British SF Romance Author Pippa Jay

    Hi, my name is Pippa Jay and I'm an author. Y'know, it still feels a little odd saying that? My debut novel came out in May 2012, but it was a while before I felt brave enough to say it to a total stranger when they asked me what I do.

PIPPA JAY

Then she asked me, 

"What do you write?"

     "Science fiction romance."

"Oh, you mean like Twilight?"

Long pause.

     "Er, no, not like Twilight at all."

Moving swiftly on...

I write scifi, usually with romance woven through it. If you're wondering what science fiction romance is, think Star Wars (Han and Leia), Avatar and John Carter. Maybe even Farscape and the revamped Doctor Who? But I try to keep my stories tech light and avoid too many unpronounceable names, focusing mainly on my characters. I love to write tortured souls, and the more I can torture them, the happier I am! Bwah-ha-haaaa!

KEIR

I live in the glorious and historical town of Colchester in the UK - Britain's oldest recorded market town - with my husband of 20 years and our three little monsters. Colchester Zoo, the nearby coastline of East Anglia and the town's Roman and medieval past have all had their influence on my writing. My debut novel Keir starts in a setting probably more suited to a fantasy, based on my love for the medieval period and local landmarks like the Layer Marney Towers. But my characters are soon swept away to other worlds, including the tropical planet Metraxi, and the island paradise of Kasha-Asor (both based on hot, lazy days at the local beach). Yep, we do get hot days even in the UK! 

TERMS & CONDITIONS APPLY

 For my most recent release, a hot scifi romance called Terms & Conditions Apply, the story takes place on a luxury space station that promises to fulfil all your dreams with holographic suites and an empathic AI capable of seeing and fulfilling your darkest, deepest desires. But even there, the meeting area at the opening of the story is based on a setting in my home town. Culver Square doesn't have the statue of Venus in the centre, but a collection of seashells and sea holly that once had a fountain - until it was repeatedly polluted with detergent that made the pool foam over. Pretty, but it meant the council was constantly having to flush it out, and it just became too much work. :(

GETHYON

For my upcoming release Gethyon, I took myself back to my teens, along with some angsty music by My Chemical Romance and 30 Seconds to Mars, and modelled the younger version of my hero on my then six year old son. In part, Gethyon is a tribute to my first crush - a certain young hero by the name of Luke Skywalker, and the reason why I switched from writing elves and magic to aliens and spaceships. But even though Gethyon isn't strictly speaking a romance, a romantic element has still crept into this YA scifi novel. Does he get the girl? You'll have to read it to find out.

Bio and links –

A stay-at-home mum of three who spent twelve years working as an Analytical Chemist in a Metals and Minerals laboratory, Pippa Jay bases her stories on a lifetime addiction to science-fiction books and films. Somewhere along the line a touch of romance crept into her work and refused to leave. Between torturing her characters, she spends the odd free moments trying to learn guitar, indulging in freestyle street dance and drinking high-caffeine coffee. Although happily settled in historical Colchester in the UK with her husband of 20 years, she continues to roam the rest of the Universe in her head.

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Celebrating Romance in Jamaica

By Linda Lovely

Since this month’s blog topic is Celebrating Romance Around The World, I’d like to explain how and why I chose Jamaica as a prime setting for my romantic suspense novel, FINAL ACCOUNTING.

Given that I live in South Carolina and grew up in Iowa, setting my first novel, DEAR KILLER, in the S.C. Lowcountry, and my second, NO WAKE ZONE, in Spirit Lake/Okoboji, Iowa, made perfect sense. I had intimate knowledge of both locations—people, geography, history, culture—and could weave key details into my plots.

I’m the first to admit I don’t enjoy this type of familiarity with Jamaica. Yet, after visiting, how could I resist sending my characters here?

The island is a study in stark contrasts. Paradise and poverty. Lavish resorts and urban violence. Soaring mountains and deep, dark caves. These contrasts give an author everything she could ask for to make setting a character in the story—from fairytale beach backdrops that beg to have a couple kissing in the foreground to steep mountain roads where danger seems to lurk around every corner (even when you’re not being chased by a determined assassin).

Though similar contrasts can be found throughout the world (the U.S. included), I felt Jamaica offered my readers a number of exotic and unexpected extras. Many Jamaican tourists never step foot outside their all-inclusive, walled resorts. But my introduction offered a glimpse at this island’s true diversity.

That’s because my husband and I had expert guides. My sister, Rita, and brother-in-law, Hank, lived in Jamaica for seven years. Hank, an engineer, headed a major highway construction project, and his work took him (and any visitors) to virtually every part of the island. For instance, on one sojourn, we drove into the hinterlands in search of gravel pits. In our travels, we bought coconuts (but not the ganja) offered by roadside entrepreneurs, ate jerk chicken at stands where one hoped the fiery spices killed germs, marveled at the number of goats and machete-carrying pedestrians holding up traffic in Kingston. Of course, we also ate at five-star mountain-top restaurants, visited ritzy resorts, and went for an unforgettable evening cruise on Jamaica’s bioluminescent bay.

In FINAL ACCOUNTING, my heroine and hero visit many of these same places (sometimes because they’re being chased). But they also descend into Dragon’s Throat, a fictitious cave modeled on the Cockpit region’s real—and numerous—caves. Since I’m slightly claustrophobic and don’t like heights, I’m happy to report that I didn’t rappel into a mile-deep cavern for a first-hand experience. However, I did try to capture the reality of what my characters experienced. Thank heaven for the Internet and the wealth of research opportunities it offers authors.

My brother-in-law gave me the idea of using caves in my plot, suggesting they’d be “a great place to hide bodies.” His observation launched me on a research project back home, and it wasn’t long before I found the Jamaican Caves Organisation (JCO) and Ronald Stefan Stewart, JCO’s founder. After I viewed the JCO’s extensive library of videos capturing their exploration of dozens of different caves, I wrote a first draft of my cave scenes. Then I sent them to Stefan for review. His expertise was invaluable. He’s visited more than 250 caves and sinkholes in Jamaica and added more than 50 new ones to the nation’s Register. If there are any errors in my descriptions of the fictional Dragon’s Throat cave, caving, or the Cockpit region, rest assured they are my mistakes. If you have any interest in caving and the JCO’s important conservation initiatives, please visit the JCO website: http://www.jamaicancaves.org/main.htm.

What my research taught me is that authors don’t have to personally visit every location included in a novel—if they commit to doing the research and asking for help. Lots of gracious folks out there, like Stefan, are more than willing to help authors attempting to get the world they live in right.

Writing fiction exercises the imagination.  Taking our characters beyond our own geographic boundaries give us a chance to visit new, exciting worlds. Even if we never leave our computer screens.

Have your written about a place you’ve never visited? Have you read a book that made an unfamiliar location seem so real that you felt you’d spent time there?

THE TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS OF A HOARDER - MARGARET TANNER

DE-CLUTTERING, A NECESSARY EVIL?

 I am a clutter collector from way back. I figure why throw anything out; you never know when you might need it. I inherited the hoarder gene.

“Waste not, want not” was my mother’s motto and she lived by it the whole of her life. Maybe it was because she lived through the great depression of the 1930’s and World War 2, that she would use and re-use, save and squirrel away stuff. Our house was never untidy, because most of the hoarded items were well out of sight. 

I should have learned my lesson after my dear mother died about 20 years ago and my sister and I had to clear out her house. To say it was a nightmare was an understatement. It took weeks. My mother had kept receipts from the 1940’s, even her World War 2 ration book. And speaking of books, she had hundreds of them. Then there were the ornaments, pretty little knick-knacks that reposed on every shelf or level surface in the house. Boxes of china. Well, you get the idea.

Now you would think that after all this trauma and angst, I would have dashed home and gone through my own cupboards.  I didn’t, but I did take a lot of my mother’s stuff with me.  Well, how could I let it go?  All those little treasures.

My mother-in-law passed away, same story, I kept a lot of her things too. I was a hoarder.  It came as naturally as breathing or eating.

Well friends, retribution did come. The youngest of our sons finally left home, so hubby and I decided it was time to downsize. We bought a smaller house, and put our larger house on the market. “We’ve got a lot of stuff here, we’ll have to get rid of it,” hubby says.

Over my dead body. “No, we won’t do anything rash,” I said, “there’s plenty of time to work out what we want to keep.”

A week before the auction of our house, my husband had to have heart by-pass surgery, so I had to go on with the sale alone. After the auction and hubby’s successful operation, I had to start packing, because when he came home he couldn’t do anything for eight weeks. I really hit the panic button because we had a short settlement. Forty days to clear out all our stuff, that of my mother and mother-in-law (things I had kept, and shouldn’t have). Well, it was a nightmare. I did most of it on my own.  I don’t know how many trips I made to donate all these “treasures” to the second hand thrift shop (we call them Op shops here in Australia.  They are run by charities to raise money to help the less fortunate).  And I did help the less fortunate - big time.  The Op shop manager must have thought I was Mother Teresa re-incarnated.

It was terrible. I cried because I had to give away my ‘treasures, mum’s treasures and my mother in-law’s treasures’. Worse still, was the time it took to pack them and deliver them to the Op shop. 

With the clock ticking, I had to be ruthless – and I was.

If you are even contemplating moving house, start to get rid of your surplus stuff early.  In fact, don’t collect it in the first place.  A lady once told me that if she didn’t wear a dress for a year, she was probably never going to wear it again, and she got rid of it. Smart lady. Wish I had such courage.  I still cling to my favourite dresses, hey I might lose weight and they will fit me again???

The moral of this story is -  don’t hoard. De-clutter as much as possible, because one day you will have to sort it out, or your children will have to sort it out.  

The same goes for your writing.  Be ruthless. If the manuscript you have expended blood, sweat and tears over isn’t working, discard it.  Temporarily cast it into your bottom drawer is what I mean. Don’t destroy it, because you might be able to resurrect it at a later date.  Start on something fresh and new. Once you get your writing tastebuds tingling again with a new premise, a feisty heroine and a spunky hero, the words will start flowing until they become a torrent.

Never give up. It is a steep climb to the top of the publishing mountain, but oh what a view once you get there.

http://www.margarettanner.com/

Margaret writes spicy historical romance set in Australia.

 FIERY POSSESSION

American wild west versus Australian frontier.
Explosive results and tragedy follow Jo Saunders and Luke Campton when they cross the fine line dividing love and hate.

http://www.amazon.com/Fiery-Possession-ebook/dp/B00C2JOK6M/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1364548536&sr=1-1&keywords=fiery+possession

Split-brained thinking

by M.L. Buchman

Last month when I posted here (and actually a couple of other times since), I've was asked in the comments, "Do you write linearly or simultaneously, in order, out of order...?" So, here are a few of my thoughts on what I do.

First, note the word "I." This is what works for "me." If it doesn't work for you, for cryin' out loud, don't do it!

My wife made a serious mistake once, she asked me what I was thinking. So, I told her, and she asked me to never answer that question truthfully again. In the forefront of my mind is whatever's going on around me, usually. If you ask me a question and I look at you blinking and say, "Huh?" I was focusing on one of the other tracks in my brain. And the place that I'm probably busy multi-tracking is my books. I'm not saying I am simultaneously thinking on all the tracks below, but I certainly am thinking about each one many, many times during the day.

I work on four books at a time. Sounds scary? Then this post may not be for you. Sounds totally freakish? Then you may have a brain like my wife's, very, very smart lady, creative as hell, but certainly doesn't think this way.

My method of thinking of my writing in multiple tracks began years ago when I was a beginning writer volunteering to help organize a class in the 1980s where Mary Daheim was one of the guest speakers. She showed up for the three-day retreat bearing a thick manuscript and a slightly panicked expression. During breaks, when we were going to walks around the lake or chatting about craft, she was at a table off to the side reviewing her publisher's copy-edits of her latest manuscript (yes, it was done on paper back then). And more than once she talked about the next one she was writing and how hard it was to take a three-day break from it at the current stage that had been called for by the coincidence of the class and the copyedits.

Over one of the meals, and at a booksigning we shared later, I had the chance to talk about that multitasking mindset. She said that every author either had to be able to multitask, or they had to be willing to dump one project (even though incomplete) out of their brain, and pick up the interrupting project, and then figure out how to go back into the other.

I'm a multitasker by nature, so that is the route I've followed. For me, at this point in my career, it means I'm working on 4 books at once (sometimes more). As a demonstration, here they are as of this moment.

Book #1: Noodling
This is the book I'm noodling on in the back of my mind. A bit of story, a few characters, are they in London, Nigeria, or maybe Poughkeepsie, New York? (That's Poe-kip-see where I spent my teenage years.) I'm trying stuff on, like clothes in a store, to see what fits together. Occasionally I'll pop on the Internet for a few minutes research, or to look at some photos, just to see. Right now, this is for book #5 of my Night Stalkers military romantic suspense series. Book #4, Take Over at Midnight, is coming out in December, but #5 is due at the publisher in October, for release next August (as in 2014). So, I'm doing bits of research on current news on where the U.S. Army's Special Forces helicopter regiment might be flying. There's also been a shakeup in the cast (you'll have to read book #4 to find out what) and I need to think about how that all fits together.

Book #2: A few scenes
Once I'm deep enough into the noodling stage, I take a break and write a few scenes. These are sort of character and setting tests, and will typically end up being the opening of that book. There are actually three of these at the moment. Two Christmas novellas (1 in SOAR and 1 in my foodie contemporary romance series). I also have the third installment in the foodie contemporary, "Angelo's Hearth" series, the follow-on to the recently released Where Dreams Reside. (Where Dreams Unfold is actually really irritating at the moment because it is just screaming to be written, but I fear that, for scheduling reasons, it will have to go after the Christmas novellas, and maybe even after SOAR #5!) These each have a couple thousand words written and are now just waiting for me to get to them.

Book #3: Actual writing
I have long had a wacky fantasy series going in my head. My very first book (pubbed back in 1997 and just filled with awful, 1st-book writing) has sparked a long legacy of noodling around ideas. Right now I'm deep in writing the relaunch of the "Dieties" series, Cookbook From Hell: Reheated. It's about the Devil having a mid-life crisis. But before she can settle into a proper state of self pity, a Buddhist hungry ghost steals the software that runs the universe and it all goes to hell from there. I'm having so much fun I can hardly stand it. (It's not a romance, though there is a love story, of course. So it will be under my Matthew Lieber Buchman name.)

Book #4: Dealing with what I've just finished
This is marketing, copyedits, production madness. Sometimes there is one book here, sometimes four. At the moment, I'm waiting for copyedits on my latest manuscript from my traditional publisher and focusing on the marketing of my latest novella in my SOAR series, Frank's Independence Day and my latest foodie contemporary novel, Where Dreams Reside.

So, that's a trip through this writer's brain. Hope yours is more rational. :)

Holding out for a hero

There’s a British comedy show called ‘How TV Ruined Your Life’. It’s a humorous rant about how television has made everyone miserable by creating unrealistic and impossible expectations of how our lives will be. Television, it argues, has become one giant, mocking, 24/7 advertisement for stuff we’ll never have.

On TV, people’s lives are non-stop dramas of glamour, sex and instant celebrity – and that’s just the reality shows! Fictional TV characters aim for the stars when it comes to success in careers, friendships and love – nothing less than the miraculous will do. People quit great jobs, abandon loving boyfriends, walk away from situations that any of us could only dream about – because they’re holding out for more. Good isn’t good enough. Everything has to be perfect.

Lizzie, your life sucks. No, really.

Perhaps there should be a show called ‘How Romance Novels Ruined Your Life’. Because our characters behave like this all the time – and get rewarded for it. Lizzie Bennet shuns an advantageous but boring marriage to hold out for a hero – and does she end up miserable? Of course not. She gets Mr Darcy and Pemberley and his zillion pounds a year.

Of course, real life isn’t like Austen. Real people settle. This ain’t Pride and Prejudice. It’s more like ‘Game of Thrones’, where crappy things happen to you no matter how much you don’t deserve it. Mum told Robb Stark not to abandon his duty and marry for love, or it’d only end in tragedy. Guess what, Robb? Shoulda listened to Mum.

Mum told you so, Robb...

Naturally, like most British comedies, ‘How TV Ruined Your Life’ is more than it seems. It holds up a mirror to how vacuous the ‘entertainment’ industry has become, how banal is the cult of petty celebrity, and just how dumb the money-grubbing gutter-dwellers who produce TV shows think we are. Because their solution to all this unrequited envy, of course, is: buy more stuff.

Still. You can’t argue with popularity. There’s something about holding out for a hero that captures our imagination. We secretly admire these bull-headed characters who will risk everything for a chance at perfect happiness. We ask ourselves: would we do the same? What would we sacrifice for happiness? How much is enough?

I think most romance readers know the difference between real life and a book. Unrealistic expectations aren’t an issue, because they’re reading for escape and fantasy. If there was actually any danger that the heroine would have to settle? Readers would put the book down.

Because, unlike in real life, when you're curled up with a romance book, emotional fulfilment and eternal happiness are cheap. In romance, we all get to marry Mr Darcy, at least for a little while. And apart from a couple of bucks for a book? We didn’t have to buy anything.

And that's worth celebrating.

Celebrating Victorian Romance

by Christy Carlyle

Today I learned that my Victorian era-set romance, The Worth of a Kiss, won the historical category in the NEORWA (Northeast Ohio’s Romance Writers of America) Cleveland Rocks Romance contest. Beyond being thrilled to win the first contest I’ve ever entered, I am excited to have won with a historical romance entry set during the late 19^th century. Though I love Regency romance, it’s always been the Victorian era that called to me as a writer.

Personally, I blame my elementary school. For several years in row, they would gather us in the gymnasium

on the last day of the school year, turn down the lights, and spin reels of Oliver!, the 1968 film adaptation of Charles Dicken’s Oliver Twist. Like everyone else, I whined, groaned, and barely paid attention as the film began. But then, slowly, subtly, I fell in love—with the clothes, the setting, the grit and grime, and the complicated struggles of Victorian Londoners. Those scenes of the slum where Fagan lived with the beautiful dome of St Paul’s in the background were forever burned into my young, impressionable brain.

It’s no wonder, then, that when I write stories, I often see my characters inhabiting a darker, Dickensian Victorian London. And, yes, I always want to include lords and ladies, but also those of the working class, the less than proper, and the self-made men and women who struggled amidst grit and grime and the unprecedented technological and social changes of the era to thrive.

Two of my favorite historical romance authors, CourtneyMilan and Laura Lee Guhrke, set their stories during the Victorian era. Both do a wonderful job of bringing the period to life and joining old money aristocrats with new money heroes and heroines.

Two current television series, Copper and Ripper Street, also highlight the Victorians. Copper is set in the mean streets of New York City following the Civil War, and Ripper Street focuses on London’s East End and Whitechapel following the Jack the Ripper murders in the 1880s. If you crave a taste of the fashions and social and political issues of the mid to late 19th century, these two series will satisfy your desire.

I am thrilled to watch and read anything related to the Victorians. Most of all, I love writing about the time of Queen Victoria’s reign and seeing how my characters react to the ever changing era. It’s sweet to win a writing contest in the historical category, but it’s even sweeter to know that I can do it while writing about the period of history I love.

If you read historical romance, what historical setting do you prefer? 

Romance Reading Kiwi Style

Waving from New Zealand! Us kiwi's as we are known by, are ferocious readers, even though our country is very small!

New Zealand is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. The country geographically comprises two main landmasses ‒ that of the North and South Islands ‒ and numerous smaller islands – we are so original here!

NZ is pronounced Aotearoa in Maori, which means Land of The Long White Cloud. It's always

cloudy across NZ as we have a mountain range running through the middle of both islands.

New Zealander’s are about 2^nd or 3^rd in the world, in terms of books bought per head of population. However, romance is still seen as the ‘holiday’ only read. If you go into bookstores there is usually only a tiny romance bookshelf hidden at the back of the store.

However, recently this trend is changing. Book sellers are beginning to understand that romance sells. Mostly, the NZ bookstores sell romance books on their websites and don’t bring in paperback copies except for the NY Times best sellers.

None of my books are available in-store in NZ. My publisher didn’t think the market here was big enough (only 4 million people in NZ) to distribute here. However, they are all available online in NZ’s only book store chain – Whitcoulls (who bought Borders NZ).

Whitcoulls partners with Kobo in order to do this. So as long as my books are on Kobo, Whitcoulls customers can by them – paper back and eBook.

Thank goodness for eBooks is what NZ romance readers say. Fabulous for when we are on holiday at the beach. 

Prior to that, the biggest NZ book store was www.bookdepository.co.uk because it offered FREE world-wide delivery and prices were cheaper than buying from within NZ due to taxes and shipping. Apparently, NZ and Australia were their biggest markets, mainly because we have limited selection here. I would not have read half the authors I have found if not for Book Depository and eBooks.

My latest book to load on Whitcoulls NZ is my first contemporary romance (I usually write historical romances), The Reluctant Wife.

Abby Taylor walked out on her irresistible husband three years ago. Now she has no choice but to

return to Italy to ask him for a favor. To pay for her grandmother’s heart operation she needs his money, but it comes with strings attached.
Conte Dante Lombardi has it all—an Italian villa, a successful family business, and a noble title. But he needs a child to carry on his legacy and time is running out. He also hopes to satisfy the desire Abby rouses in him.

As Abby uncovers why he’s in such a hurry for a child, she falls in love with him again … just as she realizes it might be impossible to keep her end of the deal.

No doubt, those of you in USA, Canada or Europe have far greater access to romance books then we do in NZ but the eBook revolution is changing that and is probably why NZ has one of the highest uptakes of eBook readers per head of population too.

Either way, I've always managed to find a way to get hold of my favorite books. That’s the true sign of an avid romance reader!