Book 3 in the MacQuire Women’s Series, FIRST IMPRESSIONS, give us today’s first line Friday.
“Dr. Rogers, the dog-bite patient from the veterinary clinic is here.”
As you can see, with this book I learned to change up from strict exposition to a line of dialogue that puts you right in the thick of the story, LOL!
Hopefully, after reading that line, readers want to know who Dr. Rogers is and who was bitten by a dog.
Filed under First Impressions
I am so honored to announce that I will be a panelist in two of this upcoming weekend’s RWA event, TRADITIONAL AUTHOR WEEKEND.
Are you a writer? Newbie, or trying to get published? An indie author who is looking for something different? Or a writer who wants to take their career to the next level?
No matter where you are in your writing career, this wonderful weekend of workshops and panels will educate you on all the aspects of pursuing a traditional publishing career – and yes, you still can get signed by a traditional publishing house, even in this explosion of Indie/self-pubbed times.
Unlock the door to the world of traditional publishing and set yourself up for success!
Get the tools you need to successfully traditionally publish a romance novel. This one-of-a-kind, two-day virtual mini-conference is dedicated to romance writers unfamiliar with, interested in, or need help navigating the path of traditional publishing.
When: Saturday, January 21, 2023 – Sunday, January 22, 2023
Where: Zoom; log in via your computer or smart device
Registration: $299, RWA Members; $349, Non-RWA Members
Registration is now open! Registration closes January 20, 2023, or when spots are gone.
All registered attendees will have access to the recordings for a period of six months.
Register here: TAW
Priscilla Oliveras, author, keynote
Sonali Dev, author
Leticia Gomez, editorial director, Dafina (Kensington Books)
Candace Havens, author
Athena W. Hernandez, author
Peggy Jaeger, author
Michelle Klayman, Boroughs Publishing Group
Thien-Kim Lam, author
LaQuette, author
La Sheera Lee, agent, SBR Media
Mia P. Manansala, author and book coach
Jode Millman, author and IP attorney
Ella Quinn, author
A.M. Roark, author
Reese Ryan, author
Naima Simone, author
Leslie Truex, agent, Blue Ridge Agency
More to come!
Priscilla Oliveras, author, keynote
Sonali Dev, author
Leticia Gomez, editorial director, Dafina (Kensington Books)
Candace Havens, author
Athena W. Hernandez, author
Peggy Jaeger, author
Michelle Klayman, Boroughs Publishing Group
Thien-Kim Lam, author
LaQuette, author
La Sheera Lee, agent, SBR Media
Mia P. Manansala, author and book coach
Jode Millman, author and IP attorney
Ella Quinn, author
A.M. Roark, author
Reese Ryan, author
Naima Simone, author
Leslie Truex, agent, Blue Ridge Agency
More to come!
All times are listed in Central Time.
Registration for Traditional Author Weekend is required to attend the sessions below, unless otherwise noted.
| Saturday, January 21 | |
| Time | Event |
| 9:00 – 9:10 a.m. | Welcome from RWA President Clair Brett |
| 9:15 – 9:30 a.m. | Keynote with Priscilla Oliveras |
| 9:30 – 10:30 a.m. | Understanding Publishing Lines: Write a Manuscript that Fits Panelists: Leticia Gomez (Kensington Publishing), Candace Havens, La Sheera Lee (SBR Media), and Morena Stamm (The Wild Rose Press) |
| 10:45 – 11:45 a.m. | Do the Research: Agents’ and Editors’ Wish List and Submission Guidelines Panelists: Michelle Klayman (Boroughs Publishing) and Leslie Truex (Blue Ridge Agency) |
| 12:00 – 1:00 p.m. | Writing a Query Letter and Synopsis: Preparing the Submission Material Presenter: Candace Havens |
| 1:15 – 2:15 p.m. | The Best Pitches Presenter: Leticia Gomez (Kensington Publishing) |
| 2:30 – 3:30 p.m. | From Contract to Bookshelf Panelists: Peggy Jaeger and LaQuette |
| 3:45 – 5:15 p.m. | After Hours Fun Host: A.M. Roark |
| Sunday, January 22 | |
| Time | Event |
| 9:00 – 10:00 a.m. | Copyrights and Contracts Presenter: Jode Millman |
| 10:15 – 11:15 a.m. | How Many Nos Before I Got a Yes Panelists: Sonali Dev, Peggy Jaeger, Thien-Kim Lam, Mia P. Manansala, Ella Quinn, Reese Ryan, & Naima Simone |
| 11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. | Public Relations and Marketing for Traditional Authors Presenter: Athena Hernandez |
| 12:45 – 1:00 p.m. | Closing Remarks |
I hope to see you there!!! This really will be a great weekend of learning, networking, and focusing in on your career!
I’ve said this so many times and I love saying it again and again: I LOVELOVELOVE when one of my Wild Rose Press sistahs comes for a visit, especially when they tell me about one of their new books. Today I have sistah RACHEL BRIMBLE here for the very first time. YAY! She was kind enough to answer all my interview questions then give me a little peek into her newest WRP book VICTORIA AND VIOLET (THE ROYAL MAIDS BOOK 1) available now.
Victoria…the floor is yours!
Rachel, the Author:
Because I love it so much! I have wanted to write since I was very young and once I started writing toward publication in 2015, it became a huge part of my life. These days, if I go more than three days without writing, I become a very difficult person to live with, haha! It’s a compulsion…
I have been concentrating on historical romance for the last four years or so, but I also have contemporary romance and romantic suspense novels published with Harlequin and the Wild Rose Press. Writing historical romance gives me a wonderful outlet for my history obsession and an excuse to read lots and lots of non-fiction books and watching numerous documentaries! However, I definitely write romance because I love LOVE!
I read historical, contemporary, and romantic suspense – I think if I had to choose one as a favorite, I would have to say historical 😊
I am lucky enough to be able to write full-time so I tend to write from 8.30am to 5.30pm Monday to Friday with a lunch break and dog walk in between as well as a couple of hours on Saturday. I try to take Sunday off completely!
I started on the kitchen table, but for the last four years, I have written from my home office which is the spare bedroom of my house. This room is my haven and I appreciate the space so much. I have a beautiful white desk with my planning boards in front of me, a window looking out onto our back garden and two walls with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves containing research books and novels.
I need total quiet to write but can edit and do my admin and/or social media content work with background noise. I need the silence to actually create.
7. Do you listen to music while you write, and if so, what kind? If not, why not?
No – I have just never felt the need. Lots of my writer friends have playlists for their different books, but it has never been a thing for me.
My current work in progress is the second book in my Royal Maids series and is set in the court of the Prince and Princess of Wales who go on to become King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra. The idea for the plotline came to me when I read about Alexandra’s love of clothes and how she had been admired for her looks and style in the early 20th century the same way Princess Diana was admired in the late 20th century.
It’s usually plot – I am often inspired by a historical building or a period drama I have seen on TV that I would have written differently. A plot will slowly form in my mind and then I have to wait for the characters to come forward and claim their spots in the book! I really enjoy getting to know my characters, but it isn’t until about a third way, or even halfway, through the first draft that I feel I know them well.
Hardworking, passionate, ambitious (Peggy here: I LOVELOVLOVE those descriptions!!!)
Rachel, The Person:
I have naturally curly hair and have not had my hair professionally cut since my wedding day in 1998 – my daughters or husband give it a quick trim whenever needed!
Apart from childhood crushes, I would have to say my husband! We started dating when we were 18 😊
Ooh, I have been blessed with many fabulous days in my life, but one that I will never forget and treasure forever was when my husband surprised me with a flight to Ireland and a two-night stay at Ashford Castle where romance writer Nora Roberts was hosting an afternoon tea and book signing.
I ADORE her books and it was a dream come true to talk to her and have her say hello again to me in the evening at the castle where she was staying, too.
His generosity – he is such a generous person in every way and would help anyone who needed it. He has a very good heart.
My laptop, of course! 😊
Funny (I hope!), kind, conscientious (AWWW!)
Ain’t No Mountain High Enough
The Artful Dodger from Oliver Twist – he would take me around all the dark, seedier places of Victorian London and teach me the art of survival. I love his character so much. He has always been an example of resilience to me rather than a petty criminal!
Bonus round
I love the Actor’s Studio show on Bravo, so this is my version of it:
Can I have 6? “How much do you love football?” hahah – yes, you can!!!!
Writing in the morning, a long dog walk in the English countryside followed by dinner in an old pub, preferably Tudor.
It should be a dream come true to serve the Queen of England…
When Violet Parker is told she will be Queen Victoria’s personal housemaid, she cannot believe her good fortune. She finally has the chance to escape her overbearing mother, a servant to the Duchess of Kent.
Violet hopes to explore who she is and what the world has to offer without her mother’s schemes overshadowing her every thought and action.
Then she meets James Greene, assistant to the queen’s chief political adviser, Lord Melbourne. From entirely different backgrounds and social class, Violet and James should have neither need nor desire to speak to one another, yet through their service, their paths cross and their lives merge—as do their feelings.
Only Victoria’s court is not always the place for romance, but rather secrets, scandals, and conspiracies…
Rachel lives in a small town near Bath, England. She is the author of 29 novels including the Ladies of Carson Street trilogy, the Shop Girl series (Aria Fiction) and the Templeton Cove Stories (Harlequin). Her latest novel, Victoria & Violet is the first book in her new Royal Maids series with the Wild Rose Press and released 17th October 2022.
Rachel is a member of the Romantic Novelists Association as well as the Historical Novel Society and has thousands of social media followers all over the world.
To sign up for her newsletter (a guaranteed giveaway every month!), click here: https://bit.ly/3zyH7dt
Website: https://bit.ly/3wH7HQs
Twitter: https://bit.ly/3AQvK0A
Facebook: https://bit.ly/3i49GZ3
Instagram: https://bit.ly/3lTQZbF
Peggy here – I can’t thank you, Rachel, enough for coming to visit me today. I loved your interview and I’ve got my own pic of me with Nora, as well!!!! It was a top 5 day in my life when I met her and got to speak with her privately!!!! Good luck with Victoria and Violet – it sounds fabulous!!!)
Filed under WIld Rose Press AUthor
From my second book in the MacQuire Women series, THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HOME. This one’s about Moira Cleary.
Moira Cleary paid the taxi driver and took her first full breath in over twenty-four hours.
This line sets the entire book up, because you want to know Why she’s taking her first full breath in 24 hrs, and where she is? At least, that was my hope, LOL.
Filed under #firstlinefriday
I love when my author friends come to visit me. Today, I’ve got multi-published, best-selling author, Liz Flaherty, joining me and she’s telling me all about a re-release of one of her backlist books. She’s updated the story a bit to modernize it just hair and I’m excited to share it with you.
Here’s Liz…
I’ve been married for a long time. I’ve fallen in love over and over during the 51-plus years of our marriage. Always with the same guy and often with a different one who looks like him but…really, did he just say that? We’ve stayed married, never living apart or even doing any bedroom-door-slamming or sleeping on the couch. I’ve never either asked or ordered him to leave and he’s never driven away with any intent of not returning.
It has not always been nearly as easy as that sounds.
In A Soft Place to Fall, Early and Nash were married for a long time, too. She got pregnant while she was still in high school and they got married when she was 16 and he was 18. They both worked nearly all the time and got Nash through medical school and raised four children. Thirty years after they got married, they’re living in a pretty gated community in Lexington, Kentucky, enjoying grandbabies and freedom from debt and…
And maybe not enjoying anything at all. At least, Nash isn’t.
Divorced and in search of herself, Early moves back to the Ridge in rural Kentucky. She takes care of Nash’s father after he has heart surgery, of her mother when she breaks her ankle, and…finally…of herself, too. As she builds a quilt shop named A Soft Place to Fall, she also creates a life for herself.
But then there’s Nash.
A Soft Place to Fall was first released in 2013. Nine years later, with a few changes, it still feels relevant. I hope you find it so, too.
Early McGrath doesn’t want freedom from her thirty-year marriage to Nash, but when it’s forced upon her, she does the only thing she knows to do – she goes home to the Ridge to reinvent herself.
Only what is someone who’s spent her life taking care of other people supposed to do when no one needs her anymore? Even as the threads of her life unravel, she finds new ones – reconnecting with the church of her childhood, building the quilt shop that has been a long-time dream, and forging a new friendship with her former husband.
The definition of freedom changes when it’s combined with faith, and through it all perhaps Early and Nash can find a Soft Place to Fall.
Amazon: https://tinyurl.com/3yexr8jz
D2D: https://books2read.com/u/bW57yx
USA Today bestselling author Liz Flaherty started writing in the fourth grade when her Aunt Gladys allowed her to use her portable Royal typewriter. The truth was that her aunt would have let her do anything to get her out of her hair, but the typewriter and the stories it could produce caught on, and Liz never again had a day without a what if… in it.
She and Duane, her husband of at least forever, live in a farmhouse in central Indiana, sharing grown children, spoiled cats, and their grandkids, the Magnificent Seven. (Don’t get her started on them—you’ll be here all day.) To find out more about her, stop by http://lizflaherty.net/ or any of the other places she hangs around by visiting linktr.ee/LizFlaherty
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Filed under Uncategorized, Writing
I am super stoked to let you all know I have a release date of 2.1.2023 for my short story collection DEATH BETWEEN THE PAGES: A Short Story Collection about Death.
The book was reproduced from Kindle Vella. I had such a great response to it from the Vella readers that when the opportunity presented itself, I decided to release it on Kindle. It will also be available in KU after the release date.
The book is a collection of fictional short stories I’ve written over the years ( mostly in the 1990s) when I was obsessed with serial killers and all things murder related, LOL. A long way from the lighthearted romance I write these days.
A cheating husband.
A group of widows.
A priest.
A landlady.
A spider.
What do they all have in common?
Death.
and here’s the cover:
And here’s a little snippet from one of the stories, THE TUESDAY NIGHT MEETING.
“You probably don’t remember my late husband, Major Plowright. I believe he passed when you were just a baby. Well, my dear, if there was ever a tougher man in the world to live with, I’d be sore-pressed to believe it. I truly feel the moment he was brought into the world a military angel crossed his path and predestined him for a soldier’s life. His mother told me after we’d been married for about a year that even as a child, everything had to be precision perfect in his world. He tolerated no fools, silliness or any kind of good-natured fun. I didn’t realize this when I married him, mind you. I know now I fell in love with his spit and polish exterior and superior manner. I never could resist a good-lookin’ man in a uniform.”
A few well-knowing chuckles escaped throughout the room.
“Well, married life was kind of sweet for a while. I got used to his ranting and raving about precision and cleanliness and order. But when the Major was forced to retire at a very early age, well, it all changed. He changed. Nothing I did was ever good enough. I was plum worn out with three babies and a big house to care for, and he never helped a lick with anything. One day he came home from his club and my youngest had spilled his juice all over the kitchen floor. I was just about to clean it up, but the Major didn’t let me. He stormed into the room, saw the mess, and started screaming and hollering so loud I thought my little Jimmy’s diapers were gonna fall off. When I tried to explain about the mess, he smacked me across the face. Knocked me clear across the kitchen with one felled swoop of the back of his hand. I was so stunned I didn’t see the next one coming. He was raving about me being an inadequate wife and mother and that he was going to teach me a lesson I’d never forget. He was right about it, too. I never forgot that first beating. Or all the others he gave me after. I do believe he came to enjoy it when he struck me down. I’d see a gleam in his eyes, kind of like the one I’d seen when he was in the throes of passion, whenever he hit me.”
Wisteria stopped and refreshed herself with a sip of tea.
“Miz Plowright, ma-am. I had no idea,” Cora said.
“Of course not, darlin’. In those days, why, a woman was barely a step above chattel. Men’s property; bought and sold.”
“What did you do? I mean, did you stay with the Major?”
“For a while. I ran away with the children once, to my mother. But the Major followed me and dragged us all back. The beating I endured that night broke my left arm and two of my ribs.”
“I remember he went around town the next day telling everyone who’d listen that you fell down the front steps because you were rushing off somewhere in a dither,” Molly Kane said.
When Cora gasped, Wisteria patted her hand and said, “You see, Cora. We’ve all lied at one time or another about our bruises.”
“Finish your story, Wisteria,” Mavis commanded.
After taking another sip of tea, she did. “I knew I had to do something about the situation, but what? I couldn’t leave him. He’d shown me how he’d hunt me down and bring me back. Divorce was out of the question in those days. No self-respectin’ woman of the South would ever be seen in divorce court, airing all her dirty personal laundry. I finally figured out I had two options. I could stay and put up with this man I’d grown to fear and hate until he finally succeeded in killing me, or…”
“Or?” Cora prompted.
“Or I could rid myself and the children of him right then and there.”
Cora’s loud intake of air was the one sound in the room. To the question in her eyes,
Wisteria merely inclined her head.
“Yes, my dear. I killed my husband. It was the only way I could survive.”
Intrigued? LOL Preorder here for just #99cents DEATH BETWEEN THE PAGES
Filed under Writing
A theme song from 2016, but relevant right now, too!! My girl Jill gave me this one. Love it sososo much. Persistence is a good word for a word of the year!
Filed under mug monday
Peggy Jaeger, Author 