Wednesday, December 31, 2014

My Favorite Books in 2014

This year I did something new. I started a Pinterest board to keep track of all the books I've read. Last January, I didn't truly expect to be pinning to the board in December, but here I am, still at it. (Jump HERE to take a look at my board.) There are 117 pins, and while last summer I didn't think I'd ever be able to come up with a list of ten favorites, it seems that having a little time and distance from the stories made it possible.

I'm not going to write full-on reviews here - just record a couple thoughts about why I liked the books. As you read through my choices, you'll likely notice a couple things. I'm not much into the literary fiction, and none of my favorites fell very far from the romance tree. Most of them are from the m/m (queer/lgbt) romance subgenre, and while the interwebs are full of opinions about middle aged straight women who read and write about gay men, it's what's working for me right now.

So here's my top ten list for 2014 - all books I loved, most of them I read at least a couple times, and all books I'd recommend in a heartbeat.



10. The Great Sex Olympics of 221B by Eli Easton.
This was a bit of a departure for me - first time reading Eli Easton and first time reading fanfic. It's about Sherlock & Watson, specifically the version of the characters created by the BBC, and lordy was it entertaining. This one was a free download, but I've got a couple other things by Ms. Easton on the kindle now.









9. This Rough Magic by Josh Lanyon
I love a good historical, and this one pretty much nailed it. It's a mystery with a sidecar of romance, and Mr. Lanyon totally sold me on the early 20th century San Francisco setting.












8. Glitterland by Alexis Hall
I think Alexis Hall is doing some of the most imaginative work of any writer, any genre, anywhere. He made me like Ash, who's really kind of a jerk. ;) Here's a link to my review from last February.










7. Love Hacked by Penny Reid
So...mea culpa...when I reviewed this book last April (HERE), I said I liked it, but it wouldn't make my top ten list.
Yeah.
Wrong about that.
Smart and funny and sexy, this one stayed with me. It's hard to do contemporary romance well - I mean, come on, how many reasons can you come up with that a couple of healthy heterosexuals WOULDN'T get together? - but the conflict felt real and the characters rang true.






6. The Magpie Lord by KJ Charles
I don't even know where to begin with this one. It's the first in a trilogy. It's romantic fantasy, the kind of re-imagined history I eat up with a spoon. It's a heckuva lot of fun, and I hope you skip on over to the ebook retailer of your choice and grab a copy!











5. Hold on Tight by Serena Bell
I'm not one for the angst, but a friend (ahem, Amanda) INSISTED I read this one, and I'm so glad she did. The raw honesty in this story of what happens when life tears a couple apart, then throws them back together made for a "stay up way late after a night shift because I can't put the book down" kind of read.










4. Hainted by Jordan L. Hawk
Ms. Hawk has a couple other very popular series, and while I've read parts of them (and liked them a lot), this is the book that grabbed me. I love the combination of mythology and setting and characters (Dan! and Leif!). I can't even tell you how many times I've re-read this one, and every time, I like it even more.









3. Enlightenment (trilogy) by Joanna Chambers
I'm counting these three (Provoked, Beguiled, and Enlightened) as a single entry because the endings of the first two are sort of cliffhangerish, or at least unresolved, so they really can be read as one. The sample of the first book absolutely gutted me, and I knew I had to read the rest. When I think of Ms. Chambers' writing, words like elegant and restrained come to mind (although her naughty bits are fun, too), and I'm absolutely in love with the way she handled the historical setting. Brilliant!






2. Prosperity by Alexis Hall
Yeah, Mr. Hall made my list twice, because he's really that good. HERE's my review of Prosperity, but just to recap, this is one of the boldest, most imaginative books I've read all year. It's a demanding book - all in dialect - but SO worth the effort. Even better, there are a bunch of stories set in the same world that'll be coming out soon!






1. Think of England by KJ Charles
The thing that set this book apart for me was the subtle, unapologetic understanding of it's period, as well as the connection to it's heritage. And yeah, since that heritage is Victorian pulp fiction, specifically King Solomon's Mines, you know you're in for a good time. In the interest of saving us both from embarrassment, I'm going to spare you the fangirl squeeing. Just read it. It's really, really good.
(Here's a link to my Goodreads review.)





Best Anthology - I read a number of anthologies this year - a couple of great holiday sets from Carina, another rather unfortunately called Butt Ninjas from Hell that was way better than it's title, but it was Another Place In Time that resonated most with me. The stories are consistently good, and confirmed my love of historical fiction, especially the m/m variety.









Apparently the only way I could come up with a top-ten list was to let myself go wild with the honorable mentions. Here they are (in no discernible order)...
Hot HeadThe QuickSpecial Delivery, Liesmith, Circus of the Damned, The Theory of Attraction, Dangerously Happy, Catch A Ghost/ Long Time Gone/ Daylight Again, Snowball in Hell, The Haunting of Maddie Clare, Bad Boys Do, A Companion to Wolves, Cold Copper

Thanks so much for hanging out with me this year, whether on Facebook or twitter, over here on blogspot or on my website blog. It's been an adventure, one I'm happy to have shared with you. Happy New Year!
Liv

Monday, December 29, 2014

An Interview with Morgan O'Neill (@AuthorMOneill)


It is my very great pleasure to welcome Deborah Cordes & Cary Frates to the blog today. Together, they're Morgan O'Neill, and they're welcoming the release of their newest collaboration, a time-travel romance The Thornless Rose. They were good sports and fielded a few interview questions. Keep reading to learn more about their lives and their work...

A chance meeting at a writers’ conference brought Cary Morgan Frates and Deborah O’Neill Cordes together, two award-winning authors who connected because of a mutual love of time travel fiction. Collaboration ensued, the search for a pen name the first step in their working relationship. Their maiden names provided the solution - and “Morgan O’Neill” was born. 

Cary and Deborah’s backgrounds are uniquely suited to writing stories steeped in atmosphere and history: Deborah has a Master’s Degree in history and is a dedicated genealogist; Cary is a talented linguist in French and is currently a student of Latin. They’ve traveled to Europe’s ancient and medieval sites many times, with Cary living on the Continent for five years. 

The Morgan O’Neill time travel novels have received a number of literary awards, including two finalist wins in the Booksellers’ Best Awards, two semifinalist wins in the William Faulkner-William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition, first, second, and third place wins for the Mainstream Novel with Strong Romantic Elements category of the Golden Rose Contest, a top ten finalist award in the Pacific Northwest Writers' Conference Zola Awards Literary Contest, and a top ten finalist win in the Orange Rose Contest.



LR: The Thornless Rose is a big book, the start of a three-book series. What’s the most compelling thing about it, Deborah, the thing that kept you working through writing and rewriting?


Deborah: There are two compelling things, actually: traveling through time and research. I am fascinated with the subject of time travel, and I enjoy crafting intricate plots dealing with going back and forth in time. I find non-linear thinking enthralling (and it’s good exercise for the ol’ brain cells). I also have a BS in zoology and master’s degree in history, and I was a teacher for many years. Researching continues to be a driving force in my life, and I get joy weaving history and science into my works. My goal has always been to give readers a true sense of “being there.”

Cary: There are three factors that motivate me: 1. To do right by our characters (they’ve practically become personal friends). 2. To get the history absolutely right, which takes a lot of time and energy. 3. To get our storytelling so solid our readers lose track of time.

LR: Writing as a team must have benefits and challenges compared with working solo. Tell me a little about your process. Who does what? Who’s the good cop and who’s the…other one?

MO: Although we write what has been characterized as historical fantasy - twisty-turny time travel - at the core of each Morgan O’Neill novel is the linear path of real history and actual events. We tend to gravitate to things that interest us and divvy up the work. For example, Cary has sailed extensively, so any scenes in our novels involving that are hers for the taking, while Deborah loves magical mayhem, so most of the witchy/magical scenes are hers. We write our scenes apart - and sometimes together - then switch back and forth to edit, cut, add, and have the occasional meltdown.  All in all, it has worked out. We’re still alive after seven novels, after all. ;)

LR: Cary, your individual publishing projects have been glossy and feminine romances, but Deborah, you write sci-fi. So different! How do your individual strengths benefit the whole?

MO: We are very different people, and our major strength in writing as a team is the way one of us will come up with plot twists and scenes that the other did not anticipate or imagine. The old adage - strength in diversity - seems to apply here.

LR: What greases the writing wheel for you, Deborah? Chocolate? Red wine? A quiet, clutter-free environment?

Deborah: A cup of hot tea, a wee bit of chocolate, and a desk cluttered with research scraps and tidbits are my tickets to writer’s nirvana. It also helps to have Westies and Cairn terriers snoozing at my feet.

Cary, same question… Heavens, if I had wine or chocolate nearby, I wouldn’t get any work done at all! My environment is not clutter free, but I do prefer the quiet so that my mind can wander unhindered along creative paths, and my fingers can fly to keep up.

LR: Do either of you have go-to blogs or books to help with technical issues? Like, when I have a question about plotting or dialogue or how to write a synopsis, I search the archives of Janice Hardy’s blog Fiction University. What’s your fave resource, Cary?

Cary: I don't have a favorite resource. If I'm stuck, I’ll troll the Internet for a while, to gather a general idea, but beyond good grammar basics, I need the passage to have a flow, a cadence that sounds right, and the right results sometimes bend hard and fast rules.

Deborah, same question… I love Save the Cat by Blake Snyder, which is known as a go-to book for writing screenplays, but can be most helpful for novelists, too. And writers can’t go wrong with The Chicago Manual of Style and Roget’s Thesaurus.

LR: Promotion is a part of the game for every author. Are you guys able to divide and conquer here, too? Any secrets you want to share?

MO: Deborah handles Pinterest and Facebook, while Cary does Twitter. We share the rest.  No secrets, just hard work and doing the best we can.  It’s a jungle out there.  :)

LR: The Seahawks, the Mariners, or the Sounders? Which team colors look best on you? ;)

Cary: All of our teams are rather color-coordinated and who doesn't look good in blue? For my part, it’s GO HAWKS all the way.

Deborah: If it’s not on PBS, or the History and Science channels, I’m probably not going to see it on TV.  lol  Let me just say I did watch a bit of a televised NFL football game with my hubster last week, and the Dallas Cowboys’ seafoam green pants were to die for.

LR: What’s next on your horizon? The sequel to The Thornless Rose? Individual projects? What else do we have to look forward to?

Morgan O’Neill is contracted by our publisher, Entangled, LLC, for two more novels in the Elizabethan time travel series.  We finished writing the first draft of the prequel of The Thornless Rose in October 2014 (to be published in 2015), and have started the sequel, which is due to Entangled next year.

Individual projects-
Deborah: I’ve begun working on the sequel to my science fiction novel, Dragon Dawn, Book One of the Dinosaurian Time Travel Series (now available on Amazon).  I’m also editing my epic novel about medieval Russia, The Sacred Cradle, which will be published in 2016 (this work is historical fiction, not time travel). My time travel screenplay, Conjurer, continues to make the rounds in Hollywood, and I plan to start writing the Conjurer novel when all of my other projects are done, say in 2016-17. Whoa, I just realized I’m going to be quite busy!  :)

Cary: In addition to the rest of the Elizabethan series with Deb, I’ll release the third and final installment of my “glossy and feminine” Red Soles short story series, which should come out in early 2015. I’ve got a full length historical novel in the works, plus, I’ll be directing the self-publication of non-fiction Westward Trail memoir. 

So many projects, so little time! Awesome interview, ladies. Thank you so much for taking the time to field my questions, and I wish you all the best with The Thornless Rose!


Author Links...

Book Deets...
Title: The Thornless Rose
An Elizabethan Time Travel Novel
Author: Morgan O’Neill
Publisher: Entangled Publishing, LLC
Publication Date: December 29, 2014
Genre: Historical Fiction

Blurb:
No one ever knew what really happened to Dr. Jonathan Brandon back in 1945. He simply disappeared from a London pub, leaving behind an unsolved mystery and his fiancĂ©e—Anne Howard’s grandmother. Seventy years later, Anne herself is haunted by the strange tale, along with inexplicable hallucinations straight out of Elizabethan England. Including a scarred, handsome man whose deep blue eyes seem to touch her very soul...

Anne wonders if there isn’t something more to the story. Is it even possible that Jonathan disappeared into England’s dark past? And why does Anne keep hearing him whisper her name? Because now she too feels the inexorable pull of the past, not to mention an undeniable attraction for a man she doesn’t even know.

It’s just a matter of time before Anne will step back into history, and face a destiny―and a love―beyond imagining...
  
Buy Links:
Amazon        iTunes         Kobo         B & N

Other projects from Morgan O'Neill....









Sunday, December 28, 2014

Self-Publishing: What I've learned,and what I'll do different next time.


In the beginning of November a friend emailed me, asking if I had a holiday story to promote. I responded with a negative. My one holiday short story was no longer available because the publisher had gone out of business.

And then it occurred to me...I had an edited, formatted version of The Santa Drag sitting on my thumb drive, and I owned the rights. What if I found an image on Shutterstock to use as cover art? I could just put it up on Amazon and see what happened.

I chose an image, cropped it, and added text, and by noon that day, the story was live.

There were a couple reasons I only published it on Amazon. I've read that most authors find that's where the majority of their sales come from, so I didn't think I'd lose a lot by skipping other outlets for this trial. Also, I was already too late to send the story out to big review sites - and wasn't sure they'd take a 6000 word short story - and didn't want to waist more time figuring out the formatting. The process was incredibly easy, even though I had a couple false-starts with the cover art and back matter.

The official publication date was 11/10/14, and since then 500 -550 copies have been downloaded, between purchased copies, free promotions, and the review service I use. Seventeen reviews were posted to Amazon since then, and 13 reviews/16 ratings were added to Goodreads. I spent about $125 on the cover art and different promotional strategies, and I've had huge and gratifying support from authors I'm friends with. They've hosted me on their blogs, shared my posts on Facebook, and been generous with their twitter energy. Because the majority of the downloads happened during the free periods, I'm not close to breaking even on the money I spent, but I figure there are 500 people out there with the opportunity to read my work who wouldn't have otherwise seen it.

Hard to quantify the benefit of that, but I hope it's a good thing.

So what have I learned through this process?
#1 I like having control. I enjoyed choosing and making the cover art, and I really like being able to see my sales and KU downloads in real time.
#2 I have some really good friends, and I've appreciated their support over the last couple months.
#3 Between MFRW, Debra at The Book Enthusiast, and Mark Lee at The Masquerade Crew, I have a few tools for promotion that worked and that I'll use again.

     I'm going to drill down a little deeper here, because these are some great resources and I firmly believe in sharing what I know in the hopes it'll help someone else. MFRW stands for Marketing for Romance Writers. Founded by Kayelle Allen, the group's focus is on learning marketing and publicity. There's a Yahoo group, a blog, a twitter feed, and a Facebook page where members can interact. I've found the Yahoo group especially useful for connecting with people who are looking for guest bloggers, as well as people who are looking for blog openings. In addition there are some great educational resources, along with a healthy helping of support. You can contact the group for membership, and if you're a published/pre-published author, you're in.

     The Book Enthusiast is a book promotional service. Debra organizes cover reveals, blog tours, Facebook takeovers, and a variety of other packages. Her rates are competitive, and whenever I've worked with her she's been unfailingly professional, organized, and friendly. My favorite part is her book review library. For a fee, you can list your book with her, and her readers (she's got about 300 on her review group FB page) can request a free copy in return for Amazon and Goodreads reviews. The Santa Drag is the second book I've listed with her review service, and while I guess you could argue that I'm paying for reviews, I look at it as paying her to promote my work, with book reviews as a byproduct. I also believe I'm building relationships with her readers, which will help me in the long run.

     The Masquerade Crew is a blog, a promotion service, and a twitter army - and I'm not even joking. I haven't worked with them much, but to promote my free download days the weekend after Thanksgiving, I arranged for their Basic Package. That got me a post on their blog and a twitter barrage that easily hit triple digits. (Their promotional material claim they'll send out 500 tweets. I'm not sure I got that many - I tried to 'favorite' every one - but I was pretty much blown away by the number I saw.) That first weekend saw the bulk of the free downloads, and I'm sure I wouldn't have had nearly so many without this service.

So what will I do differently?
#1 I'll make use of the Masquerade Crew's twitter army, probably more than once, but organize my own blog tour. While I don't have access to the biggest blogs, I know enough people to put something together.
#2 I'll do more planning, both so I can learn formatting and publish with a variety of outlets, and so I can submit my work to review sites in advance of publication.
#3 I'm signed up for a class in GIMP, so I'll actually know what I'm doing when I make my own cover art.

The next couple projects I have in mind for publication have both appeared in anthologies, and neither is currently available. I want to repeat the process a couple times, to really work out the kinks, because I'm thinking about self-publishing Hell...The Story, my ABNA quarterfinal novel. Self publishing Hell would mean I'd need to hire a developmental editor and a line editor. I'd need to figure out the formatting thing, along with how to apply for a copyright and a myriad of other little details. I need to get a better handle on the up-front costs, but if things work out, I just might pull the trigger.

I'm enough of a realist to see that, while it was fun to be the #1 free download in Amazon's teen/YA category the weekend after Thanksgiving, I'll need to actually sell some copies to make the self-publishing venture worthwhile. I expect my budget to be between $1000 and $2000, and I'll need a business plan before I start. I'll also need a big scoop of luck.

But you know what? I've always been a bit of a gambler...
Peace,
Liv

Have you tried self-publishing, or are you still on the fence? What's worked for you? What hasn't worked? Share your experiences so we can learn from each other.

Friday, December 26, 2014

The Santa Drag is #Free 12/26-12/27



As a little post-Christmas gift from me to you, my holiday short story The Santa Drag is a free download from Amazon today and tomorrow.

Blurb:
Things aren't always what they seem, and this shopping mall Santa has a secret only true love can reveal. 

Mackenzie's an out-of-work actress who takes a job as a shopping mall Santa to pay the rent. She fools everyone with her Santa drag, until the day Joe McBride walks into the mall. Joseph Timothy McBride - the real-life, got a soap opera gig and you saw him in Scream II actor. The only guy she ever really loved. Can Mack stay in character, or is it time to strip off the red coat and peel off the beard for good? 

The Santa Drag is a 6,000 word short story about a Santa with a secret, stressed out parents in the mall, and one very handsome actor.



Thanks for checking out my post, and I hope you had a lovely holiday!
Peace,
Liv

Monday, December 22, 2014

It's the stories we tell.


Happy Yule!

I'm writing this late in the evening of December 21st. The sun set a long while ago, and though I don't know a a lot about Pagan beliefs, I do know that the Winter Solstice is associated with both bonfires and with Yule logs burning on the hearth.

It's a feast that uses fire and light to mark the turning of the wheel.

It's also the sixth night of Hanukkah, another holiday associated with light, and it happens to be the night of the annual Lessons & Carols concert at St. James Cathedral. I went to the concert, since my daughter sings in Jubliate!the young women's ensemble. Each piece of lovely choral music was bracketed by a reading and a congretational hymn, and the gospel was from John, Chapter 1...

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
2 The same was in the beginning with God.
3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
4 In him was life; and the life was the light of men.
5 And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.

More light for this longest night of the year.

I grew up Catholic, and have been a church musician since way back, so the stories in both the readings and the music were wonderfully familiar. The angel Gabriel visiting a young girl. Mary and Joseph and the baby and the manger. Three wise men from the east following a star. 

Great tidings of joy for the whole world.

Every holiday has stories associated with it, and every person who celebrates has their own favorites, their own experience with the traditions. Some things cross over, though, like fire and light on a cold December night.

And because even in tradition, there's a place for something new, I'm sharing a recording of "There Is No Rose" by Benjamin Britten, from A Ceremony of Carols. This is an old medieval poem set to music written in the 1940s. I've never sung this piece before - not sure I've ever even heard it before, but it might be my new favorite arrangement of the text. The young women from Jubilate! did a lovely job with it last night, though this isn't them in the recording. Enjoy!

I hope you have a lovely holiday, however you choose to celebrate.
Liv

Friday, December 19, 2014

To tsū or not to tsū...


So...tsū...

It's a new social media website, sort of like Facebook with mint green borders. And right there you want to stop me, don't you? You want to ask, "Oh Liv, why would I want to join another social media site?"

Why would you?

Honestly, I didn't want to. I would love it if I could just hang out on Facebook and Twitter and get to know readers and other writers and talk about my dog or my kids and sometimes tell them about my writing projects. I probably still will, but Facebook is threatening to change the rules (again), which may limit what I can say.

So...tsū...

I joined about a week ago, and have so far connected with people I knew from FB and twitter, but also with people that I didn't know, that I'm getting to know, which is cool. So far my stream has skewed heavily toward book promotions, but I'm hoping that'll even out some, and allow for more actual communication. So far, I'm having fun, and I've earned $0.21 for my trouble.

I mean, who doesn't want to get paid for using social media? That's one of the main differences between tsĹ« and Facebook. The ads on tsĹ« are blatant, taking up the right sidebar, and don't appear to be slanted at all to my interests. Which is kind of a relief. Sometimes FB can feel a little stalkerish, the way ads for shoes show up ten minutes after you looked at a pair of shoes in a different browser. But the way tsĹ« works - and I might be a little Pollyanna here - is they earn revenue from advertisers, then give some of it back to the users who are providing and interacting with the website's content. 

As an interface, I've found it more intuitive than Google+ and a helluva lot easier to use than Ello (which, jeebus, I'll never be that hip). It's similar to twitter, in that you can organize your content by hashtags, but less abstract because you can write in complete sentences, since you're not limited to 140 characters. There are no minions behind the scenes, organizing your stream by what they think you want to see (ahem, Facebook), so if you miss someone's post, you have to go to their page to find it. Also, tsĹ« doesn't have the ability to form groups, though there's a push among members to get the developers to add that feature.

So...tsū...

So far, so good. There may be some deep, nefarious plot to steal my personal data or otherwise ruin things, but I like what I've seen. If you're, interested, here's a link to a how-to post by someone who has clearly drunk the cool-aide. (And I mean that in the nicest possible way.) Or if you want to join, let me know and I'll send you a code.  I don't see it replacing Facebook, but I'm hopeful I'll be able to do things on tsĹ« that Facebook won't allow.

Have fun at your holiday parties this weekend...because I know you have holiday parties this weekend. Cheers!
Liv


Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Merry Merry Nooky Hook! (#MFRWHooks)



For my second Book Hooks post, I'm going back to The Santa Drag, my holiday short story available from Amazon.

In this story, Mackenzie's an out-of-work actress who takes a job as a shopping mall Santa to pay the rent. She fools everyone with her Santa drag, until the day Joe McBride walks into the mall. Joseph Timothy McBride - the real-life, got a soap opera gig and you saw him in Scream II actor. The only guy she ever really loved. Can Mack stay in character, or is it time to strip off the red coat and peel off the beard for good?



Here are a couple of lines, giving you a sneak peek at a key moment...


The streetlight across from our house had been out for a week, so there were a lot of shadows between me and the front door. I didn’t notice the man standing by the two big rhododendrons that grew in front of our house. When he spoke, I almost had a heart attack.
“Nice work today.” The familiar voice came out of the darkness.
I froze. My feet were planted on the snow-crusted cement pavers that made a path from the driveway to the front door. I wished I could sink through them.
“I didn’t think you recognized me,” I said.


Mack could be in trouble now! If you'd like to read the rest of the story, it's available for $0.99 from Amazon. Make sure you follow the linky below to check out some other hooks!


Tuesday, December 16, 2014

Two on Tuesday

A few years ago, I attended the Write on the Sound writers' conference. The day before the conference officially started, I participated in a pre-conference fiction workshop. It was great fun, and I got to know some pretty amazing people. Some of us kept in touch, and in the last week, two writers from that workshop published short stories. I had the pleasure of getting a sneak peek at both these stories and thoroughly enjoyed them. Amanda and Diane don't know I'm doing this, but I decided to put together a quick post, showing off on their behalf.

It's a rare day that Amanda K. Byrne and I don't connect. Between email, facebook, and twitter, we give each other support, honest feedback, or a ration of shit, depending on the situation. She published Rehab last week. It's a 7000 word erotic short story, and a fantastic example of her ability to write really good naughty stuff. It's a free download... check out the links below...

An accident forces Lila into physical therapy - and onto Dean's massage table. Under his talented hands, her injuries start to heal, and sparks a desire that neither one can ignore.

Available for free from AmazonKobo, and Barnes n' Noble



I remember so clearly reading Diane Geurts' Mrs. Robinson after the WOTS workshop. The story has stayed with me because Diane's language is so clean and strong and insightful. I remember feeling panicked as I read it, as if I was on the brink of a disaster that never quite happened, and I better shut up now or I'll start giving things away. It'd be better if you checked it out for yourself...


Camilla Robinson is a formerly high-powered executive, emphasis on formerly. Now, she spends the hot summer days next to her pool, with her young daughter and Andy, one of the teenagers who lives in the neighborhood. She knows, even as she sips martinis and serves them to Andy, that her life is spiraling somewhere just out of her reach. She just can't bring herself to care, especially around the wealthy, Martha Stewart-like women who are mothers to her daughter's friends. She flirts with Andy. She puts Baileys in her morning coffee. She ruins play dates. This "long" short story is a humorous and poignant look at one woman's journey to find her way back to who she really is.
Available from Amazon


Even though I called this post Two for Tuesday, I'm going to throw in a third option for you. This is a really cool bundle from Rayne Hall. She's put together all ten of her Ten Tales anthologies (normally $0.99 each) for $2.99. I've got short stories in five of her anthologies, and they all provide a diverse look at different subgenres of paranormal fiction. Jump HERE to see her listing on Amazon. There's Ten Tales of Ghosts, and Ten Tales of Steampunk, and Ten Tales of Seers, and Ten tales of Vampires, and...


Monday, December 15, 2014

It's all about the B....





B is for Balance

That's right. It's all about the balance. See, this time of year is always crazy, and I'll tell you right now, I don't have any kind of magic formula for getting through. 

So why the blog post, then? 

Misery loves company, I guess.

There's kid stuff and family stuff and parties and shopping and decorating and why am I telling you this because you know it already. And this year, in addition to the annual holiday kerfufle, I'm desperately trying to finish edits on Aqua Follies, my semi-historic m/m romance. 

I call it semi-historic, because it's set in 1955, so not quite old enough to be a historic, but not exactly contemporary either. It's about the assistant coach of a water ballet team who comes to Seattle for the Aqua Follies, a swimming-diving-music-dance extravaganza that was a summer institution during the 1950s. The night of their first rehearsal, the trumpet player takes a solo, and our swim coach's life will never be the same. It's been lots of fun pulling from old Seattle Times headlines to build the plot, and my beta readers have good things to say about it, so that's been pretty exciting.

If only I could finish the damned thing.

I'd hoped to send Aqua Follies off to my agent by Thanksgiving. Didn't happen. Then I wanted to wrap it up by, well, last Monday.

Yeah, that didn't happen either.

Now I'm hoping it'll be out of my hands by Christmas -- and if we're lucky, into your hands sometime next year. In the meantime, I keep putting off any serious holiday preparation. Like, if I keep myself dug down deep enough in my writing cave, the rest of the world will just chill out.

Don't expect any Christmas cards from Chez Rancourt.

Getting the Christmas tree up was a huge step in a holiday direction. The image at the beginning of the post shows our actual tree. It started life as a sheet of aluminum. My husband cut the spiral with a jigsaw and tacked an LED light rope to it with zipties. He also punched holes along the edge for ornaments. My usual approach to tree decoration is the more the merrier, but with this "tree" I applied some self-discipline, limiting myself to gold and sparkly. It's not quite monochrome, but as close as I'm capable of getting.

Next think you know, I might even buy some presents.

The holiday season - with it's parties and presents and food (oh yeah, the food!) - will happen whether I'm along for the ride or not. In the interest of self-preservation, I remind myself of something Albert Einstein once said...

Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.

Happy peddling!
Liv

BTW, what's your secret? How do you maintain your equilibrium during the holidays?

Oh, and if you've got a minute, jump HERE to my friend Elizabeth's blog, where I'm talking about why I write romance. Cheers!






Friday, December 12, 2014

Hot for Friday: First Kiss



For this week's Hot for Friday post, devised by the Book Boyfriends Cafe, the task was to post a snippet from the first time the hero & heroine brushed lips. I kind of loved that idea, especially since I'll be taking part in the No Kiss Blogfest come January 2nd. It's nice to get a little kissing in ahead of time, you know?

For the purposes of this post, I decided to go with Ryan & Danielle from my contemporary romance King Stud, a  novel that's out on submission and will hopefully find a home soon. Danielle's in her early 30s, with an old house to remodel, and Ryan's a carpenter, who also happens to be her best friend's younger brother.

Her much younger brother.

That's only one of the reasons they shouldn't get together, yet here they are in Ryan's kitchen after accidentally bumping into each other in the Home Depot...
Enjoy!


He took a long pull on the bottle and closed the laptop.  “I’m off work tomorrow. I could come by your grandmother’s house in the daylight and take a better look.”
The intensity in his eyes had her swallowing hard. “That’d be great.”
“Do you want to watch a movie or something? TV’s downstairs.”
“Sure.” But only if he picked something G-rated. Watching on-screen romance might just send her leaping into his lap.
“Throw Barnabas on the floor, babe. You look like you’re going to fall off that chair.”
The cat picked that moment to plant a paw on the small of Danielle’s back. One claw went through her sweater and dug into her skin. She jumped to her feet, hands flying. “What the hell?”
Ryan jumped up too, and swatted at Barnabas. “Git, cat.”
Barnabas jumped, squalled, and sprinted across the room.
Danielle and Ryan ended up facing each other about arm’s length apart.
“The cat…” she said.
“My roommate’s.” His gaze intent, focused, he touched her sleeve.
The room heated up, or possibly her blood was boiling from the friction between them. Her field of vision narrowed to the late-day scruff framing his mouth, and the full curve of his lower lip.
He lowered his hand to hers, interlacing their fingers.
She didn’t stop him. She curled her hand around his and her eyes slid half closed.
“C’mere.” Ryan tugged, and instead of backing away, she rocked forward, drawn to him by physics or hormones or old-fashioned need.
“Damned cat hates me,” she said, relishing his musky scent.
His free hand reached up strong and sure to cup her jaw. “Well, I like you,” he whispered.
His kiss was gentle, testing the water, giving her space to push away. He tasted malty and masculine, a flavor that could very well become an addiction. He moved closer, and then both his hands wrapped around her waist and she stretched full against him.
All of her reasons for stopping ran through her head on a continuous loop: Maeve and age and L.A. and Cherry, Maeve and age and L.A. and Cherry. He drew back so their lips were barely touching, and the scent of him and the warmth of his breath and the melting heat at the core of her body scattered those reasons like a flock of startled birds.


Jump HERE to see the list of all the bloggers playing the Hot for Friday game.

Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Hi! Me Again!


So, um, hi! I'm back on my old Blogger blog, after several years of blogging at Liv Rancourt. At some point, I'm hoping I'll be able to munge the two together, but for now, I'm here and happy about it.

See, I love the look of my website (www.livrancourt.com), but don't feel like it really fits the direction my writing has gone. When I worked with Laird to design it, I was hot and heavy into drafting Hell...The Story, the first in a proposed urban fantasy series. The website absolutely fits the vibe I wanted for Hell, and while I had the tremendous thrill of seeing the book make the quarterfinals of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awards last spring, it's still out there looking for a contract. In the meantime, I've written a contemporary romance (also on submission, also the start of a series) and have been working on an m/m romance set in 1955 Seattle.

Not many sugar skulls in either of those novels.

I made the decision to resuscitate my blogger blog because it gives me more flexibility. I can change the look whenever I want, and it's easier for me to tweak the layout and what's happening in the sidebars. I can't promise that I'll turn into a blogging maniac, but I swear part of the reason I've been so irregular is I didn't feel like the look of the other blog matched what was going on in my head.

I'm going to stick to what I like about blogging: weekly memes with snippets & excerpts, funny family stories, blog hops, and general goofing around. I might throw in some ideas about craft every so often, and I'm hoping to have at least a couple interview guests every month. I'll also keep blogging with the Spellbound Scribes, and do an occasional post for Femina Aequalitas. I'm also very excited to be involved with a new blogging project, Relentless Writers. This is a blog that grew out of group of writers who'd teamed up to survive NaNoWriMo last month, and while the first post is still to come, there are some strong, diverse voices involved, and I look for good things from them.

Funny, I didn't expect to have so much to say. There's more going on that I'd thought, and I hope you'll hang in there with me. I so appreciate those of you who have read my stuff & written reviews & shared my links & tweets. Thank you so much! You've made the last few years a ton of fun, and I'm looking forward to this new stage in my journey.

Peace,
Liv