Falling in Love by Diane Burton

Forty-two years ago, I fell in love. Many of you know that I met my love on a blind date. The first time he called, we talked for over an hour. That was how easy and comfortable he felt. It turned out we lived in the same apartment complex, his building kitty-corner from mine. If not for our well-meaning friends, we never would have met. He worked odd hours at a steel mill while I was a teacher with regular hours. We met in June, got engaged in August, and married on Thanksgiving Day. Yep, the actual day. Just like my mother and her mother. And my daughter. She and I made a pact that my granddaughter would NOT follow that tradition.

I didn’t think I would ever love anyone as strongly as I loved my Hubs. I was wrong. Two years later, along came our daughter and I fell in love with her. A year after that, our son arrived. Another love fest. Okay, that was it. I was blessed three times over.

Seven years ago, another little girl stole my heart. From the first time my granddaughter snuggled in, I was lost. Three years after that, a little boy made me fall in love again. How could I not? Those two precious children love me unconditionally. There’s a saying that if I knew how much fun grandchildren could be, I’d have had them first. How true that is.

The grandkiddies are here this morning. They stayed overnight so their parents could have “date night.” Hubs and I moved closer to them just for this. Our daughter tries so hard not to take advantage of us that we almost have to beg so the kiddies can come over. In turn, the kiddies frequently plead with their parents to let them stay overnight here. I love it!

I thought things couldn’t be any better. Then our son and daughter-in-law gave us more good news. In May, another little girl will arrive and I just know I’m going to fall in love again.

The heart is amazing. It just keeps expanding, allowing us to love more than we thought possible. While it’s usually just Hubs and me, we’ve fallen into the routine of two people who have been together for a long time. Our mornings usually start with “How did you sleep?” and end with “I hope you get a good night’s sleep.” Real romantic, huh? Yet in between we still find things to talk about.

Falling in love is exciting and wondrous. Staying in love is even better. As I usually say in the acknowledgements at the end of my books, I’m so glad our friends fixed us up on that blind date.

Lasting love is why I write romance. I want my characters to find that happy-ever-after, even though some of them go into relationships with a happy-for-now attitude. They don’t think they’ll ever find everlasting love. That’s the situation in THE CASE OF THE BYGONE BROTHER. Alex O’Hara is so busy she doesn’t have time to fall in love, have children, and live happily ever after. Since this is a mystery, not a romance, that’s okay. Of course, she’s had a mad crush on Nick Palzetti ever since high school. Nick didn’t show interest in her then and he doesn’t now. Bummer.

Blurb:

PI Alex O’Hara finally gets a case that will give her bottom line a much needed boost. She might even be able to change her diet from ramen noodles to prime rib. All she has to do is track down a man who’s been missing for over ten years. Piece of cake . . . until an old flame arrives and a mugger roughs her up with orders to back off.

Excerpt:

“Hello, gorgeous.”

I whacked my head on the display shelf.

Well, what would you do if you were lying across the top of a four-drawer lateral file cabinet, and your arm—yardstick attached—was wedged between the wall and the cabinet, trying to retrieve the license renewal application that if you mangled, crushed or couldn’t get would mean the end of your business, and the ex-love-of-your-life stood in the doorway looking at your butt?

The shelf shook on its braces from contact with my head. Never mind that the encounter didn’t do much for the aforementioned body part. The Fair Haven Chamber of Commerce awards rattled, and signed Detroit Tigers baseballs pelted my head, shoulders, and the back of my thigh. I dropped the yardstick and swore.

“I thought you promised your mother you wouldn’t swear anymore.” He would remind me of that vow.

“Relapse,” I muttered as I looked over my shoulder.

In that loose-limbed, cocky manner I once thought scary, sexy, and so cool, Nick Palzetti stood in the doorway to the spare office. He even dressed the same in a black leather jacket, black knit shirt, and jeans that molded his hips. Lordy, he could still make my mouth go dry.

As I wiggled back and sideways across the long cabinet, I felt my skirt ride up. Of all days to wear a skirt. With my foot, I searched for the desk chair I’d climbed to get on top of the cabinet. I’d kicked off my high heels before standing on the chair, probably the only smart thing I’d done so far.

“Red panties, you naughty girl.”

Available at Amazon: http://amzn.com/B00P1GPR0Q

Water by Barbara Edwards

Fall into water

It took me along time find a subject for my post today. Because the roses have posted blogs on so many interesting “Fall” topics and used many I’d have liked to opine on, 

I finally resorted to word association to find an interesting subject.

Start with Fall: autumn, fall down, fall  in love, fall down the stairs, fall? Hmmm. Water fall. Aha.

On my recent vacation, I took lots of photos.

 Only I need to find the waterfalls but since that would take me combing over four thousand pictures,

 I fell into water.

I hope you enjoy my choices. This river freezes into the ice road truckers use to move freight North,

Please follow, friend or like me. I love to hear from my readers.

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When Things Fall into the Wrong Hands by Alison Henderson

Last week I was staring at our topics for the month, waiting for inspiration to strike, and this one began to worm its way into my brain. Fall into the Wrong Hands. I write romantic suspense, so I ought to be able to do something with that, right?

In fact, following my Christmas short story collection, my next project will involve industrial espionage—something falling into the wrong hands. I’ve written most of the first chapter and have a pretty good idea where the story is going, but I would love a little help brainstorming, so put on your plotting caps!

This book, tentatively entitled BOILING POINT, will be the second in the Phoenix, Ltd. female bodyguard series, so I want it to be similar in tone—light, snappy, and suspenseful, with a strong dose of humor.

Here’s the premise:

An eccentric inventor has hired Zoe Hargrove to pose as a personal chef while protecting his pregnant wife without her knowledge. Only one problem – Zoe doesn’t know how to cook. As a cover, the client tells his wife Zoe’s there to help him test his latest invention, a cooking robot known as GRAMPA (Great Robotic Automatic Meal Preparation Assistant.

While a representative of a Japanese Electronics Conglomerate, Mr. Watanabe, has been trying unsuccessfully to buy GRAMPA, several incidents have occurred, including attempted break-ins and an episode of road rage. Fearing for her husband’s life, the inventor’s wife has hired a secret bodyguard of her own to protect her husband—Dominick “Nick” Rosetti, a former police detective. Nick is posing as the family chauffeur.

I anticipate lots of mayhem and mistaken identities as Zoe and Nick try to figure out who’s who and protect both their clients from the real villain.

Question #1: Do you think the premise is fun or over-the-top hokey, with all the secrets the characters are hiding from each other?

Question #2: How do you feel about the idea of GRAMPA? The Japanese are crazy about robots that do domestic chores, so that’s too not unrealistic, but do you think American readers will enjoy it? There’s one planned scene where the inventor orders GRAMPA to scare off the man trying to steal his plans with a small kitchen blowtorch. Fun or dumb?

Question #3: Do these characters and the set-up suggest any fun scenes to you?

Any suggestions are welcome. Let your imaginations run wild!

Thanks!

Alison

www.alisonhenderson.com

http://alisonhenderson.blogspot.com

Fall From Grace

Many times in romance novels, the Alpha male has a deep, dark secret. Something from his past he does not want the heroine to know. Something that makes him feel unworthy of the heroine’s love. He may go to great lengths to hide his fall from grace, but usually secrets like that have a way of seeping out, of rising to the surface, of magically appearing at the most inopportune time.

In my novella, Abra Cadaver, Keane Malson is an ancient Celtic warrior, cursed to roam the streets of the modern world, bring people back to life, and capture demons. He meets Holly Brimmer, fifth grade teacher, when she crashes her car on a rain-slicked road. Keane would very much like to keep his fall from grace hidden, but he’s reminded of it every time he has to save a new person, every time he has to take down an unruly demon, every time he looks at Holly and knows he wouldn’t be good for her.

Here’s the tale of his fall from grace:

A cruel curse. A gift, the wretched hag had called it. She must have had a twisted sense of humor to go along with her witch’s candles, crystals, and potions. Keane would have willingly died from the sword wound across his stomach. To die in battle, fighting for his Celts and defending his homeland, would have been the highest honor.

Instead, here he remained. A constant. A wheel that no longer turned. A creature that looked like a man, but did things no sane man would ever do. A murderer for the sake of keeping others alive. True, he only killed demons, but when their blood stained his hands, it was hard to remember he was keeping the demons from hurting anyone else.

He’d tried to refuse the witch’s attention, but when one’s intestines are spilling out one’s lower abdomen in a warm, crimson coil, clear thought is impossible. The pain he had been in at the time his soldiers brought him to the crone had rendered him speechless, near death—a death he was ready to accept.

However, his brother and second in command, Eliah, begged the sorceress to save Keane. Eliah wept for Keane, his only brother, and though it broke his heart to hear his brother fall so deeply into desperation, he did not wish for his own life to be unnaturally lengthened. He’d accept his time to leave this plane and go with dignity. To die a warrior’s death.

As he’d mustered up his final shreds of strength to decline the hag’s offer of dark magick, Keane felt Eliah’s hand clamp over his, great tears streaming down his brother’s young, battle-scarred face. Keane’s words strangled in his throat looking into his brother’s eyes, and the witch took his silence to mean he wanted her to work the spell. To pull him back from death’s precipice.

Before he could stop her, the crafty sorceress had tossed her chant, her dark magick, into him. His entrails healed, his skin mended. Aside from a scar stretching clear across his stomach from the base of his ribcage to the opposite hip, he was returned to his original state before the slice of an opponent’s long-sword. A swipe that had ripped him from his horse and brought him to the blood-soaked

battleground.

“You are saved, brother.” Eliah had helped him to his feet and threw his arms around Keane’s

shoulders. “We will have many years together. We will finish the fight. The Celts will be victorious!”

His soldiers had thrown up a cheer loud enough to rattle the very ground beneath their feet.

Unfortunately, he was around to witness the Romans defeat the Celts. At that moment, however,

seeing his brother’s joy made it hard for Keane to be angry at being cheated out of his honorable demise.

“Thank you,” Keane had told the crone. She had given him his life back.

“Truly a wonderful gift I’ve given thee. Your service will be thanks enough, warrior.” The cackle she released into the candlelight frightened him more than facing an army of fire-breathing dragons.

“My service?” He towered over the withered witch, but her power leaped off her cloak-covered

fragility, and he staggered back.

Eliah caught him before he hit the ground again. “What do you wish from us, witch?”

“I wish nothing from you, dear, but your brother owes me a debt.” She ran her crooked fingers along

Keane’s bare arm and when he looked down, his bones were visible beneath his flesh. She’d given him

a glimpse of the death he’d avoided.

“I asked you to save him.” Eliah stepped between the witch and Keane. “I will pay for your

magick.” He plunged his hand into the coin purse at his belt.

The hag put her hand over Eliah’s, and he froze, his eyes wide with terror. Keane would never know for sure what the witch had done to him with that touch, but Eliah slid his hand from his money pouch and let the coins drop to the ground like golden hailstones.

“Only you can pay the debt.” She pointed at Keane, a nasty smile on her cracked lips.

“Fine. How?” He was tired of the games. He had more homeland to protect.

“I give you the abra cadaver, warrior. With it, you shall save many as I have saved you tonight.” She angled a gnarled finger at Keane’s arm focusing her cloudy, gray eyes on his flesh.

Standing amongst his men, Keane suddenly keeled over, gripping his bicep as something seared his skin. The burn was incredible, as if someone branded him with fired iron. When he pulled his hand away, an inked serpent spiraled its black body around his bicep, and the witch’s voice echoed in his head.

Marked with the snake,

in you I wake,

the power to shed

death from the dead.

With those words still whispering in the air, the hag disappeared into the darkness of the night. He

had walked away, but instead of continuing the fight with his men, he’d kept walking until he was

compelled to kneel beside an enemy soldier dying in the carnage Keane’s army had unleashed. He’d

placed his hands over that soldier’s chest and brought him back from the Dark Place.

From that point on, century after century, he’d been saving people and killing demons to keep them

alive. He could barely call what he had a life. People weren’t meant to live as long as he had. People

weren’t meant to do what he did.

All Keane Malson wanted was an honorable death among his soldiers. He got something very different, but maybe he’ll find love despite his curse. Pick up Abra Cadaver today and enjoy!

Toodles,

Chris

www.christinedepetrillo.weebly.com

The Use of Tropes in Romance by Jannine Gallant

What is a trope? I actually looked it up a while back when I noticed publishers with calls out for stories that include popular tropes. From Webster's Dictionary, a trope is: a common or overused theme or device : cliché. OMG, publishers are actually looking for clichés. Surely not! Don't they always say they want something new and different? But I digress... Here are a few popular tropes: 1) Marriage of Convenience 2) Secret Baby 3) Childhood friends to Lovers 4) Love Triangle 5) Star-Crossed Lovers. I could go on, but I won't.

I also realized, much to my dismay, I'm guilty of using tropes. Horrors! I'd just never thought of it in that way before. I like to believe I produce something new and unique in my writing. My historical romance, An Uncertain Destiny, is a good example. I was asked by publishers, what books are similar to mine. I couldn't think of any. This book is set during the witchcraft trials in Salem, not a popular time period. The hero and heroine are separated for a portion of the book--Harlequin didn't like that one bit! Eventually the publishers all passed, and I self-pubbed the book. 12 five star reviews have convinced me I wasn't wrong in thinking the book has merit! Anyway, one of the reviewers mentioned the girl-posing-as-a-cabin-boy trope was very well done. OMG, I used a trope!

I guess we all use common themes in our writing--even when we don't intend to. So, how do you feel when you read a book with a well-worn theme? Yawn-worthy or familiar and comforting? What are some of your favorites?

And now to slip in one of this month's themes: Fall Overboard. In An Uncertain Destiny, the captain falls over the side of the ship in a storm, is rescued by the crew and left for the heroine (yes the one who had been posing as a cabin boy) to nurse back to health. Here's a short excerpt:

Nicholas lay perfectly still. He hadn’t twitched or mumbled once, nor had he regained any color. Picking up his hand, she squeezed his fingers.

“You can’t die. I won’t let you. The Mother Goddess kept you safe. She didn’t let you fall into the dark.” Gently she stroked the nasty looking bruise on his cheekbone below the cut then bent to kiss it.

“I know you belong to another. But knowing hasn’t stopped me from caring.” She pressed her hands together and drew in a harsh breath. “The Goddess knows I’ve tried.”

Did his lashes flutter?

She touched his cheek again with her lips, feeling the scratch of stubble, breathing in the tang of salt on his skin and the metallic scent of blood.

When he didn’t stir, she sighed. “Wake up, Nicholas. I need you to come back to me.” Tears welled in her eyes and ran unchecked down her face. “I can’t lose you too. Even if you’ll never truly be mine.”

If you're intrigued, you can pick up a copy on Amazon. Or, check out my other books on my website. Have a great day!

FALLING OVERBOARD-I'M GOOD AT IT! by Rolynn Anderson

We’re still Falling at Roses of Prose.  For November the topics are: Fall into Winter, Fall Overboard, Fall from Grace, Fall into Wrong Hands

Falling Overboard...I'm an expert.  I’ve been dunked twice in my long boating career, and I’m alive to talk about those experiences.  Embarrassing?  Oh yes!

Many of you know that my husband and I have just sold our boat after thirty years of cruising.  I never fell off INTREPID, the 42 foot trawler we just sold, and if you take a look at her, you can see she’s built to keep us aboard and safe. 

But our first boat, a 34 foot twin gas engine boat, came without railings, and even worse, it had cleats for tying lines screwed onto the surface around the boat…perfect for tripping up a person.  Yup, that’s what happened to me.  Worse, the accident occurred in the locks leading from Lake Washington to Puget Sound.  I was in such a hurry to grab the line from the lockmaster, looking up instead of at my footing, that I lost my balance and fell into the water.  I didn’t have a way to get back on the boat, so I had to climb the ladder to the top of the locks, where hundreds of tourists watch the action in the locks.  On this day, they observed me emerge off the top of the ladder, a drenched, red-faced woman.  I raised my hands and said, "No pictures, please!"

Two weeks later when we returned from our vacation, the lockmasters remembered our boat and hollered at me not to take a swim in the locks again.  How embarrassing!

The second time I fell overboard was off a rented barge in the Burgundy region of France.  We chartered and captained this barge with another couple, enjoying two weeks going up the man-made canal.  Gorgeous countryside, relaxing pace-a wonderful experience-until I fell off the boat on a rainy day in a lock.  You see, these canals have numerous locks we had to traverse every day, sometimes with a lockmaster to help, but sometimes on our own.  Once again, I was busy handling lines to a lockmaster when I slipped on the wet surface of the boat, lost my balance, and fell into the water.  The trouble was, I hadn’t figured out how to get back on the boat from the water, and there were no ladders up the lock wall.  Awkward, embarrassing and frustrating, for sure.

Truth is, falling overboard in the locks is dangerous because both water and boats are moving as the water sluices in or out.  In both cases, I was lucky to get out of trouble without injury.  And here’s the positive spin on falling overboard: I’ve done it twice and I survived.  In both cases I didn't panic and I found ways to get to safety.  But that’s it.  I passed the ‘falling in the locks’ test.  No more!

Sidenote: Check out LIE CATCHERS, my latest novel, set in Petersburg.  Here are the Amazon and Wild Rose Press buy sites:

http://amzn.com/B00HJDS1LG

http://www.wildrosepublishing.com/maincatalog_v151/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=235_236&products_id=5607