Sunday, November 10, 2019

The Very Thought of You

     A perfectionist equine vet. A gorgeous fireman. An unrequited high school crush blazes hot twelve years later.
Reliable Amanda McNeill’s world toppled last summer when Hollywood invaded her family’s horse breeding ranch.    
     Everyone’s moving onward and upward, but she’s in a massive rut. Weary of her label as the dependable older sister, she yearns to throw predictability to the wind and embrace spontaneity. She can be impulsive, even wild, and a hot fling with Jake Cruz might be the sizzle she needs to jump start her life.
     When firefighter Jake Cruz rescues a dog from a hit-and-run, the nearest vet is none other than his high school tutor, Amanda McNeill. Face to face with his former crush, he finds her to be even more beautiful than he remembers, and her charming blushes and heated glances tell him she notices him this time around. While Jake longs to discover if this Amanda matches the girl who starred in his adolescent fantasies, his desire to become fire captain, and earn his family's pride, requires he focus on work, not passion.
     Could his dream woman become his real love or will his professional ambitions extinguish their chances? Once the smoke clears, will Amanda realize Jake isn’t a fling but her hero after all?


Wild Women Authors is pleased to welcome back author Claire Marti as she celebrates the release of Book 2 in her Pacific Vista Ranch series, The Very Thought of You. With Claire today is equine vet Amanda McNeill.
Where are you from? Los Angeles, California
Tell us a bit about The Very Thought of You: The author, Claire Marti, shares the story of how Jake Cruz and I fell in love.
What did you think the first time you saw Jake Cruz? Back when I was a senior in high school, I tutored Jake in math. He was a skinny, shy little freshman. I thought he was sweet, like a little brother. What was your second thought, as in when you saw him several years later? Wow. When I saw him again this year, he’d changed considerably. Now he’s 6’5 and looks like that actor from [the movie] Magic Mike. You know, the firefighter?
Did you feel it was love at first sight? I’m not sure I believe in love at first sight. But it was definitely attraction at first sight. Butterflies in the belly, tingles up the spine type of attraction.
What do you like most about Jake? He is a sweetie beneath his big strong stoic firefighter exterior. His kindness makes me melt.
How would you describe Jake? Resilient, honorable, sweet, and drop-dead gorgeous.
How would he describe you? He tells everyone I’m his first and only love.
What made you choose veterinary medicine for a career? I’ve always loved animals and I knew when I was ten years old that I wanted to be a vet. When we moved to Pacific Vista Ranch, I fell more in love with horses and here I am.
What is your biggest fear? I’d love to say I’m fearless, but I’d be lying. Jake’s a firefighter and every time he goes on a call, I’m afraid he won’t return. But I can’t control that so, don’t tell him I told you, okay?
Our lips are sealed. So with all this stress, how do you relax? Read a good book, ride my horse Bianca, and snuggle with Jake.
Who is your favorite fictional character? Anne Elliot from Persuasion by Jane Austen
What is the best piece of advice you ever received? My sister Dylan told me to ask Jake out.
Thank you for taking tie out of your busy schedule, Amanda. Now it's time to chat with Claire.
What movies or books have had an impact on your career as a writer? So many! I’m a huge Hemingway fan. A Moveable Feast and The Sun Also Rises are two of my favorites. Nora Roberts helped me fall in love with romance––I love her witty dialogue and characters.
Tell us a bit about your publisher: how did you hear about them and what influenced your decision to submit to them? I decided to publish this series myself, so I’m the publisher.
What book[s] currently rest on your TBR pile? Liana de la Rosa’s To Tame a Scandalous Lady, Michele Arris’ See Me, and Sonali Dev’s Pride, Prejudice and Other Flavors.
Lastly, what's up next and when can we expect to see it on the shelves? The third book in my Pacific Vista Ranch series, For The Love of You, is Dylan McNeill and Gabriel DuVernay’s story. Look for it in January 2020.


To purchase The Very Thought of You, to to: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07YNY6JHS/











Sunday, November 3, 2019

A Stranger in the Family

Wild Women Authors is pleased to feature Wild Rose Press author Nancy S. Reece who is celebrating the release of A Stranger in the Family, a contemporary romantic suspense out of the Crimson Rose line. Nancy has brought along female protagonist, Lyric McKinney-Takeda.
Where are you from? Originally from Shannon, Ireland, I’ve been living and attending school in the Atlanta, Georgia area for the past five years.
Tell us a bit about A Stranger in the Family. It tells of how I met my husband, Colonel Yuri Takeda of the United Russian Republics Special Forces, and our struggles to move past the nasty polarization that comes from working on opposite sides of the conflict our world finds itself embroiled within. As both of us are engineers at heart, Yuri and I desire to leave the military and its headaches behind to work together on a truly new fighter that can take this planet to the stars. But our families are determined to keep us apart for purely political reasons. In our case, the enemy of my enemy is my true love.
What did you think the first time you saw Yuri Takeda? My first thought on meeting Yuri after a conference at the Georgia Institute of Technology on gyroscopic engines, an important component of space going vehicles, was that he was tall. Given that I’m almost six feet tall myself, it was a relief to meet a man I had to look up to in order to appreciate.
What was your second thought? My second thought was he’s a world-class asshole. And he still is, at times. It took a while to figure out that the coldness and distance was only a way of protecting himself from the outside world. We’ve both grown up in families that put duty to country before family, which left us feeling very alone. That shared life experience, along with our passion for flying, also helped us overcome the initial awkwardness in our conversations. Though we both travel quite a bit for our jobs, text messaging and Facetime calls helped ease the loneliness as well as gave us time to really get to know each other, our dreams and our fears.
Was it love at first sight? I was intrigued at first sight, but given our relative positions in our respective organizations it seemed like madness to try and build anything more than a professional friendship. However, I underestimated Yuri’s interest in me, and by the time I realized this was more than ‘like’, we were headed full speed toward a permanent relationship.
What do you like most about him? Yuri is my touchstone. He keeps me grounded when things begin to fall apart. He’s always thinking five steps ahead, which served us well once our relationship was exposed to the press, and we had to make a run for our lives to escape military tribunals for fraternizing with the enemy. Our rough edges mesh well together.
How would you describe him? Intelligent, compassionate, calculating, and sexy as hell.
Works for us; how would Yuri describe you? On a good day or a bad one? A good day, I’m his every wish come true. On a bad day, I’m an Irish Banshee.
Good one! What made you choose the military for a career? My step-father wanted me to marry for political reasons. The only way to assert my independence and escape a loveless marriage was to join the Allied Forces. Given my background in engineering and flying, Research and Development of Future Vessels was a natural fit. Also, with really pissing off my step-father was a delightful bonus.
What is your biggest fear? Being trapped in a life not of my choosing where I’m a doll to be trotted out for special functions and ignored or berated for my intelligence.
How do you relax? I love to swim, I love to fly, almost any outdoor activity really eases my stress.
Who is your favorite fictional character? Frodo from The Lord of the Rings. A perfect example of how it isn’t the size of the hero, it’s the size of the heart inside that hero. The smallest mouse can bring down the mightiest elephant.
What is the best piece of advice you ever received? Live your own truth. Nothing else will feel natural, and the falseness will eat away like a cancer.
Thank you, Lyric for taking the time away from your career, married life and the new baby. [oops, spoiler alert!]. We'd now like to talk with Nancy.
What movies or books have had an impact on your career as a writer? All the books I’ve read have had an impact on my writing. My mother was a librarian, so I grew up among the stacks and card catalogs. Every story fed my imagination, allowing me to grow my own fantasies. As for movies, the ones I enjoy the most are the ones closest to the actual books. There have been several series where the movies disappointed as they varied so wildly from the books.
What event in your private life were you able to bring to this story and how do you feel it impacted the novel? My father was an Aeronautic Engineer, and a flight instructor in the Army Air Corp during WW2. After the war he worked for United Air Lines for more than 35 years. I took my first flight at the age of three months and have loved flying ever since. The careers of Yuri and Lyric are in honor of him, and our shared love of the open skies.
Tell us a bit about your publisher: how did you hear about them and what influenced your decision to submit to them? My publisher is The Wild Rose Press, and I ADORE them! My first fantasy series was published with a small company and I wasn’t terribly happy with the results. I asked several of my friends who have been published by several houses and got their input based upon what this series is about and the books themselves, and the overwhelming response was TWRP. I love my editor, who is so so patient with me, and has really worked hard with me to help the texting messages in this book show up as this encompasses a large portion of the romance between the main characters.
What book[s] currently rest on your TBR pile? Every year I re-read The Lord of the Rings so they stay on my pile. Lately I been reading a lot of fan fiction online, mainly to get out of my own head and clear out the cobwebs.
Lastly, what's up next and when can we expect to see it on the shelves? The next book in the Family Devlyn series, “The Family Business” is ready for my final editing and should be to my editor within the month. I also have a Paranormal I’m finishing titled “Urban Wolf” about a pack of Lycan’s who live in a high-rise downtown.
To learn more about our feature author, go to:


To purchase A Stranger in the Family, go to:
Amazon.com

BN.com



Friday, November 1, 2019

Sinners' Opera

          Morgan D'Arcy is an English lord, a classical pianist, and a vampire. He has everything except what he desires most—Isabeau. As the Angel Gabriel he’s steered her life and career choice, preparing her to become Lady D'Arcy. Many forces oppose Morgan's daring plan—not the least of which is Vampyre law.
          Isabeau Gervase is a brilliant geneticist Though she no longer believes in angels, she sees a ticket to a Nobel Prize in Gabriel's secrets—secrets that have led her to a startling conclusion. Gabriel isn't human, and she fully intends to identify the species she named the Angel Genome.
          Morgan is ready to come back into Isabeau's life, but this time as a man not an angel. Will he outsmart his enemies, protect his beloved and escape death himself? For the first time in eternity, the clock is ticking.

Wild Women Authors is pleased to welcome Linda Nightingale, author of Sinners' Opera, a recent release out of the Wild Rose Press and protagonist, Isabeau Gervase.

Where are you from, Isabeau? Beaufort, South Carolina. I now live on lovely, historic Orange Street in Charleston and work as a geneticist at Life Gen, a genetics and stem cell laboratory. I love Charleston. From the Antebellum mansions along the Battery to the cobbled streets that mottle the city, Charleston is a treat. To describe the city would take my entire time. My love affair with an English lord played to the backdrop of Charleston’s famous Battery and to the sound of the waves crashing against the seawall. This time, too, will remain a part of Charleston to me.
Tell us a bit about Sinners’ Opera. You’ve heard the quote, “It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.” This describes my part in our intense love story...ours was a Sinners’ Opera, but I wouldn’t spare the tears to miss the dance. Morgan D’Arcy is beautiful, arrogant, talented, but there is darkness in him. He’s a vampire, a real one, but not a reanimated corpse. He’s a viral mutation of human DNA. The result resembles but is not like homo sapiens. For five months, we lived our idyll on the Battery. Morgan turned my life into a fairytale, and I love him still, will never love another. When the whole thing crashed down, I was shattered. He was my everything. Our story is passionate, sometimes thrilling, witty as Morgan himself, and as much about obsession as it is about the kind of love that comes once in a lifetime. Such love comes only to a man once because mortals are not strong enough to bear it twice.
What did you think the first time you saw Morgan? That he was an angel. Morgan D’Arcy was a man, a beautiful man, playing a grand piano, but he looked exactly like the angel who used to appear to me when I was a child. My earliest recollection of Gabriel was at two when I cried for the light to stay on, but my mother switched it off anyway. My angel turned it back on for me. He asked me not to tell anyone, and he became my imaginary friend.
What was your second thought? That he was the handsomest man I’d ever seen, and in his tux the most elegant and sophisticated. You have to understand—Morgan is a presence, a feast for the senses, and the most talented pianist I’ve  heard.
Did you feel it was love at first sight? Yes. He was my Gabriel. Twenty-five years before that concert, I’d known he was kind, affectionate, and caring. I remembered the feel of that silky blond hair drifting through my little fingers, those eyes so blue they put the July sky to shame. He was my guardian angel, and I loved him already.
What do you like most about him? I’m not sure. He tells me often that I’m beautiful, intelligent, and fun to be with, but now I’m not certain I believe these compliments. My innovative thinking, I suppose, and the fact that I can rub elbows with people from academia to the man on the street. I know he likes the sex.
How would you describe him? He’s 6’2” of gorgeous. He’s blond with long hair, big beautiful blue eyes, and a perfect body. He is a passionate and tender lover, and the easiest man in the world to fall in love with. He will enchant you. When he walks into a room, every woman, from spinster to teenager, stares at him. He makes people smile. He will make you his princess, but he is not always what he seems.
How would he describe you? As the woman he wants to marry, but his reasons behind this trouble me. I know his DNA isn’t human. I haven’t quantified the difference quite yet, but I’m working on it. I call his DNA my ‘angel genome’. Physically, in his aristocratic accent, he’d describe me as 5’8” tall, highlighted light-brown hair, and a quick mind. I know my career has something to do with it, but his purpose escapes me. I don’t believe in coincidence.
What made you choose to be a geneticist? My Angel Gabriel. He predicted one
day I’d hold the basis of life in my hands, that I’d be a geneticist. I love my work,
wouldn’t change professions. I love examining what makes a person the person
they are, from a genetic point-of-view. My career is fascinating, and I don’t regret
my choice at all, but I do wonder why ‘geneticist’ when the field was nowhere near
as advanced as it is now.
What is your biggest fear? That I’ll return to Morgan and our idyll by the sea…or that I won’t. Most of me longs for him, but I must stay away. I lose myself in him, become someone else. I regret leaving, but I can’t go back, you see.
How do you relax? I listen to music, read, or hang out with my friend Kirsty. Music, of course, I like piano. Books I like romance, sci-fi and fantasy. Kirsty has been my best friend since grade school.
Who is your favorite fictional character? Dorian Gray. In a way, Morgan resembles him, but not the seediness or innate darkness of spirit.
What is the best piece of advice you ever received? From Kirsty…Never return to Morgan. He devours you body and soul. I don’t know. She didn’t live as his lover or be the princess in his fairytale. He left me alone to work; never interfered. I just don’t know.
This has been most enlightening, Isabeau. Thank you for sharing your love and your pain with us. It couldn't have been easy. Now, it's time to speak with your creator, Linda Nightingale.
What movies or books have had an impact on your career as a writer?
“Interview with a Vampire”, in part I guess. I liked the surreal qualities and the drama. When I was young, I read the old gothic romances—Mary Stewart, Victoria Holt, Jean Plaidy, for some. I read one super romance about the Doan Boys, Quaker outlaws during the American Revolution, called “Firebrand”, and that book stays with me today. I love to read, be transported to another life and world, put under a spell so that you surface from the book when it is over. That’s what I strive for in every book I’ve written.
What event in your private life were you able to bring to this story and how do you feel it impacted the novel? This book is purely fiction. If my life had anything to do with it, I’ve been left before, and I could write the pain. Oh, and I made my ex-husband the villain though he wasn’t the one who left me. I wrote briefly about the Andalusian horse, as I always do, because I love the breed. I bred trained and showed the Andalusian for many happy years. Sinners’ Opera is a long figment of my imagination.
Tell us a bit about your publisher: how did you hear about them and what influenced your decision to submit to them? The Wild Rose Press is a fantastic publisher, and I’d recommend them to both writers and readers. They publish between 4 and 5 books per week and are very well known in publication circles. For several years, they’ve won the Best Publisher in the Preditors & Editors Poll. They are currently seeking submissions, and often run special calls. I heard about them from a friend and fellow author Beth Trissel. What she told me about them and what I found out when I did my research influenced me to submit. I don’t regret that decision.
What book[s] currently rest on your TBR pile? A classic old gothic, the Mary Stewart Merlin trilogy; the final in the Game of Thrones series, and the list goes on. Like the old saying, “My eyes were bigger than my belly,” my case is, “My stack is bigger than my eyes.” Between promoting, being fairly active on The Wild Rose Press loop (supportive group of authors), writing, and doing general living things, my reading time is woefully limited. Last week, I joined the Elks Lodge BPOE #1206, and I plan to devote some time to their charitable works. So, I’m now an Elk!
Lastly, what's up next and when can we expect to see it on the shelves? Yesterday, I received my rights to Sinners’ Obsession back from the original publisher. It is the sequel to Sinners’ Opera, but it has yet to even be submitted. I’m working on Mr. Piano Man, a companion story to Sinners’ Opera, starring Morgan, of course. It’s told in a frame, beginning in the roaring 80s in Charleston, flashing back to WWII during the Blitz in England for an entire story; The story then returns to 1989 for the conclusion. When either of them will see light is a ways away. The next probably is Life for Sale, the sequel to Love For Sale. It is at least with my editor! I’ve more ideas than time it seems.

Linda brought along an excerpt for us:

Isabeau halted inches from Morgan, and a wonderful sense of release flooded her. Against a backdrop of stone and fragrant flower, he stood alone. People moved but they were outside the sphere of power he radiated.
“Isabeau.” His voice still enchanted, but his expression twisted her heart.
A band tightened around her chest. Why was he frowning?
Morgan didn’t touch her with his hands. His gaze touched her like a physical caress. “You needn’t go home with him.”
She shook her head. “I can’t just leave him.”
His voice dropped an octave, eyes dark, stormy. “Will you sleep with him?”
The question was too personal for strangers. Yet she wasn’t offended. He took her hands, and he took her breath away. She longed to counter with, “Will you sleep with the brunette tonight?” but, gazing into his eyes, she couldn’t speak.
“You hesitate. Is it such a difficult question? Are you going to bed with him?” He trapped his lower lip between sharp-looking incisors.
She glanced at his hands—cool, strong, elegant—and his grip tightened. “No, not tonight. Nor ever again I think.”
How could total strangers speak vows, ignore polite banter to dive to the heart? But they weren’t strangers, were they? She didn’t know when, but her belief that Morgan was Gabriel had solidified. Too many similarities teased her; coincidence not a word in her vocabulary.
The anger faded from his eyes, again luminescent blue. “Good.”
People scattered to a staccato of rain. A hand at her waist, he guided her into the shadow of an eave, shielding her from the storm. Sheet lightning flashed across the sky. Thunder crashed as the storm gathered momentum. Even in darkness, she could see his eyes. He seemed to have stopped breathing, seemed on the verge of a confession. She waited, trembling inside.
To purchase Sinners’ Opera in print and eBook go to:







About Linda:
     After 14 years in Texas, Linda just returned home to her roots. She has seven published novels, four of which are available from Audible.com in audio. For many years, she bred, trained and showed Andalusian horses. So, she’s seen a lot of this country from the windshield of a truck pulling a horse trailer. Linda has won several writing awards, including the Georgia Romance Writers’ Magnolia Award and the SARA Merritt.
     She retired from a career as a legal assistant at MD Anderson Cancer Center to write full time. She has 2 wonderful sons—one in Texas; one in England—and 4 equally marvelous grandchildren. She loves horses, sports cars, music, and piano, and enjoys dressing up and hosting formal dinner parties.

To learn more about Linda Nightingale and the stories she creates, go to: