Visiting The New Romantics

I'm delighted to have been invited over to the fantastic New Romantics' blog today by the talented authors, Lizzie Lamb, Adrienne Vaughan, Mags Cullingford and June Kearns, to talk about my writing and my new book, A Jersey Affair - Book 2 in my Jersey Romance Series - out this Wednesday, 2 April.

Please come by and say 'Hello', it would be great to see you there.

Here's the link!

Book #1 Giveaway on Goodreads

I'm nervously awaiting the launch of Book #2 of my Jersey Romance Series, A Jersey Affair, this Wednesday, and the start of the Fiction Addiction Book Tour - with lots of fantastic swag to be won, but I thought that while I was waiting for the tour to begin I'd set up a Goodreads giveaway for 2 signed paperback copies of Book #1, A Jersey Kiss.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

A Jersey Kiss

by Georgina Troy

Giveaway ends April 30, 2014.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

So, for those of you who haven't yet read  A Jersey Kiss, only have an e-copy, or want a signed paperback copy of the book, why not enter as many times as you like! Please feel free to share! X

Hope you're all having a fantastic weekend and Happy Mother's Day tomorrow to those of you who will be celebrating! X

A Jersey Affair - Book Tour

I'm very excited to let you know that the second book in my Jersey Romance Series, A Jersey Affair, will be touring with Fiction Addiction Book Tours and the book tour will be LIVE on 2 April - Launch Day!

Here's what will be included in Rafflecopter giveaway: 

• 1 x ecopy of A Jersey Affair (International)
• 5 x Key Rings (International)
• 5 x Signed Postcards (International)
• 2 x pens (International)
• 1 x Mug (UK only)

I hope to see you during the tour!

I'm also taking part in Julie Valerie's Hump Day Blog Hop: http://www.julievalerie.com/humpday-bloghop/ See you there!

BOOK BLITZ TOUR – Deadly Bloodlines

Today I'm welcoming Elke Feuer to my blog as part of her book blitz tour for Deadly Bloodlines.

Book Blurb
Years after leaving Cayman because of her notorious serial killer mother, Angel Mason returns as an inspector on the police force. On the twentieth anniversary of her mother’s capture, someone is murdered in the same manner as her mother’s victims.

To complicate matters more, Angel’s old flame, Bren McDougal, is assigned to help her with capturing the killer, and soon it’s undeniably clear that the passion between them is hotter than ever.

As the killer repeats her mother’s deadly pattern, Angel must face the terrifying truth she’d been hiding for twenty years.

What people are saying

“Elke Feuer skillfully keeps you guessing in this twisty-turny romantic suspense story about a Cayman investigator tracking a copycat killer-one imitating the crimes of a her own serial-killer mother. Suspenseful and satisfying!” ~Francine LaSala, author of The Girl, the Gold Tooth, & Everything.

Excerpt
Angel Mason sat on the edge of her bed and squished the thick caramel carpet between her toes, assurance the deadly grip of another nightmare was gone.

On the nightstand her phone vibrated, startling her. It was Dustin Williams, Chief Superintendent. The time, 6:30 a.m., flashed in red from her clock. She cleared her throat and prayed there was no trace of the bottle of vodka she’d finished off the night before in her voice. “Inspector Angel.”
“Dead body at Galleon Bay.” He never minced words.

“Some tourist die in their sleep?”

“No, looks like she was murdered.”

Brittle silence hung in the air as the words echoed in her mind like a broken record.

“Angel?”

“I’ll be there in half an hour,” she stammered.

“Good, I want this dealt with quickly. There hasn’t been a tourist murdered on the island since…”

“Since Meredith,” she finished for him.

“Yeah, and we remember how that turned out,” he said dryly.

The phone imprinted her hand as she squeezed it. No one had forgotten how it turned out, least of all her—no matter how hard she tried.

“I want you to collect the evidence,” Williams said.

“What? Why?” She didn’t normally question his decisions, but she hadn’t worked in forensics since she had been promoted to inspector.

“You’re the most experienced scene of crime officer we have.”

“I’ll take care of it, sir,” Angel assured him.

“Johnson, Sanchez, and Ebanks are already there controlling the traffic and crowd,” he said, his voice sounding miles away.

“Yes, sir.”

The phone went dead without a goodbye, not that she expected one. He didn’t converse beyond necessity, but she never took it personally. He was like that with everyone.

She went to the bathroom, took out the bottle of painkillers on the second shelf of the cabinet on the wall, and downed two.

As the pills made their way to her queasy stomach, she searched the cloud in her head for how she had gotten to bed last night. Leftover Chinese and drifting to sleep during the nightly news in a vodka-induced haze was all she remembered.

Horrifying screams and blood splattered across her hand paraded before her, remaining trickles from her dream, and the smell of blood filled her nose.

“No!” She gripped the edges of the porcelain sink to steady herself and clear her mind of the images. Her dreams were becoming more frequent and the vivid details lingering long after she awoke.

She let out the breath she was holding and splashed cold water on her face. The reflection in the mirror was an unwanted reminder that she couldn’t escape her heritage or the history that came with it, and there was nothing she could do about it.

Once she showered and got dressed, she pulled her hair into a ponytail. She walked down the short beige corridor to the living room and grabbed her keys off the hook on the wall. The cool morning air blew against her makeup-free face when she opened the door. She inhaled the salty air, and watched the sun peaking over the horizon of the ocean. They calmed her nerves as she made her way down the stairs and to her car. Starting the engine, she pulled out of the parking lot and towards the hotel where Meredith, her mother, had worked before she was arrested for murdering the guests.

Author Bio

Elke was born and raised on Grand Cayman and lives there with her husband and two kids who keep her on her toes. She has a sarcastic, quirky sense of humor not everyone gets, and is in a race to become the first Caymanian in space. When not writing, she's helping other writers in Cayman through her organization CayWriters.

Author of For the Love of Jazz and Deadly Bloodlines, book one in her Deadly Series scheduled for release in March 2014.

She stumbled into writing romantic suspense because of her fascination with serial killers, but also writes other genres because characters keep telling her their stories and she's a sucker for a crazy story.

You can connect with Elke:

Website

Facebook

Twitter

Goodreads

Enter to win a copy of Elke’s first book, FOR THE LOVE OF JAZZ.
<a id="rc-21562a2" class="rafl" href="http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/21562a2/" rel="nofollow">a Rafflecopter giveaway</a> <script src="//d12vno17mo87cx.cloudfront.net/embed/rafl/cptr.js"></script>

What Belongs To Her Tour - Interview with Rachel Brimble

I'm happy to welcome Rachel Brimble, Harlequin Superromance author, to my book blog today as part of the What Belongs To Her blog tour. Rachel lives with her husband and two young daughters in a small town near Bath and after having several novels published by small US presses, she secured agent representation in 2011. In 2012, she sold two books to Harlequin Superromance and a further three in 2013. She also writes Victorian romance for Kensington--her debut was released in April 2013 and she has since signed for three more. Rachel has answered a few questions I put to her about her book.

Please describe ‘What Belongs To Her’ in twenty words.
Love and revenge against the backdrop of Templeton’s fairground - someone will win and someone will definitely lose…

What is your writing process from inspiration to your book being ready for publication?

The pain starts with coming up with the ideas, lol! Ideas are everywhere, in newspapers, TV, conversation, past stories of my own and the people I know…the difficulty comes in taking a nugget of an idea and moulding it to stretch 90,000 entertaining words.

Once I have an idea in place, with the hero and heroine’s goals, motivations and conflicts firmly established, I write a two-three page synopsis. I then write their characters sketches, which more often than not, gives me more conflict to use throughout the story. I then write the first draft from beginning to end without looking back. The hard part comes in drafts two and three!

The process from idea to finished final draft usually takes me four-five months – I then send the manuscript to my agent or editor, depending if the book is contracted or waiting to be ‘shopped’.

You have some fascinating sounding characters in your book, from the determined Sasha Todd, who is ready to take back her family’s fairground from the local crime boss, to her attraction for his son, John Jordon. Can you tell us a little about the inspiration behind these characters?

This book began because of a character, Kyle Jordon, in the debut of the series, Finding Justice. He is Templeton Cove’s crime lord but readers loved him! He is a criminal with a big heart, albeit his morals aren’t too great. I wanted to bring Kyle back but in a smaller way, so I gave him a son who comes to the Cove after their estrangement.

John Jordon is tough, but very different in every other way from his father—he comes to the Cove to avenge Kyle, only to be faced with Sasha. A woman he didn’t bargain for. I had to create Sasha to be equally as tough and determined in order to give John a run for his money. To say there are sparks when these to meet is an understatement!

What research did you need to do for What Belongs To Her?

Not much! The fairground was inspired by a fairground that came to my village each Easter when I was a child. I’ve always loved the chaos, noise and smells of the fairground and as Templeton is a UK seaside town, it was the perfect place to set Sasha’s story. My books are entirely based in emotion so I often draw from my own feelings as well as those of the people I love.

Do you have a favourite writing place, or a writing routine that you follow?

My ‘writing place’ tends to move around the house within the day – I usually start on the sofa, then the kitchen table and finally locked away in my bedroom. I have no idea how or why this routine began except for the locked bedroom. This usually happens when my teenage girls arrive home from school and start hollering at each other!

I work from 8.30-3.30pm every day and then whatever time I can grab at the laptop until 7pm – after that it’s family time…this can also be known as TV and knitting time ;)

Can you tell us a little bit about your route to publication?

I have always wanted to write and when it neared the time that my youngest daughter was about to start school full-time, I had a ‘now or never moment’. I started writing short stories and when a few were published online and in women’s magazine, I attacked my dream of becoming a published novelist. My first book was published in 2007 and now I have 15 novels either contracted or published. To write for Harlequin and Kensington is a dream come true J

What do you think is the most important tip you’ve ever been given about writing a book?

“Give yourself permission to write a crappy first draft.” This is singularly the best advice ever to any aspiring novelist. Getting through the first draft of a book is incredibly hard after five, ten, even fifteen books, but the first is the hardest. Just write. Get it finished. You can play around with words once they on the page, but a blank page…not so much. Good luck!

Thank you, Rachel, and all the best for the success of your book.

 She's ready to take back what's hers. 

Since the moment a local crime boss claimed ownership of her family's fairground, Sasha Todd has dreamed of righting the wrong. Now it's time to act, and backing down from the man's estranged son is definitely not an option. After all, giving up her legacy to hot-blooded John Jordon means losing the chance to finally heal the wounds in her past. 

Stopping John in his tracks—and resisting the sizzle between them—is Sasha's best defense. But there's more to him than she thought, which changes everything. With what matters most at stake, she'll have to risk a brand-new future with John, or walk away from the man whose heart belongs to her.

Rachel is offering a fab giveaway: One signed copy of What Belongs to Her plus a tote bag featuring the cover of The Temptation of Laura.   

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Rachel likes nothing more than connecting and chatting with her readers and fellow romance writers and would love to hear from you!

Here are her links: Website Blog Twitter Facebook

Cover Reveal - A Jersey Affair

Some days are ordinary, others more exciting either because the weather is glorious or because you're doing something particularly enjoyable... and then there are days, like today, that are particularly memorable and exciting.

Here's why I'm buzzing and over-excited... here's the cover for my next book, A Jersey Affair (out in April). Don't you think it's amazing!

A Jersey Affair - Editing and Acknowledgements

A Jersey Affair is soon to be launched and I'm working through final, final, final edits before sending the manuscript off to be formatted. Now I have to think about acknowledgements and who to thank and this takes a lot of thought. *stares maniacally into the distance by a waterfall*

I don't want to miss anyone out, but equally I don't want to go on for pages. I've had such incredible support for A Jersey Kiss since I nervously launched it into the world last August, from those closest to me to people I didn't know before they helped spread the word about my debut novel.

Writers and readers are wonderfully supportive people and a new book needs all the help it can get to be discovered by readers who will hopefully enjoy it enough to leave reviews, share posts on their Facebook status, share tweets, and tell their friends about the book.

So, how to make sure you thank everyone? I still don't know... *stares into the distance once again*