On March 30th, Amber Quill Press, L.LC. will cease all sales operations. The site will disappear, and soon all its books on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, All Romance eBooks, Kobo, and Apple will disappear too.
To an author, our books are like our children—born in travail, loved, and presented happily to the world. Although it’s been difficult for all the owners and authors, I’ve learned that losing my publisher is not the end to my writing career.
I’m happy to announce that Loose Id has accepted what is now Awaking The Alpha, and, with some revisions (they want the sex hotter!) and extensions by me, will release the new version in May. I’m eager to see what title and design for the new cover they choose. This story was a favorite of mine. And of readers, too. It hit #10 on the All Romance eBooks Top Ten Best Sellers. Thanks to everyone who bought it. Hurry, hurry if you want to get it!
For the cover of the original version, I accommodated Trace Edward Zaber, the designer for all the Amber Quill Press titles, by hunting for a photo of a contemporary American Indian. It wasn’t fast, but I found one…a happy man who has also lived in the white world. When the books are removed from all the sales sites, that cover will still be in my computer. A reminder of happy times.
Meanwhile, you’ll find Unmasked and Amen To Love, with their original covers, cropping up on my website. I decided to indie publish them rather than shop them around, and I purchased the rights to the covers from Trace because I’ve always liked them.
Can two stubborn men come to terms with the real definition of “home”?
Blades on ice might have kept them together, but while one man is open about what he does, the other still hides behind a mask long after the masquerade party has ended.
Please join us in reading this fantastically diverse FREE collection of stories to warm your heart while you wait for the kids, the oven to buzz, on a 15-minute break from work, or when you just need to hide for ten minutes from everyone! Every story is PG,but a few have a hint of zing.
The calendar on the wall says 2014 but the holidays are a magical time where anything is possible when it comes to romance. Prepare to travel through snow or to a tropical setting with a little dash of fantasy sprinkled in to make your holiday reading enjoyable. This heart-warming collection of all new, very short stories is our way of saying happy holidays to you.
A Night To Remember by Dee Ann Palmer
It was the worst Christmas Eve Marlee had ever lived through. Providing she did live through it, she thought. People who longed for a white Christmas obviously didn’t expect it to come with a power outage and a blizzard like she was creeping along in in her old Nissan.
Squinting to see, she switched the heat to the front and rear windshields. If she didn’t reach her house soon, the wipers wouldn’t be able to cut through the ice forming there. The snow had thickened and the temperature had dropped in the last thirty minutes.
“You had to have a tree. Going out in a blizzard to get that puny thing in the backseat masquerading as a Christmas tree was moronic,” she scolded herself.
“Rose is a multi-published, award-winning author and dilettante who loves great conversation and discovering interesting things to weave into stories. She lives with her family and small menagerie amid oak groves and prairie in the rolling glacial hills of the upper Midwest. Possessing an active imagination, she writes everything from children’s stories to historical non-fiction.”
Jennifer believes in writing love stories that connect families and touch hearts. Her first novel, My Mr. Manny, was released August 2013 and her first novella, In My Mother’s Footsteps, was released July 2013.
Lily Bishop lives in South Carolina with her husband and two children. She writes contemporary romance and romantic suspense, and has published two books in the City Lights series, No Strings Attached and Under His Protection. She is working on the third book now.
In every age the heart loves, and Dee Ann Palmer’s romances reflect those eras in fantasy, historic, contemporary and futuristic tales. The award winning Palmer is a PAN member of Romance Writers of America and belongs to the Los Angeles chapter of Sisters in Crime.
Barb Caffrey is a writer, editor, book reviewer and musician from the Midwest. She is the author of the humorous urban fantasy/romance AN ELFY ON THE LOOSE, and is the co-author of the Adventures of Joey Maverick series (with late husband Michael B. Caffrey).
Beverley Bateman is a Canadian author of several books who loves traveling, good wine and a mystery. She lives with her husband and two Shiba Inu dogs among vineyards and orchards set in lake country and surrounded by mountains – beaches, swimming and skiing.
Victoria Adams is a romance writer, dividing her writing between contemporary romance and New Adult contemporary romance. She lives in Ontario, Canada with her husband and kitten, Licorice. She likes to study Raqs Sharqi (Egyptian belly dance), garden, and bake.
Although she has lived or traveled in every continent except Antarctica and Australia (bucket list), M. S. Spencer has spent the last thirty years mostly in Washington, D.C. as a librarian, Congressional staff assistant, speechwriter, editor, birdwatcher, kayaker, policy wonk, non-profit director and parent. She has two fabulous grown children, and currently divides her time between the Gulf coast of Florida and a tiny village in Maine. Ms. Spencer has published nine romantic suspense novels.
Native Coloradoan Kaye Spencer writes romances from her basement hovel in a small, rural town in the far southeastern corner of Colorado—no mountains in sight—just prairie dogs, buffalo grass, and glorious prairie sunsets. While drawn to cowboys and the Old West, all genres are within her story-crafting realm. Retired from a long career in public education that included teaching through a community college outreach program, Kaye is enjoying being a full-time writer and spoiler of grandchildren. Kaye is also afflicted with ACD—Accumulative Cat Disorder—with no cure in sight.
Janis Susan May is a seventh-generation Texan and a third-generation wordsmith who writes mysteries as Janis Patterson, romances and other things as Janis Susan May, children’s books as Janis Susan Patterson and scholarly works and non-fiction as J.S.M. Patterson. Janis and her husband live in Texas with an assortment of rescued furbabies.
GEMMA JULIANA is a multi-published author who lives in an enchanted cottage in north Texas with her handsome hero, teen son and a comical dog. She loves making new friends and hearing from readers. Exotic coffee and chocolate fuel her creativity.
Lyndi Lamont is the racy alter ego of author Linda McLaughlin, who writes historical and Regency Romance. Since becoming Lyndi Lamont, she has discovered that writing sexy romance is a license to be naughty, at least between the pages of a book.
E. Ayers is a multi-published and best-selling author of western and contemporary romances. Her books are never too sweet or too hot. She writes down the middle.
It is available for FREE at
will be available at Barnes & Noble, Apple, and Kobo.
Beware when you hook up with a vampire. Your life will never be the same. Fabulous adventures may be thrust in your path, and the loving may be beyond hot, steamy and sensual, but you could be seduced into a darkness as annihilating as the black hole formed by the death of a star.
Night Train is a paperback series. My excerpt is from the first story, Night Train To Naples.
THE STORY
After seven-hundred years, Alexandros Nicolaides has adjusted to life as an immortal. Employed by a New Orleans diamond courier, the gemologist travels to Italy in the hope of gaining a new customer for the business. On the night train to Naples, he confirms what he’s suspected—someone is following him. Human Dante Rocco has his reasons for tailing the tall blond, He wants the account for an Italian firm. Unaware he follows an immortal, he’s in for a serious shock, but a hot, urgent, sexual bond flares between these two rivals when Alex rescues Dante from thugs and evil. As they struggle with the reality of their relationship, they discover they’re now the ones being pursued—by an unstable, vengeful vampire.
EXCERPT – Sexually explicit
He’d planned to demand why Dante followed him. Instead, unable to resist his urges, Alex leaned in to capture the seductive lips with his mouth. Thoughts of anything else fled.
Dante stiffened, and Alex thought that perhaps he’d been wrong; perhaps this man wasn’t gay. Or maybe he wasn’t as attracted to Alex as Alex was to him, or as stirred up from the fight as he was. Then, as Alex softened his mouth and deepened the kiss, Dante’s body relaxed and he responded hungrily with an exploring, searching tongue, as if he, too, needed release in the aftermath of the attack–to let go of the fear and, in a good fuck, exhaust the stockpiled chemicals his body had triggered so he might fight or flee.
Alex let his hard cock, its full veins thrumming hot against its velvety skin, press against an echoing erection that strained against expensive designer jeans and threatened to break through the fly. He couldn’t have described in words how good, how necessary that felt. He slid his hands down the silk shirt covering Dante’s shoulders and then around to his appealing ass to pull them even tighter together. Knowing how sore Dante’s throat must be, he sent a soft trail of kisses away from the mouth and to the salty drink his throat offered.
His felt his fangs come out, prepared to graze over or sink into the warm skin covering the tantalizing pulse and drink in the rich blood throbbing there. He groaned. And fought temptation.
I can’t do this. This Dante didn’t see my eyes glow red, doesn’t know what I am.
Abruptly, he released the Italian and stepped away as his fangs retracted. “I apologize. It was the fight, you see.” He kept his voice steady, his words formal, even while his body cried out to take this man, to push his cock hard against Dante’s until it spurted and he bit. Drank. He shook off the dangerous thoughts. “Will you be able to make your way home?”
Some of these books are already knocked down to 99¢, but they’ll all be 99¢ on Friday April 4th. You’ll find contemporary, suspense, mystery, romance, fantasy, time travel, historical and young adult among these Kindle novels and short stories by twenty bestselling authors.
NOTE: Nothing erotic, no GLBT stories in this group.
Authors invite those who enjoyed the books they purchased to leave a brief review on what they liked about them on Amazon in the next couple of months.
Welcome to BOOK HOOKS, a blog hop sponsored by Marketing For Romance Writers. Enjoy a few sentences here and then hop to taste the work of another author.
Awaking The Alpha is my latest release. It answers this question: Can two men who bridge two different worlds find a life together?
Logan extended his hand.
Because of what had happened when their gazes met, Blaze hesitated a split second before extending his to shake. As soon as the smooth skin of the new man’s hand gripped his, his inner wolf paced restlessly. Blaze ended the shake fast.
He watched Logan leave, unable to avoid noting wide shoulders that tapered to a narrower waist and hips in just the right proportions. He turned away before he could take in the man’s ass. Instinct told him that might bring trouble he didn’t need. Just keeping his wolf shut down took enough energy.
For most of his twenty years as a Special Forces warrior, he’d had it under control, fighting the need to change, hunt and howl during the three days of the full moon…Cover for Awaking The Alpha
TALK TO ME FROM 9 – 10 P.M. EST TUESDAY 1/28 as I chat about writing and answer any questions you may have. Leave a comment for a chance to win a copy of MAKE MINE A BAD BOY, my first Navy SEAL novella.
HERE’S HOW IT WORKS. GO TO http://www.coffeetimeromance.com/Chat.html and beneath the clock you’ll see a place to click to enter the Chat. NOTE: You do not have to enter a password.
WATCH FOR ME ON TUESDAY 2/4 when COFFEE TIME ROMANCE features new releases from several authors. Same deal, only my gift then will be a copy of next second Navy SEAL novella, Awaking The Alpha.
I’ve learned that when I appear on various blogs as a guest, there are certain questions readers are curious about. Not just about me, but for writers in general. Why, for instance, are we writers? Here are my personal responses to some frequently asked questions.
Why do you write?
My mother was a member of the Texas Storytellers Association, and as a little girl I became fascinated with the rhythmic flow of words as I listened to her practice. I composed my first stories in school in the third grade. I remember writing very small, practicing my newly acquired skill of cursive writing on lined paper. I was hooked. At an early age I also became a voracious reader. Now you’ll find me juggling between two audio books and a print one almost every day. I feel it’s essential for writers to read, read, read, so I do it by ear, on my PC, Kindle or iPad. Does any of it rub off on me? I can only hope.
What do you write?
Although I’ve been published in non fiction and fiction, I consider myself a Romance writer. For the past eight years, I’ve concentrated on composing sexually explicit m/f and m/m romances. Time To Be King, my latest Amber Allure release, is an erotic m/m novella. My main man there is a shapeshifting knight-dragon prince. If you like stories about chivalry, knights, dragons, action, adventure, and lots of sex this is a story for you.
What advice would you give new writers?
Long before I was a winner of the 2004 Amber Heat Wave Contest and became an Amber Quill Press author, I got it in my head to write a novel.I was in a critique group of published writers, and was so ignorant about genres I didn’t even know my book was a Romance—someone in the group had to tell me. I sold it before becoming connected to AQP, but now I have the rights back and you’ll soon see it self published on Amazon under a different name.
It is incredibly tough to write a book, especially when you don’t know what you’re doing. I do not recommend it! My advice to beginners is to study the craft. University and community college classes are readily available. Had I known to do so, I would have joined Romance Writers of America—its chapters offer online classes—and Sisters in Crime long before I did. Treat yourself to a writers conference or two, sit in to be inspired by and ask questions of successful authors. Often you can pay to submit 20-50 pages of the opening of your book for critique by a published author. In the RWA chapter I attend, almost every month members can enter to win a free critique of the early pages of a book.
Do you write every day, and how do you schedule your writing time?
Even though I’m retired, there’s no structure to my writing day. I write when I can. If I have a publisher’s deadline, or have set one for myself, I take time to meet it. However, my husband and my family come first. If I’ve received edits on one manuscript, often the galleys on a previous one come into me just as I’m polishing the next manuscript to submit. It’s a stressful juggling act, so strict scheduling isn’t always possible.
Do you flesh out your characters before you write? Do you lay out your plot?
There are methods for accomplishing both of these before you begin, but Laurie R. King, of The Beekeeper’s Daughter fame, feels one of the joys of writing is watching your characters unfold as you write. I agree with her. I write novellas, which are under forty thousand words, and I don’t outline or plot.
Some authors say they hear their main characters demanding to be heard. I see and feel my characters first. I know my setting right away, but I never know all the characters or their conflicts until I set my main people in motion in that setting. Believe me, I’ve tried to flesh everything out before I start, but my characters and their story aren’t real to me until then. I’m a little like mystery author Denise Hamilton, who says inspiration for her story, plot and characters only begins when she sits down and starts to type. In contrast, the late Stephen Cannell would write a seventy-five page synopsis of a four hundred page book first. You learn to know what your process is.
How do you decide on your settings?
The setting has to fit my characters. I’ve written in many subgenres of romance, and my settings are usually California–where I’ve grown up (see yummy book cover designed by Trace Edward Zaber, below)–but they also include Italy’s Pompeii, Naples and Venice, Medieval England, and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. I’ve toured Great Britain–which includes southern Ireland, Wales and Scotland–but not Italy or the UAE. Obviously, my research has to be thorough to put my readers in the places I haven’t experienced. I use the library, literature from tour agents, the Internet, speaking with those in the know, and have even resorted to purchasing travel videos of a region.
Recently, I was pleased when an author who has been to Naples told me the setting to Night Train To Naples was exactly right.
My favorite coffee shop here in town is the setting for one of my earlier m/f contemporaries. Here again, I wrote a shapeshifter into the story before I knew what I was doing or the term for it. I just saw the story as having paranormal elements. Oddly, I was attending a Left Coast Crime Conference in Monterey, California, when the idea for the shifter came to me. I was in that city’s fantastic aquarium when the idea struck.
Are your characters modeled after anyone you know? Are you in your characters?
My characters are never modeled after people I know. They’re created out of bits and pieces of what I’ve learned about human nature, and knowledge obtained through science, nutrition, medicine, and love. They come from what I may have experienced through loss or physical pain, surviving earthquakes, high winds, floods and fires. But they are not me. They are purely fictional.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Writing became a part of Carolina Valdez’s life when she composed her first stories at the age of eight. She chose a career path in nursing, only realizing she was also a writer after she’d made her first sale.A member of the Published Author Network of Romance Writers of America (RWA-PAN), the award winning author is multi-published in fiction and non-fiction. Today she concentrates on sizzling, sexy tales in several Romance subgenres. Suspense crops up in some of her stories, no doubt the result of her affiliation with Sisters in Crime/Los Angeles.
Valdez has competed in over a hundred foot races, five of them marathons (26.2 miles). She lives in southern California with her husband.
Although this blog hop has ended for me, I recommend them as a great chance to acquaint yourself with new authors or visit those whose books you enjoy.
The answers to my Ten Interview Questions for this hopwere:
1. What was the working and final title of your book? My titles are approved by the publisher before I write, so the title of my novella was always Time To Be King.
2. Where did the idea come from for the book? The idea was sparked by Tears Of The Dragon, my male/female erotic romance. This is the sequel to that story.
3. What genre does your book fall under? Romance, with subgenres of Medieval, fantasy and shapeshifter.
4. Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition? I could see someone like a blond Russell Crowe (think Robin Hood) as my knight-dragon prince and a brunette Brad Pitt as his knight lover.
5. What is the one sentence synopsis of your book? A dying dragon king, the shapeshifter knight-prince destined to succeed him, and the risk he takes with the choice he must make.
6. Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency? Neither. This gay erotic romance is available now from my publisher. Click on the Excerpt link on the bar above.
7. How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript? Because I don’t write novel length, I don’t do drafts. I write and edit as I go. It takes me three months to polish 16,000-39,000 words.
8. What other books would you compare this story to within your genre? Christine Feehan’s shapeshifter Carpathian series (although they’re male/female romances).
9. Who or what inspired you to write this book? A full page illustration in Realms of Fantasy magazine inspired Tears Of The Dragon. A lovely, mythical princess and her entourage were riding through a field of flowers, and I wanted in the worst way to write about her; to capture in words the magical quality and my feelings. I have no idea why I made her a dragon princess who, in human form, falls in love with a knight. Time To Be King is the story of their little shapeshifting son, whom, as a mother of sons, I fell in love with. Now he’s all grown up… first knight to the earl who rules the fantasy kingdom of Ahnerion.
I also wanted to express what it feels like to be different and forced to keep secrets on pain of death. The theme is also about making choices.
10. What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest? If you like strong characters who love fiercely and fight for honor, kingdom and family, plus a story with action, adventure and a touch of betrayal, you will like Time To Be King.
Note: You must be eighteen or older to purchase my stories.
Happy reading!
Carolina
A dying dragon king, a shapeshifting prince, his human lover
…there are things I’d like to avoid in life. One being prison. Another, snakes in my garden–most particularly, venomous ones.
As for the prison thing, I’m claustrophobic. And have you seen the size of some of the cells? California’s San Quentin Prison opened in 1852, and inmates are still housed in some of the old cells.Visualize a bunk bed along one wall and so close to the opposite wall that one man can’t pass the other to get to the meal pass-through or the toilet. Think about the inmate unjustly convicted of murder who won his freedom years later only to discover he’d lost his distance vision because he hadn’t seen the outside world in all those years. He even exercised in an indoor cage.
I can’t imagine life without being outdoors. Of seeing a stormy sky or a dark velvet one winking with stars, of dancing in the rain, watching the sea froth over my wading toes or feeling them go numb tromping through deep snow, or fighting the hot and damaging Santana winds in southern California.
My college choir once sang in San Quentin, and it was a big deal. The prisoners we were allowed to sing for clapped wildly after each song, but they cheered, pumped fists in the air and stomped their feet when we sang Freedom. The goosebumps part of the visit, however, was the visit to the empty green room–the death chamber–because this prison houses all of California’s male death row inmates. Our tour guide explained the procedure, and none of us spoke a word until we were safely back on our bus and the prison gates had clanked shut behind us.
Later, as a graduate married to my college sweetheart, I sang in a state mental hospital with a madrigal group.”You must remain with your group. If you wander off it may take time to find you and prove you don’t belong here.” If I was ill and needed to be there that would be one thing, but I guess I need to add “sane and lost in a mental hospital” to my list of things to avoid at all cost.
My list contains things very appropriate for mysteries and suspenses, but have I used any in my romances? The joyous, sensual things, of course, but so far venomous snakes, murderous rogue vampires, attacking knights and lethal, marauding Indians are the major menaces.
Romance touches all the senses. Using the things we want to avoid at all cost are as valid in our stories as the things that bring us pleasure.
Come back the week of November 26 for The Next Best Thing Blog Hop! Read about my writing process and why I wrote Tears Of The Dragon and its sequel, Time To Be King.
Carolina
A knight’s flaming passion for the dragoness woman he loves…
FINGERS TO THE KEYS 