Wednesday, September 26, 2018

Welcome to Autumn and Author Shay Stone!


Well hello my lovelies, it's autumn, my favorite season of the year. I love everything about it, from the change in the color of the leaves to the cooler temperatures. Anyway, I am well and truly back in the seat attempting to write the next bestselling romance. Work has begun on the prequel to The Rise of Orion series, Becoming the Witch, and I am equal parts terrified and excited about this project...nothing new there then!!!

Today, I would love to introduce you to fellow Author Shay Stone


Author Bio

Shay Stone started her writing career after a car accident left her unable to read or look at a computer. Ironic, right? Many years, and hours of vision therapy later, and voila! She wrote her first book. She lives in Georgia with her four dogs and one cat that
thinks he is a dog. If you happen to be driving around Atlanta, there is a good chance you will see her dancing in her car and singing (poorly) to some 80’s tune. She has no shame.
   Her passions include writing and traveling. She writes strong women with a bit of attitude, and flawed men that you can’t help but fall in love with to create that once in a lifetime love one page at a time. The Rise to Fame is her first contemporary romance and part of The Fame Series. The second book, The Cost of Fame will be available September 19th, 2018.
  
To stay up to date on Shay’s latest releases check out her website or follow her on social media:




The Cost of Fame book 2

Series Tagline: What if getting everything you ever wanted cost you the only one you ever loved?

One night. One stupid night. That's all it took to tear Alex’s world apart and rip her heart in two. Thanks to Richard’s plan she believes Colin committed the ultimate betrayal and she can’t imagine ever forgiving him.
With Colin out of the way, Richard thinks his path to Alexandra is clear. But when he discovers a megastar is also vying for her affection, Richard is forced to up his game. With his obsession out of control, he takes drastic measures leaving Alex no choice. The only way to protect the people she loves is to agree to Richard’s terms and let Colin go forever.
After reluctantly giving her the space she requested, Colin returns home from a movie shoot determined to win Alex back. He won’t stop until she is back in his arms where she belongs. But she isn’t making it easy. Despite her continued attempts to push him away, it’s obvious she still loves him. Something isn’t right. If Colin doesn’t figure it out soon, one of them will be forced to pay the ultimate price.Not all stories have a happy ending. Will Colin and Alex get theirs or will their love be The Cost of Fame?






Excerpt from The Cost of Fame Copyright Shay Stone 2018© *With the exception of brief quotations to be used in reviews or other noncommercial uses, no part of this excerpt can be used or reproduced.*


COLIN sat on the bedroom floor leaning against the wall with his knees bent rereading the last text messages. Great! Now she doesn’t even want to talk to me. He took another swig of the now half empty bottle of whiskey. The events of the past few weeks kept replaying over and over in his mind like a bad movie. He remembered talking to Alex, ecstatic for her to come home so he could propose. Then he was at the bar with Erik meeting with the investors. After that, everything got fuzzy. How the hell did he end up in bed with Brittany? How could he have done this? A knock at the door interrupted his thoughts. With a groan, he shuffled down the stairs to answer it. If it was another goddamn reporter he’d take that camera and shove it right up his…
“Erik.” Erik waved his hand in front of his face smelling the booze on Colin’s breath.
“Jesus man! You smell like my Uncle Jerry after one of his benders.” He took the bottle from Colin’s hand and inspected it.
“Did you drink this whole thing?”
“Not yet, but I’m working on it.” Colin snatched the bottle back from Erik and followed him into the kitchen. He scrubbed his hand over the back of his head.
 “It’s been a rough damn night. Did you find her?”
“Yes… no… well, kind of,” Erik replied, opening cupboards hunting around the kitchen. “Don’t you have a coffee pot?”
“Alex drinks tea or that fancy coffee. I usually run to the place around the corner to get us some in the morning. What does that mean, ‘kind of’?”
“I know she went to the First Beverly Hotel. Then she ditched her car and left in a silver BMW.” He spotted some instant coffee and frowned shaking his head in disapproval.
“A silver BMW? Who the hell drives a silver BMW?”
“Don’t know. You tell me. Here drink this.” He handed Colin a bottle of coconut water he found in the refrigerator, but Colin waved it away.
“Look, just give her some time. I’m sure she just needs a little space.”
“I’m afraid to give her space. Being apart isn’t good. How can we get through this… how can I make her see how sorry I am if she won’t even talk to me?” He rubbed his eyes with his palms trying to focus his thoughts.
“Erik, I don’t even know how this happened.”
“You were pretty out of it that night.”
“I was? I remember having one... maybe two drinks… that’s it.”
 “Well yeah, but then you started rollin’ with that Brittany girl and taking God knows what else…”
“I did? Why the hell did I do that? And why can’t I remember? I don’t take drugs. I mean I’ve smoked a little pot here and there when I was younger but I’ve never…”
“Hey, it was a crazy night,” Erik remarked leaning against the kitchen table. “Let’s not focus on that now. It’s done. It’s over with. I’ve got something I need to talk to you about, but I need you sober enough to listen.”
“Is it about Alex?”



“No, it’s not about Alex. Will you forget about Alex for two damn minutes? It’s a job offer. I got a call from Stefan Biseman. He wants you for his new biopic. He sent the script over this morning.”
“Really?” Colin responded only half paying attention as he checked his phone again. Still nothing from Alex. Erik stole the phone from his hand and set it on the counter forcing Colin to listen.
“Did you hear me? BISE-MAN.” He pointed to his mouth exaggerating the enunciation.
 “Yeah, I heard you. I know who he is.”
“Are you sure? Because you’re acting like you don’t.”
“Yeah, fine I’ll read the script.” Erik rolled his eyes at Colin’s lack of enthusiasm.
 “One of the greatest directors of all time is asking for you by name and you couldn’t care less. Damn. I’m telling you that girl must have some kind of magic pussy.”
“Hey, don’t talk about her like that,” Colin snapped with venom. Erik held his hands up in surrender.
“Alright, I’m sorry. I’m just saying. You know how much money this could mean?”
“I don’t give a shit about money.”
“I know. Lucky for you, I do. You just won two awards. We need to strike while the iron’s hot! Think of it as a distraction to help get your mind off things.”
“I said I’ll read it.”
“Good. It’s phenomenal. You’re going to love it. Filming would start at the end of next month. But there’s a catch,” he hesitated knowing it could be a deal breaker. Colin looked at him expectantly. “You’d be filming in Yakutat, Alaska.”
“Okay… so?”
“It’s one of the most remote places on earth. No internet, cell reception... Nothing.” Colin shook his head.
“No way. Not now. Not with everything going on. I mean, I hope Alex and I have worked everything out by then, but I can’t just leave. I need to be here with her. We’re going to need time.”
“You’re killing me here. You know, that right? You don’t just turn down Biseman.” Aggravated, Erik pulled his ringing phone from his pocket and answered it. “This is Erik. What? Wait… are you sure? Alright, thanks.”
This was great. It couldn’t have been more perfect if he had planned it, which he had… well, part of it anyway. Colin stood glaring at him, waiting for him to divulge something. “That was one of my sources at The Shores in Santa Monica. He just saw Alex get into a car and leave the hotel… with Donovan Michaels.”


Media links:

Book links:
Universal link to KOBO, Apple and Kindle: https://books2read.com/b/4AYpAK
Just Kindle (if you need it): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07FFFK1GZ

The Cost of Fame newsletter excerpt : http://eepurl.com/dDY8m9

The Rise to Fame newsletter sign-up w/excerpt
Link to receive it and subscribe:




Thank you for checking out my blog. I will be sharing pictures and thoughts about my trip to Italy next time, but here is the cover for my next book....







Monday, August 13, 2018

New release and Giveaway!

REVENGE OF THE WITCH ( BOOK#3 in The Rise of Orion series)  




                                                       
                                                              EBOOK ON AMAZON




I love writing about Ella Masters who was hung as a witch in the 16th century in Wales, and yet as a soul-shifter her story didn't end there. She has several lives, and in nearly every one is betrayed by men. The series is about her quest for enlightenment, and true love, but also about breaking a curse and defeating her enemy.

This past week I opened a new Word file, as I started to write the 4th installment in the series Destiny of the Witch. But, the strangest thing happened. A voice kept saying to me to write about how the story of Ella Masters began...


You see way back in the day when I first had the desire to write a paranormal romance, I knew straight away I wanted to create a character slighty different than the norm. I love vampires, witches, and werewolves, but I wanted Ella Masters to be different. Living in New England the drive to write about a witch captured my imagination, but coming from Wales I wanted to use my roots as a foundation for Ella and stumbled across Gwen Ferch Ellis.

She is the first woman on record that was tried, sentenced and hung as a witch in 1594 in Denbigh, Wales. For several centuries from 14th-18th a mass hysetria and panic gripped society across Europe and the attitude toward witchcraft changed drastically from tolerance to finger-pointing and blaming for every disaster that occurred, until it reached it's pinnacle with the insanity of the witch trails in which thousands were hung or burned as witches.

Gwen was accused of charming and found guilty of murdering a man and causing a child to go mad. By all accounts Gwen was a spinner by trade and a healer known for her salves and natural remedies, but on the heresay of others she was painted as a vengeful woman who used witchcraft to strike out at people. Her awful and sad story resonated with me, and was the inspiration behind creating the fictional character of Ella Masters.

Ella isn't a witch, but a soul-shifter created with the ability for her soul to be reincarnated into another physical body, but the label of The Witch follows her in each lifeSo, as I celebrate the latest release, I am starting to outline the prequel, Becoming the Witch! 

                                                    Other News


Over the last couple of months I have been working with musician and singer Chris Phillips who created a song for Revenge of the Witch called The Fall!


Yesterday, I had the chance to listen to the recorded version and I'm telling you, it's amazing. It gives me chills just to think about it. When the final song is ready, I will be posting it everywhere.

Here's a litle bit about Chris...

Chris Phillips has been described by Alan McGee (the man who discovered British rock giants, Oasis) as "one of Wales' greatest songwriters”.

Born and raised in Aberdare, South Wales, Chris has written songs since he first learnt to play the guitar. He has always sighted his influences as Oasis, The Beatles and The Stone Roses and this will become absolutely clear to you when you listen to his music.
He has just released his 3rd album ‘Where Angels Play’ which is available everywhere now.
www.chrisphillipsmusic.org


Finally....

Sign-up for my twice monthly newsletter and you could win yourself a signed copy of one of my books...One winner will be announced today!


NEWSLETTER

I'm off on vacation on Wednesday, so it's "Ciao" for now.  Jen. x

Revenge of the Witch is out now........




Tuesday, July 17, 2018

New release in August





Revenge of the Witch will be released on Friday 10th, August, 2018!


Throughout her many lives, soul-shifter Ella Masters has been betrayed by men, and hunted by the Elusti, but that changed the day she met her soul-mate Marcus. However, when Zephra, a witch, predicts the end of days, it brings her maternity leave to an abrupt halt. Working as an agent at Orion, Ella vows to destroy her adversary once and for all.

Temporary leader of the private security firm, Marcus Drayton, has a mission to prevent all-out war. Attempting to forge an alliance between the humans and the supernatural races looks unlikely as the body count continues to sweep over the East Coast, and on the home front. As the stakes increase, lives are forever changed, and a need to confess a dark secret to his wife haunts him.


When Ella unravels a mystery—her world implodes. And when the true identity of the enemy is revealed—she learns revenge is a poison that ruptures the heart and devours the soul.

Will her love for Marcus survive when destiny calls?







NEWSLETTER SIGN-UP

Meet the Author


The Rise of Orion series is sold via Amazon and is available at Wicked Good Books in Salem, MA.

Both books 1 & 2 Capturing the Last Welsh Witch and The Witch's Heart are currently available. I will be there on Saturday, 28th July, 2018. I hope if any of you are in the area, you will pop in and say hello.





Next Month...

I will be celebrating my new release with some free giveaways, and jetting off to Italy for a vacation. Pictures will follow! The Vineyards of Allegretti was set in Montepulciano, Tuscany. The link below will take you to the book...perhaps another one will be born when I travel south.


The Vineyards of Allegretti

Have a wonderful weekend

Thursday, February 1, 2018

From Wards to Writing LILY HARLEM






  Well good morning everyone, January is a hard month to get through, let alone get out of bed on those days when the temperatures doesn’t rise above freezing. My solution, HOT STEAMY READS, preferably in bed! I am delighted to introduce my next guest, Lily Harlem. I am in the middle of one of her books, Cold Nights, Hot Bodies, which is sinfully good. I love meeting and chatting with new authors. I love discovering what makes them tick, and how they create their stories. It seems only fair to share Lily and her books with you all.

A quick fact, I used to be a RGN/Midwife working in a large teaching hospital for around 15 years. Working in the health care profession is something Lily and I have in common. It’s another reason for the post today because I love, and admire how women can reinvent themselves, use their life experiences, and create something new and awesome.




Please, give a warm welcome to LILY HARLEM….








From Wards to Writing
Lily Harlem

It’s great to be here today, thank you, Jennifer for inviting me. For those of you who don’t know me, I’m an erotic romance author, and I’ve been sitting at my desk overlooking the beautiful Welsh hills, tapping away on my laptop, for ten years now. To be honest it’s not something I ever thought I’d do, and certainly not when I was working in London on a busy trauma ward.

Nursing was all consuming physically and mentally, but I loved it, and I loved the camaraderie of working with a group of females (mainly females anyway). But after nearly twenty years of NHS service a move to Wales, because of my husband’s job, gave me the opportunity to change things around. He was very supportive when I decided to study creative writing and also kind of pleased that I didn’t find another ward to throw my energNightsies into; it meant I was home more (shift work is a bummer) and much less exhausted (I wasn’t asleep the  minute my head touched the pillow, which he highly approved of!). Not only that I loved my course and I soon realised the more I learnt about the craft of writing fiction, the less I knew. There are so many technicalities and reasons why a piece of writing reads well, or a character is believable, and a plot line worthy of a reader suspending their disbelief. It’s a case of mastering the basics, then the rest is endless fun to play with - a truly wonderful thing to become immersed in.

Which is exactly what happened, and soon, and true to my slightly obsessive nature, I was hooked. My next assignment was all I could think of, I was constantly going back to it tweaking and adding bits, then waiting anxiously to get it back from the tutor to read her comments - my creative writing professor was amazing, enthusiastic, whacky, energetic and not afraid to say when something was utter rubbish! I learned so much from her in three years and will always be grateful for her generosity of spirit and search for perfection.



                                      





But still, even at this point, erotic romance wasn’t on my radar. Until, that was, I saw a writing contest at LoveHoney (an online adult shop in the UK). It was a decent amount of prize money so I thought I’d give it a go. I dreamed up a steamy story about the President of the United States and a British female Prime Minister having a saucy rendezvous in the Oval Office (don’t worry this was long before President Trump and Theresa May, because I don’t think I’d have found them very inspiring LOL). To my surprise I won the top prize with my first piece of hot and steamy fiction (which you can read in my collection STORIES FOR WHEN THE SUN GOES DOWN ) and was totally thrilled.

From that moment on I’ve always said the erotic romance genre found me, rather than me finding it. Before long I was having short stories accepted for anthologies and at publishers in the UK and USA. The short stories turned into novels, which became series, and I have more than a million published words (I stopped counting after that!).

Writing has become a huge part of my life, and is a full time job now. I do still miss working with a group of nurses, writing can be a lonely job, but I’ve found that my online friends - other authors and readers - have filled the gap. Although often not seen face-to-face, there’s daily chats, fun and support. I can’t imagine not writing now, there’s always a to-do list of ‘things to write’ on my notepad. It seems I’m inspired everywhere I turn and living in such a gentle and pretty part of the world, with a few rescued pets at my side, really helps my muse.

Thank you for having me, and for reading. If you’d like to sample my style, sign up to my NEWSLETTER and get a FREE ebook (18+).



                               


           Lily x

About Lily Harlem

Lily Harlem lives in the UK and is an award-winning author of sexy romance. She writes for publishers on both sides of the Atlantic including HarperCollins, Totally Bound, Pride, Evernight, and Stormy Night Publications. Her work regularly receives high praise and industry nominations.
Before turning her hand to writing Lily Harlem worked as a trauma nurse and her latest HarperCollins release, Confessions of a Naughty Night Nurse draws on her many experiences while nursing in London. Lily also self-publishes and The Silk Tie, The Glass Knot, Cold Nights, Hot Bodies, Bite Mark and Shared have been blessed with many 5* reviews – all available on Kindle Unlimited.
Check out Lily’s new reverse harem series – The Challenge – also on KU.
If you love sporty romance don’t miss Hot Ice a seven novel 5* series about those sexy bad boys of the ice all available on Kindle Unlimited and the first book FREE when you sign up to her newsletter. And also check out Formula One themed novel Accelerated Passion and sexy soccer story Scored.
Lily writes MF, MM and ménage a trois, her books regularly hit the #1 spot on Amazon Bestseller lists and Breathe You In was named a USA Today Reviewer’s Recommended Read of 2014. Her latest MM novel is Dark Warrior and you can grab Part One of her MM series Caught on Camera  for FREE!
Lily also co-authors with Natalie Dae and publishes darker plot lines and suspense under the name Harlem Dae - check out That Filthy Book which has been hailed as a novel 'every woman should read' and is available in book stores nationwide. The Sexy as Hell Trilogy, a critically acclaimed boxed set, is available on Amazon and KU.
One thing you can be sure of, whatever book you pick up by Ms Harlem, is it will be wildly romantic and deliciously sexy. Enjoy!
Visit Lily’s website for more details of her other books or her Amazon Author Page. Subscribe to her newsletter to get a FREE ebook and be the first to hear of new releases, and if you enjoy Facebook hop on over there and say hi!


                                  







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