Today let's welcome author Shehanne Moore to the blog. As always I start with the question: what draws you as a reader to the romance
genre?
Firstly Christine, thank you for having me
on your blog today. I know you are a fellow Scot, although we may now live
worlds apart and that means a lot to me.
Why am I drawn to read romance? Oh blame it
on Scarlett and Rhett. What’s that quote...without love the world is dust and
ashes. Some of the best, the most successful stories of all time are romance
stories. I love the conflict, seeing two people go through the emotional
wringer and hopefully being together at the end because they are right for each
other.
Yes, Rhett and Scarlett have a lot to answer for.:) What is the most difficult part of writing
a love story?
Making that initial spark believable. We
all think that initial spark is simple lust but I believe it is way more
complicated than that.
Is creating a book title easy for you? Tell
us about the process.
Oh God, I get to the 90 percent mark and I
think AHHHH! Hit my head off walls and everything. Being a royal pain, I don’t
want one that’s already out there and I want one that sums up the book. But I
do want one that is sort of catchy. Believe me it is easier to write 90
thousand words.
True, I like a book to have an original, catchy title. Do your characters love the direction you
take for them or do they have other ideas?
Oh my characters do their own thing which
leads to even more head banging moments. The first chapter of Lady Fury was to
be entirely different. The hero was nicer. A sort of adviser guru. Although
they knew one another previously, they were not involved. Instead what came out
was this blackmailing son of a...well you know.. she’d had a torridly passionate
affair with and stuff about a past in Jamaica. I went down to our bathroom-it
is this huge room with a couch in it- and I sat on that couch and said, ‘What
the hell? What’s with this Jamaica stuff? Huh?’ I really had no idea. But I
knew I was thinking fast.
I love that... "adviser guru". Any tips for writers that you'd love to
share?
Never stop learning the craft and the
market conditions. Be gracious and generous to other writers. It is a hard
world out there and support is invaluable. Kill your darlings if you must. And,
whether you are aspiring, or published, never give up.
It's been great having you here, Shehanne, in fact you are a "Great Scot" to host. I'm pleased to blog with a native countrywoman, anytime. Tell us about your next book.
Well, Christine, it is a historical set in
Scotland, and it’s called His Judas Bride. But before anyone thinks it’s the
obvious woman marries man and finds herself torn between him and her goals,
he’s not even her bridegroom. I really love Glencoe and while the setting is
fictional, a number of places there inspired this one.
BLURB
Rule One: There will be no kissing.
Rule two: You will be fully clothed at all
times…
Widowed Lady Fury Shelton hasn’t lost
everything—yet. As long as she produces the heir to the Beaumont dukedom, she
just might be able to keep her position. And her secrets. But when the
callously irresistible Captain James “Flint” Blackmoore sails back into her
life, Lady Fury panics. She must find a way to protect herself—and her future—from
the man she’d rather see rotting in hell than sleeping in her bed. If she must
bed him to keep her secrets, so be it. But she doesn’t have to like it. A set
of firm rules for the bedroom will ensure that nothing goes awry. Because above
all else, she must stop herself from wanting the one thing that Flint can never
give her. His heart.
Ex-privateer Flint Blackmoore has never
been good at following the rules. Now, once again embroiled in a situation with
the aptly named Lady Fury, he has no idea why he doesn’t simply do the wise
thing and walk away. He knows he’s playing with fire, and that getting involved
with her again is more dangerous than anything on the high seas. But he can’t
understand why she’s so determined to hate him. He isn’t sure if the secret she
keeps will make things harder—or easier—for him, but as the battle in the
bedroom heats up, he knows at least one thing. Those silly rules of hers will
have to go…
EXCERPT
Fury sat down and dipped the quill into the
ink. She detected the faintest trace of nerves. It must be the fact Thomas lay
in the cellar. Why else would a man, so great, so stalwart, so worldly as
Captain Flint be nervous of her?
“Well, yes,” she said,
listening to the pleasing scratch of the nib on the soft paper.
“Babies are not always made in a night. Of
course, you wouldn’t know that, being you. It will take time.”
“All the more reason then to just get
going. After all this time, sweetheart, you don’t know how eager I am.”
He strode across the tiled floor and the
ink trailed a long dark path across the paper as he dragged her to her
feet. Had it blobbed it might have been something to worry about. But she was
very set on this. And calm. As calm as one could be having this man in her
bedroom, knowing what was coming next out of dire necessity, her husband in a
box in the cellar and her cast off, potential lovers on their way out the door.
“No, James.” She held a hand up between
their lips. “There will be no kissing.”
“No kissing? Why in hell not?”
It displaced her calm to see him grin. She
would have preferred that he was indignant. Especially as he was a man who
thought he could settle all his arguments—with women anyway—with a kiss. But
she kept her face cold, blank.
“Because.” In some ways she was cold. Cold
with rage.
“Aw, come on Fury, didn’t you like my
kissing? Hmm?” His breath, hot and male, brushed her fingertips. He wrapped his
arms around her, splaying his hands across her back, so her hand might as well
not have been there for all the protection it was.
But she was calm. Didn’t she have to get
into bed with him after all? So, even the impulse to squirm was one she would
squash. When she thought of all he had done to her, she would give him nothing.
Not even the knowledge she found his proximity so unsettling that she sought to
pull away.
“Your kissing was fine, in its way, I
suppose. But kissing is a sign of affection.”
“How do you make that out?”
She knew exactly why he scratched his head.
Their love-making had been torrid. It had been sensual. It had been shaming.
And it had been absent of any affection. Certainly on his part. So, why on
earth would a kiss be a sign of anything? To him anyway. She was the damn fool
who had thought it had. Who even now was forced to concede the pleasure it
would be to take her hand across his face to assist his understanding of her
feelings. The impertinence of the damn man, the stinging ignorance.
“It just is.” She eased the distance
between them a whisper. “So there will be none. Not now. Not at all.”
“All right then. Saves time. It means—”
“Rule two.” She saw his eyes freeze as he
readied himself to yank off his shirt. She persisted anyway. Why not? In many
ways she walked a tightrope here. If she paused it might be to her detriment.
“You will be fully dressed at all times.”
“What? How the hell am I meant to—”
“I am sure you will manage. You managed
plenty before. But I do not desire to look at your body before, during, or
after. Nor in any shape or form wandering about this house in just your
breeches. Is that understood?”
He dropped his hands from his shirt and
glared, so he must have. “You wanted to look at it plenty before. In fact, it
makes my head spin, just how often you—”
True. But that was then. “Rule three.”
Clasping her fingers around the cool edge of the dressing table to create
another inch of distance, she continued.
“Rule three? You mean there’s more?”
“I will not touch you in any place,
intimate or otherwise. I will lie. You will perform.”
Copywrite Shehanne Moore. Etopia Press
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