The old saying must be true, because in a blink summer seems to be quickly slipping by me! I haven't had time to blog nor review lately. :-( Hopefully you guys won't give up on me, and I'll be back in a flash!
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Monday, July 9, 2012
CONFESSIONS FROM AN ARRANGED MARRIAGE by Miranda Neville
Minerva Montrose has a passion for politics. She
is ready to hit the marriage mart with one goal in mind, to marry
someone destined to rank high in government, and she's already picked
her target.
Lord Blakenly has just returned to Society after a
two year exile, and he's ready to pick up where he left off in his
debauchery. Most assume he doesn't have the intelligence to run a
dukedom, and have low expectations of him, none suspect the secrets
he holds.
When Blake and Minerva are discovered in a very
compromising position, they find themselves headed to the alter.
Blake resents being forced to give up his freedom, while Minerva
resigns herself to her fate.
Minerva is a serious minded young woman, while
Blake is a fun-loving scoundrel. How will these two find their Happy
Ever After, when they can barely tolerate each other?
*****
CONFESSIONS OF AN ARRANGED
MARRIAGE was a very enjoyable read. While the premise of the story
has been done many times before, Miranda Neville brought a freshness
to the storyline with her well-rounded characters and scenery.
Minerva was a very
intelligent, serious young woman, who had managed to get herself into
a few scrapes, but nothing like the scandal Blake brought onto her.
She was a bit hard to take in the beginning with all her thoughts of
politics, but Blake was a little hard for me to take early in the
story, also. He couldn't get over feeling sorry for himself, and he
treated Minerva with a nasty attitude. I found that hard to read,
when he was the one that caused the whole fiasco in the first place.
Fortunately as the story
moved on the characters improved. Minerva decided to try to make the
best of the situation, and eventually Blake decided the same,
allowing them to learn to actually like each other, and to help their
relationship flourish, as they discovered each others true inner
character. I felt that when the story was over they had a lasting
love that wasn't going to crumble.
Thursday, July 5, 2012
COUNTERMEASURE Blog Tour & Prize Give Away
I would like to welcome Chris Almeida and Cecilia Aubrey to my blog, as they tell us a bit about how they write, and about their latest book, Countermeasure. Also, don't forget to comment for a chance to win a $10 gift card AND fill out the Google doc on the bottom for a chance at the GRAND PRIZE: Signed copies (by both authors) of Countermeasure and To Russia with Love plus author swag!
We Go With Our Gut
In our interaction with other authors,
we have heard them discussing the writing of love scenes and how some
think it the hardest part to write. Oddly enough, the love scenes and
romance aspects of our stories are the easiest to both of us. We are
fairly certain that this comes from our background as role players
where you actually wear the skin of the characters you are portraying
and play fairly erotic scenes often. In that case, practice makes
perfect. The more we played erotic love scenes, the easier it became
to write them for the novels and shorts.
What we find the hardest are the
intense fight scenes in our stories. These have to be precise, the
movements fluid, the punches accurate. We have to study physiology of
the human body, progression of debilitation due to certain injuries,
evolution of bruising and even decomposition. When you get it wrong,
readers question it. Yet, the hot market out there is paranormal
romance where characters have super strength and can do things humans
can’t. We write contemporary romance where humans are…humans.
They fail; they succeed by sheer power of desperation. Fight scenes
have to match the “reality” of the story. You can’t have a
human in a contemporary story fighting with super-hero strength. In
real life situations, in a fight, both parties are scuffed up.
In COUNTERMEASURE, one of the most
thrilling scenes is a fight scene that took us a long time to polish.
Cassandra James did work the field as a CIA operative but not as a
Super Spy. Trevor is a geek (granted hot geek) Data Analyst. They are
not kick ass paranormal beings with super hero strength. They are
human and non-combative for the most part. Granted, Cassandra has
been trained by her father, a Navy Seal and strict military man, and
by the CIA at the Farm, but there is a big difference in how they
react to situations compared to paranormal characters would.
When another author critiqued our first
fight scene, she shredded it. The main complaint was related to the
fact that our hero didn’t look like a hero because he was not
winning the fight at all times, kicking ass and coming out unscathed.
At first we were chest fallen but then we studied what she said, we
read and we researched. We revisited our fight scenes with a
different perspective and in the end, we were proud of the final
polished scenes.
Trevor and Cassandra fought as they
knew how, with rage, determination, and a little help from Trev’s
laptop, Jack. No help from the Gods or any extra-terrestrial ability,
just plain and simple wit and will to overcome adversities.
Most rewarding of all is to hear
comments from readers on how the scenes feel real, how they read them
at the edge of their seats, how they enjoy each and every move as if
they are watching a movie play in front of them. Although we didn’t
follow the author’s advice to make our hero a super hero, we are
still grateful for the advice given and for the drive to push the
envelope, tighten the scene even more.
To all writers beginning this amazing
journey, go with your gut. Do not try to make your characters
something they are not. If Trevor had gone from desk jockey to Chuck
Norris with a change of a scene, he would no longer have been
himself. Take criticism, turn it around to your advantage, and run
with it.
To readers, all we can say is thank you
for the amazing feedback and comments on our much worked on fight
scenes. We hope you enjoy them as much as our hot love ones.
Cheers,
Cecilia
Blurb
 |
| Amazon |
In the first novel of the
COUNTERMEASURE SERIES, Trevor Bauer is haunted by the mystery
surrounding his parents' disappearance. His dreams for his own life
have been put on hold. While searching for clues about them, he
crosses paths with Cassandra James, a tough ex-CIA agent who derails
every one of his best laid plans to avoid a relationship until he can
find the closure he desperately seeks.
Suspicious and determined never to fall
into the love trap, security specialist Cassandra James takes on a
chase to recover files stolen right out from under her nose. In an
effort to prove to her father--also her boss--that she is a capable
woman, she follows the digital trail--a trail that leads her directly
into the arms of Trevor Bauer, an NSA analyst who appears to have
more secrets than she has scars...
When he accepts her request for help in
recovering the files she's hunting, they embark on an adventure that
takes them across the ocean and into a world of intrigue and
violence. As things between them begin to heat up, Trevor realizes
that, if he is ever to win Cassandra's heart and the future he
craves, he has no choice but to reveal all his secrets.
~*~*~*~*~*~
~*~*~*~*~*~
PART 4 of
the COUNTERMEASURE Excerpt
(Excerpts 1-3, and 5 can be found here:
Simply Ali - Part 1 Mrs. Condit - Part 2 Cocktails and Books - Part 3 Harlie's Books - Part 5 )
A smile
lit his face and he laughed. “Sorry. Old habits from home.” When
she frowned he added, “Ireland. Irish. Born and raised.”
“Ah,
that would explain the lilt.”
“Yeah,
I can mask it well, though. Most times I speak good American.”
“How’s
that working for you? It didn’t do you any good a few minutes ago.
I seem to recall the word shite.”
“You
caught me by surprise,” he replied with a wicked grin.
His grin
pulled at her heart, which surprised her. She had never had this
reaction to someone before.
“Good
to know. So what the hell did you call Nate? It was Irish, right?”
With a
snort, Trevor responded, “A amadáin? It means you fool, but it’s
really a polite Irish way of calling someone an asshole. Since there
are no assholes in Ireland, we don’t really have a word for them,
so that’s what we say.”
His
expression was so serious, Cassandra couldn’t help but burst out
laughing. “I’ll have to remember that one. I know a few back
home.”
“A few
assholes or Irishmen?”
“Definitely
assholes,” she laughed. Sliding off the table, she walked back to
her chair and sat. Laughter aside, it was time to get back to the
business at hand. “Help me, here. I’m trying to understand what
an NSA employee would be doing hacking a system from their own work
computer.”
Her
laughter was like a warm blanket wrapped around his heart and he had
an overwhelming urge to make her laugh more. But the laughter faded
and the glimmer of determination to get to the bottom of why he’d
been on the server returned to her eyes.
His
stomach burned from the stress of the confrontation; she would be
giving him an ulcer if she didn’t stop asking questions soon. The
truth about the connection between the NSA and the formula was more
than an acceptable answer to her questions. He would just keep his
personal reasons for the intrusion to himself. That should give her
enough to cool her heels. He moved off the table and took the chair
she had originally indicated at the start of the meeting.
“Okay, Ms. James,” he
sighed. “The reason I infiltrated the server was to verify
information associated with a flagged conversation we picked up. My
co-worker George, the one you saw me talking to when you arrived,
received the thread originally. Based on my check, we were able to
remove the flag that same day.”
“What do you mean by
‘flagged’?”
Trevor
considered the ramifications of sharing classified information with
her. Since he was fairly certain she was the same Cassandra mentioned
in the tagged conversation, he didn’t see anything wrong with
exposing that information to her.
“Our
group investigates conversations that Echelon has flagged as
suspicious based on a list of priority keywords. Almost two weeks
ago, a phone conversation was flagged. Some dumbass picked the wrong
choice of words to describe how a person by the name of Cassandra had
‘bombed’ the security around the formula—the same formula
you’re asking me about right now.”
Cassandra’s
pulse pounded in her ears. She now knew why he had been so surprised
to hear her name. He had heard it before, had known who she was when
she had introduced herself. She was mortified. She was fairly certain
Jeff had been the dumbass gloating about her failure.
ABOUT THE
AUTHORS
CHRIS
ALMEIDA and CECILIA AUBREY
Chris
Almeida began writing children’s stories at a very young age. While
Cecilia Aubrey has dabbled in writing on and off over the years. It
was in 2010, when Chris and Cecilia met and began role-playing online
as a hobby, that writing placed itself front and center—this time,
writing storylines for the role-playing group.
The ideas
and plots created for the game awoke their inner writers, and, a few
months later, together they began writing romantic erotica. Together,
they write suspense-driven erotic romance with sexy, technologically
inclined men and woman, filled with intrigue and enough twists and
turns to make a rollercoaster seem tame.
Chris and
Cecilia have several published short stories to their credit and
their first novel, COUNTERMEASURE, was published in January 2012.
They are currently working on the second and third books in the
COUNTERMEASURE series. Through all the chaos and laughter, they still
hold true to their roots, bringing their favorite role-play
characters and stories to life.
You can
find out more about them on their author and series websites:
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)