|
Casual drinking is so laissez-faire, I’m not sure it’s really noticed. Wine with dinner A beer with your mates A quick drink at the club Bubbles for brunch Rounds of shooters because it’s Friday, or any other day ending in ‘y’ It’s so acceptable that non-drinking creates ripples of discomfort. As though it’s somehow impossible to finish a 5km training run without a beer at the end of it. It’s to relax To wind down To celebrate To forget To feel happier To fall asleep Any number of reasons. It’s so easy to slide into the habit of drinking. You just…do. And soon, it’s not only at weekends, but every day, at home, with dinner, alone or not. As I wrote TDOC, I realized how many events I’ve been to, where alcohol was the unofficial main feature. Always there. Always lurking. Lubricating social interaction. The focus shifted from whatever it was we were meeting for, and onto the alcohol. So easy. So…slick. You’d barely even notice. And if, like me, your family has a history of alcoholism, the path to your own destruction is gently lit with any number of illusions that you’re in control. You’re not. And sometimes, capital ‘A’ Alcoholism claims another captive, and no-one really notices. When I set out to write TDOC, my intention wasn’t to write about alcoholism. Actually, it was going to be about something very different. I’d read Destiny of Souls, which claimed to regress patients to access their past life knowledge (interesting and compelling reading). One of the chapters outlines how future love matches would be recognized by various ‘signs’ – the more, the merrier – to jog memory so that the lovers will recognize each other on the earth plane. Each chapter of TDOC has the various ‘signs’ that were supposed to jog these two’s memories. But as I wrote, the narrative shifted to something else, something darker. We brush up against bad choices every day that could change our life and slide us onto a different path. Even when they don’t seem like choices at all, but rather just ‘how things’ turned out. I’ll share the original prologue at some stage (much lighter, much fluffier with a touch of paranormal). You can get the first part here. 
0 Comments
 Twelve Days. One Lifetime.
Some love stories are wrapped with a bow. Others are sharp with mistletoe. What if you'd already met your true love? Christmas Wade and Sam Browning seem destined on a collision course toward each other. But their secrets threaten to keep them apart. Twelve days to true love? Or does fate have other plans? Twelve Days. One Lifetime. I’m the first to admit - this novel is an experiment. What if you’d already met your true love, but you were on two different tracks? What if you’d already met your true love, but the timing just wasn’t right? What if you’d met your true love, but they’d made bad decisions? These were the questions I’d asked myself when I started writing this story. So, it’s a ‘friends to lovers’ in some respects, but...not. It’s similar to One Day...but not. It’s mostly about how your past is always present. And how, despite your best intentions, you fall into the wrong grooves, time and time again. They say you meet people for a reason, a season or a lifetime. Some people are definitely not married to the love of their lives (not even the like of their lives). Some people never escape the shaky foundations of a rocky childhood. Anyway. back to the writing. The only way I could put this together was in instalments, hence the #serialromance. Four parts over a lifetime. Okay, so it ends somewhere in their forties, but you get the drift. Maybe it worked, maybe it didn’t. But I really wanted to share Sam and Christmas’s story. Hope you enjoy! 
On Friday, I had the pleasure of joining six other romance writers as we celebrated Wedding Season, ROSA’s first anthology (three sadly couldn’t make it). There was champagne, cupcakes, and even a wedding dress or two, and lots of books, all of the books. Have you said ‘I do’ yet to ROSA’s Wedding Season? Get your copy here.   ** CHRISTMAS IN JULY! **
NEW RELEASE The Ex-Factor #NewRelease He’s a six pack. She’s fine champagne. He’s the race track. She’s the theatre. But, Jacques past is Madge’s present - can they see a future together? Madge Everson, a committed commitment-phobe has an elaborate series of rules and regulations around dating, all designed to keep Mr. Right far, far away. But she didn’t bank on Jacques de Villiers, a supposed playboy who keeps her on her toes, negotiating her emotional barbed wire. Just when she thought it was safe to trust again, she finds out that he has an ex in his closet…not only a woman she knows but a woman she strives to be. THE FINAL INSTALLMENT IN THE JOZI SERIES #NewRelease #KindleUnlimited #newbook #bookstagram #bookstagrammer #bookish #bookblogger #bookworm #booknerd #bookshelfie #booksofinsta #booksofinstagram #authorsorinstagram #literarylife #contemporaryromance #contemporaryromancenovel  💍💍 NEW RELEASE!! 💍💍 WEDDING SEASON: A Collection of Romance Reads is #LIVE! 💍#OneClick today! https://amzn.to/2WDuDkS This summer, ROSA vows to have you falling in love all over again with ‘Wedding Season’, a collection of romance reads from the Romance writers Organisation of South Africa. All proceeds go to the Athol Williams Read to Rise literacy charity and the ROSA Scholarship Fund. Don’t forget to say ‘I do’, and order your copy. Featuring stories by:Romy Sommer, Alissa Baxter, Suzanne Jefferies, Marie Dry, Sharonlee Holder, Sophia Karlson, Tanya Wilde, Natasha Anders, Jo Watson and Ashleigh Giannoccaro 💍 #OneClick: https://amzn.to/2WDuDkS The proceeds of this anthology will go to ROSA and to the Athol Williams Read to Rise literacy charity. HOSTED BY: @HEAPRMore http://heapr.blogspot.com  He’s a six pack. She’s fine champagne.
He’s the race track. She’s the theatre. Madge Everson, a committed commitment-phobe has an elaborate series of rules and regulations around dating, all designed to keep Mr. Right far, far away. But she didn’t bank on Jacques de Villiers, a supposed playboy who keeps her on her toes, negotiating her emotional barbed wire. Just when she thought it was safe to trust again, she finds out that he has an ex in his closet…not only a woman she knows but a woman she strives to be. Releases 31 July - Christmas in July! This is Charlie’s sister’s book. (Yes, this was a looooong time coming). Pre-order here. Once upon a time, I wrote up a vision of my wedding day. It’s still there in my dreamcatcher journal and still sounds like exactly the kind of wedding I’d like to have one day. (There were two pointers to the guy that I remember squinting at as I wrote…let’s see what happens.) What does this have to do with ROSA’s fabulous new anthology, Wedding Season, releasing July 18? Plenty. I’m not a big believer of marriage. I’ve seen far too many implode, and even more than that hang on in some sort of grim desperation for kids/money/one to die (yes, someone said that). I’ve seen far too many weddings as well where it was apparent from before they even said ‘I do’ that they really should have broken up after one month of solid shagging. But, they didn’t and all the flowers, fine food and photos couldn’t make up for the nothing of a relationship that was ‘joined together’.  Yet, there are the exceptions to this – I wrote Priest for them.  These are couples who are happy together many decades later, whether they were high school sweethearts, second time arounders or blind dates set up by work colleagues. They were the enemies to lovers, the friends to lovers, the opposites attracting, and the how-the-hell-did-that-happen’ers. They’re a team, a port in the storm, a safe haven. As my wise friend, Mandy, said, “Some folks get married and start to chip chip away at each other, when in actual fact, they should be building each other up.” That’s what I’d like to think about Max and Billy…if they can even make it to the altar.
Be sure to pre-order Wedding Season here.  I wrote this book because I was getting tired of dating. Wouldn’t it be so much easier to have a robot who could do all the heavy lifting? Well, yes, possibly, but then where’s the humanity in that? But, this also got me to thinking, if there was a companion robot (and it looks like we’re really close to this being a reality, so it’s not sci-fi anymore), what would that robot be like? Good looking and ripped, sure, but what about the other traits?
Around this time, there were heaps and heaps of articles on classic Alpha-hole traits and how these can rapidly turn toxic. So, the protective man coupled with insecurity quickly becomes the obsessive jealous man. What was once seen as ‘adorable’ is now terrifying. And sometimes it’s really difficult to tell if your man has that ‘flipswitch’. Marry these two ideas together, and add in an adventuring hero who has all the commitment phone traits you’ve come to love and expect from a romance hero, and The Romeo Prototype was born. You can download a copy here.  You should totally join my Facebook Reader’s Group.
Exclusive content, teasers, sneak peaks and more.  It’s here! Download it now - less than a dollar! Reminder, it’s a short story - not a novella, and not a novel. #erotica #eroticashortstory #contemporaryromance #contemporaryerotica
Amazon Kobo Barnes & Noble And 50% off at Wild Rose Press |
Categories
All
|
RSS Feed