Month: July 2023

Going in Blind: Dragons Walk Among Us

Posted on by Chelsey M. Ortega

I’m about to eat my own words. In a previous post, I talked about how important a good cover and blurb are to convince potential readers to buy your book. Well, I put Dragons Walk Among Us by Dan Rice on my to-be-read list based on the title alone. I read it in an email (Dan is also with The Wild Rose Press), and put it on my list right away. I didn’t see the cover until I started following Dan on social media. I have never read the blurb. 

Allison Lee is an angsty teenager who participates in environmental rallies, takes photos for the school newspaper, and is navigating her feelings for her crush. In addition to typical teenage drama, Allison also deals with racism as a biracial Chinese American. Her best friends, Dalia and Haji, stick with her through her ups and downs. 

Allison is friends with a homeless veteran named Joe. One night, on her way to visit him, she is attacked. She wakes up in the hospital a couple weeks later completely blind. She lost her spot in her school’s social standing during her coma, and with her blindness, risks never regaining it. Her father introduces her to the creator of an experimental procedure that could give her eyesight back. Allison agrees to it, and after a few more weeks of surgery and healing, she is finally back at school with her friends.

There are a few unsavory side effects to Allison’s new eyesight, but the one she was not prepared for is a giant holographic dragon following her father’s colleague around. Allison makes the bold decision to tell the professor that she can see his dragon. Her confession pulls her into the world of dragons and an impending war with their enemies, the skaags. 

Dan Rice expertly wove Allison’s human struggles into the tensions of the dragon community. The bigotry and prejudice Allison faces as a biracial human also plagues the dragon world in its own way. Allison was abandoned by her mother at birth, allowing her to bond with dragon characters who also struggle with feelings of abandonment. 

Mr. Rice also captured the American teenager perfectly. Allison is quick to anger, quick to love, and quick to react. She struggles with self-esteem about her personal appearance. And she is passionate about her interests. Her friends, and even her enemies, are all believable high school students that I can see in my classroom. 

I thoroughly enjoyed each and every scene, and I can’t wait to read the sequel. 

In addition to my review, I am pleased to introduce Dan Rice, who kindly granted me an interview:

First, would you introduce yourself as a person and a writer?

Hi, I’m Dan. I pen the young adult urban fantasy series The Allison Lee Chronicles in the wee hours of the morning. The series kicks off with my award-winning debut, Dragons Walk Among Us, which Kirkus Reviews calls, “An inspirational and socially relevant fantasy.”

While not pulling down the 9 to 5 or chauffeuring my soccer fanatic sons to practices and games, I enjoy photography and hiking through the wilderness.

What inspired Dragons Walk Among Us?

I wanted to write a book from a relatively young age. I grew up reading fantasy and science fiction and naturally gravitated toward writing those genres. For a long time, I wanted to write gritty epic fantasy like Game of Thrones or Joe Abercrombie’s novels. Eventually, I discovered my authorial voice is more suited to young adult material.

The opening scene in Dragons Walk Among Us was inspired by my older son being harassed for his biracial appearance at summer camp. Allison’s encounter with Leslie grew from that seed, and the rest of the story flowed from there.

There is a lot of great racial diversity in Dragons Walk Among Us. Was this a conscious choice? Or did the characters tell you who they were as you created them?

My sons’ schools are far more diverse than the institutions I attended. I wanted to write a story that would ring true with young adult readers. So I created a diverse cast to match what I observed at school events and read in news articles about the increasing diversity across the United States.

You did an excellent job portraying the angsty teenager. What experience do you have with teenagers and/or what research did you do that helped you bring these believable characters to life?

Well, people were all or will be teenagers, angsty or otherwise, at some point in life. My oldest son still isn’t a teenager, but he’s been acting like one since about the age of eight. I often imagine what his antics might be like if he were a bit older.

Allison describes dragons as “European” and skaags as “Chinese”. In your worldbuilding, are both creatures somehow related?

The original skaags were laboratory creations the dragons made to hunt down rebels. The draconic empire deploys magic to bind the skaags as loyal soldiers. The magic is believed to be unbreakable.

The third book is coming out soon. Is this the end of Allison’s story, or does she have more adventures ahead of her? What’s next in your writing career?

The entire series will be four books. Right now, I plan to participate in a haunted high school series my publisher is doing. After finishing those projects, I will try penning a dystopian novel.

Follow Dan at his website: https://www.danscifi.com/

New Release: Grave-Reaping Shrew by Everlyn C. Thompson

Posted on by Chelsey M. Ortega

Grave-Reaping Shrew is the second book in my Grave Reaper Series. I came up with the idea for the series during the summer at my family’s cabin. I’ve run into bears five times, but never anyone from another realm. (I’ve still got my fingers crossed that it will happen one of these days) 

My FMC lives in a rundown cabin in the woods outside Tamarac, a fictional town in northern Saskatchewan. She discovers a portal to Fairie when a dark fae attacks her and she becomes infected with his magic. 

When I wrote the first book, Grave-Reaping Hermit, I had the story laid out so that Theo and her love interest, Farranen, ended up with a nice neat happily ever after – but halfway through the book I realized her cynical nature wouldn’t let her fall in love so easily. I redid the outline and added two more books so that Theo would eventually get her happy ending, but not until she had an adventure or two. And since I’m a really big fan of having multiple love interests… Enter the dark prince of Fairie. The third book won’t be released until later this year, so I’m not saying who’s in it or what Theo’s HEA looks like. I also realized that Theo needed someone to show her that she’s worth loving, so I gave her Dog. I didn’t want her to be completely alone at the end of book one, and her friendship with Dog helped bring out a softer side of Theo that I didn’t even realize was there until he was able to win her affection with his big soulful doggy eyes and never-ending appetite. 

It took me six months of writing at night once everyone else was asleep to complete each book, and even longer to find a publisher that would take them. I also have another book, A Flock of Vampires, that I published through a different publisher. These days I split my time between my latest WIP, and trying to market myself on social media. I can honestly say I prefer the writing to the marketing.

Born and raised on the beautiful Canadian prairies, Everlyn prefers to spend her time outdoors with her family kayaking, skating, fishing, and hunting. She loves reading and writing about vampires, witches, fae and zombies that get to find their own version of happily ever after. Keep up to date with Everlyn at her website: https://everlyncthompson.com/

After surviving a horrific attack by a dark fae, Theodora Edwards is happy to put the magical world of Fairie in the past – until she learns the reason behind the abrupt disappearance of Farranen, the guardian of the gate. Unfortunately, her improvised rescue attempt ends in death – her death.

As if surviving death isn’t weird enough, her magic takes on a life of its own and starts creating flawed ghosts. While struggling to control her magic, she’s forced to deal with a deadly band of pixies, amorous advances from the intimidating dark prince, and political upheaval in Fairie that’s left the entire realm in chaos.

A Hidden Werewolf Gem: The Alpha and Her Hunter

Posted on by Chelsey M. Ortega

Shifter romances probably outnumber all other romances on reading apps like Dreame, Readict, Radish, etc. And because of that, there are common and expected tropes and world building details within those stories. I often love it when an author “breaks the rules” for the genre they are writing in, especially when it’s done well and it’s not an obvious they-were-trying-to-be-different situation. 

The Alpha and Her Hunter by Lauren Rutherford falls into the well-done category of breaking the norm for shifter romances.

Willow is a wolf shifter in a world where the females are the strongest and the leaders. Garin is a Hunter, born into the most ruthless Hunter family in existence, the Red Hoods. Garin’s family has moved into Willow’s town with the purpose to stir up trouble. Despite their families’ feudal past, Garin and Willow can’t fight the attraction between them. They will face jealousy, bigotry, and death plots in order to earn the approval to love. In this enemies-to-lovers/Romeo & Juliette romance, I was on the edge of my seat the whole time. I fell in love with Willow and Garin and rooted for them until the last page.

The majority of what sets this shifter romance apart from others is the world building. In this world, female shifters are bigger and stronger than males when they are in their wolf form, and thus females are the Alphas of their families and clans. The Alpha is determined by the physical and mental/psychological strength of their wolf. Each pack or clan has an Alpha, and within that group, each family group has an Alpha.

There is a type of mate bond called imprinting (like in Twilight), but finding one’s true mate is rare, so most shifters settle for arranged marriages. Willow is betrothed to a male shifter who she is not feeling it for at all. 

Hunters are humans who hunt werewolves. Now, not just any human can be a Hunter. They have extra abilities: they are stronger than your average human, go to special schools to train, and they can smell werewolves. Because of this, Hunters also participate in arranged marriages in order to keep their bloodlines strong.

The unique world building changes are only part of why I loved this book so much. The characters are likable, and the pacing for their growth (as they transition from enemies to lovers) is believable and satisfactory. And if you prefer a clean romance, the heat level is sweet. 

While there is an official resolution to the plot, it’s clear a sequel should be coming, and I can’t wait to read it. 

I give The Alpha and Her Hunter 5 stars. It can be read on the following apps: WebNovel, Mangatoon, Tapas, Dreame, and AnyStories.

New Release: A Sour Note by Jill Piscitello

Posted on by Chelsey M. Ortega

When murder provides a welcome distraction…

On the heels of a public, broken engagement, Maeve Cleary returns to her childhood home in Hampton Beach, NH. When a dead body turns up behind her mother’s music school, three old friends land on the suspect list. Licking her wounds soon takes a back seat to outrunning the paparazzi who spin into a frenzy, casting her in a cloud of suspicion. Maeve juggles her high school sweetheart, a cousin with a touch of clairvoyance, a no-nonsense detective, and an apologetic, two-timing ex-fiancé. Will the negative publicity impact business at the Music Box— the very place she’d hoped to make a fresh start?

What inspired your story?

I wanted to write a mystery for quite some time but always veered into sweet romance territory. The summer of 2019, I was strolling along the beach in Hampton, NH when the idea to drop my next book into that setting took shape. The idea snowballed into the realization that a cozy mystery could include elements of sweet romance while staying true to the cozy mystery genre. My hope was for readers to enjoy following the trials and tribulations of a relatable character as she navigates a new path while managing a variety of family dynamics and extracting herself from a limelight she never planned on stepping into.

Give us a brief look at your writing process. Are you a plotter or pantser? How much time did you spend on this project? What is your writing schedule like?

I begin each manuscript as a pantser but eventually make periodic stops to draft and update an outline. I spent a few years writing and editing A Sour Note. The summer of 2020 limited social activities, so that allowed for more time for writing. I am also a teacher and am limited to nights and weekends during the school year.

Enjoy an excerpt of A Sour Note:

With his mouth set in a grim line, he waited.

If anyone else had enough nerve to presume she owed them an explanation, she would respond with a solid mind your own business. Instead, the seventeen-year-old still inside her refused to tell him to get lost. “He was hiding money in his office.” This was one of those times when learning how to wait a few beats before blurting out inflammatory information would come in handy. Each second of passing silence decreased her ability to breathe in the confined space. She turned the ignition and switched on the air conditioner.

“How do you know?” His volume just above a whisper, each dragged-out word hung in the air.

“I found it.”

“When were you in his office?” He swiped at a bead of sweat trickling down the side of his face, then positioned a vent toward him.

“Last night.” When would she learn to bite her tongue? Finn’s switch from rapid-fire scolding to slow, deliberate questioning left her unable to swallow over the sandpaper lump in her throat.

“Where was Vic?”

She stared at the back of the building, wishing she’d kept her mouth shut. “He’d left for the night.” If she averted her gaze, she could pretend his eyeballs weren’t bugging out of his head, and his jaw didn’t need a crane to haul it off his chest.

“You were at the town hall after hours? Did anyone see you?”

“A custodian opened his door for me.” She snuck a glance. Sure enough, features contorted in shock and horror replaced his boy-next-door good looks.

A Sour Note can be purchased at Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

Jill Piscitello is a teacher, author, and an avid fan of multiple literary genres. Although she divides her reading hours among several books at a time, a lighthearted story offering an escape from the real world can always be found on her nightstand.

A native of New England, Jill lives with her family and three well-loved cats. When not planning lessons or reading and writing, she can be found spending time with her family, trying out new restaurants, traveling, and going on light hikes.

Follow Jill at her website: https://jillpiscitello.com/

Why I Chose a “Small” Press

Posted on by Chelsey M. Ortega

When I finished my first draft of Bondwitch, I googled “how to publish a book”, and boy, did I have a long road ahead of me. After lots and lots of editing, comments from beta readers, and more editing, I had a choice to make: query an agent, query a small press, or self-publish.

Querying an agent seems to be the more traditional path. Once an author signs with an agent, their agent will then pitch the author’s book to a publisher. If the publisher accepts the book, then the book gets published. The publisher has an editor, artist, and marketing team to help with the process

Going with a small press is very similar to the above, just minus the agent. The author acts as their own agent. They query the publisher, the publisher either accepts or rejects the book. These publishers are called “small press” because they either don’t publish as many books as “The Big Five” publishers per year, or they aren’t as well known, or they don’t offer the “whole package” (for example, one author friend is with a publisher who requires its authors to hire their own editor and cover artist, and the publisher covers everything else). Even with the label of “small”,  some are still pretty large. 

Self-publishing is where the author does everything on their own: editing, cover art, formatting, and marketing – or they pay someone to do it.

Of the three, self-publishing is the only one that guarantees your book will get published. If you want a publisher to publish your book, they have to accept it. That is often a long and painful road of rejections before someone believes your book is marketable. 

Regardless of which path an author takes, marketing is something the author must be heavily involved in. We have to create ways in which potential readers will come across our book and hopefully buy it. 

At first, I thought I wanted to go the agent route. As I researched agents who repped fantasy and romance, I discovered something. Most agents don’t accept a broad genre. They have something called a Manuscript Wish-List, which specifies what kind of stories within a chosen genre they are interested in. For example, one agent may list “Urban Fantasy with a strong female protagonist”. See how more specific that is than just “fantasy”? So as I looked at agents’ MSWLs, very few of them were asking for the kind of story Bondwitch is – or, at least it seemed that way to me. And the ones who did, wanted to rep authors from marginal backgrounds; and as a straight white Christian, that’s not me. Now, I want it understood that I am not victimizing myself here. I completely respect those agents for wanting to give diverse authors a better chance in the publishing world. It just simply meant that I needed to choose a different publishing path. 

As I started looking at small publishers, I came across a similar problem with agents. Many of them are so small, that they publish a very specific type of story, that once, again, Bondwitch did not fit into. Bondwitch falls under “mainstream” YA Fantasy, and many small publishers pride themselves on publishing more “unique” stories. 

At the same time that I was researching agents and small publishers, I started getting feedback from beta readers. Many of them couldn’t finish because they said they didn’t care for romance. I didn’t think I wrote a romance. Yes, there is a strong romantic subplot, but the main plot is not a romance. But, if the subplot was that big of a deal to potential readers, I needed to look at my genre categories differently. This led to a lot of research that I’ll talk about in a future post. But long story short, I was able to find a list of small publishers that had fantasy lines and romance lines, that way Bondwitch could fit into both. 

I actually found The Wild Rose Press by accident. Several of the stories I read on Readict  had “Published by The Wild Rose Press” at the end. I looked them up, and they didn’t require an agent for an author to query them! The stories I had been reading fell under the same aesthetic as Bondwitch, and I felt deep in my soul that The Wild Rose Press was the publisher for me. (My experience querying them can be read here.)

After all that research, and lots of thinking and going back and forth, I decided that querying a small press was the route for me. I like the idea of being my own agent, but I also need help with everything beyond writing the story. So the small press seemed like a great choice for me. I also believe in my story enough, that if all the publishers I queried rejected me, I was going to self-publish. While I queried, I created a self-publishing plan, just in case. Luckily I didn’t have to implement it, but at least I have it on the back burner if I ever want to, or if a future story doesn’t work for traditional publishers. 

I am very happy with The Wild Rose Press and I hope to stay with them for a long time. They will always be my first choice.

What’s in a Cover?

Posted on by Chelsey M. Ortega

As much as we like to say, “You can’t judge a book by its cover.” It simply isn’t true. The cover is what draws a potential reader to click on the title or pick it up and read the blurb. Then the blurb should be good enough to convince the potential reader to buy it, and go from potential reader to reader. 

Last week my socials shared the cover to Bondwitch, and I would like to share how the cover was created.

 I started to create the cover in my mind when the list of potential publishers dwindled, and I thought I would be self-publishing; which meant I would have to figure out the cover. You can buy premade stock covers, but I wanted my cover to match my story, not just kind of match my story. So I knew that I was going to have to find an artist who could create what I wanted.

I have always loved the original cover to Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. The snow white hands offer the tempting red apple. Forbidden fruit equates to forbidden love. That cover captivated me when I was sixteen, and it still captivates me today. So, with the Twilight inspiration in my mind, I also wanted the idea of a hand holding something. I envisioned a hand holding floating spheres to represent water, fire, earth, and air. 

When I signed with The Wild Rose Press, the contract stated that the publisher pays for the cover art and has final approval of the cover art. I was perfectly fine with that because they’ve been in this business for at least seventeen years, so they know what they are doing. So, I pushed my idea onto the back burner and focused on editing my story. 

When it was time to do the cover art, I received an “Art Cover Information” form to fill out. The form asked me general questions about my story like the tone, the time period, the geographical setting. The form provided a list of TWRP artists and links to look at their previous work, then I could pick my top artist – but it wasn’t guaranteed they would be the one assigned to my book. I then got to provide links to book covers that matched the aesthetic I wanted emulated in mine. 

Then came specific questions to help create the deeper details of the art. And with those questions came some helpful statistics. According to research this is the order of cover components most likely to sell:

  1. Covers without any people
  2. Covers with just a male
  3. Covers with a couple
  4. Covers with just a female 

Research indicated that my vision of a hand holding elemental magic would work! (That isn’t to say the other covers are bad, because they aren’t. I simply felt validated that my original vision was a good one.)

Another bit of helpful advice the form gave me was to NOT request too much detail. I think it said to try to go for less than 5 components, perhaps only 3. The form explained that too much detail was hard to decipher on the thumbnail images that readers would be looking at online. 

With that helpful information, I decided to decrease the number of magical spheres. And this is what I requested:

What element do you consider most important: a visual representation of magic

High Pitch Concept: When a young witch’s powers are unlocked, her family’s enemies descend upon her community; forcing her to flee across the country and train in secret.

General vision: a feminine hand, palm up, a sphere that represents one of the elements (preferably fire) floating above the palm

The artist given my book was Jennifer Greeff, and my goodness, I think she did an amazing job! 

She gave me exactly what I asked for and then some. And I already have the gears turning in my brain for the covers for the rest of the series. 

What’s your favorite book cover? Why? (Or top three, if you’re like me, and you can’t choose only one to save your life.) Let me know in the comments!

New Release: Dark Highlander by Virginie Marconato

Posted on by Chelsey M. Ortega

I think I became a writer the day I decided to write a (very bad, shamefully close to the real story) version of White Fang when aged nine or ten! As for the Middle Ages I fell in love with it at school during a history lesson, then Kevin Costner’s Robin Hood put its final seal on it all. A girl of twelve then, I never recovered!

Hi!

I’m Virginie, a historical romance writer specializing in 14th and 15th century England. Why? Because I live and breathe anything Middle Ages, have done since I fell in love with that time in history during a lesson at school. It was as if I’d been there, watching my dashing knight ride off into the distance (now I think of it, shouldn’t I have pictured him riding towards me??)

My husband and two children know all about my passion for castles in all states of ruin and even have stopped rolling their eyes when I suggest visiting yet another one. I didn’t choose my husband because he’s Welsh but what a marvellous coincidence that he happened to be born in a place where we can’t move for castles, courtesy of Edward I’s conquest of Wales in the 13th century! The only downfall is, every time I see a new one, I come back home with a new idea for a story and then remember I already have 15 on the go… When they find out I write books everyone tells me: “Ooh, I don’t know how you can come up with all these stories!” Well, for me the writing is the fun, easy part. I could write all day every day and never run out of ideas.

I have published 8 books now, and have many more projects queuing up in a more or less orderly fashion. Fortunately my job as a part-time English teacher gives me some time to see to them.

My latest release, Dark Highlander, is my first Scottish romance and Cormac, my first Highlander hero. I enjoyed creating him so much that I can already say he won’t be my last! I’m toying with the idea of giving Cormac’s brothers their own stories, I love them all so much. In fact it’s always a sad moment when I finish a book and know I will never be with these people again. They have become part of my life, it’s like saying good bye to a friend moving to a different country when you’ve been living in close quarters for months. That’s why I like rereading my own books after a few months or years have passed; it’s like revisiting the good old times. I remember where I wrote a particular scene, or laugh when I recall how long I spent rewriting another bit.

There are common themes to my writing. Foods and smells always feature heavily. I also love books where the hero and heroine come from different countries. I suppose that, being a French woman married to a Welshman, I know first hand that it adds an extra dimension to the relationship. Different languages, different cultures… It’s a godsend for a romance writer.

This particular book just wanted to born, it kept playing in my mind, the story developed on its own and all I had to do was put the words down. It’s difficult to explain but it was a very pleasurable experience. As a consequence, it was written twice as fast as my other books, even if it is longer. I am not one for plotting in advance, I prefer to see where the story goes and see what has possibilities and the premise for Dark Highlander was full of them.

Cormac has been tricked into marriage. Pregnant Hazel has been duped into accepting his hand. Together they will flee to escape this union they do not desire – only to fall in love with each other.

I hope you have as much fun reading Dark Highlander as I had writing it!

Follow Virginie at her website: https://virginiemarconato.com/

Lady Hazel Fletcher’s father, fiercely opposed to Scottish independence, means to use her as a weapon in his scheme to instigate trouble between England and Scotland. She is pregnant by her lover, a neighboring nobleman, but her father blames a Scotsman he has deliberately framed.
Cormac MacLeod, realizing the trick when he’s accused of fathering the child of a woman he’s never met, refuses to marry her and is thrown into the dungeon.
Allied against her father’s treachery, Hazel and the fierce Scot plan to escape together, then go their separate ways. But once free, they find Hazel’s lover cannot protect her, and reality hits—they have no choice but to flee to the heart of the Highlands together…

A Fourth of July Romance: A Boy and His Dog by Chloe Holiday

Posted on by Chelsey M. Ortega

There are two holidays in A Boy and his Dog, actually, and both are integral to the plot. The first is New Year’s Day, when a bombing at a Kosovo parade forever changes the lives of Sergeant Grant Calloway and his bomb detection dog, Mojo.

The main holiday featured is the Fourth of July. The small town in the Colorado mountains charms the heroine, Hope Hernandez, as the community decorates for the upcoming celebration. I wanted to invoke that carefree childhood feeling of summer: the fireflies, the awe-inducing fireworks, running around at picnics, and swimming until our lips turned blue. Hope really wants a place to belong, to call home. However, she’s working in the ER as a summer “audition” intern, and her holiday is spent stitching up accident victims, unaware that her newly-adopted ex-military K9 will have PTSD triggered by the fireworks, and that the dog’s former handler is desperately searching for him.

Chloe is a military physician-turned-novelist who writes the things she loves to read: steamy, fun stories about ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances, smart women and men who aren’t jerks. About friendships, whether it’s close women or a good bromance. She wants all the feels: the thrill of a smoldering gaze or the barest brush of fingertips, the shocked gasp at the underhanded villain, the angst of heartbreak, the joy of reunion, and of course, happily ever after!

Chloe enjoys delivering a sneak peek into intriguing scenarios, drawing from her background (military personnel, medicine, aviation) as well as other cultures like Greece. A bit of danger always gets her going, so many of her Romances have a suspense subplot.

She hates to read the same old thing, with only the names and places changed, so her goal is to bring folks a fresh, fun, new story every time, with NO CLIFFHANGERS!

More than anything, she wants to craft a rollicking, great story readers can’t put down, one where love prevails in the end, one that will whisk people away from their own tribulations.

Come join her at https://www.chloeholiday.com/! and sign up for her newsletter to download a free copy of Finders, Keepers.

Medically separated from the Army, bomb tech Grant Calloway will stop at nothing to track down his former K9 partner. But the lady doctor who’s adopted Mojo doesn’t want to let him go.

If Dr. Hope Hernandez were any more exhausted, she’d be the one on the gurney. Her drive for perfection leaves her scrambling to juggle an insane ER schedule, studying for boards, and her boyfriend—whoops! Ex-boyfriend.

Fine. One less thing demanding her attention. Hope buries her pain in work. The truth is she’d get more affection from a dog, with less risk to her heart. Safe and uncomplicated. The second she sees the forlorn, retired military K9, Hope falls hard: he’s sad and alone, just like her. They head to Colorado, aiming for a fresh start—if she can score the coveted ER job. Yet when a scorching hot veteran shows up to lay claim to her dog, he disrupts her careful plan. He’s anything but safe—he’s dynamite. And he’s oh, so wrong if he thinks he can charm Hope into giving up her loyal companion.

Bomb disposal technician Grant Calloway’s whole life blows up after an IED detonates at a Kosovo parade. He and his working dog, Mojo, save hundreds with their off-duty heroism, but reality bites hard: Mired in red tape, then bounced out of the Army for hearing loss, Grant’s blindsided when Mojo’s adopted out by a civilian who won’t understand the needs of a military-trained dog. Grant’s best friend deserves better. Grant turns his back on a lucrative job and instead hits the road for Colorado to track down his dog.

He thought finding Mojo would be the hardest part, but the woman who took him won’t listen to reason, and Grant’s charm has no effect. Refusing to be diverted by her big brown eyes and gorgeous smile, Grant lays siege to reacquire Mojo—by whatever means necessary.

A Boy and His Dog can be purchased here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B097JBFXVQ?tag=namespacebran246-20

An Oldie but a Goodie: A Shop Girl in Bath by Rachel Brimble

Posted on by Chelsey M. Ortega

Thanks so much for having me here today, Chelsey, and for the opportunity to tell your visitors a little bit about the first book in my Shop Girl series, A Shop Girl in Bath. The book was published five years ago today on July 1st 2018, and it is so wonderful to be celebrating all its past and (hopefully!) future sales 😊

The book is set in Bath’s finest Edwardian department store and opens in January 1910. It is a story of female empowerment, family drama and, of course, romance! The heroine is Elizabeth Pennington, the eager heiress of Pennington’s who is passionate, ambitious and desperate to wrench the reins of the store from her father who would much prefer to be passing Pennington’s onto a son rather than a daughter.

When he finally relents and hands over the running of Pennington’s to Elizabeth, she is determined to bring the store into the new decade and encourages the store’s shop girls to embrace their own aspirations and dreams. Not long after she takes over, our hero and master glove maker Joseph Carter enters the store in a bid to secure a contract for his collection of gloves. From there, Elizabeth and Joseph become a business dream team and romance blossoms along the way with plenty of drama and intrigue to keep the reader turning the pages! 

A Shop Girl in Bath was inspired by my love of the British period dramas Mr Selfridge and The Paradise. I adored these shows and if your visitors did too, I am sure they will enjoy this series. After the shows finished, I had a nagging compulsion to create a department store series of my own but focus almost entirely on the ambitions and personal lives of the women. The series goes on to encapsulate the growing opportunities for women as well as major Edwardian events such as the fight for the Vote and even a shop girl travelling aboard the fated Titanic for New York…

I am lucky enough to be able to write full-time and treat my writing as a job the same as any other, working from 8.30am – 5.30pm with a lunch break in between. I am naturally disciplined, but I think my commitment (I will often squeeze in a couple of hours or so on the weekends, too!) comes from my absolute love for writing. I am a plotter at heart and spend a lot of time getting to know my characters and writing a chapter plan before I begin the actual writing. Once I’ve started the first draft, I write from beginning to end without looking back. The hard work comes in the following drafts, but the first draft is my opportunity to have fun!

People have often asked me how I have managed to be so prolific over my career having written 29 books in sixteen years and it is very much due to my writing process. However, in January 2022, I embarked on a history degree so my writing time has definitely been drastically reduced! I have gone from writing two and half books a year to one and a half. On top of that, I am a firm believer in the joy of paying things forward whenever you can, so I also run a First Chapter Critique service for aspiring romance and women’s fiction writers. The writer sends me the first 3,500 words of their novel and I fully critique the pages as well as providing them with a 3-4 page report on characterization, dialogue, setting etc. specific to their story. If any of your visitors would like to know more, I invite them to visit my dedicated webpage at https://rachelbrimble.com/first-chapter-critique-service/ for all the details!

Rachel lives in a small town near Bath, England. She is the author of 29 novels including the Ladies of Carson Street trilogy, the Shop Girl series (Aria Fiction) and the Templeton Cove Stories (Harlequin). Her latest novel, Victoria & Violet was released 17th October 2022.

Rachel is a member of the Romantic Novelists Association as well as the Society of Authors and has thousands of social media followers all over the world.

To sign up for her newsletter (a guaranteed giveaway every month!), click here: https://bit.ly/3zyH7dt

Follow Rachel on her website: https://bit.ly/3wH7HQs

1910 – A compelling tale of female empowerment in Bath’s leading department store. Perfect for the fans of the TV series Mr Selfridge and The Paradise.

Elizabeth Pennington should be the rightful heir of Bath’s premier department store through her enterprising schemes and dogged hard work. Her father, Edward Pennington, believes his daughter lacks the business acumen to run his empire and is resolute a man will succeed him.

Determined to break from her father’s iron-clad hold and prove she is worthy of inheriting the store, Elizabeth forms an unlikely alliance with ambitious and charismatic master glove-maker Joseph Carter. United they forge forward to bring Pennington’s into a new decade, embracing woman’s equality and progression whilst trying not to mix business and pleasure.

Can this dream team thwart Edward Pennington’s plans for the store? Or will Edward prove himself an unshakeable force who will ultimately ruin both Elizabeth and Joseph?

A Shop Girl in Bath can be purchased here: https://geni.us/fl1Cxi