So pleased to welcome the lovely Miriam Wakerly to my blog. Today, she’s sharing her latest novel, Secrets in Appley Green: A 1960s village novel, and talking a bit about the nature of secrets!
Secrets – the nature of them
Secrets – do we love them or hate them? We don’t like to be excluded, left out, do we? If someone whispers in front of you, or behind your back but you know about it, it can be upsetting. Are some secrets for sharing, others for keeping? Sharing a secret can pose quite a burden on another person, perhaps an ethical dilemma. They come on a sliding scale – from keeping something secret through little white lies that stem from being tactful, to major deception connected to a crime, or a ‘ginormous’ personal secret, never divulged, that a person may take to their grave.
Villages can be full of both secrets and gossip – even more so perhaps in days gone by. Now exposure may come on social media for the whole world to see! Not so in the Sixties, of course.
Like my first two books, Gypsies Stop tHere and No Gypsies Served, Secrets in Appley Green and Shades of Appley Green are connected but can equally well standalone. You do not need to read one before the other, but if you do read both you will recognise people at very different times in their lives and know more about them. One or two of the characters occur in all four books!
They are all set in the same fictional English village of Appley Green.
I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it.
Author Miriam Wakerly
Amazon.co.uk link for all my books: – http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Miriam+Wakerly
Amazon.com link for all my books – http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Miriam+Wakerly&rh=n%3A283155%2Ck%3AMiriam+Wakerly
My blog – Miriam’s Ramblings – www.miriamwakerly.blogspot.co.uk
Hooray, it is finally release day for Nacreous! Thanks for stopping by the fabulous Release Day Blitz, organized by b00k r3vi3w Tours. To kick off the blitz, here are a couple of “Fun Facts” about my writing process… I hope you enjoy!
Writing Playlist:
So…Music. Some authors swear by it. They have their playlist set in the background while they pen their latest manuscript. Me? Not exactly. Music is very important to me. I believe in dance parties, and by dance parties I mean cranking up my I-pod to the music fitting my mood, be this salsa, classic rock, blues, country, classical, whatever, and dancing alone in my room or kitchen. (Yes, I said classical and country in the same list). My kids may or may not be in attendance. They like to watch and laugh. Sometimes, they join in. But as far as my writing process goes, the music is sort of my warm up. So I might turn on some music that fits my mood for parts of the story and listen to it in my car or at my desk before I write, but not while I am actually writing. I need it to be quiet in the room, so I can tell the story…(Ahem, hear what my characters are trying to tell me). 😉 While I wrote Nacreous, and the other books in the Harmony Run Series, my favorite music warm-up to set the mood was Lorde. Specifically, the songs Team and A World Alone. In fact, if any of the books from my series could be made for film, I would beg producers to include one of those songs in the movies.
My Writing Process:
I can’t sit down and force myself to write everyday because it begins to feel too mechanical, but I am definitely one of those people who thinks about writing, story ideas, characters, scenarios all of the time, awake or asleep. I love using my dreams in my writing and have written a few of them into scenes in the Harmony Run Series. Back in college, the good ol’ stone ages, I had one of the most terrifying dreams of my life about a man with a triangular-shaped eye chasing me down a corridor, one door after the other, with this woman’s voice echoing all around us, telling him to kill me. When I got to the end of the corridor, I opened the last door, and he was standing there facing me. I woke up sobbing…About a year later, a psychology professor at my university asked some of us to share dreams with him so he could demonstrate dream analysis. I bravely raised my hand, (this was huge for me, since I am very shy in person), and shared my dream in vivid detail. After I finished talking, the entire class got eerily quiet and the professor told me I was dealing with issues beyond his realm of help, and went on to the next student’s dream. That student shared a dream about not being able to make a goal in a soccer match, and the professor dissected his dream in depth for fifteen minutes. Years later, I incorporated that dream, adding on some twists and turns of course, into book one from the Harmony Run Series, Prismatic.
I also come up with ideas when I’m looking out of the kitchen window, when I’m walking, driving, cooking, gardening, taking my kids to martial arts, helping with their homework, basically, every waking moment. I take heaps of notes. I jot notes down for days. And when I’m ready, I sit down and type everything I can. I woke up the other night, and grabbed the notebook and pen beside my bed and wrote down an idea for another story. So my writing process is sort of a twenty-four hour thing. Oh, and probably the most important part of the process…How could I forget? My dog, Shorty, has to harass me to sit in my lap throughout the day. She eventually gives up and sleeps at my feet or nearby. She spares me the occasional glance or sighs every so often when I talk too much. Yes, I like to talk aloud to myself more often than not. If that dog could talk…Well, thankfully that’s not an issue. Here’s a photo of my writing pal…
Isn’t she cute? I hope you stick around to read about Nacreous. I’m going to look up that old psychology professor to see if he wants to read my latest book… 😉
Previous Books in the Series:
Sarah Elle Emm is the author of the HARMONY RUN SERIES, a young-adult fantasy and dystopian series, released in May 2012 by Winter Goose Publishing. (PRISMATIC, May 2012, OPALESCENT, February 2013, CHATOYANT, September 2014, NACREOUS, August 2015) Her debut fiction novel, MARRYING MISSY, was published by Bird Brain Publishing in October 2011. Sarah is a graduate of The University of Evansville, she has lived and worked in Mexico, Germany, England, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and has traveled extensively beyond. Sarah lives in Naples, Florida with her family. When she’s not walking the plank of her daughters’ imaginary pirate ship or snapping photos of Southwest Florida scenery, she is writing.
Stalk the Author:
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Author Anneli Purchase has an exciting announcement. Her novel The Wind Weeps is being offered for FREE! Here’s what she has to say:
If you have not read The Wind Weeps, grab your free digital copy now on amazon or on smashwords. Follow it up with the conclusion to Andrea’s story in Reckoning Tide. Here is a sample of the beginning of Reckoning Tide:
You’re mine!
To have,
To hold,
No matter how hard.
You’re mine!
Give me honour,
Obey,
And do as you’re told.
You’re mine!
In sickness,
My sickness,
Comes hell.
You’re mine!
This day forward,
’Til death,
Do us part.
Chapter 1
“Nurse!” I screamed. “Nurse, come back!” Robert’s smile vanished. He advanced and tossed the three orchids onto the foot of my bed.
I twisted around grasping for the cord with the call button. “Get away from me!” I hit the button frantically.
Robert lunged at me. “No, Andrea. Don’t!” He ripped the cord away from me. I pulled my fist back to punch him, but he was quick and caught my wrist in an iron grip. His eyes narrowed into slits.
“Nurse!” I yelled again. He clamped a hand over my mouth. Flashbacks of what that hard hand had done to me went through my mind. I bit down on his fingers, my terror lending me extra strength.
“Arrrgh! You bitch!” Robert’s eyes grew wide. He stared at me with a glassy look that I remembered too well. He drew his arm across his chest to backhand me, but dropped it when the nurse appeared.
“What’s going on here?” the nurse demanded. Margaret was a hefty woman. She filled most of the doorway as she stood with her hands on her hips. “Sir! Come away from the bed.”
“She bit me!” he said, unable to keep the whine out of his voice. “I brought her flowers—orchids, her favourite kind—and she bit me!”
I gasped at his outrageous boldfaced ploy, twisting the truth. “He tried to kill me. Don’t let him near me. He’s the one I told you about.”
“Now, Andrea.” Robert’s voice, silky smooth, sent ripples of terror up my spine. “You know that’s not true.” He turned to the nurse and slowly shook his head. “I’m her husband. You see, she’s had quite a shock. We had an argument and she set fire to our cabin and ran away when she thought I had died in the fire. I guess she’s surprised to see that I’m still alive.”
The nerve of him! I tried to get out of bed. “No! No-no-no!” I had to get the nurse to believe me. “He’s twisting it all around. He tried to kill me.”
The nurse was quick to put her hand out. “Stay in bed, Andrea.” She looked flustered and tried to calm us both. But no wonder she was confused. The whole situation was so bizarre. She looked from Robert to me and back to Robert again.
Would she side with Robert?
“Sir,” she said, “would you mind going to the waiting room down the hall? I’m sure the RCMP would like to speak with you, too. They’ll be here soon to interview Andrea.”
Robert raised his chin and gave me a smirk. “That was fast,” he said. “We’ll soon get to the bottom of the situation then.”
The nurse escorted him out the door. “We called them this morning when she woke up,” I heard her say as they walked down the hall.
The nurse had explained to me earlier that the police have to make a report in cases where there has been violence, especially since a gun was found in my fanny pack. The gun I pointed at him last week. Should have pulled the damn trigger.
*****
You will find paperback and digital versions of Reckoning Tide on amazon outlets and on smashwords.com (for e-readers other than Kindle). Just click on the links:
For more about Anneli Purchase and her books, visit her at http://anneli-purchase.com/
So happy to have Sheryl Browne on my blog today introducing her latest novel, THE REST OF MY LIFE. Take it away, Sheryl!
The Rest of My Life – When is it time to stop running?
Recommended to Choc Lit by the WH Smith Travel fiction buyer my contemporary romance novel, The Rest of My Life, is here!!
Fun, sassy and a tad naughty in places …
Are we tempted?
Just a little bit?
The Rest of My Life
“You can’t run away from commitment forever … “
Adam Hamilton-Shaw has more reason than most to avoid commitment. Living on a houseboat in the Severn Valley, his dream is to sail into the sunset – preferably with a woman waiting in every port. But lately, his life looks more like a road to destruction than an idyllic boat ride…
Would-be screenplay writer Sienna Meadows realises that everything about Adam spells trouble – but she can’t ignore the feeling that there is more to him than just his bad reputation. Nor can she ignore the intense physical attraction that exists between them.
And it just so happens that Adam sees Sienna as the kind of woman he could commit to. But can he change his damaging behaviour – or is the road to destruction a one-way street?
Fancy a peek at the video?
Heartache, humour, love, loss & betrayal, bestselling author Sheryl Browne brings you edgy, sexy, poignant fiction. A member of the Crime Writers’ Association, Romantic Novelists’ Association and shortlisted for Innovation in Romantic Fiction, Sheryl has seven books published.
Sheryl’s new contemporary romance novel was recommended to the publisher by the WH Smith Travel fiction buyer.
THE REST OF MY Life comes to you from award winning Choc Lit.
Author Links
Website | Twitter | Facebook | Pinterest
Choc Lit | Romantic Novelists’ Association
As a young hunter seeks a trainer, The Chosen prepare for an unforgettable adventure.
With Nature and Phantasma back in order, Halli and Silvor have settled into their new life in Drumple. During a visit from Striker, Kaidyla and Lumina, a request from an old friend of Halli’s family sparks a new challenge when she asks Striker if he’ll train their young son, Dylan. Working with Dylan gives Striker a chance to be a mentor once again, as he had been in his past.
This brings The Chosen to an area of Phantasma Halli has never seen before. What new dangers might be lurking in the forest? Will Halli have a reason to use her powers?
But Halli and Silvor are facing a new journey of their own, one that will change their lives forever. What is in store for The Chosen’s future? Will this latest escapade prepare them for what is yet to come?
Coming soon to an eBook store near you
Andrea Buginsky is a freelance writer with a BA in Mass Communication-Journalism from the University of South Florida. She has always wanted to be a published writer, and decided to try to write children’s fantasy books. The Chosen is her first book, and was released on December 14, 2010, to her delight.
Andrea has written five more books since:
- My Open Heart, an autobiography of growing up with heart disease.
- Nature’s Unbalance: The Chosen, Book 2
- Striker’s Apprentice: The Chosen, Book 3 (coming soon)
- Destiny: New Avalon, book 1, a YA fantasy
- Fate: New Avalon, book 2, a YA fantasy
She is currently writing the fourth book in The Chosen series.
Andrea lives in Kansas with her family, which includes her two precious puppies.
You can visit Andrea on her website or Google+
I’m happy to welcome author Anneli Purchase to my blog today. Not only does she have a beautiful new cover for her book, The Wind Weeps, but here she shares a bit about what inspired this Canadian tale of love…
Living on the west coast of Canada, it makes sense to have a boat. My husband has a troller for commercial fishing of salmon. I’ve gone along with him sometimes in the early years, until I decided that no matter how beautiful it is on the ocean, nothing can override seasickness. So I stayed home to write instead.
I wanted to tell a story where fishing plays an important role, and yet is not the main theme. I wanted a “people story” and so I invented Andrea, a young woman who would fall in love with a fisherman (two fishermen, actually) and who, having made a bad choice, would then find herself in a situation so bizarre she would never have believed it could happen to her.
And yet it has happened to some women in real life.
Follow Andrea’s joys, hopes, and terrifying times, while you experience an adventure with a truly west coast flavor.
You can find Anneli’s novels on amazon.com and amazon.co.uk in paperback and Kindle. For other formats or paperback, go to Smashwords.com
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