Andrea Cooper Introduces Two New Romances

I am proud to introduce Andrea Cooper,  a bright new star in writing circles. She has two new books that she’d like to tell readers about: Viking Fire, a historical romance, and The Garnet Dagger, a paranormal romance.

Viking Fire Blurb: In 856 CE, Ireland is a land of myth, magic, and blood. Viking raiders have fought the Irish for over half a century. Rival Irish clans promise only betrayal and carnage.

Kaireen, daughter of Laird Liannon, is suddenly forced into an arranged marriage with her sworn enemy, a Viking. She refuses to submit. With no mention of love, only land and the protection of her clan, she endeavors to get her betrothed banished from her country. Will love find its way around her stubborn heart?

Bram, the Viking, finds himself without future or inheritance as a younger son in his family. A marriage to the Laird’s daughter would grant him land if he swears fidelity and if his men will fight along with the Liannons against any foe—Irish or Viking. However, the Laird’s feisty daughter only holds animosity for him and his kind. Is marriage worth the battle scars of such a relentless opponent?

With the blame for a rival laird’s death treacherously set against the Liannons, Kaireen and Bram must find a way to lay aside their differences as an unforeseen darkness sends death snapping at their heels.

Viking Fire Book Trailer: http://youtu.be/m1bPZ3nUyzs

Viking Fire Amazon: http://goo.gl/71VAsf

Viking Fire B & N: http://goo.gl/EvBxwf

Viking Fire iTunes: http://goo.gl/fQuKBd

Crimson Romance ebooks

The Garnet Dagger Blurb: Everyone knows what happens when a vampire bites a human…but what if the victim is Elvin?

Forbidden to cross the Elvin barrier into human lands, Brock cannot sate his curiosity. Cursed by a vampyre bite that forces him to feed on the life-essence of others, he is unable to touch another without taking their life. Chained by prophesy, he must find a witch, pierce her heart, and draw her blood for his cure.

Celeste must escape the monks who have held her prisoner for years. Her magic has been kept dormant by her captors. An ancient powerful Warloc craves her powers. If he succeeds in devouring her magic, she and his world will die.

When Brock falls in love with Celeste before realizing her demise is his cure, will love triumph over his desire to be healed? Will he risk everything to save her from a Warloc, an oath breaker, who also wants her dead?

The Garnet Dagger Book Trailer  http://youtu.be/ISi0u9LoseM

The Garnet Dagger Amazon: http://goo.gl/rMEJ59

The Garnet Dagger B & N: http://goo.gl/Qp5i6A

The Garnet Dagger iTunes: http://goo.gl/s1Cugp

Andrea’s Bio: Growing up in Houston, Texas, Andrea has always created characters and stories. But it wasn’t until she was in her late twenties that she started writing novels.

What happened that ignited the writing flame in her fingers? Divorced, and disillusioned by love songs and stories. They exaggerate. She thought. Love and Romance are not like that in the real world. Then she met her husband and realized, yes love and romance are exactly like the songs and stories say. She is now a happy wife, and a mom to three kids (two boys and a girl).

Andrea writes paranormal and historical romance. When not writing or reading, one may find Andrea dancing in Zumba.

She believes in the power of change and counting each moment as a blessing. But most importantly, she believes in love.

Read Full Post »

Janie Franz Talks About Writing

It’s a pleasant winter day in Santa Fe with temps in the high 40s. It’s just the perfect day to make some green chile stew with pork and cornbread and talk about writing.

My current work in progress is Legacy, the last book in the Ruins trilogy, an archaeology, romance thriller series. It’s been very hard to get into this one for a number of reasons. First of all, some of the emotions and issues in this one are difficult to work with (perhaps a bit too close to home).

Secondly, it’s been three years since I wrote a book. I’ve been spending all that time going through edits for my previous eleven books and trying to get into marketing mode. I’m still doing that with the re-issues of my first three books in the Bowdancer Saga that my current publisher is kindly releasing this year. (We’ll have the entire saga until one publishing house.) So, there is some definite nervousness about whether I can do it all again. But that’s the angst of any writer.

Thirdly, I’m a pantser (I don’t outline; just jot notes down at the end of my text). This means that I start a book with a plot idea and some idea of who the characters are. Then I begin writing, heading toward that elusive goal I have at the end, knowing that it can take a very divergent turn anywhere along the way. I learned that with my third book, Warrior Women. I had a pivotal scene that I was dying to write but I told myself not to. When I got to that point in the book, that scene took a very definite u-turn I didn’t expect. Had I written that book piecemeal, it wouldn’t have rung true.

I learned a significant truth about my writing style: I had to treat the book as if I were on stage acting. I’d done quite a bit of community theater a few years ago. I learned that you build energy from the first moment you step into the lights. That energy carries you through to the final curtain. If you get off on a bad footing, you can throw the other actors’ energy off and the entire play flounders. (I saw that happen to a troupe in state competition.)

So that’s how I write: start to finish. I write a scene or two and stop. When I return, I reread those scenes and let the energy carry me forward. And usually the characters will do what they’re doing to carry the story along without my forcing them into anything.

I’m finding my current new characters in this book aren’t behaving as I thought they would—except for one, based on a friend of mine. She is so easy to put on the page and everything feels so right about her—a feisty, independent older woman.

I think that this Zen way of writing marks my work. It’s never formula because I can’t force anything onto these characters. They just do what they do. So though I have romance/relationship elements in all my books, they are not always HEA or even HFN. You always know that another shoe will drop soon but not exactly at the moment the story ends.

I had one reader tell me that I certainly messed with the reader’s head because I had them thinking the story was going in one direction when it went into another and then another. I smiled and said, “Thank you. I guess I’m not predictable.” I think that was the biggest complement any reader can make to a writer—that he or she isn’t predictable.

I write what I write because I get odd ideas that I hope no one else has had before. And if they have, I hope that I take those ideas and twist them into something new and fresh. All my books have strong female characters. I deal with LGBT characters (some minor and some major) (well I have yet to write a book about a transgender person, but I probably will one day).  I write about spirituality in different ways, and I try to bring in bits of my own experience.

My book Sugar Magnolia, a contemporary romance about the music industry, draws on my work as a freelance music journalist. I love all of those characters especially the Rev. It was begun over 40 years before it was published but it just never worked. I picked it up again in 2010 and my years dealing with musicians (in my private life and in my work) just added authenticity and color to the book. It was so easy to write and, this time, it worked.

You can find all my books at Amazon and most at B&N. For a complete listing of my books with blurbs and excerpts, go to my author page at my publisher’s here: http://museituppublishing.com/bookstore/index.php/our-authors/56-our-authors/authors-f/145-author-43673

To visit the next links on this Blog Hop, please go to these fine authors’ websites:

K’Anne Meinel:  http://kannemeinel.wordpress.com

Dawn Carter:  http://carteredawn.wordpress.com

Angela Kay Austin:    www.angelakayaustin.blogspot.com

Read Full Post »