Christine Young Hosts Laura's Light Today

Please welcome Donna Gallagher author of Laura's Light.  Please leave a comment. Authors love to hear from you and you will be eligible to win a gift.

Donna will be awarding a $50 Amazon GC to a randomly drawn commenter during the tour.

Laura’s Light

by Donna Gallagher

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BLURB:

Forty-two- year- old single mother Laura Harris devoted more than half her life to raising her son. She remembered the concept of having sex but it had been aeons since she’s actually been a participant - especially with a real flesh-and-blood partner. But it’s time to reclaim her life. Her son is a man now. And the rising star of the Jets rugby league team. Their future is brighter than ever and, for the first time, financially secure. But Laura is starting to think agreeing to have dinner with Trevor Hughes could be biting off more than she can chew. Not that she can’t see herself taking a nice big chunk from the absolutely gorgeous thirty-four-year-old sports commentator’s rump, he’s one prime piece of masculinity! She just isn’t sure how or when the whole sex thing will become an issue. She can’t even get past the what-to-wear step. Let alone the when-to-take-it-off stage…

Trevor Hughes usually avoids the woman with substance - he has enough of his own demons to deal without trying to care for anyone else. But there’s something about the upbeat, sexy, one-woman-dynamo Laura Harris. The woman is pure sunshine and happiness. And that’s surprising when you look at what life has handed her. Nothing seemed to dampen Laura’s spirits and she quickly becomes someone Trevor needs in his life…Until misunderstandings come between them. Can Trevor put things right?

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Excerpt :

Laura Excerpt 

“I didn’t mean to fall asleep. I’m sorry… I should have left hours ago. This isn’t what is supposed to happen these days, I suspect.” Laura caught sight of the light shining from the corner of the closed drapes. 

“The sun is up! I have no idea what time it is. What on earth is Mitchell going to think?” Laura started to struggle in an attempt to free herself from Trevor’s hold, tried to remove herself from his arms, his bed. Then, realising she was naked, she froze. How the hell was she going to make a gracious exit when she would have to hunt, completely naked in front of him, for her clothing? Any chance of her maturing body’s flaws remaining hidden in the room’s darkness was now fading as the sun rose. Not to mention the walk of shame she was facing, going home in the probably now rumpled clothing that she’d left home in last night. Laura groaned.

“Oh, this is so embarrassing. I’m not really up on the etiquette this sort of thing involves. You know, the morning after the night before. What the hell was I thinking?” Laura buried her face into the pillow, thinking that hiding from the world might magically make all her uncertainty and embarrassment go away.

She heard Trevor chuckling next to her, and anger was the first emotion to take hold.

“This might seem funny to you, but I’m not some young bunny that hops from bed to bed. This is my first one-night stand and I’m a mother, for goodness’ sake. What will I tell my son? ‘Yes, Mitchell, it’s okay for me to stay out all night without letting you know, but heaven help you if you do the same to me—I’m the only one allowed to worry in this family.’ Not to mention the fact I’ve never stayed away from home before. No, I’m sure Mitchell is feeling just fine that his accusations proved correct, that we did end up in bed together. My God, what must he think of me?” And if the embarrassment of admitting her lack of a sex life hadn’t been enough to completely humiliate her, then bursting into tears left her in no doubt.

AUTHOR Bio and Links:

Sydney-born Donna Gallagher decided at an early age that life needed be tackled head on.

Leaving home at 15 she supported herself through her teen years.

In her twenties she married a professional sportsman, her love of sport -- especially rugby league -- probably overriding her good sense.

The seven-year marriage was an adventure. There were the emotional ups and downs of having a husband with a public profile in a sometimes glamorous but always high-pressure field. There were always interesting characters to meet and observe and even the opportunity to live for a time in the UK.

Eventually Donna returned home a single woman, but she never lost her passion for watching sport, as well as the people in and around it.

Now happily re-married and with three sons Donna loves coffee mornings with her female friends, sorting through problems from the personal to the international. But she's on even footing with the keenest man when it comes to watching and talking rugby league.

Donna considers herself something of a black sheep in a family of high achievers. Her brother has a doctorate in mathematics and her sister is a well-known sports journalist.

An avid reader, especially of romance, Donna finally found she couldn't stop the characters residing in her imagination from spilling onto paper. Naturally rugby league is the backdrop to her League of Love Series, published through UK publisher Total-E-Bound, spicy tales of hunky heroes and spunky heroines overcoming adversity to eventually find true love.

http://www.donnagallagherromance.com

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Don't forget to leave a comment!!!

Christine Young Presents: Fatal Intent

Please welcome Ryshia Kennie  author of Fatal Intent.

At each stop, Ryshia will award one commenter an ebook copy of From the Dust, a historical romance set in Depression Era Saskatchewan. The grand prize for the tour will be an autographed copy of From the Dust, a book unique bookmark, and a Region 1 DVD of East of Borneo, a 1931 B&W movie.

Please leave a comment!

Fatal Intent

by Ryshia Kennie

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BLURB:

In the heart of the jungle lies more than just the hint of death.

Leading a scientific excursion into the Borneo rain forest is a life long dream for entomologist, Garrett Cole.  But when her guide turns up dead and headless, her abilities are tested.  As the dense foliage pushes her team further from the river, they are lost.  Every shimmer of sound is a threat, and when a blonde haired, half-naked giant emerges from nowhere, she wants to run.   But there are no options – she needs help.

Raised in the lush cradle of the Borneo jungle, Aidan is as unconventional as the fact that he has no last name.  While the city is home, he returns to the jungle for peace and solitude.  As a PI, how can he ignore the mystery this group and their dead guide poses?  Leading them in a convoluted trek in a bid for answers he soon finds himself in a clash of wills with their alluring leader and answers that slide dangerously close to the tribe he loves. 

In the jungle’s torrid heat they find unexpected solace in each others arms.  But faced with death and betrayal, in a battle of wits that puts lives on the edge, can anyone be trusted?           

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INTERVIEW:

1.     What or who inspired you to start writing? I always loved books, paper and pens, and words.  I remember my father did too and so did my grandfather.  My grandfather was a voracious reader and fluent in three languages, and my father had a way of spinning words and phrases that made him in high demand whenever a school essay was due.  As a child, my mother read endlessly to me and in grade school an English teacher read one of my earlier efforts and  encouraged me to keep writing.  So I suppose, in a way all of that combined to inspire me to write.

2.     How did you come up with ideas for your books? It’s usually an event in life that triggers the story, not so much the plot but the opening line from where the story will take a life of its own.  For my first book it was a family story of a long-ago, tragic death.  For Fatal Intent it was a trip to Borneo and seeing a skull hanging from the rafters of an Iban longhouse and then hearing the tale of how it got there.


3.     What components are necessary for the genre of this novel?  Besides having engaging protagonists who can’t help but fall in love with each other despite every stumbling block to prevent this, you also need a threat and a great antagonist, possibly even likeable, that not only exacerbates or even is the threat, but makes the danger more palpable and makes you worry for the protagonists and ultimately cheer them on.  And, of course, a resolution that ends with the protagonists happily in each other’s arms.  With Garrett and Aidan, they were attracted to each other and resistant all at the same time.  The situation, lost in the Borneo jungle combined with the murdered guide and the threat of further danger, was not conducive to romance and yet their attraction to each other wasn’t going away.  Even I wondered at times how this romance was ever going to happen.

4.     As far as your writing goes, what are your future plans? My future plans are to keep writing romantic suspense, and set in places where I’ve often been and that I find every bit as intriguing as Fatal Intent’s Borneo.  And I also write women’s fiction and have a couple of projects in various stages of completion. 

5.     If you could be one of the characters from any of your books, who would it be and why?  You know, I don’t think I’d want to be any of my characters.  I don’t like what happens to them in order for them to get to the happy ever after.  In fact I don’t know if I’d handle their predicaments as well as any of them do.  I know that if I was lost in a jungle and faced with the gruesome death of my guide I wouldn’t be as calm as Garrett was.  And as much as I find entomology a fascinating science, scrounging in molding vegetation for oversized insects isn’t my idea of great ways to make a living. 

6.     Do you belong to a critique group? If so how does this help or hinder your writing?  I belonged to a critique group a number of years ago.  Their advise and encouragement, as well as seeing their talent and sharing their journey kept me going through the early years when publication seemed a long way off.  The group has since dissolved but I still hear from some of them from time to time and it’s inspiring to know that they haven’t lost the dream that we held in common – writing full time. 

7.     When did you first decide to submit your work? Please tell us what or who encouraged you to take this big step?  No one encouraged me to submit my work.  Writing was something I did from the time I was in grade school.  I submitted work as a teenager – poems and children’s stories.  I received some encouraging rejections at the time but life and finding a career intersected and for a time over-shadowed the writing dream.  It was a birthday, you know one of those ones that reminds you that you’re just not getting any younger, that really encouraged me to start submitting again.  It was then that I realized that I could write in the margins for the rest of my life or I could get serious, put some time and sweat into writing, and start seriously submitting again.  It was on that day that the beginning of my first completed and later, published book was born.

8.     Do you outline your books or just start writing? I try to outline but I’ve discovered that other than a synopsis, after about chapter six the outline just isn’t working.  So now I create what you might call a vague outline, nothing caste in stone and definitely not the whole book.

 

9.     Do you have any hobbies and does the knowledge you've gained from these carry over into your characters or the plot of your books?  Throughout my life I’ve had a wide range of hobbies or maybe more aptly named interests, and they’ve all influenced my writing in one way or another.  Now writing, research and the business of writing takes a good chunk of time so other than reading and the sporadic game of golf and twinges of regret at my forgotten yoga practice, let’s say I used to have hobbies.  Seriously, I love to travel and would call that a hobby.  I think each of my books have been influenced by that love as I set many of my stories in various places in the world.  I know traveling to Borneo definitely influenced my decision to set Fatal Intent there.  Setting a story in a travel destination is a wonderful opportunity to go back in time and revisit the trip.

10.  Do you have an all time favorite book? My all-time favourite book is Heidi not so much because of the story as it’s a children’s book and I haven’t read it in a very long time but because of the memories.  The copy I have is an ancient – red cloth bound, no dust jacket, version.  I got it for my ninth birthday and my mother had to scour the city to find it as Heidi had fallen off the publishing radar in those years and was basically out of print.  Otherwise, I have a whole cluster of favourites that I’ll pick up and re-read from time to time.

11.  What is your favorite reality show?  Ack!  I don’t even want to admit I watch reality shows – I don’t, I’m not going to – I’m closing my ears.  Okay, I have to admit, I’m a sucker for Sister Wives – don’t ask me why, maybe because it’s so far from any norm I can relate to.  And I watch nineteen kids and counting.  When Survivor first started I loved it – I have to admit that was my favourite reality television show, through the first seasons anyway. 

12.  If you were a casting director for the film version of your book, who would play your lead roles?  If Jodie Foster were a bit younger – I’d pick her for Garrett.  As for picking someone that would fit today as far as age etc. for either of my characters, you know I can walk by an entertainment magazine in the grocery store and nine out of ten times I couldn’t tell you who the actor on the cover might be.  So, I suppose based on that I probably shouldn’t pick the leads.  Although I’d definitely want a say in the ultimate choice.  Wait, what am I saying?  Who cares who would play the leads.  Film version…my book – what a dream.

EXCERPTS:

Aidan moved vines back, exposing his face. They only had to look in his direction.

He was so close he could have reached out and touched her. She was delicate, out of place here in the midst of this wilderness. Her skin, even beneath the sweat and exertion-stained flush, was fair. She wasn’t built to be here, she was too slight to survive, too weak, too . . .

She glanced up. A frown immediately seared her face.

“Who the hell are you?” she snarled.

He bit back a smile. She should have screamed. She hadn’t. All tiny limbs and fragile beauty, and yet she attacked first.

He let his gaze rove over the group, refusing to be corralled by her attack.

One of the men looked panicked, the others seriously stressed. He shifted his spear to his other hand and waited, taking the warrior advantage of time and observation. The silent often learned much about their enemy.

“Put that down.” She gestured to his spear.

His fingers loosened for a millisecond before gripping the spear tighter. Was she out of her mind? Green, innocent, and totally forest-illiterate, but she was feisty.

Feisty? She was seething, hot, absolutely pissed—about what, he wasn’t sure. Her anger didn’t make much sense. Nothing about this afternoon made much sense.

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AUTHOR Bio and Links:

Ryshia Kennie is the author of two published romances.  From the Dust, is a romance set during the Great Depression.  Her second book, Ring of Desire, was set against a backdrop of magic and mystery, in medieval England.  An award winning author, her recent novels now focus on  suspense and women’s fiction – always with a hint or even a dollop, of romance. The Canadian prairies are home where she lives with her husband and one opinionated Irish Terrier. 

Visit her website at http://www.ryshiakennie.com.

Author blog:  ryshia.blogspot.com

Author on Facebook:  www.facebook.com/ryshia.kennie

Author on Twitter:  twitter.com/ryshia

Author at Goodreads:  www.goodreads.com/author/show/1400598.Ryshia_Kennie

Christine Presents: The Locket

The Locket is the third book in my Lakota/Pinkerton series. Misha Petrovich seeks revenge for the murder of his mother and father in his ancestral home in Russia. He follows clues that lead him to a small town, Mist Harbor, Oregon. There he finds Ariel Cameron and his mother's missing locket. Misha is a minor character in both Dakota's Bride and My Angel.

Premis:

Seeking revenge for crimes against his family, Misha Petrovich follows a path that leads straight to Ariel cameron's boarding house in Mist Harbor, Oregon. A family heirloom in Ariel's possession leads Misha to believe she is guilty. The locket has been handed down to the oldest girl in the Petrovich family for generations.

Ariel is innocent of wrong doing, but her father is not. Misha is torn by his feelings for Ariel and his need for restitution against her father. Knowing the relationship between them is fragile, Misha does everything in his power to protect Ariel's father. His efforts are to no avail when her father is shot.

Ariel comes to realize Misha's steadfast courage and determination to protect her and her father despite what has happened to his family. Ariel's love and devotion heals Misha's heart.

Excerpt:

The Locket by Chrsitine Young

Excerpt Heat Level: 1

Book Heat Level:

Oregon Coast,1894

Bone-weary from a hard day at sea, Misha trudged up the long mud-rutted road to the boarding house that sat on top a hill less than a mile outside Mist Harbor, Oregon. A thick, cold mist hovered close to the ground wetting everything: the rhododendrons that grew wild, the azaleas that lined the cement walkway to the front porch, and the saw grass that grew easily in the sandy soil. Misha paused a moment to push back a lock of hair that repeatedly fell across his brow and into his eyes.

The land was windswept and salt battered, yet he enjoyed the salt-taste of the air and the swooping sea birds as well as the playful sea animals. He loved the way the trees bent to the power of the wind and found a way to survive despite the brutality of the elements.

His purpose here was short lived, he reminded himself. He didn’t intend to find himself attached to these parts in any way.

He smelled of a hard days work. The lingering aroma of sweat and Chinook salmon filled his nostrils. It was not a scent he had any use for, but for the time being the job on the fishing boat gave him a reason for staying in the small coastal town. Right now he couldn’t wait to submerse himself in a hot bath, wash the stench from his body, and ease his stiff, strained muscles.

The sea had always been one of his favorite places. But fishing?

By God no, he’d just as soon relax and watch the sails billow on a clipper as the majestic ship rounded the horn or stand at the tiller with the wind whistling around him. He’d even rather battle a hurricane off the Bermudas.

Blending in with the people who lived in this small coastal village had been imperative.

The quest he’d undertaken had led him straight to Miss Ariel Cameron’s boarding house in Mist Harbor, and there the trail stopped. Thinking about Ariel set his nerves on edge.

Ariel was willow thin, femininely delicate, and hardly capable of the atrocities he’d set out to avenge less than a year ago. Yet the evidence he’d uncovered had sent him here, to her home. The name he’d followed had been her name. The men he’d followed had landed in Mist Harbor more than once, her father one of them.

He walked up the immaculately kept steps to the house and opened the door to the screened in porch.

"Misha," the captain boomed out a welcome. "Fine weather we’re havin’ now. Just right for the salmon runs."

The rocker squeaked as the captain moved back and forth in the wicker chair.

"Just right," Misha acknowledged and stepped through the next door to the parlor. A blast of heat met him as he nodded his head in polite recognition to the other borders. In a pale blue day dress, Ariel moved with a slight limp through the hallway and disappeared into one of the first floor rooms. Even though she seemed to favor one leg, the sway of her hips enticed all of Misha's senses.

He didn’t understand the feeling but in a way no other woman had touched him, she beckoned to him. Her amber colored eyes were wide and when she smiled, they glistened and shimmered, reminding him of the bronze mosques in Constantinople when the sun beat upon them. Miss Ariel Cameron was unique--unconventional--and she fascinated him. She was the key to his revenge as well as his salvation.

The Locket is a very exciting tale with a dramatic setting. Overall, this is a very entertaining story.

Maura
Reviewer for Coffee Time Romance