Sunday Awakening by KevaD

Blurb

If the microwave hadn’t blown a fuse, she might not have killed him. But it had, and she did. Sundays are like that sometimes.

After stabbing her keeper to escape his abuse and her sex slave life, Cheryl faces the greatest decision of her twenty-six years: “Now what?” Only one thing has ever brought her comfort and a sense of freedom – – running. So she does.

On her journey to discover who she is, and where she came from, Cheryl happens upon a woman who puts her onboard the modern-day Underground Railroad for abused women.

At each stop, each ‘depot,’ she encounters people who teach her love may not just exist in novels. But is love possible for someone who doesn’t know what it is?

Criminal Investigator Taylor Hughes reluctantly agrees to locate Cheryl and find her “home.” When Cheryl poisons him, Taylor realizes the hardest part of the trip may well be the day he has to leave her behind.

Excerpt

She stripped the bed and tossed the old sheets into the parking lot. A creak of faucet handles preceded the spray of water in the shower. After unfolding and shaking out the new sheets, she listened intently to the muted noise in the bathroom. The walls were tissue paper thin. The beat of the water on the porcelain of the tub stalled when he stepped under it. He was naked.

The image of his sweaty body running beside her – lying beside her, refused to fade. She tucked the edges of the bottom sheet under the sagging mattress and slowly smoothed it with an open palm. The musical resonance of lathering soap floated about the room. There were no washcloths in there. The two Stockard gave her were on the side table. Taylor’s hands were the bow playing the muscled instrument of his body.
Lying on the bed, a hand slipped beneath her shirt, then, massaged sweat-oiled skin under the waistband of her jeans while she continued to listen. Behind closed eyes she watched him scrub from his wonderfully broad chest to the hard slab of belly.

She traced a line from waist to breasts. Barely a B, they had swollen at the sound of him, at the nakedness of him, so near. The tips were erect and over-sensitive.

Heat pulsed beneath her skin. Her tongue wetted dry lips at the thought of his sinewy body so near, so out of reach, yet, reachable, if she chose him to be.

Continuing to explore her body, visions of his strong hands sliding over his manly form under the water and froth performed a mental ballet. A throaty gasp erupted at the slapping of his hands lathering the soap again. Fingers drove under her jeans, then beneath her panties. The basin of the triangle between her thighs thickened with moisture. She wanted this man. The ball of passion rolling from her throat to her groin demanded him.

Fingertips massaged the center of her desire. Hips writhed in response.

She jerked her hand out of her clothing and stood. Her decisions were her own now, and she had met a man she wanted. A smile formed. It hadn’t happened before. There was a man in this motel room she desired. She wanted Taylor Hughes in her, on her, and every way he wanted to have her. He might be gone tomorrow, and this opportunity with him, once he learned the truth. There might only ever be this one night to know what it felt like to make… love… if such a thing held possibility for her.

If it did, she wanted him to be her first. And she wanted him now.

He debated where he’d be sleeping while he washed. She was only feet away on the other side of the wall, and he was having trouble keeping his loins from expressing their wanting for her.

He turned the hot water off. The heat of his skin immunized him to the cold. He couldn’t begin to explain why he felt a hunger for this woman he had just met. It didn’t make any sense at all. Every logical part of his brain said this was wrong.

She needed his help, not his complications. There were things going on inside her he couldn’t fathom, and his mounting longing to taste her might only serve to push her further from herself.

He couldn’t stay in this room tonight. Maybe he’d just sleep in the Jeep.

The clink of the shower curtain rings spun him around. His brain funneled every thought to one—she was the most beautiful and sensuous woman he had ever seen.

“Cheryl, no. I can’t…” His body throbbed its betrayal of his words. A finger to his lips silenced the objection.

She stepped into the tub. “This isn’t about what you want.”

Buy your copy of Sunday Awakening here

What, no conflict? by Lillian Grant

I was working on an idea for NaNo the other day. (NaNo is a special kind of torture where writers go insane and sign up to write fifty thousand words in thirty days.) Anyway, I was working on plot ideas and my eldest wandered into my office and asked what I’m doing.

“Plotting,” says I, “My story needs conflict.”

His response. “Is it a war novel?”

Nooo, it’s romance of course!

So, why do you need conflict? Poor delusion child. I explained how it goes. Girl meets boy, or vise versa, they feel attracted, fall in love, something happens to pull them apart (conflict), they overcome the obstacle and live happily ever after.

He grins at me. “I’ve got a conflict for you. How about your hero is abducted by aliens. They probe him and when he returns to earth he’s gay. Now the heroine has to either get herself changed into a man or find the aliens to reverse the procedure if she wants to save their relationship.”

I do apologize for him. I gave birth to him and after that I have no idea what went wrong.

Funnily enough, around the same time as my son was regaling me with even more ridiculous ideas, a whole discussion opened up on Romance Divas about novels being contracted with no conflict in the plot and didn’t readers want conflict anymore.

I myself have a novella that has been tossed back at me by a publisher because it has no conflict. But I actually don’t mind stories without conflict. Hell, my favorite book of all time doesn’t even have a plot. I defy anyone to read Hunter S. Thompson’s Rum Diary and find the purpose of the book. Just when you think it’s about to get to the reason, the bit that ties it all together, it ends. Despite Hunter’s massive oversight in writing a book that has no real point, other than to meander through the life of journalist Paul Kemp as he lurches from drink to drink and from one apparent disaster to another, it’s a brilliant book.

Let’s be honest, most people don’t have romances with conflict, most relationships are not all Romeo and Juliet with calamity around every corner. Unfortunately my own romantic history has been full of conflict and hand wringing. Maybe that’s why I can accept a story where it’s all love and laughter because it’s not my experience of real life. How about you? Do you want conflict in your romance?

Read more from Lillian Grant at her website

The Rewriting Merry-Go-Round by Lillian Grant

I have been on the same ride for weeks. There are no pretty ponies or scary tigers, no flashing lights or cheerful music. My writing world is full of silence, darkness and pain.

Stories you have written are more than just words on a page. They’re friends, good friends. Some days your characters won’t behave and you hate them, some days the words all but type themselves and you love them, but no matter what kind of day it is they’re yours. Kind of like children really.

Remember your child’s first day at school? How proud you felt. How you had this fear in your gut they would come home at the end of the day crying or they would cling to you so hard they would never even make it through the school gate? Submitting your manuscript to a publisher feels a lot like that.

You follow their guidelines, press send and then you wait, and wait, and wait. – You get the picture – Eventually you get a response. Of late, mine have all been the same. We like it …but. They want changes. A full explanation follows of what it is about your story that doesn’t work for them. Not enough sex, the sex isn’t hot enough, too many coincidences to make the plot work, etc etc. After you take it all in you need to decide to either move on and submit somewhere else or make the changes they want. The decision in some cases is easier than others. If it’s just a tweak that you know will make your story better then you leap at it. If it’s more severe and threatens the whole structure of your plot you may dither and go either way.

I decided to go with making the changes on two different manuscripts. That is when my carousel ride began. I wrote and rewrote and resubmitted…now I am back to waiting.

After three weeks I am getting dizzy. In the movie Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas Raoul Duke and his Samoan Lawyer visit a circus themed casino when they are high on more than just life. They ride the merry-go-round drinking at the bar in the middle but when they want to get off the Lawyer, played by Benicio Del Toro, can’t do it. It takes a boot up the backside from Johnny Depp to get him off the ride. I know how the lawyer was feeling and just hope my Raoul Duke wanders along to boot me off the rewriting merry-go-round sometime soon before I start asking people if they were the ones fucking polar bears.

Read more from Lillian Grant at her website

Meet Jerri Drennen By Lauren Fraser

Jerri Drennen wears many hats; wife, mother, grandmother. Amongst the chaos of daily life, she manages to find time to sit down at her computer and write fantastic stories. In the past her love of boy bands inspired romantic prose, now murder and mayhem are the thoughts of the day.

With her love of romantic suspense, Jerri weaves passionate tales full of action and adventure. Throwing her characters into the deep end to see if they can swim, the result is a wild ride for both the characters as well as any reader who picks up her books.

The first book in her men of the Jungle Series, called Untouched, came out September 13th from Liquid Silver Books. Think hot jungle sex with a lost treasure thrown in to give them something else to do. I know I for one am looking forward to reading this series.

Blurb for Untouched

Botanist Madeline Wentworth is relieved to be heading into the Amazon, far from the university and the vicious rumors circulating about her failed love affair. But on arriving in Peru, her team finds their guide dead with a small puncture wound to his throat. Waiting to replace him is Travis Kane, Amazon guide and super hunk. Mattie is instantly attracted but uncomfortably suspicious. When a member of her team falls ill and a similar wound is found on his body, her suspicions deepen.

Travis has stuck with being a jungle guide for over ten years despite a run of unsavory clients. The rain forest is full of hidden ruins and undiscovered treasure, and he’s determined to find his share. But, when his grandfather dies, leaving a letter boasting of Templar gold, he’s sure it’s nothing more than an old man’s delusion. Everything changes when he finds his grandfather’s map. With high hopes, he leads Mattie’s team into the jungle, and finds himself overwhelmed by the beautiful blonde. When the group is attacked and has to fight its way out of the jungle, Travis discovers something more precious than gold–the love of a woman who’s made him want to be a better man.

Buy link

To learn more about Jerri be sure to check out her website