Snowbound With The Soldier: New Release & Giveaway

New Release:

Snowbound With The Soldier

by

Jennifer Faye

  

Available at:

Amazon   |   Amazon - UK   |   Barnes & Noble   |   Harlequin  |  iTunes  |  Waterstones

The Book Depository   |   IndieBound  |  eBooks.com  |  Mills & Book UK

Books-A-Million   |   Indigo   |   Walmart  |  Booktopia  |  Mills & Boon Australia

  

Maybe this Christmas…?  

It has been seven long years since Kara Jameson last saw Jason Greene. Returning home as a wounded war hero, Jason looks a shell of the man she once knew. Yet her heart still skips a beat as if it was yesterday…. 

Stepping back into civilian life, Jason looks to Kara for help. But there's too much water under the bridge—not to mention too much lingering attraction. 

But it seems that the mountain weather has other ideas, and when Kara and Jason end up snowbound together they are forced to confront the ghosts of Christmas past.

---

Between the covers…

Old Man Winter huffed and puffed, rattling the doors of the Greene Summit Resort. Kara Jameson turned her back on the dark, blustery night. She didn't relish heading out into the declining weather to navigate her way home after a very long day at work.

She took a moment to admire the massive evergreen standing in the lobby of what had once been one of Pennsylvania's premier ski destinations. The twinkling white lights combined with the sparkling green and red decorations would normally fill her with holiday cheer, but not tonight. Not even the rendition of "Jingle Bells" playing softly in the background could tempt her to hum along.

The resort had been sold. The somber thought weighed heavily on her

shoulders. It didn't help that rumors were running rampant that all the management positions were being replaced.

Why did it have to happen with Christmas only a few weeks away?

Everything will work out. Everything will work out. She repeated the mantra over and over in her mind, anxious to believe the old adage. But something in her gut said nothing would ever be the same again.

"Kara?"

The deep baritone voice came from behind her. She froze. Her gaze remained locked on a red bell-shaped ornament as her mind processed the sound. Even in the two syllables of her name, she knew that voice, knew the way her name rolled off his tongue as sweet as candy.

Jason Smith.

It couldn't be. He'd sworn he would never come back.

"Kara, won't you even look at me?"

---

Snowbound With The Soldier Blog Tour Giveaway

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Writing on a Schedule, by Olivia Miles

In an ideal world, you pick up a pen when inspiration strikes and furiously scribble three pages of perfect prose and then sit back and sigh. You wake up in the dead of night with a brilliant idea and rush to your computer and let the words just flow from your fingertips. You wait for your muse to appear before starting your next book, however long it may take. While all of the above can happen, this approach is not exactly realistic when you are writing on a deadline or writing more than one book a year.

So what do you do instead? You schedule your writing. I know, I know, it doesn’t exactly sound romantic, but that doesn’t mean it has to be forced, either. (Well, sometimes it might feel that way, but that’s when I remember that writing is work!)

For the next 14 months, I have multiple books scheduled to write, and multiple books scheduled for release. I’ve played with my schedule, rearranged a few things, accounted for a few more, and settled on a monthly plan that allows me to meet my goal. I think the first step to take when scheduling your writing is knowing what you can accomplish in a given time frame. Several writers keep track of their daily word count, myself included, and while this is a great tool for motivation, it’s also essential in planning your projects. Knowing what you typically average per week allows you to more confidently suggest a delivery date to your editor. It also allows you to plan your career for as much as a year or even two years out. In an industry where books are written long before they hit the shelves, knowing what you can produce in a given 12-month time frame can help shape your long-term career goals. 

Of course there are other factors that need to be taken into consideration: revisions, line edits, even blog tours and promotion can eat up a lot of the day and cut into writing time. I'm a planner (in case you haven't noticed) and so I factor time into my schedule to outline - I usually spend a solid three days outlining a project before I start writing. On the weeks where my daughter has school vacations, I have to conservatively assume I will produce absolutely nothing, and on days where I am knee-deep in revisions, I know my word count is going to take a setback. 

Anticipated release dates are also something I take into consideration when scheduling my writing. When I’m writing a Christmas book, for example, I try and schedule as far out from the season as possible, if not the year before. Sometimes an editor will suggest a window for release, and once again, this would factor into the order of projects on the schedule. 

Yes, it would be nice to only write when the mood strikes me, or to only work on the project I am most interested in at the moment, but I just don't think I would meet my goals that way. Maybe I take too much of a business approach to my creative side, maybe I've even taken some of the fun and spontaneity out of the process, but goal setting and project planning are what keep me focused. All in all, I try to be realistically ambitious with my writing schedule, and having a month by month calendar breaks it all down into an organized, achievable system. Without it...I'd be mess!

So how about you, are you juggling multiple books? How do you plan your writing schedule?

October Releases

The Hot Pink Typewriter is kicking off a new post, where each month we highlight the newest releases. So without further delay, October releases:

SNOWBOUND WITH THE SOLDIER, Jennifer Faye (October 1, 2013)

Maybe this Christmas…?

It has been seven long years since Kara Jameson last saw Jason Greene. Returning home as a wounded war hero, Jason looks a shell of the man she once knew. Yet her heart still skips a beat as if it was yesterday….

Stepping back into civilian life, Jason looks to Kara for help. But there's too much water under the bridge—not to mention too much lingering attraction.

But it seems that the mountain weather has other ideas, and when Kara and Jason end up snowbound together they are forced to confront the ghosts of Christmas past.

AMAZON || B&N 



THE NANNY'S CHRISTMAS WISH, Ami Weaver (October 22, 2013)

In her debut novel for Harlequin Special Edition, Ami Weaver gives a lonely single dad and his sweet son the perfect holiday gift—a nanny with a secret who just might heal their family in time for Christmas!

Josh Tanner and Maggie Thelan share one unbreakable rule: No romantic entanglements. Period. So the lonely doctor hiring the former teacher as a live-in nanny for his little boy shouldn't be any kind of threat to their creed. Especially since Josh won't let go of the past—and Maggie can't tell Josh who she really is….

But rules are made to be broken, and while Maggie only wants to know the nephew she never knew she had, deeper feelings keep getting in the way! As the holiday season creeps closer, his rules collide with her secret. Can their unexpected love survive the truth?

AMAZON || B&N

Refill that well and dive in head first!

Well, I survived the manuscript submission last month – huge fun writing about a ferocious January snow storm in Colorado during one of the hottest UK summers in years! And now I’m deep into edits, also with a deadline, but there was a halcyon week of blissful nothingness somewhere in between which gave me time to recharge my batteries and, to use a phrase I’ve heard many times, refill the well.  Being kind to yourself doesn’t always come easily and it took a few days to break the habit of switching on my laptop before breakfast, but eventually the very thought of pressing that button made me feel ill. The obsessive checking of iPhone and Kindle fire waned too, so hurrah and hooray I am NOT addicted to social media (even in a stalking capacity) after all! And do you know what? Putting all the wretched charging cables for that lot in a drawer for a week was hugely liberating, I shall do it more often.

And I left the building every day. Oh yes, I did. I got dressed and went places. I breathed fresh air, blinked in the sunlight and talked to people. I did! And even better I was inspired by the things I saw, heard, smelled, tasted and felt; a tonic for the mind as well as the body.

So read on if you’re interested in some of the things I got up to in that week and the thought processes they set off. And watch out for them in future books!

I visited a large romantic house on the grounds of an ancient monastery with a real life well that is fed from an underground spring. A stream flows out from the well (you can just see it in the top right hand corner of the photograph below) and then on into a trout-filled river, but at first glance it looks like the stream is feeding into a pond. Then you notice the water is flowing backwards which comes as a great surprise. Like a cunning plot twist at the end of a book, a reminder that things are often not as them seem … 

There was also a gallery showing thirty-eight rare, hand-painted illustrations of Winnie-the Pooh and his friends. They’d never been seen in the UK before, and were created for the books Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner.  Who doesn’t love a cosy bed time story? And a small child clutching a favourite toy?

I stood in the rain at a country show  and watched a breathtaking display by an equestrian stunt team called The Devil's Horsemen .Men and women riders, seemingly fearless, utterly nubile and incredibly fit. It wasn’t until I got home I realised how many films and advertisements I’d seen these people and horses in. I wonder if I can get away with a Cossack at some point…Here’s a youtube link if you want to see them in action the week before I saw them.

Anyway, there’s no denying being one of The Devil’s Horsemen is a very interesting job. It could take you onto film sets all over the world, or get you hired for an extravagant event by someone very wealthy and or/famous, all sorts of possibilities. Protagonists need jobs and interests  and people do get very attached to their horses. And then there are vets and landowners and farriers …
   

Shortly before seeing the horses, a woman was beating her Chihuahua puppy for peeing on her foot and was being berated by a bystander for doing so. An ugly scene ensued! Could this be the seed for a life-altering inciting incident from which a high concept proposal could grow? I think it could be, or the starting point for one at least. The kids kept talking about the dog pee woman for days.

I gawped at vintage cars and Victorian gardens at Beaulieu in the New Forest and there was a miniature caravan made for a prince and princess to play in, secret doors and ghosts in the mansion house. During a private tour I got to sit on Lord Montague’s sofa … Different worlds, eh? There was even a real life tale of love lost and an illegitimate heir, the lord and his secretary. She was the inspiration for this:

And then she was lost at sea … Really!

I did so many other wonderful things, too many to fit in here without this post turning into a great big advert for the south coast of England, but it did chuck a good few buckets of inspiration into the barely damp well of my imagination. I also now know that a few days isn’t enough to refuel the writing engine, in my case I need at least a week so I’m almost there on the work/life balance!

Right, I must slink back to my cell and get on with those edits, but all is not lost as I go to Fuerteventura in the Canary Islands before Christmas. Miles and miles of blue sea and golden sand dunes are waiting for me and my camera. I've never felt the yearning to write a sheikh, but then again do deserts and sand necessarily need to have a man in flowing robes with a camel? Methinks maybe not … I’ll keep you posted!

What's your favorite way to fill the well?

Ready, Set….Write by Jennifer Faye

Umm…not so fast. At least not for me.

In two weeks, SNOWBOUND WITH THE SOLDIER is going to be available online and on store shelves. I'm busy getting ready to for a blog tour to celebrate my second release. And today I received my AA’s (author alliterations) for SAFE IN THE TYCOON’S ARMS. It will be available March 2014. :-) 

But aside from all of that, I’m starting to write my fourth book. And with this book, I’m really starting to take comfort in my writing process.

I think everyone has a process and they’re all different. For some it might just be sitting down at their pc and letting the words flow. I’m not one of those people. I tried in the beginning. And I ended up rewriting and rewriting and rewriting. Well, you get the picture.

I knew there had to be a more efficient way of completing a book. So I took a bunch of online classes. I listened and learned what worked for my mind. Some by trial and error. And at last, I have found my process. It is a hybrid between pantser and plotter.

Step #1 write the complete synopsis

I know, I used the “s” word. :-) But a synopsis can be your friend. It helps me to know where I’m going. And it gives me ideas about the pacing I’ll need so I’m not too short and not too longwinded. And when my characters stray from the synopsis, which they always do, it leads me back home.

And did I mention, if you publish the traditional route, your editor will probably want to see it up front.

Step #2 wait for editor feedback

I don’t know about you but revisions can make my stomach lurch and quiver. I try to avoid them at all costs. So far I haven’t succeeded. But I’ve always believed in reaching for lofty goals. ;-) 

So my theory is this: It’s easier to fix a 5-page synopsis than a 200-page book. So I wait and welcome my editor’s feedback.

Step #3 implement editor’s comments

I don’t know about other people’s experience but so far I’ve been very fortunate with my editors as they are great with feedback and brainstorming. My books are always stronger thanks to them.

Step #4 set up an Excel spreadsheet

This is what keeps me in line and tells me just how hard I have to work to reach my deadline on time. Did I happen to mention that I love #’s and spreadsheets???

Step #5 start writing/research

This is where I am now with my current book. Some research I do ahead of time and most I do as I write because it isn’t until then that I realize what details I will need.

Step #6 keep writing…it’ll sound so much better after you type “The End”. ;-)

Jennifer Faye’s second release, SNOWBOUND WITH THE SOLDIER, is available for Pre-Order now! at Amazon & B&N. She’d love to hear from you via Twitter, her website, or Facebook.