Said Wendy from Happily Ever After Reviews about Bound By Trust:
Let me say, I loved the book and I fell in love with the characters. Their story is so realistic I felt as if they were my friends. Through all the hardships, Rafe is a man who Madi learned to depend on and love again. He made her feel like a woman cherished while teaching her what she craves is right in his arms. Theirs is a true love story with their share of disagreements and trials. The story had me from the first paragraph and is a must read if you want a real man falling in love with a real woman. 5 Teacups.
All I Wanted for Christmas
With the holiday season just having passed, my memory was jarred a bit about how I began this journey long, long ago to become a writer. I think most writers can remember having the desire to put words to paper as a child, some even before they knew how to write the words. As for me, my love of words started with love of books and began to grow exponentially when I memorized The Little Red Hen at age three. I positively loved that book. My Mom actually used me as a bit of a showpiece that way, as we tricked another gloating relative into believing I was indeed reading it. Well, in my mind I was. However, that has nothing to do with my topic now does it? The thing I wanted for Christmas that set me on the journey to writing rather than memorizing and magic.
I believe I was about eight years old when I discovered I had a passion for writing and as a result I wanted a typewriter for Christmas. Yes, a typewriter. What kid wants something that equates to work for a gift? Crazy right? But, nothing doing, I held out hope for that thing with a vengeance, and my wish was granted. Under the tree that year was a pale blue, toy typewriter, complete with a ream of paper. Oh, how I loved that thing. In fact, I think I ignored my dolly until she wanted to be adopted by another little girl. It was on that tiny toy that I pecked out the stories of a small girls mind. Too bad I didn’t save any of them. I wonder what I would have thought of them now. They’d have probably made for great kids books. I could be rich off that now instead of struggling in the romance e-world like so many others, getting more enjoyment out of sharing the stories than actual profits.
As the years went by the little typewriter got lost in the closet and eventually thrown out as it was worn and broken. But that spark of story telling magic never left. In the sixth grade, I had to take creative writing as an elective class and my teacher really set a fire in me. He told me I had a knack for carrying a story line. That did it. I was bound and determined someday I’d be the next Agatha or Stephen. Well, I’m neither, but I am Lila. Creator of realimantica. And that happened after many years of that young story teller bouncing between bouts of silence and shouting.
Throughout high school I wrote sporadically. I would jot down a few hundred pages of something, then look at it think it was the most ridiculous thing I’d ever read and toss it in the trash can. In college my first major was journalism. I guess I thought the way of real life research was the way to go, but that soon waned as I was forced into a public relations class that I hated. I then changed my major a few more times before leaving the halls of greater learning with the BS in hand. In psychology and sociology no less. Wonder if that has anything to do with my ability to crawl around in my characters heads and fill them with problems? Interesting thought.
After marrying and starting a family, the muse went mute. For several years in fact. I tried writing while I lived in Okinawa, Japan, only to read the almost completed manuscript think it was the most ridiculous thing I’d ever read and toss it in the trash before packing out and moving back stateside. What a waste. Then, several duty stations later, I found myself with an empty nest, no job, and nothing to do all day but read and read and read. Oh the sheer joy of it! Then a funny thing happened. My mute muse began to chatter. And she chattered and chattered and chattered and she would not be quiet until I sat down at this old keyboard and I told her story. That was my first published work, The Executive Officer’s Wife. Now here it is a year later and I have my third full length novel coming out through Rebel Ink Press next week, A Slower Lower Love.
And to think—it all started with what I wanted for Christmas some thirty-five years ago. Know what I wanted for Christmas this year? An hour or two of uninterrupted sleep.
Now I’d like to introduce you to my new novel that will be hitting e-shelves January 18 at ARe through Rebel Ink Press for $5.99. It is a 58,000 word contemporary romance with erotic overtones and is entitled A Slower Lower Love.
Here’s a bit about the story:
When running isn’t the answer,
Cait O’Kelley loved Bryce Delaney with all her heart. But loving him scared the hell out of her. She didn’t want to settle for being married to a cop and having his children. She wanted more. Unfortunately, more came with a price. After leaving her small home town for more glamorous life and working her way up the corporate ladder, a whirlwind affair with the boss’s son tears her world apart. On the brink of losing everything she’s worked for, she had to make a decision.
and going back seems impossible,
After eight years of living without her, Bryce finds himself tasked with the job of watching over Cait during her week long stay at her parent’s beach house in Bethany. She’s come there to sort her life out and while she’s contemplating her future, they discover the fireworks are still there. But can they ever go back to where they once were? As his secrets begin to surface, he sees only one way to save her. He disappears without a trace leaving Cait behind to pick up the pieces and deal with a whole host of new problems. One of which she can’t explain away or hide.
can you find middle ground?
With Bryce out of the picture, his brother, Kurt, finds what he’s wanted a lifetime handed to him on a silver platter. After watching Cait and Bryce toy with each other for fifteen years, he steps up to the plate. He’s always wanted her and now is his chance. But is he strong enough to ground Cait and keep her from making yet another mistake? Which brother will win her heart and show her that a slower lower love is enough?
I’d like to share a short excerpt with your readers, Joanne. I hope they enjoy it.
The sound of seagulls screeching like nails on a chalkboard pulled Cait out of the
peaceful place somewhere between sleep and wake she’d been dozing in and out of most of the morning. The raucous cacophony was far too close for comfort. Pushing up on her forearms in the warm soft sand, she peeled her eyes open. A summer browned boy that looked to be around ten or eleven stood a few yards away with a clear plastic bag full of bread crusts. The band of ivory and gray birds dipping and swooping behind him cast shadows over her and her fluffy yellow beach towel. Did the boy have no sense at all? Probably the offspring of interlopers, he obviously didn’t realize the scavenging birds would never leave if you fed them just once.
“Hey, kid,” she shouted. “Go somewhere else with your bag of bread.”
She didn’t want to share her space with a child and his flock of motley birds. Why wasn’t he back in school anyway? It was well past Labor Day.
He glanced over at her, pulled a piece of crust from the bag, and waved it in the air blatantly ignoring her wishes to be left alone.
Hating to be taunted, she started to get up. “I said get down the beach you scrawny urchin, this isn’t public access, so go.”
After watching him dart away with the gulls not far behind, she lowered herself back on her towel and closed her eyes again. She’d come here to rest and try to piece her life back together, not deal with truants.
It was her mother’s suggestion that she take a week at the beach house after the last holiday weekend of summer. She’d finally agreed after giving the idea some serious pause. There were too many memories here she didn’t particularly care to rehash. It had seemed at the time, however, a better alternative than being secluded in her town home for one more day alone. But if her first morning was any indication as to what her stay was going to be like, she might well change her mind and go back to Baltimore before sundown.
For now, at least, here she was. The very place that eight years ago she’d absconded like it was infested with the plague. Fled for a life outside the confines of small town life to anywhere bigger USA.
It just happened that anywhere bigger at the time was Pittsburg. She’d found a job and earned a degree at the university. Then she’d gone on to land a gig at one of the nation’s biggest marketing firms in Baltimore. After working her way up from the mail room, she’d been in charge of some very affluent client accounts. Always looking for more though, that hadn’t been enough fast enough. No. She wanted everything, and everything came with a price.
After practically throwing herself on him, she’d landed the bosses son. As far as Jamison Curtis and all their friends were concerned, they were a match made in heaven. They both had good heads for business and eyes on the brass ring attitudes, and after a brief courtship they had been engaged to be married.
They weren’t a match made in heaven in her book though. He wasn’t much for wild abandon in the sack. In fact, he was more the missionary type, though she could concede it was usually satisfying enough. He liked the opera, while she preferred alternative rock. He wanted steak every night and she would have chosen boiled crabs anytime. On top of all that, she’d known she didn’t love him. What did she expect hooking up with someone that wasn’t raised on the eastern shore, south of the Mason Dixon, where life was simpler? But wasn’t that what she had run from all that time ago?
For her he was just a mere rung on the ladder of success, the toll to a better life. At least that was what she believed until three months ago when it all came crashing down around her like a skyscraper after an earthquake.
Feelings complicated things, and she didn’t want complicated. He, however, had apparently let himself fall hopelessly in love with her and it wasn’t until their engagement party at a five star hotel on the inner harbor that she fully realized that. She overheard him talking to his brother and inadvertently discovered how he couldn’t wait until they honeymooned in Paris, and actually hoped they came home expecting their first born. That she hadn’t counted on. After Jamison left Haden standing on the balcony overlooking the harbor, she had confronted him. They had already had the children or no children discussion and she had made it perfectly clear that they weren’t in the equation for her right now, and maybe indefinitely.
That led to an argument right there in the ballroom that escalated until all she heard was the sound of their two voices reaching a piercing pitch. The band had stopped playing and all their friends ceased what they were doing to stare at them there in the middle of the floor spearing each other through with glaring eyes. The silence had been even more clamorous than the sound of their arguing. That was the point at which the relationship had snapped in two like a dry twig. Pop! It was over.
She’d composed herself and tried to salvage some of her dignity. After apologizing to their guests, she made a hasty exit to take a cab home. Like a coward, she left Jamison there to put out the blaze she knew would consume Curtis Industries by Monday morning.
After ignoring his calls all day Sunday, the phone finally quit ringing. He hadn’t bothered leaving any messages. Nothing he could say, and nothing she could do, would make things right anyway. She’d torn another man down and crushed him. Only this time she was a grown woman and it was no longer a game of hurt feelings. Her livelihood would be affected by her stupid selfish actions.
Monday morning she’d slipped into the Curtis building downtown under the cover of pre-dawn. It only took minutes to clear her desk and type out her resignation. She knew she could never set foot in the office again, and even if she could face the humiliation of it, chances were she’d be fired and asked to leave. After depositing the letter on Jamison’s desk, and laying the two carat Marquis cut engagement ring on top of it, she left like the coward she was and went home to try to figure out what to do next.
Three months later, she still hadn’t figured it out. She had no job, no Christmas wedding to plan, and, if the tides of fate didn’t turn in her favor soon and leave some source of income at her doorstep, she would soon have no gorgeous town home. Her emergency funds were vaporizing and she had received so many rejection notices from prospective employers that she now suspected the elder Curtis of blackballing her all over Baltimore and a few other choice cities.
She squirmed around on her towel trying to root out a lump under her right shoulder and let out a loud sigh when she felt another shadow fall across her. That damn kid! She shot up fully ready to march him off and leave him with his absent parents, wherever that was. But when she looked up, instead of a four foot tall tow headed boy, a six foot tall dark haired man stood over her in blue board shorts with a matching towel slung over a very muscular shoulder. The sun wasn’t at its midday point yet and fell behind him shadowing his features, but she could plainly see that he was stacked to the nines. He sported chiseled biceps, his abs looked like a washboard, and every visible inch of his smooth skin was bronzed.
“Is this seat taken?” That voice. She couldn’t see him, but she would recognize that voice anywhere even though the years had deepened it to a low sexy pitch.
“What are you doing here?” she snapped.
“The same thing you are, Cait. Trying to relax. So do you mind if I join you?” He started to spread his towel.
“Yes, I mind. No, you may not. Possession is ninth tenths of the law. I’ve been on this piece of sand since dawn. Therefore, in this case, the law is on my side.” She plopped back down and crossed her arms over her ample breasts. “Now, go away, Bryce, my life is complicated enough as it is.”
“The law, huh? In case your mother hasn’t informed you, I’m a cop now. Your whole law thing doesn’t hold water with me. Have you forgotten our house sits just a few yards from yours? We co-own this stretch.” He continued to spread his towel and sink into the sand next to her.
“Fine, suit yourself. I’m sure it’s no coincidence that we’re here at the same time. Our mothers made sure of that didn’t they? I’ll try not to bother you.” She turned on her stomach and pointed her head in the opposite direction so she wouldn’t have to look at the fine example of a man Bryce Delaney had become. Her heart had done a familiar flip-flop at hearing him say her name and that really made her mad. That was the problem with Bryce. He made her feel things she had no business feeling.
Thanks for hosting me today, Ginger. It’s always a pleasure being here. Your readers may purchase A Slower Lower Love next week at www.allromanceebooks.com
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