Beaches, Backroads & Books

I  am so excited to share the cover of my new book, When Swallows Fall . I love it!! I think it says "gothic romance" quite well. I'd love your opinion.         Here's the backcover blurb:   Although Ophelia Garrett loved Cade Scott first, it was her sister he married and took home to his plantation. When Ophelia receives word of her sister's murder and Cade's arrest, she travels there on a mission to learn the truth. She soon finds the halls of Almenara are haunted by secrets, peril, and quite possibly her sister's ghost. Despite the cold, angry man Cade has become, Ophelia's heart refuses to believe he is a murderer. Vowing to do everything she can to prove his innocence, Ophelia must open wounds she’d hoped were long healed and face the feelings that still burn between her and Cade.  As everyone looks to Cade as the suspect, evil haunts the dunes and halls of Almenara, bringing death to two more young women and forcing Ophel...

Today, I'm welcoming guest blogger, Donna Dalton, author of Loving Bryne . Please enjoy her post and the excerpt from Loving Bryne .  I apologize to Donna that I couldn't get the picture of the Union Troops passing by the Willard Hotel to load, so I used one I found through Google. The idea for LOVING BYRNE emerged from the royal wedding of William and Kate. Being a lover of history, I wondered about the past weddings of American royalty. I found that there have been nineteen White House weddings , including nine presidential children and one president. In my research, I learned that many of the guests were quartered in The Willard Hotel. Intrigued, I dug a little more into this historic hotel located at 1401 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington DC. In 1847, Henry Willard leased six buildings and combined them into a single structure. He enlarged them into a four-story building which he named The Willard Hotel. Many famous people have stayed in the hotel over the year...

The middle of a manuscript is a whole lot like the middle of life. Things start to sag. My mother-in-law told me once that her 40s were the most difficult decade and then things got better again after fifty. I joke that it's because making it up and over the peak of the hill is a lot more difficult than rolling down the other side. Writing is the same way. At the moment, I am at the halfway point of two manuscripts. They were both going so well as I pushed them up the mountain, and I even think I know where they're going to land at the other side. Making it over that summit, though, had been a discouraging endeavor. It's sagging big time. If these manuscript were boobs, they'd be knocking on my knees right about now. Still, it isn't quite time for enhancement surgery yet. That all comes later, when you can look back on the whole of it and see where the nips and tucks should be performed. In midlife, we look back over our lives and think "wow, that was stu...