31 July 2012

Tuesday Tales - Prompt - Blue

:-) Another week, another Tuesday Tales promt.  This week it is BLUE.  I have skipped forward in my WIP from last week and now my hero and heroine are heading for the Pyrenees and the French border.

From the vast acres of deep green foliage of the woods several feet below them now, Honor took in the tranquil blue of the Mediterranean sky, the vast expanse of green slopes dropping away from them, criss-crossed with hard-packed tracks that would turn into muddy rivers after a downpour of rain. Shiny outcrops of rock spearing through the green shimmered in the sunlight. Bird song, not the cry of battle, filled the sky. Only the clip-clop of the mules’ hooves disturbed the humming insects as they passed.  And still the heaviness of intuition told Honor they were not alone.

"How can you be sure we have moved away from Phillipe's recommended routes?  Have you been here before?"

“Of course not. We alway took our leave in a town where we could relax and top up on our personal items of need.”

“A hard life.”

Honor barely heard the words he spoke so quietly.

“We knew how to play, make no mistake, we had good times. I can’t deny it, life could be tough, and yet the friendships are the sort that will last a lifetime.”

Her voice trailed off as the image of three men pulling her husband off his horse and dragging him out of the camp ambushed her.

24 July 2012

Tuesday Tales - Promt Dawn

“Time is an illusion.” ― Albert Einstein So, where did it go to in the past seven days?
Here is another Tuesday Tales offering to this week's prompt 'dawn'.
It is from my Regency wip Vidal's Honor

Salamanca – July 22nd 1812

“We’ve endured some bad storms, have we not Dev, but I misremember one as bad as this.”

My Lady Beaumont snuggled up to her lord, her head on his shoulder.  They’d celebrate three blissful, if unusual years of marriage in a month’s time.  Hopefully this time they’d be back in England and she’d throw a party like none before. 

“The lightning was so bright at one point I thought it had struck our tent.”

“At least we had some cover,” Honor sighed, “those poor soldiers have no shelter at all and Wellington will expect them to perform their duties regardless.”

"We are at war, my dear.”  Lord Beaumont pulled his wife closer.  One more day and they’d be on their way home.  One more day…


So why did Devlin dread the coming dawn?


Another burst of thunder directly overhead shook the ground, and a flash of lightning lit up their meagre bivouac, followed within seconds by another flash and another roar of thunder.

“It must be all of two hours since this storm began.”  Honor traced Dev’s lips with her finger. “Perhaps we should distract ourselves?”

“And how do you suggest we do that?” Pushing the unidentified dread to the back of his mind, Devlin kissed his wife long and hard.

“That’s a good start.”  Honor returned his kiss and followed where he led.

* * *

Visit Amazon or Barnes & Noble to download copy of From Now Until Forever and His Chosen Bride while they are available for .99c each in the Astraea Press Summer sale.


or

Go to AP FB book club and request a free copy Of His Chosen Bride.
Both offers end Tuesday July 31st

20 July 2012

Double special offer ~ Two books for .99c

Two books for less than a dollar! What a month! :-)


For your FREE COPY of His Chosen Bride
Apply to Astraea Press FB book club http://www.facebook.com/#!/groups/319805601428268/

 and email reveiwcoordinator@att.net   for your FREE copy 


Don't miss the second special Astraea Press Offer - also available until the end of the month, and get


also available at Amazon

Don't miss your chance to get the first two Gasquet Princes books for only .99c


These offers last until the end of July '12 Don't miss out. :-)

16 July 2012

Tuesdays Tales Picture Prompt - Chest

It's time for Tuesday's Tales again.  Would someone please slow down the clock, I can't belive how time is flying by!
It's Picture Prompt week this week and today's prompt is chest.  My story today is a stand-alone story.  I may expand it one day, but not right now.
Thank you for coming by.

A single beam of sunlight from the attic window shone on the chest.  She’d thought it was a legend. Not real, and yet there it sat right in front of her in the middle of the attic room.

Nut brown, and faded in places, where, she thought, the sun had caught it over the years. Its domed lid with the obligatory metal bands as did the base of the chest reminded her of something out of a child’s pirate’s story.

Every night her father—adoptive father—wove wonderful stories around a treasure chest.  “One day, you’ll find your own treasure chest,” he’d told her one night.  Something, a look in his eyes, seared the comments into her memory. And now, years later, she sat in front of a nut brown treasure chest.

Like a magnate it drew her across the room.  Of course it would be locked and she didn’t have a key. Still, she crossed the room and sat on the floor in front of the chest. 

She reached out and laid her hand on the lid.  It came alive under her touch, pulsed beneath her fingers. Shock forced her back.  A box didn’t pulse, not even when it looked like a treasure chest.  Tentatively, she reached out again.  Steady as a heartbeat, the pulse grew stronger.

Before she changed her mind she grasped the lid and lifted.

It opened, and mesmerised she gazed at a white-lace baby’s dress, and white knitted cap. Beneath it a birth certificate…  Letters, lots of them; and pictures.

The top one from her adoptive parents. The rest were a mixture from her birth, and adopted parents. She sifted through them.

Treasure indeed, and worth more, more than all the gold doubloons and secret maps in the world.  These were part of her—

Family.



15 July 2012

Six Sentence Sunday.

Welcome back to Six Sentence Sunday :-) I have skipped forward for this week's snippet which is from my current WIP. Vidal's Honor.

        “Only someone close to Beaumont could betray him so successfully.”  Juan let the words drop into the nightly silence.

       “What are you saying?” 
Vidal reeled away, stupefied by Juan’s implications.  Was he implying Honor had betrayed Dev?  Would she, could she, surely not! 

http://www.sherrygloag.com

10 July 2012

Sometimes

Sometimes life just seems to fall into place, everything, becomes complex, while at others the simple becomes too complicated to even fathom.

It's simply part of the cycle that is life, but what do you do when you find yourself in that trough?  How do you persuade yourself to get up and get on?

There are writing days that follow that cycle.  One moment you can hardly keep up with your fingers as they try to get your ideas onto the 'page', and the next you find yourself staring at a blank screen, with no idea where the next word is coming from.  Normally, I'd open an independent doc and just write whatever - and not even look at what was going down.  More often than not, it's mostly pretty useless, but there are those occasions when you read it back and you know... You just know - you have a gem.  You also know that it's going to fit into your story somehow, and that when you've solved that puzzle your writing will flow again.

I'm still waiting....




7 July 2012

Last chance to win a unique prize.

When, back in April, Goddessfish arranged the vbt for my Gasquet Princes series , I had no idea book two, His Chosen Bride would be picked (using random org) as Astraea Press's July's FB book of the Month.


If you want to know more about His Chosen Bride, and still have a chance to win some unique handcrafted prizes, there's time to leave a comment before this evening -UK time.

All you have to do is hop over to

http://goddessfishpromotions.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/virtual-book-tour-gasquet-princes.html and say 'Hi'.

Prize winners will be announced later today (Saturday 7th July)

4 July 2012

4th July Sweet Swap Blog

Across the pond the 4th of July -Independence Day- is a cause of great celebration. But there are plenty of other events that can be celebrated. While her arrival came several weeks before today, Amber Maya is a great source of celebration.






Blog-Hop Giveaway

a pdf copy of my first novella
The Wrong Target

Also
Request your FREE copy of His Chosen Bride
when you join the FB
Astraea Press Book Club


Excerpt:
She lost track of time until the flames caught her attention once more. They flickered from orange to gold, to silver, to white.

A flurry of snowflakes masked the flames and for a second Monica watched the most beautiful, pristine snow-scene she’d ever seen. Her lips curved in longing. How she’d love to get a toboggan and slide down that slope. She knew where it was, and had done just that many times in her childhood, first with her parents and then, in clandestine manner, with her brother. Sneaking an old tin tray from the back of her mother’s walk-in pantry, she’d then grabbed Billy’s hand and they’d rushed out the back gate, heading for the lakeside track that led up into the hills.

Darkness, dense and thick with grief dropped over the scene. Startled and disconcerted by the strength of emotion emanating from the vision Monica shifted to her knees, ready to stand, when a voice, a deep male voice, sharp with fear called out her name.

“Monica!”

She knew she’d never heard the voice before, and yet—it was as familiar to her as the image she saw in her mirror each morning.

“Help me, Monica.”

Desperate for more clues, she searched the darkness within the flames until it sputtered and faded. With a curse she jumped up and ran for the phone. With her outstretched hand hovering over it she halted and let her hand drop to her side once more. What could she say? What would the police or rescue team think of her if she called them and told them she’d seen a vision of a man in distress?

They’d laugh in her face and classify her as a lunatic. Well, maybe not. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d contacted them with positive information but something—an instinctive gut reaction told her what she’d seen this time hadn’t happened yet.

Click HERE for details.

* * *Visit other Blog Hoppers at . . .
Jean Joachim at

Dawne M Prochilo at




3 July 2012

Tuesday's Tales - Money

In this week's Tuesday's Tales, I'm tweaking my Tale to 'fit' this week's prompt which is money.

The first bit follows in directly from last week, then there is a 'break' which you can read in my Saturday and Sunday posts, then I take up the story again here.

When Vidal tried to press money into the man’s hand he stepped back, his hands behind his back. “Phillipe does not tell us all, but whatever he decides we all support him.”

“Then why talk to me?”

“Because if the French return and find Phillipe gone, they will not rest until he is found. If this girl is your affair you need to find her and let Phillipe come home.”

He offered his hand to his informant and shook it. “Thank you. I will endeavour to see Phillipe returns to you all safely.”

....  in the following scene Vidal is now talking to the guide who brought him safely from Gibraltar into Spain...

"...Surely you don’t think I’d leave you on your own. A lone traveller would draw attention.”

“How so?”

“Most would assume you to be a deserter and attack you for it.”

“What about your family?”

Juan’s eyes hardened, his lips thinned and he thrust his fists into his pockets. “I have no family. They were taken.”


2 July 2012

FREE everyday during July

His Chosen Bride
(published Astraea Press)
is the second book in the
Gasquet Princes series.
Blurb:
Prince Henri Gasquet is happy to let his father, the king, choose his bride for him until he meets Monica Latimer.
Monica Latimer is not prepared to risk letting any man close enough to learn about her Gift. A gift that normally has men running for the hills when they find out about it.


Excerpt:
She lost track of time until the flames caught her attention once more. They flickered from orange to gold, to silver, to white.

A flurry of snowflakes masked the flames and for a second Monica watched the most beautiful, pristine snow-scene she’d ever seen. Her lips curved in longing. How she’d love to get a toboggan and slide down that slope. She knew where it was, and had done just that many times in her childhood, first with her parents and then, in clandestine manner, with her brother. Sneaking an old tin tray from the back of her mother’s walk-in pantry, she’d then grabbed Billy’s hand and they’d rushed out the back gate, heading for the lakeside track that led up into the hills.

Darkness, dense and thick with grief dropped over the scene. Startled and disconcerted by the strength of emotion emanating from the vision Monica shifted to her knees, ready to stand, when a voice, a deep male voice, sharp with fear called out her name.

“Monica!”

She knew she’d never heard the voice before, and yet—it was as familiar to her as the image she saw in her mirror each morning.

Help me, Monica.”

Desperate for more clues, she searched the darkness within the flames until it sputtered and faded. With a curse she jumped up and ran for the phone. With her outstretched hand hovering over it she halted and let her hand drop to her side once more. What could she say? What would the police or rescue team think of her if she called them and told them she’d seen a vision of a man in distress?

They’d laugh in her face and classify her as a lunatic. Well, maybe not. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d contacted them with positive information but something—an instinctive gut reaction told her what she’d seen this time hadn’t happened yet.


To get your Free copy please email

* * * *
There's more information on Book One ~ From Now Until Forever ~ at

Blurb:
For Prince Liam, families meant bad news, unwanted commitments, and the loss of his personal freedom. Love spawned white picket fences, slippers at the hearth with a wife and kids making demands, so why did those images disappear when he met Melanie Babcot?

Melanie Babcot fought hard to escape the horrors of her youth and vowed to remain single and free, so when paid to protect Prince Liam from insurgents why did her personal pledge fly out the window?

Excerpt:
Liam Fitzwilliam Gasquet stared in amazement at the blooming patch of red milliseconds before the pain exploded in his arm. Some trigger-happy idiot had fired in his direction. Indignation didn’t have time to take root before another bullet kicked the dust at his feet.

Not ‘trigger-happy’.

Intentional.

The rebels had found the fourth and youngest son of Jean-Phillipe Gasquet, ruler of the tiny kingdom adjacent to the Swiss border. When had they discovered his whereabouts?

With a reluctant sigh, he faced the truth of it. They hadn’t ‘found’ him at all. They’d followed him.

1 July 2012

Six sentence Sunday

This 'six' follows on directly from yesterday's post (below) and comes from my current Regency wip, Vidal's Honor.
Thanks to everyone for coming by.

You'll find plenty more wonderful authors at Six Sentence Sunday

“Please thank them for talking with us and that I fully understand and will leave immediately.”

Juan passed on Vidal’s message and returned; a basket in his hand. If we are going, we must do so immediately while we have enough light. They have given us food and water.

“We?”

“I am coming with you.

Click Here to follow my
Gasquet Princes virtual book tour