Publication Day for SISTER, SISTER #sistersister

I’m delighted that my latest book, SISTER, SISTER, is published today by HarperImpulse, HarperCollins. This one is more suspense and mystery than my previous books and I really enjoyed writing it.  To celebrate it’s release I’m running a competition over on my author Facebook page to win Afternoon Tea for Two, a Sister DVD and a book mark. If you fancy entering, pop over to my page by clicking this link.

TWO SISTERS, ONE TRUTH

Clare – Intelligent and loyal or paranoid and jealous?

Alice – Loving and kind or manipulative and devious?

Reunited after many years following the breakdown of the family unit, Clare and Alice reacquaint themselves in adulthood but as events take a sinister turn and nothing is at it seems, everyone must decide who to trust.

 

Amazon link

As ever, thank you so much for all your support, it’s is very much appreciated.

Sue

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Life Cycle of a Writer – Taking A Break From Writing

Sue Fortin

It doesn’t seem like five minutes since I was here blogging about receiving my edits for The Half Truth (click HERE to view). Since then my third Harper Impulse novel has flown the nest and is fending for itself out in the big wide world. I will be honest in saying that afterwards I felt quite drained by the whole process. Despite having plenty of writing to get on with, I didn’t feel emotionally or physcially able to do any. At the back of my mind the writing advice of ‘write something every day’ kept plaguing me but try as I might, I couldn’t summon up any enthusiasm.  I was also very much aware my family were well in credit for some of my time, having graciously and lovingly, supported me when I was under deadline pressure.

The Owl & The Pussy Cat

Amberley

So, ignoring the ‘write every day’ advice, I decided I would do anything and everything but that. I must admit I’ve had an excellent six week writing break, which took into account Easter holidays too. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed myself. I’ve spent huge amounts of time with my children, my family, celebrating three of our birthdays, catching up with friends, visiting places, pottering around the house, sewing, reading, making cakes (and eating them!); it’s been great.

To begin with I didn’t even feel the urge to do any writing in any shape or form, but gradually over the weeks, my mind has turned to my WIP and I’ve even started toying with ideas for the book after that. However, I’m holding out until next week before I pick up with my WIP. It’s about 71k words in and going well. First though, I’ll probably spend some time plotting out the book after that one before I forget.

I have to say, taking a writing break, as in no writing whatsoever, has been the best thing I’ve done for a long time. It doesn’t work for everyone, but it’s certainly worked for me. Now I’m feeling revived and enthusiastic and I’m very much looking forward to getting back behind the keyboard.

Sue

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Novel Research

It’s an exciting day for me, my third novel, THE HALF TRUTH is published today. It’s a romantic suspense, set mainly on the south coast of the UK but also in London. I had some interesting search terms when researching it, things like, Glock 26 and Russian gang tattoos but my favourite was St Paul’s Cathedral in London.

I’ve visited St Paul’s on several occasions, the first, as a child, when my sister, my mum and I stayed with my nan for a week. (She lived in De Beuvoir Square in London, which I also used in The Half Truth.) During that week, my nan took us to St Paul’s and I loved the Whispering Gallery – my sister and I had great fun whispering messages around the walls to each other. As an adult, I’ve appreciated the beauty and splendour of the building, both the interior and exterior.  Writing those scenes brought back very fond memories.

Every marriage has its secrets…

Tina Bolotnikov, widowed after her husband, Sasha, is killed in a car accident, relocates back to her hometown on the south coast of the UK, to bring up her young son. Her life back in London with her adored husband is now nothing but a memory; a history to pass onto her son.

DS John Nightingale saw his partner killed in the line of duty and has made it his personal and professional quest to bring to justice the Russian gang responsible. Five years on and the killer is still free but as reports come in of Sasha Bolotnikov’s brother returning to the UK, John is tasked with tracking him down and following him to the seaside town of Littlehampton.

Tina finds herself an unwitting connection to a world she knew nothing about. She thought she knew her husband. She thought their past was the truth. But now as the investigation draws her closer to DS Nightingale, professional lines are blurred, and only he holds the key to her future.

 

Life Cycle of a Writer : Editorial Revisions

Hello!

Today I’m vlogging about receiving revision notes from my editor, Charlotte Ledger at HarperImpulse. If you have three and a half minutes to spare, please do take a look.

 

 

 

Sue

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Want to go Skating At Somerset House?

As some of you may be aware The Romanaics all met through the Romantic Novelists’ Association’s New Writers’ Scheme and we are all members of the RNA in one form or another. We have met some lovely writers through the RNA and there’s always a special bond with fellow new writers. Nikki Moore was one such new writer and last year her debut novel Crazy, Undercover Love was published by Harper Impulse. Today, the first of her #LoveLondon series comes out – Skating At Somerset House – so it’s a big Happy EPub Day from us!

The first short story in the fun & flirty #LoveLondon series from exciting new chick lit author Nikki Moore!

There’s nothing Holly Winterlake loves more than Christmas and skating, so working as an Ice Marshall at London’s Somerset House is a dream come true.

Noel Summerford hates the festive season and is a disaster on the ice, so taking his godson to Somerset House is his idea of the nightmare before Christmas!

Things are bound to get interesting when these two collide…

With a forty foot Christmas tree, an assortment of well meaning friends and relatives, and a mad chocolate Labrador, will this festive season be one to remember … or forget?

(Available to download from Amazon)

United States of Love: Happy Birthday!

United States of Love … HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

‘It was so funny and romantic … (There) was so much romance and fun going on I totally loved it! A wonderful author who I hope to read more from.’ Amazon reviewer, Angela.

It’s a year since Sue Fortin’s HarperImpulse debut, United States of Love was released, and we at Romaniac HQ wanted to wish it a fabulous 1st birthday. It’s a great, romantic read with a handsome, hot hero, and a strong heroine who has many dilemmas to overcome.

I wonder what Tex is doing to celebrate. A big hog roast in his restaurant, perhaps, or a trip home to America see his family …

 

And with Sue’s second novel, a fast-paced, gripping suspense, Closing In doing well in the charts, it’s a double celebration!

‘I would urge anyone who enjoys a good, fast paced psychological thriller to read it – you won’t be disappointed!’ Room For Reading

Along with her novels, Sue is a contributor to Romaniac Shorts, a collection of flash fiction and short stories to suit all tastes. Her third book for HI is expected soon.

So it’s bottoms up, chin-chin and cheers.

Happy birthday, USL

xxx

Pst … Who’s doing the bumps?

How Michelle Betham Wrote A Novel In Six Weeks

With November’s annual NaNoWriMo just around the corner, I’ve been considering taking part.  This has been partly inspired by the lack of output recently experienced here in West Sussex and partly by Michelle Betham, author with Harper Impulse.

Michelle has been a one woman writing machine this year – she got an idea for a book that wouldn’t leave her alone and in just six weeks completed her first draft.

I’ve been chatting to Michelle to find out more about how she did it and to find out more about her new release The Brotherhood.

Hi Michelle

First of all, congratulations on the release of your book Revolution (The Lone Riders MC book 1 of the series). It looks a great read and having spent many hours as pillion passenger, I’m really looking forward to reading this.

So, the first question everyone will want to ask; did it really take just six weeks to get the first draft down?

It really did take just 6 weeks – give or take – to get the first draft down. Although, it has had a fair amount of tweaking done to it since that first draft was finished!

What’s your secret? What was your motivation?

What was my motivation? That’s an easy one to answer. I’d just started watching ‘Sons of Anarchy’ (for anyone who doesn’t know, it’s an American drama series based around an outlaw Motorcycle Club), and because I’ve always had a fascination with that world, and because I’ve always been a bit of a frustrated wannabe biker chick, watching that show inspired me to write my own story based around a fictional Motorcycle Club – The Brotherhood of Lone Riders. And I also love that whole tattooed, long-haired, bearded thing as far as men are concerned, so to be able to throw myself into that world, and create my own group of bikers; to try and create some strong, feisty women to challenge the men living within that world, it was something I just had to do. And I loved every single second of writing Revolution. Loved it!

What sort of planning went into it? Did you have a clear plan/plot beforehand or did it evolve as you wrote it?

I had a very vague story in my head before I started the writing Revolution. I knew the characters I was going to create, and I knew the bare bones, if you like, of what their journey was going to be. But, as with every other book I’ve written, that story grew, changed a little bit, and evolved more as I kept on writing.

Have you got any top tips for anyone to getting the words down?

Just write them. Not all of them will stay, and a great deal of them may be messed around with, but as far as getting that first draft down, don’t think too much about it, just write those words! And that’s something I’ve learned as I’ve gone on over the years, because I used to over think first drafts way too much! But what I find so exciting about writing is that, sometimes, the characters you create will end up telling you where they want to go, and a lot of the time you just have to run with that.

So, can you tell us a little bit about Revolution? What genre does it fall in?

It’s a contemporary romance, definitely, with quite a bit of action in this one, and I don’t just mean in the bedroom! Because it’s not just a romance – although, that is what’s at the centre of it all. It’s also the story of the Motorcycle Club itself – The Brotherhood of Lone Riders; the people who live within that world. So it really falls into the MC Romance/biker romance sub-genre. And it’s a real gritty love story.

The main female character, Lexi Hart, was born into the world of the Lone Riders. It’s all she’s ever known. But one mistake sees her banished from the northern Californian chapter of the club – a place she’s called home since the age of fourteen. She broke their rules. She gave them no choice. But after spending eight years back home in England, at the Lone Riders chapter her father is President of in Newcastle, she’s back in California. And not everybody’s pleased to see her return. Lexi, however, has come back to find answers. What happened in the past, the reason why she had to leave California, it had knock-on effects and consequences nobody could have imagined. And she needs to know the truth – she needs to find her own truth because, for far too long she’s been living someone else’s… And she needs one man to help her find those answers. Even if he’s a man she should never have gone near in the first place. But he’s a man she can’t stay away from… As dark secrets are revealed, and dangerous games start to be played, can the Lone Riders pull together to survive the storm that’s about to hit them…?

Did the genre have any influence on your decision to self-publish Revolution rather than through your publishers, Harper Impulse?

Yes, it did. Revolution is quite a dark romance, quite a dark story on the whole. And I just wasn’t sure it was the kind of thing my publishers were looking for. But I wanted it to try and stay true to the whole MC Romance/biker romance thing. Not everything is nice and pretty in those books. And the world of the Brotherhood of Lone Riders has a very dark and sometimes sinister edge to it, at times. But actually exploring that slightly darker side of romance, it was really interesting to write something quite different to anything I’ve written before.  I like to push myself, to explore the different sides of romance, and I guess I pushed a few boundaries with this one. But that’s exactly what I wanted to do!

And finally, what’s on the horizon, is there another six week novel in the pipeline?

Quite possibly! After I’ve finished my next book for Harper Impulse, I want to get on with book 2 in The Lone Riders Series – Retribution. And I’m hoping to get that one written, edited and out there by Spring next year.

Thanks so much, Michelle, it’s been great chatting with you.

Amazon UK link HERE

Amazon US link HERE

Michelle Betham blog HERE

 

 

We’re Going on an Edit Hunt

We’re going on an edit hunt,

We’re going to catch some big ones,

What a lot of track changes,

We’re not scared.

Oh no, a repetition!

We can’t just avoid it

We can’t just ignore it

We will just have to deal with it

 

The Editing Cave

It was pretty dark in that editing cave some days and I spent an awful lot of time in there earlier in the year while I completed the final edits of my second novel ‘Closing In‘.

It was a good process as, unlike my first novel which had been edited a great deal before it was seen by my publishers, ‘Closing In’ had only been seen by my lovely Romaniac friend, Jan Brigden. She had cast her eagle eye over it when it was a mere novella. Since then it morphed into a much bigger story, so I was rather apprehensive sending it into the publishers.

I thought I’d share a few of the things that have been picked up along the long editing road.

Over-use of certain words

I use the word ‘just’ an awful lot. I did actually know this already, so I went through my manuscript and managed to half the amount of times it appeared. A lot of the time is wasn’t needed or could be easily replaced with ‘simply’, ‘merely’ or ‘only’ depending on the context.

I took out the word ‘seem’ in a lot of the sentences, as I felt it diluted the impact of what I was trying to convey. For example, ‘The cold seemed to seep up from beneath her …’ became ‘The cold seeped up from beneath her …’

The revised version, I felt, was much stronger.

Not to repeat myself

I don’t mean the obvious ones of using the same word twice in a short a space of time but where the sentence has become convoluted, a bit waffly, drawn out – saying the same thing but with different words. (See what I did there? 🙂 )

‘… in his usual polite way, as he always did.’ became ‘… in his usual polite way.’

The same when two characters were having a telephone conversation. Originally I had written ‘… he ended his call with Ken.’ On the read through, I realised that identifying Ken wasn’t necessary – who else would he be ending his call with? So that simply became ‘… he ended his call.’

‘Dark shadows’ – aren’t all shadows dark? So, here, I deleted the word ‘dark’.

The Editor

I would be remiss of me not to acknowledge my editor and thank her for all the hard work she put into the manuscript too. Having input from someone who has no personal connection with the manuscript is invaluable and, I’d say, vital.

Final Read Through

I like to send the edited document to my Kindle for a final read through (Click here for a post how to do this). It’s amazing what you spot reading it in a different format to the one you composed it in.

‘Closing In‘. is very different to ‘United States of Love’ but I really enjoyed writing it and hope readers enjoy it too.

Amazon link

 

 Sue

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Publication Day : Closing In by Sue Fortin

 

I’m delighted that my second novel CLOSING IN is published in digital format today by HarperImpulse, with paperback  to be released 31 July 2014.

I wondered if it would feel any less exciting than the first book I had published. I have to say that it’s just as exciting, if not more. I’ve been overwhelmed by the interest and Shaz Goodwin of Fiction Addiction Book Tours has organised a fantastic book tour. My idea of a small tour, kind of, took on a life of its own as more book reviewers expressed an interest – I’m very honoured.

I have the day off from work, so will be celebrating by hanging out on social media for the most part, consuming plenty of tea and cake!

Flight, Fight, Fawn or Freeze?

Helen has had to leave everything she’s ever known behind; her home, her family, even her own name.

Now, returning to the UK as Ellen Newman, she moves to a small coastal village, working as a nanny for Donovan, a criminal psychologist. Attractive, caring and protective, this single father and his sweet daughter are a world away from Ellen’s brutal past. She thinks she’s escaped. She thinks she’s safe.

But something’s wrong.

Strange incidents begin to plague her new family, and their house of calm is about to become one of suspicion and fear. Who can be trusted? Who is the target? Who is closing in?

Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.com

Kobo

Google Play

iTunes

 

Thank you, as always, for all your fabulous support.

Sue

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Nikki Moore : Crazy, Undercover, Love

The day has finally arrived!! Nikki Moore’s debut novel with HarperImpulse – Crazy, Undercover, Love – is released as an ebook today, 24^th April 2014.

If you like pacy, sexy romance and fancy a long weekend in Barcelona with a smoking hot guy this one’s for you!  Want to know more…?

When uber-feisty career girl Charley Caswell-Wright takes on the assignment as PA to the gorgeous Alex Demetrio, CEO of Demetrio International, she’s there under entirely false pretences; to get her life back on track. Having lost the job she worked so hard to earn, she’s determined not to give it up so easily, especially when she didn’t deserve to lose it in the first place.

Mr Dreamy CEO is her only chance of clawing back her career – and her reputation. So she has to keep things strictly professional… boy, is she in trouble!

To buy Crazy, Undercover Love as an ebook:-

Amazon – http://amzn.to./1gdpOxb

Google Play – http://bit.ly/1rTMrQw

iTunes – http://bit.ly/1mkzpHP

Kobo – bit.ly/QlpKpC

Sainsbury’s –http://bit.ly/1hoD1bj

Or to buy it as a paperback on pre-order, released on 26^th June:-

Amazon – http://amzn.to/1rTKGmB

What people are saying about Nikki’s other stories…

The Love Letter and A Day in the Life… HarperImpulse short story collection Be My Valentine, with Teresa F Morgan and Brigid Coady, attracting 4 and 5 star reviews.

‘I loved all 5 stories and will look out for more books by each author.’

CometBabesBooks, Amazon

‘Whilst I enjoyed all of the stories, I particularly liked Nikki Moore’s … her voice as an author really resonated with me and I can’t wait to read more of her work.’

Kate Beeden, Goodreads

Nikki’s short story A Night to Remember in the Mills & Boon/Romantic Novelists Association anthology Truly, Madly, Deeply which has also attracted 4 and 5 star reviews.

‘My favourite story was A Night To Remember. I think what drew me to this … was its resonance with real life. I’m not going to spoil the story but I could feel the emotions spilling out of the page – it was beautiful.’

Beckie, http://www.beckiesbookmix.blogspot.co.uk

‘A Night to Remember – Beautiful, devastatingly so.’

Cheryl M-M, Goodreads & http://mmcheryl.wordpress.com/

Nikki Moore lives in beautiful Dorset and writes short stories and sexy, pacy romances. A finalist in several writing competitions including Novelicious Undiscovered 2012, she graduated from the Romantic Novelists Association New Writers’ Scheme after four years and and has contributed to their magazine Romance Matters. She has far too much fun attending the annual RNA conference and has previously chaired a panel and taken part in a workshop at the Festival of Romance.

She blogs about some of her favourite things – Writing, Work and Wine – at www.nikkimooreauthor.wordpress.comand believes in supporting other writers as part of a friendly, talented and diverse community.

You can find her on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/NikkiMooreAuthor or on Twitter @NikkiMoore_Auth and she invites you to pop in for chats about love, life, reading or writing!