Welcome to Romance Author - Lynda Stacey

I’m delighted to welcome Lynda Stacey to my blog.

Lynda Stacey - Author

Hello Lynda - I remember so vividly the occasion we first met. We had gathered at The Royal Over-Seas League building in London, with several other shortlisted candidates, for the Romantic Novelists’ Association – New Writers Scheme – Joan Hessayon Award. We were fresh to the publishing world and had little experience mingling with 'real' authors. It was an amazing evening and one which I shall never forget. Haven’t we come a long way since then? But before we discover more about your latest release Keeper of Secrets here are a few questions which will hopefully give your readers and followers and insight into some of the things that matter to you.

Arabella: You’ve got an idea for a story but it has yet to take shape. Where do you start? Do you concentrate on the location in the story, or developing the characters personalities and conflicts, or are there other key points you might consider?

Lynda:  Somehow, I always begin with a location. With House of Secrets and House of Christmas Secrets, my stories were based on my favourite hotel, the beautiful Wrea Head Hall in Scarborough.

My husband, Haydn took me to stay at the hotel for a birthday around six years ago. The moment I stepped foot through the porch, the property took my breath, there was so much history seeping out of the walls, I knew there was a story there and what’s more, I knew I had to be the one to tell it.

Since then, I’ve always gravitated towards my home county. All of my books are set in and around Yorkshire. It’s an absolutely beautiful area. We have a lot of heritage, a mountain of history and what’s more, it is known as God’s own county, so why not.!!   

Arabella: In your latest release Keeper of Secrets what is the overall theme or premise, and what made you choose this topic?

Lynda:  I’m a true Yorkshire girl, so it didn’t surprise me when I wrote Keeper of Secrets and gave it the amazing and famous backdrop of The Sand House, which I first read about in a local church magazine. I became absolutely obsessed by the story. These tunnels and carvings were actually in my own hometown. They were probably the most stunning tunnels I’d ever seen, with the most intricate carvings. After the second world war, the tunnels were filled in and a block of flats built over them. The carvings became lost forever and their history deserves to be told.

I used the tunnels, the family and the archaeology to form a complex theme around murder and suspense. My stories are always very character driven and each person within the family was given their own secret, each one bigger than the next and as each is unravelled - the story moves forward.

Image provided by - Lynda Stacey 

Image provided by - Lynda Stacey

   

Image provided by - Lynda Stacey

 

Image provided by - Lynda Stacey

Arabella: Roses, Lilies, or another flower of choice?

Lynda:  Lilies... I love them, as did my mother. She had lilies in her wedding bouquet, and I followed her tradition and did the same.

Lilies

Arabella: You’ve arranged to meet with friends and family for an afternoon of fun. In the present socially restricted climate, where do you go and what do you do?

Lynda:  The only meet up we had with family this year was in our garden. We have a big garden, a lot of garden furniture and it’s south facing, so we sat around, spaced out and chatted for a couple of hours. There was only 6 of us and we even gave everyone ‘designated family bubble’ bathrooms.

 

Arabella: All authors love and need to read. When choosing a book, do you:

a) pick off the shelf?

b) search online?

c) go with friends’ recommendations?

d) other…

Lynda:  It depends on what mood I’m in. I love reading friends books, I have some amazing friends who quite luckily are also the most fabulous authors. However, I do try to read one book for pleasure and then the next for research. My research books tend to be books in my genre, I like to see how other authors are writing. What their style is. And also, after I’ve read the book, I look at reviews to see what the readers are liking, or not liking. It’s interesting to see if their opinions are the same as mine.

Arabella: Italian, French or English. (I’ll leave it to you to decide if I mean a gourmet meal, a bottle of wine, or a partner!)

Lynda:  I love all three, can I be greedy.

My husband is English, through and through. However, we love to eat Italian food. It’s one of our favourites. Until of course, we get to dessert and you simply can’t beat a French Patisserie. They really know how to make cake. As for the wine, not a huge fan... I’d rather have a soft drink but if I’m pushed, it’d be an Italian Prosecco (with cherries and kirsch) which makes a lovely Kir Royal.

Kir Royal

Arabella: The moment we are published, a career path is usually envisaged. Do you have any aspirations or ambitions for yourself and any future novels you might write?

Lynda:  Absolutely, I do love to write, and I’d love to think that one day I could get onto supermarket shelves, get on that stage at Theakston’s Crime Festival or become a well-known name in the industry. I was once offered a contract with an agent. I was crazy enough to turn it down in favour of a publishing contract. I now realise that it was the wrong decision and although I’ll always be grateful for becoming published, I really should have taken the offer. Maybe one day, I’ll get another ... until then, I’ll just keep writing.!!

Thank you for joining me on Arabella’s Blog and Chit-Chat, Lynda. I’m sure, like me, your readers were delighted to discover a little bit more about you. And as for the Italian Prosecco with cherries and kirsch… Prost!

Wishing you lots of happy-ever-after Romantic Suspense and Psychological Thriller writing.

Arabella

www.arabellasheen.co.uk

 

About Lynda Stacey

Lynda Stacey - Author

Lynda, is a wife, stepmother and grandmother. She grew up in the mining village of Bentley, in Doncaster, and is currently the Sales Director of a stationery, office supplies and office furniture company where she has worked for the past 25 years.

Prior to this she'd also been a nurse, a model, an emergency first response instructor and a PADI Scuba Diving Instructor ... and yes, she was crazy enough to dive in the sea with sharks, without a cage.

Following a car accident in 2008, Lynda was left with limited mobility in her right arm. Unable to dive or teach anymore, she turned to her love of writing, a hobby she'd followed avidly since being a teenager.

Her own life story, along with varied career choices helps Lynda to create stories of romantic suspense, with challenging and unpredictable plots, along with (as in all romances) happy endings.

Lynda joined the Romantic Novelist Association in 2014 under the umbrella of the New Writers Scheme and in 2015, her debut novel House of Secrets won the Choc Lit Search for a Star competition.

She lives in a small rural hamlet near Doncaster, with her 'hero at home husband', Haydn, whom she's been happily married to for over 25 years

Social Media Links:

Website: www.Lyndastacey.co.uk  

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/LyndaStacey

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Lyndastaceyauthor   

Book Blurb:     Keeper of Secrets

For as long as Cassie Hunt can remember her Aunt Aggie has spoken about the forgotten world that exists just below their feet, in the tunnels and catacombs of the Sand House.

When excavation work begins on the site shocking secrets are uncovered and danger is never far away, both above or below the ground…

What folks are saying about Keeper of Secrets:

~ Lynda Stacey is up there with Nora Roberts and LJ Ross when it comes to writing jaw-dropping, nerve-twisting and addictive tales spiced with intrigue, passion and suspense and she is on top form with her latest novel, Keeper of Secrets. 

~ An outstanding tale full of menace, danger and desire, Keeper of Secrets is a book guaranteed to keep you reading long past your bedtime. 

~ Keeper of Secrets' is a gripping and emotional read that had me on the edge of my seat throughout. I will definitely be reading more of Lynda's work in the future. 

~ I loved how there was a little bit of everything within the pages of this book to keep you entertained, thrilled and shocked!

Buy Links:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Keeper-Secrets-Lynda-Stacey/dp/1912550342/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Release Date 26^th January 2021

 

Welcome to Romantic Suspense Author - Kate Ryder

I’m delighted to welcome Romantic Suspense author Kate Ryder to my blog.

Kate Ryder - Author

Hello Kate - It’s lovely to have an opportunity to chit-chat with you and catch-up on all your news. Since you were last here, it seems a lot has happened in your ‘writerly’ life. But before we discover more about your latest release, Beneath Cornish Skies, here are a few questions which will hopefully give your readers and followers an insight into some of the things that matter to you.

Hi Arabella - Thank you so much for inviting me to your Blog and Chit-Chat and for giving me the opportunity to let readers know about my latest novel, Beneath Cornish Skies.  Published on 7^th January, it is a heart-warming love story about taking a chance on a new beginning… and considering the year we’ve just come through, wouldn’t we all appreciate that chance?

 

Arabella: When writing a novel are there any key traits, such as virtuously good or shamelessly bad, you like to give your characters?

Kate:  Ha!  I tend to play around with this from book to book.  In my debut novel and its sequel, I gave the heroine a free-spirit and a God-given light that touched everyone she came into contact with.  However, one reader thought this was ridiculous and couldn’t possibly be in real life.  To her I would say, why not suspend disbelief and keep an open mind to the possibility?  After all, it’s fiction!

For me, each novel has to have characters you love to hate, adding to the emotional pull and keeping things moving forward with the possibility the story may not work out as the reader expects.  My books tend to fall into the romantic suspense or otherworldy/timeslip genres and, let’s face it; the course of true love never did run smooth!

 Arabella: A book has a beginning, middle, and an end. When penning your latest release, Beneath Cornish Skies, which part did you find the hardest to write and why?

Kate:  To date, I’ve found that when starting to write a novel I have an idea of the story but not the full plot.  The ending comes to me around the middle of the book, and I have to get it down before I lose its essence.  Then, it’s a case of joining up the dots and, hopefully, the story concludes within the prerequisite word count!  If not, a fair amount of tweaking takes place.  With Beneath Cornish Skies, I was so eager for Cassandra to start her journey in Cornwall towards her authentic self that I felt she was inexplicably languishing in Sussex while I wrote her story there!  I had to take a deep breath and not rush that part, as I wanted to portray her life on the South Downs as fully as I could.

Arabella: We all have a long list of books we keep meaning to read but never have the time for --- which book is a must-read for you this season?

Kate:  My TBR list is growing by the minute (groan) but one book I have earmarked to read sooner rather than later is The Secrets of Saffron Hall by Clare Marchant; an enchanting dual-timeline historical novel about love and hope in dangerous times.  I believe it’s the author’s debut, published in August 2020, and already it has over 560 Amazon reviews (at the time of writing).

 

Arabella: Thinking and planning ahead… Your aim is to organise a two week holiday for you and your family. Given the possibility of global travel restrictions, do you:

a) Play safe and camp in the back garden?

b) Take the risk and book a hotel room and flight abroad?

c) Find another solution for a relaxing two-week break?

Kate:  I would choose option C.  I’m lucky in that I live in Cornwall, albeit at the top end, and atmospheric Bodmin Moor and the county’s stunning coastlines are not far away.  Therefore, I’d hire a camper van/mobile home (a few years ago that would have been a tent!) and take off with my husband for a nomadic two weeks in somewhere remote and beautiful, perhaps deepest West Penwith, seeking out various Poldark locations and discovering secret coves at that end of the county.  And if “live” theatre was once more up and running, we’d catch a performance at the gloriously positioned Minack Theatre perched high on the cliffs above Porthcurno, which featured in my novel, Summer in a Cornish Cove!

Minack Theatre

Arabella: Some authors cannot work without a business planner, others cannot write without an editing app…  Are there any “essentials” you need to help your writing move forward?

Kate:  I don’t have any “essentials” as such, apart from always creating a storyboard, which helps if the story starts to flounder.  When I first started writing I definitely fell into the pantser camp, but with time I’ve evolved into being a “plantser”.  I start with a basic plot outline and fill in along the way, or should I say my characters fill in along the way!  However much I try to plot, they definitely have their own ideas, which is the magic of writing IMHO.

 

Arabella:  You’re outside a florist and can’t resist the temptation to buy… Which floral arrangement do you choose?

Kate:  My niece is a talented florist and she uses social media very well to advertise her beautiful displays.  She creates too many glorious creations to choose just one and I often find myself drooling over the various bouquets of locally sourced flowers, many grown in her Devon allotment, which are sold in upcycled jam jars.  For Christmas just gone, she offered the most stunning wreaths using foraged and natural materials, including feathers, silver and gold pepper berries, lichen covered branches, pinecones and local fir.  I will definitely be tempted to have one of these gracing my home during the 2021 festive season.  For more information visit: https://www.facebook.com/wildflowerdevon

 

Arabella: What about your future plans? Any books or series in the making?

Kate:  Beneath Cornish Skies fulfils my four-book contract with Aria and I now have to make the decision whether to return to self-publishing or start the process over again and submit a manuscript to agents and publishers.  I’ve juggled being an author with full-time employment, but in late 2019 I gave up my career selling country property to dedicate more time to writing.  Aria is a digital first publisher and Beneath Cornish Skies was released on 7^th January as an eBook.  However, on 1st April it will be published as a traditional paperback and available through Waterstones, W H Smith, Foyles and other major bookshops.  So, if Covid rules allow, I will put on my “marketing hat”, travel throughout Cornwall and Devon visiting independent bookshops and see if I can persuade them to have the novel on their shelves.

Thank you for being a super sharer on Arabella’s Blog and Chit-Chat, Kate. .It was a treat to learn something about your writing journey. Plantser??? J

Good luck with your latest release, Beneath Cornish Skies

Best wishes and happy-writing…

Arabella

www.arabellasheen.co.uk

 

About   Kate Ryder

Kate Ryder - Author

Kate Ryder is an Amazon Kindle international best seller who writes timeslip and romantic suspense in a true-to-life narrative.  On leaving school she studied drama but soon discovered her preference for writing rather than performing.  Since then, she has worked in the publishing, tour operating and property industries, and has travelled widely.

A member of the Romantic Novelists' Association and The Society of Authors, in 2017 Kate signed a four-book contract with Aria (digital imprint of award-winning independent publisher, Head of Zeus).

 

Keep in touch with Kate:

Website: http://www.kateryder.me

Twitter: https://twitter.com/KateRyder_Books

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kateryder.author

Instagram: @kateryder_author

 

Book Blurb    Beneath Cornish Skies

 

To an outsider, Cassandra Shaw's life looks perfect.  She lives in a beautiful, luxurious house in the English countryside, with a handsome, wealthy boyfriend who insists she needn't do a day's work in her life.  But Cassie knows that something is not right.  Her boyfriend has grown colder, treating her more like a housekeeper than a future wife.  And her time feels empty and purposeless.

Cassandra has always been riddled with insecurities and self-doubt, but, just for once, she decides to take a chance on a new beginning.  She answers an advert for a live-in nanny, horse trainer and dog walker, cook and all-round 'Superhuman' for a family living in a rambling manor house on the rugged North Cornish coast.  The work is hard and tiring, but Cassie has never felt so fulfilled.

As Cassie learns to connect with the natural beauty unfolding around her, Cornwall starts to offer up its secrets.  Soon, Cassie starts wondering if she was drawn to this isolated part of the coast for a reason.  Why was she guided to Foxcombe Manor?  What are the flashes of light she sees in the valley?  Is it her imagination or does someone brush past her?  And who is the mysterious man living deep in the woods?

A beautiful romance with a hint of ghostliness, Beneath Cornish Skies is for anyone who has ever longed to start their lives again.

 

Buy Links

Universal Buy Links: https://books2read.com/u/bMXz1G

Amazon UK: https://amzn.to/3mNBzVG

Amazon US: https://amzn.to/3gmo1OC

Apple: https://books.apple.com/us/book/id1530362999

Kobo: https://bit.ly/2JYZV03

 

Summer in a Cornish Cove, a contemporary romantic suspense set on the Lizard Peninsula, saw her nominated for the RNA’s 2018 Joan Hessayon award, while its standalone sequel, Cottage on a Cornish Cliff, reached the heady heights of #2 in Kindle Literary Sagas.

Secrets of the Mist, a mysterious timeslip romance, not only reached #49 on Amazon UK Paid Kindle but also achieved #1 Kindle best-seller in Time Travel Romance in the UK, Canada and Australia.  In its original, self-published version as The Forgotten Promise it was awarded the first Chill with a Book "Book of the Month".

Her fourth book with Aria, Beneath Cornish Skies, is set on the dramatically rugged North Cornish coast.

Originally hailing from the South East of England, today Kate lives on the Cornish side of the beautiful Tamar Valley with her husband and a collection of animals.

Welcome to Romance Author - Constance Bretes

I’m delighted to welcome Constance Bretes to my blog.

Hello Constance – It was great to connect with you through our publisher, BeachwalkPress, Inc. where a wide range of quality ebooks in a variety of subgenres are offered.

I’m keen to discover what a Contemporary Romance/Romance Suspense Author has to share and I'm sure your readers are too. But before we discover more about your latest release - Midnight Escape - here are a few questions which will hopefully give your readers an insight into some of the things that matter to you.

Arabella: Authors can release books, making them available to readers in various ways…via an agent, or working directly with a traditional publisher, or they can even go the self-publishing route. Which method of publishing do you prefer, and why?

Constance: I work through my publisher, Beachwalk Press, Inc. because this publisher works individually with me on my books so that they are virtually error-free and grammar correct.

Arabella: Who or what inspired you to write your latest release, Midnight Escape?

Constance:  I was watching the show, Deadliest Catch on the Discovery Channel. In case you don’t know what the show is about. It’s about the commercial crab fishermen who go out to the rough Bering Sea crab fishing. The episode showed a captain whose daughter wanted to take over the business, so he hired her as the greenhorn deckhand and started her at the lowliest job on the boat, taking the fish and baiting the pots. As I thought about the storyline that was forming from this, I kept asking myself how would I get the heroine on the boat. So I came up with a mob hit, and Jax helping her to escape the mob by taking her out on the boat.

Arabella: If the person of your dreams, (husband/wife/partner/or superstar), were to take you out for the night, where would they take you and what would you do?

Constance: A romantic dinner at a 5-star restaurant followed by an evening at a concert to listen to Gordon Lightfoot and a visit backstage with the star for a lovely conversation.

Arabella: Currently, what is your most favourite T.V. programme, and why?

Constance:  I LOVE The Big Bang Theory, and Last Man Standing. The Big Bang Theory is geeky and hilarious. Last Man Standing, well, I just love Tim Allen.  

Arabella: When writing a book or chapter, which do you concentrate on first: plot, character, or setting?

Constance: Plot. Always the plot. The characters and setting are embellishments to add to turn it from a plot to a story.

  

Arabella: How do you research your novels and characters?

Constance:  In the case of Midnight Escape. I spent a lot of time watching the Deadliest Catch, learning the ins and outs of the boat, what all the machines do, what the crew do, what sets the men off while on the job, and stuff like that. I also research the towns in Alaska, the bay area and the passageway to the sea, where dry docks are and why they exist. I also research paralytic shellfish poisoning, something that only happens in the Alaska coastlines. Most of this is done through internet searches, but I do visit my library from time to time to find books on particular subjects. For example, in two of my books, Blue As Sapphires and Elkhorn In The Moonlight, I spent a lot of time researching gold mines. I lived in a small town that had 4 gold mines, and I research the town’s history with gold and the people, population, etc. If at all possible, I will visit the towns in my stories to get a feel for them. Blue As Sapphires was written based on the town of Phillipsburg, Montana, while Elkhorn In The Moonlight was based on Basin, Montana, where I lived.

Arabella: A slice of Chocolate Cake, a piece of Fruit, or Burger and Fries?

Constance: Burger and fries. However, I’m picky about the food. I want it fixed correctly, or according to the way I like it. Especially my French fries.

Arabella: What advice would you give to someone who is starting out on their writing journey?

Constance:  Try to take a couple of creative writing classes at your local college, and know your grammar. Grammar was something that I never got the hang of even to this day. Now, it’s like trying to teach an old dog new tricks.

Get with some writers groups or people who write in your genre. Develop relationships with them so you can have an even exchange in ideas, encouragements, and guidance.

Writing is a lonely business. Vary your quiet spaces to write to include ways that help inspire you. I sometimes will go to a restaurant, a bar, a back porch, a lake, a small town, just someplace to help inspire me.

People’s conversations, habits, reactions, etc. inspire me when adding the setting and characters to my books.

In Elkhorn In The Moonlight (released in February 2019) I sat at the small town bar and restaurant and listened to the patrons talk about different stuff. Old miners passing by talking about mining in Butte, Montana before it was forced to close due to federal regulations, something someone found on the internet, like a driver getting pulled over for driving a wooden car on the freeway, music they like to listen to on the jukebox, etc.  Sometimes I take a pad of paper, other times, I make sure my iPhone is charged up and use the note features on the phone.

Constance, it was great having you on the blog and I hope your readers enjoyed learning about your research methods . . . T.V. – T.V. – and yet more T.V. Where would writers and authors be without Discovery Channel, Google, and our local libraries? J

Best wishes and good luck with Midnight Escape.

Arabella

www.arabellasheen.co.uk

About Constance Bretes

Constance started writing contemporary romance and contemporary romance suspense fifteen years ago. She was born and raised in Michigan. After thirty-eight years working for the State of Michigan, she retired. She and her husband moved to Montana and lived in the mountainside of a small town, where the story, Elkhorn In The Moonlight, was based upon. After living there for three years, they moved to Alabama with their three feline furballs who own her and her husband. Her hobbies include basket weaving, reading romance books, and jewellery making as well as writing.

https://constancebretes.com

Email: bretesc@gmail.com

Website: https://constancebretes.com

Blog: https://www.constancebretes.com/connies-blog

NL Link:  https://www.constancebretes.com/news--things.html

Amazon Author URL: https://www.amazon.com/Constance-Bretes/e/B00IKSKRES/

Bookbub Author URL: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/constance-bretes

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/conniebretes/

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7737457.Constance_Bretes

Instagram: constancebretesauthor

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/cbretes/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ConstanceBretes

Book Blurb - Midnight Escape

On the run from the mob, Suzanne discovers that hunky Jax is just the man she needs.

Suzanne Pacheco is on the run from the mob after witnessing a murder and helping to put the killer in prison. Her trip across the country brings her to a small town in Alaska. But once again the mob’s hitman has tracked her down. She’s disheartened at the thought of leaving the town she’s developed a real fondness for, but there’s nothing else she can do. Until she finds help in the unlikeliest of places and embarks on an adventure like never before.

Commercial fisherman Jax Devereaux has his hands full fishing for crabs in the formidable Bering Sea, but when Suzanne needs his help, he adds yet another thing to his list of responsibilities. He takes her with him to the one place he thinks she might be safe—the middle of the sea. But there’s danger everywhere. Can he keep Suzanne safe, and will he lose his heart in the process?

Buy Link:  https://www.amazon.co.uk/Midnight-Escape-Constance-Bretes-ebook/dp/B07T9T2Y2D/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=midnight+escape+constance+bretes&qid=1563279391&s=gateway&sr=8-2