “It was stupid. I knew it when I did it, but it felt good too. They didn’t care that I didn’t have a job. They didn’t care that I was in the closet. They just cared that I’d let them do whatever they wanted to me. Alison kept on about getting a new job, always threatening to stop paying my rent if I didn’t get my act together. She actually had a lead on one, but it was with a cousin of hers, and he made it pretty obvious he’d only be hiring me out of pity. I turned down the job and told her I’d find somewhere else to live. There’s no way I could go back to that.”

“I wish I’d known,” Neil said. “I’d have tried to make it easier for you.”

“There’s nothing you could have done,” Sam said. “I had to fuck up to see how bad off I was.”

“So what now?”

“Now nothing,” Sam said. “I won’t fight Alison for anything when we can finally file for divorce in three months. She gets the house, the car, everything, because she’s paid for most of it, and I don’t want the black mark on my name if I ever get a lead on a job somewhere that might care if I’m gay.”

“There’s not a lot of opportunity for anonymous sex, gay or straight, on the station,” Neil warned. “There’s a couple of other jackaroos who are gay besides Caine and Macklin, but Chris and Jesse are shacked up, and the others will be leaving when the season is over in a few weeks.”

“So I’ll do without,” Sam said with a shrug. “It won’t be the first time.” He hesitated, then added, “I got enough of faceless fumbling this year. I’d rather do without until I can meet someone. I know that probably won’t happen on the station, and really, starting a relationship before I’m even divorced would be stupid, but I’d rather do without than feel like a cheap trick again.”

“I thought you said it made you feel good?”

“The sex, yes. Afterward, no,” Sam explained. “I don’t imagine you want details.”

“Not really,” Neil said with a grimace. “I might not let anyone say anything about Caine and Macklin, but I don’t need to know what goes on in their bedroom. Same goes for you.”

Sam’s smile was the most genuine Neil had seen since he’d picked his brother up at the bus station.

“Thank you.”

Did you enjoy the excerpt? Make your comments below and stand a chance to win a giveaway!!!

Meet the Author Ariel Tachna

Building Lang Downs

Writing a novel is a complicated business. Don’t believe me? Ask anyone who’s ever tried it. Writing a series is even worse. When you write a novel, you’ve got a cast of people to keep track of, and all of them, even the smallest throwaway role, has a story. Maybe you don’t tell it, but it’s there. When you write a series, you double, triple, maybe even quadruple that, and that’s when you start the second book, much less the third or the *cough*eighth*cough*.

The Lang Downs series isn’t that long, and probably won’t be. I’d thought four books. Now it’s looking like five, possibly six, but they’re all set in the same place, and that means keeping all the details straight. Different people use different strategies, of course, but I like to start with the places people live. They say so much about the person even beyond the obvious. The “big house” in Lang Downs wasn’t Caine or Macklin’s house at the beginning of Inherit the Sky. It was Michael Lang’s house, so it had to represent him, with its comfortable but out of date, slightly threadbare furniture. When we see it again in Chase the Stars, though, it’s begun to represent Caine and Macklin: still comfortable, but new… fresh even, a mirror of the breath of fresh air that Caine brought to the station. The building hasn’t changed, but the furniture has, and that’s their influence. When Sam arrives in Outlast the Night, we see it even more in the office that Sam takes over from Caine. Macklin won’t even let me write his scenes sitting at a computer. It has to be in a notebook and typed later. You know that shiny new computer in Caine’s office wasn’t Macklin’s idea!

I’m not an artist, so you don’t want to see my rendering of the layout of the station, but I have a very rough sketch showing where things are in the valley in relationship to each other. The valley runs east to west with the eastern end a little farther north than the western end. There’s a road running into the center of the station from the western end of the valley. It doesn’t go all the way through, though, because the eastern end is too steep to drive. The bunkhouse is the first building you get to when you drive in on the road. The houses of the year-round jackaroos are scattered along the north side road, with the big house and the foreman’s house on the south side. The road ends at the shearing sheds and paddocks.

Here’s the real question then: does it matter?

Yes. Unequivocally yes. You won’t find the description above anywhere in the three books. Nobody wants to read that. It’s not interesting and it doesn’t add to the movement of the story.

Wait… I just said it mattered and then I said nobody wants to read it. No, I promise I haven’t lost it completely. They don’t want to read that description because it doesn’t add anything to the story, but knowing that, having that map in my head allows me to put things in the story that do add to it and not have to worry about contradicting myself later. Everyone who comes out of the big house going to the bunkhouse turns left. Everyone coming out of the canteen going to the paddocks turns right. Details like that matter because if they’re inconsistent, readers will notice. They start to build a picture in their heads of the setting of the story and even more when it’s a familiar setting from a previous story, and having those details consistent keeps them from being jerked out of the story and getting confused.

Wouldn’t it be a shock to the system if Neil left the foreman’s house intending to go to the shearing sheds and ended up walking in on his brother and Jeremy instead?

Read about my latest release Outlast the Night and enjoy the excerpt and stand a chance to win in the giveaway.

Author Bio:

Ariel Tachna lives outside of Houston with her husband, her daughter and son, and their cat.  Before moving there, she traveled all over the world, having fallen in love with France, where she met her husband, and India, where she hopes to retire some day.  She’s bilingual with snippets of four other languages to her credit and is as in love with languages as she is with writing.

Web site: http://www.arieltachna.com

Blog: http://arieltachna.livejournal.com

Twitter: @arieltachna

Facebook: http://tiny.cc/29npd

To purchase my books, you can always go to Dreamspinner’s web site, http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com  or you can go to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, All Romance eBooks, Fictionwise, or Rainbow eBooks, http://www.rainbowebooks.com/store/.  I’m sure there are probably other eBook outlets as well, but I don’t go searching for them.  Also, if you want to buy the book in print, any bookstore that allows special orders can order the book for you with the title and my name.

Reblogged from Author M.J. Kane:

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I'd like to introduce you to my fellow author at 5 Prince Publishing, Ann Swann! Her new release, ALL FOR LOVE is now available. Take a moment to say hello!

AUTHOR BIO:

Ann lives in West Texas with her handsome hubby and three rescue pets. All For Love is Ann’s first romance novel. She is the author of the Young Adult books: The Phantom Series.

Read more… 773 more words

Events have accurately been recorded since the time of Alan’s death; they combine to reveal an intriguing story. Did he die naturally or was he helped in some way? Has a crime or two taken place? Some may think so. Maybe there is a conspiracy; if so how far it may extend is unclear. Nothing is quite as it should be.

This unique book evolves from a simple account to a vast scandalous exposé, a true and topical account showing a fascinating view of human nature, society, and the establishment in the United Kingdom. Many questions are posed for the reader and evidence is laid bare as you take a journey of discovery.

The story and writing style changes drastically as the twists and turns in the narrative expose themselves; ultimately it reaches a logical end, but that is not the end of the story. A sequel is already underway.

About Peter Hindley

Peter Hindley is a coach to dance competitors and is a jury member for international dance competitions. He left England in 2007 for a new life in France and has been recording events since his brother’s unconventional death in 2002.

About Susan Goodsell

Susan Goodsell, co-author and Peter’s niece, lives in England with her partner and their two now grown-up sons. She spent many years in London before returning to Kent in 1997. The year her father died she began teaching English in a secondary school; now after finishing work, she returns home to begin another shift, as a detective and writer.

How to Contact the Authors:

www.howsafeisawillintheuk.com

www.twitter.com/saphireanimal (Susan)

www.twitter.com/snakehips99 (Peter)

www.facebook.com/AuthorSusanGoodsell

www.facebook.com/peter.hindley

Email for Susan: saphireanimal@aol.com

Email for Peter: snakehips47@yahoo.fr

Excerpt:

We have accurately recorded the events near the time of Alan Hindley’s death, who was a brother to Peter and father of Susan, the two authors of this account, and what followed; they combine to reveal an intriguing story. Did he die naturally or was he helped in some way? Has a crime or two taken place? Some may think so. Maybe there is a conspiracy; my lawyer certainly thought so; how far that conspiracy extends is unclear. We are certain that nothing is quite as it should be. Nevertheless this account shows a fascinating view of human nature, English society and the workings of the establishment in the United Kingdom. The story is so bizarre that it could well be fiction, and that is why I have added “A story of truth or fantasy” to the title. What is frightening is that it is all absolutely true.

The normal formalities that follow a death were not adhered to after Alan’s demise: Why the mandatory procedures were bypassed may not be evident, but during the course of our nine year account they certainly do become evident.

Why did his wife act as she did and who aided her? These and so many other questions will become apparent.

In this case what is certain now is that the will and wishes of the deceased, Alan Edward Hindley of Paignton, Devon, has not been adhered to and the UK law and establishment did nothing to aid its rectification: The laws relating to Wills are fatally flawed and the government is fully aware of that. As named executors we have been denied the right to execute his wishes. You may think this is not possible, but it is, and it has proved to be absolutely legal.

His wife, Wendy, acted as sole executor of her husband’s Last Will and Testament without the other two named executors and we reveal how simple it is to do just that. Why she felt this was necessary will ultimately be disclosed. You will learn how the solemn duty of executing a will can be mal administered in a totally legal way and without fear of retribution.

We have experienced many twists and turns along our path of discovery and these have been reflected in both the different styles and structure of the book. Our journey has taken us to numerous office doors and has led us into the heart of the halls of government, where events have made it very apparent that what we were witnessing was true injustice and unchecked corruption within the United Kingdom. It is for this reason that we felt it necessary to pen our story, to be able to share our account with you and all our other readers, who have been reading an abridged account on the Internet since May 2008; it is very much in the public’s interest to be aware of what can go wrong and does go very wrong daily.

We have been told that Alan died in his home during the evening of 14th March 2002 in more than one place, and all on the same night, the last time anything vaguely like this happened was two thousand years ago (please forgive the last statement, it is not meant to offend); but first a little background information about the family.

Available from 5 Prince Publishing www.5princebooks.com  books@5princebooks.com

Genre: Non-Fiction, True Crime, Political

Release Date: May 30, 2013

Digital ISBN 13:978-1-939217-64-6  ISBN 10:1-939217-64-4

Print ISBN 13:978-1-939217-63-9  ISBN 10:1-939217-63-6

Purchase link : www.5princebooks.com/buy.htm

Image courtesy of piyato at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I hope you are having a wonderful Monday so far. Well, I’m having a fab day because Love Forever After is #FREE for the next 5 days (27th-31st May)!! So, if you’ve always wanted to read this book, and wasn’t so sure you’d like to spend the cash (I’m like that too so no worries ) this is your chance to get a FREE copy! All I ask in a form of payment is a review and a referral so your friends can spend the money!

Only 5 days guys so get to downloading!!

The event is listed on my FB page, please share it with your friends.

To help you decide, her is a review from Romance Novels In Color:

Love Forever After by Christina OW is an amazing tale, filled with sorrow, pain and healing. How do you survive the loss of your soul mate? How does a person come back from that type of bone-deep wounding? This story explores that premise and the idea that even in the darkest hours, comfort can be found.

To start with, the main players are the heroine Kristy, who simply put is an Afro-American tree hugger, and the hero of the tale William is a straight laced British male. They were opposite in all ways, but the differences only serve to highlight the couple’s compatibility.

It all begins with Kristy’s funeral and her grieving widower standing graveside at an empty casket. You are taken through the phases of his pain, starting with the aforementioned service, with details of the couple’s acceptance of each other (the hero has a fund for bail money and the police know her by name), and then taken on a journey to the years beyond.

The hero goes through many bumps in the road on the way to healing. His family (not to mention Kristy’s) thinks he’s lost his mind when he blatantly speaks about his wife as if she is still alive. He is forcibly sent on leave from work for the same reason. There were many twists and turns that made this story not only incredible, but inspiring.

As a reader, I found that the journey made with the hero during his pain was a real one and extremely relatable. I, like many other people have lost loved ones, and the emotions that our hero exhibits are real. The pain he endures is honest.

There were a scant handful of grammatical errors in the writing, but the story was so emotionally riveting that I barely regarded them during the read.

This story is wonderful enough to go into print and sell quite well as the author is talented enough to make the unusual aspects in this novel work well. This story is heart wrenching in the extreme and honestly, I cried like a baby during several scenes. There is no lovemaking in this story, but even as a fan of the erotic I didn’t need that from this read. All that I wanted was for William to find some sense of peace with his loss. I was invested in this story from page one (which is rare in this day and age of quick author turnover and filler pages) and nary a sentence was skipped.

-Reviewed by: Jennifer

Other titles FREE this week:

The Mara Song

Fate Series Preview: The Beginning

NB:

-The release of Love Rekindled has been pushed to February 14th. With school and other projects needed sooner, I can’t spare the time to finish this book, but I promise by Valentine’s day, you’ll be enjoying the crazy love between Ronald and Sandra- pure drama!

-Love Forever After is now available on Smashwords and hopefully on other eBook stores.

-Fate Series Preview: The Beginning and The Mara Song are always free on Smashwords but $0.99 on Amazon. The only way they will be free on Amazon if readers tell them of a lower price. So if you’ve read these short stories, please go to Amazon and tell them about the lower price and help make them free.

Have a Fab week and Happy Reading!!!

I hope you are all having a fabulous month.

Wow! the year is really moving! It will be 2014 in no time. Hope you’ve all began ticking off your 2013 bucket list and resolutions

Mine is to get my books noticed more by the reading public.

I just wanted to share this post about Book Grow. Most of the sites I’ve used have not really helped get my books exposure, but I keep pushing forward. As a requirement to get listed in Book Grow, I have to write something about them, all I know is that they offer a number of services to authors to help write, edit, review etc, but I have no personal experience and I am not one to vouch for something I’ve never tried. So I picked a few testimonies from authors who have used the services of this site and hopefully I’ll include my own very soon.

BookGrow has helped catapult four of my books into the top 100 free Kindle chart within 24 hours. My residual sales are huge now!

-Bill Dodd

The Free Book Submission Tool is a godsend. Book submissions used to take me nearly all day and now I can run them all in about 15 minutes. Awesome service. Thanks

-Samantha Crooms

Using the tools and exchanging likes, reviews and tags on the forum has increased my Kindle revenue by 600%! I recommend BookGrow to all indie authors.

-Lucy Armstong

I hope these testimonies were enough to make you consider Book Grow for the promoting and writing services. I’ll let you know what I think once I get listed.

I f you have anything to share about Book Grow please share with us!

Reblogged from Author M.J. Kane:

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Today is release day for book 5 of the Keller Family Series by Bernadette Marie! Check it out!

Darcy McCary came to Nashville with some big expectations--to find her birth parents. She had no plans of making a life in Tennessee. But when her sources lead her to Eduardo Keller, her heart took over, and plans changed.

Eduardo Keller is a man who goes after what he wants and he doesn't have time for playing games.

Read more… 2,758 more words