Kindle Post

That Loving Feeling: Romance for £0.99

Do you have that loving feeling? Then why not treat yourself to a romantic novel the Valentine's Day? Here are some of the most popular books in the Kindle Romance for £0.99 promotion so far. Sale ends 11:59 pm, February 17, 2013.

Contemporary Romance:

Forged in Fire by Trish McCallan

Beth Brown doesn’t believe in premonitions. But her recent dream feels too real to ignore: a commercial airliner is hijacked, and a handsome passenger is shot dead. Zane Winters lives for his job, using his uncanny psychic powers to carry out missions for elite SEAL Team 7. Together, Beth and Zane must thwart a global crisis, while resisting the pull they feel towards one another.

 

The Write Match by Margaret Carroll

Kit McCabe is an editor at New York's most exclusive bridal magazine. Her love life seems to be taking a turn for the good when she shares a cab with Wall Street player Mark Dawson III, who is gorgeous, funny...but engaged to be married.

 

 

Historical Romance:

Bride by Mistake by Anne Gracie

Eight years ago, Lieutenant Luke Ripton made a hasty wartime marriage to protect a young girl from a forced union. Now, unable to obtain an annulment, Luke has no choice but to collect Isabella, the fiercely independent wife he never wanted.

 

 

Silent Revenge by Laura Landon

In just six days, Lady Jessica Stanton will turn 25 and inherit enough money to make her one of England's wealthiest women. And when that happens, her stepbrother Colin will swoop in to take it all--along with her freedom. The only solution: find a husband strong enough to stand up to Colin.

 

Paranormal and Fantasy Romance:

Embrace the Night by Amanda Ashley

A creature doomed to wander the earth in eternal darkness, he searches the ages for someone to share the endless night of his existence, for that one woman who will recognize the man within the monster.

 

 

A Wolf in Wolf's Clothing by Deborah MacGillivray

Not even the ancient stone walls of her family’s English estate can protect the third Montgomerie sister from her magical destiny—or from the wolfish charms of Trevelyn Mershan, who has come to share it.

 

 

You can explore the full selection of titles in the sale here.

Writing Sadness by Jessica Thompson

In today's guest blog for Kindle Post, author Jessica Thompson describes what it is like to write across the range of human emotions. Her new novel, Three Little Words, is published today.

One of the questions I am often asked is whether or not writing emotionally harrowing scenes affects me on a personal level. It's an interesting question, because naturally writers find themselves penning the deep turmoil, and often the death, of a fictional character they have created and grown in some way 'close to'. I find myself investing a lot of my emotional energy in the people on the pages, and sometimes this brings about sadness, but equally it can be great fun too. Without this close connection to the fictional world I am creating, I don't think the story would come across with the necessary conviction and feeling.

There is no doubt it can be very difficult to write emotional scenes. I find myself deeply involved in the scenarios I am typing into my laptop, and sessions of writing that last hours can pass by like ten minutes because I am so lost in an alternative world. Three Little Words, my second novel, has a dramatic plot. The theme, forgiveness, is a very emotive subject, affecting most people in some way or another.

I have been known to end up very close to tears when writing, one of the cats looking at me with disdain from the edge of the desk. But then again, I am easily moved by things, music, film, or the sadness of a friend does affect me a lot. I certainly felt quite plagued by these feelings when writing some of the darker parts of Three Little Words. After I have written these scenes I often feel a bit down, or tired, so it's good to have some time with friends lined up afterwards to lighten the mood a little!

On the other hand, there is a lot of happiness and humour in my work. I have inevitably been inspired by my previous and current experiences of living in London in my twenties. People have said my writing has a youthfulness and energy to it, and I think that very much comes from living in the city, the age that I am, and the friends that I have. Being a part of London, and experiencing first-hand how fast paced it is, undoubtedly transfers to my writing, allowing a vibrancy to come through for the reader to enjoy and, I hope, identify with. As much as sad scenes can get me down, happy ones can be so much fun.

I found part of my first novel, This is a Love Story, very difficult to write, but then again there is a great deal of comedy in the plot, and it's great to have the light and the shade play off each other. I was taken on an emotional rollercoaster when I wrote both of my books. When you write about death, or grief, you are naturally drawing on your own past experiences with the subject, so it does pull things up from your past. While it can be a little unnerving to be upset by a scene you are writing, I would possibly be more concerned if I wasn't feeling anything. Generally, if a storyline is 'the one', you should be lost in that world, dreaming about it at night, and thinking about it on the bus. If you are truly drawn to it, you're more likely to write it well, so to feel sad or happy during the writing process is a good sign.

--Jessica Thompson

The Valentine's Card by Juliet Ashton

In today's guest blog for Kindle Post, author Juliet Ashton talks about the surprising spring clean that inspired her to write her novel, The Valentine's Card--a story about the power of love, laughter and friendship.

Writers are always on the prowl for a big idea. These ideas can be really big and kick-start a blockbuster--e.g. Michael Crichton slapping his forehead and yelling 'Tyrannosaurus Rex! Theme park!'--or they can be secretly big, masquerading as a modest notion but fuelling a novel based on emotion and character, without any explosions or murders or dinosaurs in the mix.

One such secretly big idea came to me clearing out a desk. What should have been a swift and ruthless spring clean became something else entirely as I sat on the floor, utterly absorbed in a box of postcards and birthday cards and notes.

Re-reading messages ranging from sympathetic murmurs at bereavement to effusive 'Thank Yous' for long-forgotten gifts, I was struck by how a few handwritten lines can conjure up a person. It was like having company, rifling through those dog eared cards.

There is an immediacy to handwriting that words on a screen can't compete with. The careful, correct curls of my Father's style are a result of a fearsome old-style schoolmarm's teaching. She couldn't, however, influence his spelling. Random, idiosyncratic, it gave a clue to his rebellious personality that Spellcheck would nowadays erase.

My oldest friend's chatty notes, detailing raucous nights out in the pursuit of rubbish blokes, are so her. Rash, funny, confident, and loving. Lots of kisses on the ends of those.

And then a scrap of newsprint fluttered out of the box. It was a crossword, half completed in biro, by my Mum before she died. It pinned me to the spot. I never dare admit quite how much I miss my Mother, but the firmly shaped capital letters and the doodled workings out brought her back in such sharp focus that I had no choice but to cry that she isn't here anymore to do crosswords, or talk to me.

Then the idea snuck in. Imagine, I thought, discovering something handwritten from Mum that I hadn't yet read.

No matter how innocuous the content, it would be a powerful document. Fresh words, a conversation almost.

And what if, the sneaky thought went on, it didn't quite say what I expected it to? What if, it added, it lent a whole new dimension to the dead?

Soon I had a central character, a woman who receives a valentine's card from her lover just as she learns of his death. She knows it contains a proposal of marriage and can't bring herself to read it. Yet.

As my heroine gathers the strength to open the card, she discovers things about her lost love that surprise her. I had a marvellous time plotting her journey through the pain and uphill into the sun again. And all because of one little idea.

Although, on reflection, perhaps I should have put a dinosaur in it.

--Juliet Ashton

Why I Had to Have (Yet) Another Dog by Sue Moorcroft

 

In today's guest blog for Kindle Post, author Sue Moorcroft talk about her increasing number of (imaginary) pets. Sue's new novel, Dream a Little Dream is available on Kindle.

I have a lot of fictitious dogs in my life.

I don't mean I have dogs as imaginary friends, but that I persist in giving my characters doggie companions. And guess who ends up looking after them? It's a lot like having one of those cyber pets.

A dog character has to be properly fed, let out and walked. He has to be poised to welcome my hero or heroine home with proper doggy delight and be well behaved around children. He has to give and receive love. And if I decide that hero and heroine need to share a hot clinch on the rug I end up relocating the action. Sometimes the hero or heroine has to move the dog, because we probably all know dogs have no manners when it comes to playing gooseberry.

I name dogs to reflect their owners. Dominic Christy, in Dream a Little Dream, has named his dog Crosswind, as Dominic, an ex-air traffic controller, knows that anything can happen when there's a crosswind around. I hadn't intended to give Dominic a dog at all but then I went to Brighton, that fabulously eccentric seaside city on the south coast of England.

And in Brighton I saw a dog who could skateboard.

He was an adorable mongrelly terrier with seemingly boundless energy. His owner bowled the board along the ground and the dog hurled himself on deck with yaps of joy, scooting hard. He gathered a bigger crowd than the street artists outside the Brighton Dome and if the owner showed signs of flagging, the dog bounced and barked and the crowd went, 'Awwww, don't stop!' So the poor owner was trapped in a cycle of launching the board and retrieving it every time the canine skater lost momentum.

Then we discovered that a dog on a skateboard is heavy enough to trigger automatic doors … when the dog skateboarded straight into a public library. And even as I joined the crowd in howls of glee as the poor beleaguered owner rushed in to hoik the dog out, I thought, 'You're going in a book.'

Yes, that's right. Even though I knew that perfectly pedestrian dogs in novels can be a bind, I thought it would be a great idea to have one who could skateboard…

Bright as a button and full of fun, Crosswind has a huge repertoire of games--Dominic doesn't like them to be called 'tricks'--and he's a perfect companion to help Dominic through being diagnosed with narcolepsy, when his world suddenly becomes a different place.

Pawnote: I heard that the skateboarding dog in Brighton got a 'dogbo' (a canine antisocial behaviour order). Do people have no sense of fun? Or was the dog late returning his library books?

--Sue Moorcroft

Michele Hauf on Our Eternal Love of Vampires

In today's guest blog for Kindle Post, Michele Hauf discusses the enduring appeal of vampires in literarture. Michele's latest book, Cursed, is available on Kindle now.

 

Cursed combines in one volume Kiss Me Deadly and Her Vampire Husband. The first offers a former brain surgeon transformed to vampire against his will, the latter features a vampire hero with amnesia (you read that right; he doesn't remember he's a vampire). 

Vampires again, you mutter with a tired shake of your head. A reader can't walk into a bookstore without brushing up against a book offering sexy, fanged lovers.  Shouldn't the creatures of the night have crawled back into their coffins by now? 

What's the continuing appeal?

In the romance genre particularly, vampires have noticeably taken over.  I wouldn't be surprised to remark a 'Vampire' section in my local bookstore.  (Seriously, I'd really appreciate a section like that.)  Ten years ago there may have been one or two vampire romances released in any given month.  Now?  Dozens. 

Vampire romances exist because readers demand more. 

The allure of a dark and deadly stranger who promises everlasting life is strong.  Yet there are taboos when writing vampires for romantic fiction. First, the vampire hero is never lacking in finances.  He's lived centuries, tallying a sizable bank account.  Women read romance for the fantasy, the adventure and pleasure of falling in love with a larger-than-life figure, be he fanged or not. 

Other taboos that are constantly broken (because, why not? This is fiction and we're supposed to break the rules) include the dead vampire.  Like he died, was bitten by a vampire, came back to life and now he stalks the streets for blood.  Dead vamps make me cringe.  When does decay set in? Doesn't he have a certain odor about him? I keep mine alive for that disturbing reason, but many authors have broached this taboo effectively. 

Some romantic vampires actually drink blood from bags.  Uggh.  (Can you tell where I stand on that one?)  The key element that ensures the vampire remain the monster he is, is that survival depends on his drinking warm, human blood.  It is his struggle between taking blood from others to survive and the possibility he may kill to maintain his own life that provides for excellent conflict.

What are some appeals to this forbidden fruit?

Falling in love with a man who has walked through history. Think of the conversations you could have with Napoleon's former drinking buddy or Caesar's nemesis?  Also, the vampire has this way about him.  He can literally influence others to his bidding. 

Power appeals to most, and the vampire has it.  He can control others, oftentimes performing amazing feats such as flying or even shapeshifting into wild animals. 

Yet he may have to spend a fortune in sunscreen, walk a wide circle around religious symbols and never enjoy garlic-laden shrimp scampi.  Wild roses, fishing nets and mirrors also give him trouble, but working some of those literary myths into a story make for a fun read.

Lastly, the vampire is immortal, and he can gift that immortality to you.  If only you'll succumb to the darkness that edges his appeal.

--Michele Kauf

Wedding Day Worries for the Mother Of the Bride

The wedding in Christine Stovell's Move Over Darling is not, perhaps, the typical wedding you'd predict; it reflects the complications and undercurrents of modern families. As her own daughter's wedding approaches, Christine shares her thoughts and experiences as the mother-of-the-bride.

The wedding dress has been chosen and paid for, so now we can relax. Well, you'd hope so, but then comes a Facebook announcement that the bridal shop currently storing my daughter's dress is closing down. A chilling article in the press this same week has already told of brides-to-be losing their dresses and hundreds of pounds because a large store has gone into liquidation. After a few panicky phone calls, we decide to take no chances and having battled through the rain with her precious parcel, my daughter finally gets her dress home.

Except that the hem needs altering. Our first impression of the seamstress who's been recommended to us is that her shop looks like a jumble sale. She herself appears to be in control. Until, that is, my daughter turns up to collect her dress two weeks later when the seamstress has forgotten both her and her dress. We are not happy.

With the bridal gown finally safe and sound, it's my turn to find an outfit. 'Take that off,' says my daughter about a dusky pink tube dress, 'you look like an intestine'. We also reject several Frumps R Us numbers and a couple of Trying Too Hard dresses. The eventual winner's a shift dress and jacket in a sea-green colour that seems to hit the right note between mumsy at one end and mutton-dressed-as-lamb at the other. 

For every wave of tension diffused, there's another waiting to break. Two weeks before the big day, an over-enthusiastic beautician leaves me with the eyebrow equivalent of a Brazilian wax and with three days to go, my usually red hair turns chocolate-brown thanks to a freak breakdown in communications with my hairdresser. At the eleventh hour we learn that a car rally will close most of the roads around my daughter's flat on the wedding morning and my phone dies just when I need to co-ordinate chauffeuring arrangements.

Getting the bride into her dress without spoiling her hair is another fraught moment. Luckily my younger daughter, the Chief Bridesmaid, is amazingly Zen and manages the baffling lacing at the back of the dress with calm and dexterity. The bride looks utterly beautiful--but where are her flowers? There's a huge outpouring of relief when the florists arrive. 

Like many people today we are a blended family so it's my ex-husband, the bride's father, who gives her away. Today though, old wounds have been patched up and my ex and I greet each other as friends. The only tears shed are those of utter joy and all problems are forgotten as everything finally comes together. Seeing my beautiful daughter marry the man she loves is profoundly moving, one of the happiest days of my life. Worries? What worries?

--Christine Stovell

"Christmas on Mimosa Lane" by Anna DeStefano

In today's guest blog for Kindle Post, bestselling romance author Anna DeStefano writes about her very special take on the festive season. Anna's new novel, Christmas on Mimosa Lane, is available on Kindle now.

Christmas on Mimosa Lane's Polly Lombard knows how to make this holiday absolutely perfect for her and her dad--she'll forget all the wonderful things she did with her recently deceased mom. Then she will stop being sad, everyone will stop worrying about her, and her memories will stop making her and her dad, Pete, so lonely.

Luckily Mallory Phillips just moved onto the lane; she's exactly the person to help. Mallory loves Christmas so much and has the best sparkly tree in the world and never wants Polly to talk about her mum. And Mallory never, ever makes Polly feel bad about how she's feeling or what she's thinking. Mallory knows exactly what to do to make all the bad things in Polly's world go away just in time for Christmas.

Of course Mallory's idea of perfection isn't the same as Polly's. And Mallory's running from her own bad memories. The secrets she doesn't want her new neighbors to know stalk her dreams and even her tranquil new life on this sleepy, picturesque cul-de-sac north of Atlanta, Georgia. The damaged parts of her connect with the Lombards on an undeniable level that quickly grows into love--just in time for Mallory's demons to drop back into her life. By Christmas she needs help more than she ever has before.

I cherish writing stories that reveal the most beautiful and the most flawed parts of human nature. Often times the most broken parts of us become the most beautiful and valuable to others. Polly, Pete and Mallory discover that triumphing over difficulty requires a little hope and love. And they manage to heal their troubled souls just in time for a perfect Christmas morning. Now I can't wait for Christmas to get here!

--Anna DeStefano

Writing vs School: Guest Post by Abigail Gibbs

      

      

      

      

      

      

      

      

      

      

      

      

      

      

      

      

      

      

      

      

      

      

      

      

      

	Time Range: Last weekLast MonthLast Three Months

Preparing to load . . .

      

      

      

      

      

      

      

      

      

      

      

      

      

      

      

      

      

      

      

      

      

      

      

      

      

	Time Range: Last weekLast MonthLast Three Months

Preparing to load . . .

18-year-old Abigail Gibbs is the author of The Dark Heroine: Dinner with a Vampire, which gained over 17 million views via online writing website Wattpad. Here she talks to Kindle Post about managing the balance between writing and homework.

If two things in this world are incompatible, it's writing and school. At least, that is what the journey from teenage writer to published author has taught me.

Three years ago, aged 15, I wrote a scene where 30 men are brutally murdered: the first chapter of my novel, The Dark Heroine. At that point I couldn't imagine writing interfering with my education: the only people who would read it, after all, were a small community of writers online. Naively, I planned to create my bloodthirsty world only at weekends. I was very wrong.

From nowhere, a voracious fan base began demanding more chapters, and I found myself writing late at night to keep up with both school and the ideas buzzing in my mind. Within a year, millions had read my story and it gained a lot of attention from local media. This was highly embarrassing as only my closest friends knew about my novel, but it also presented another problem: worried teachers. Any subject where I wasn't meeting targets was blamed on my writing; something I furiously denied, insisting the real reason was that I was just bad at that subject. But in hindsight, my long-suffering music teacher was right: if I hadn't been living in my fictional world, then I probably could have achieved an A grade in her subject.  

I moved to a different school for sixth form and my A levels. I had learned my lesson (excuse the pun) and kept quiet about my writing, but a beastly manuscript is hard to hide. It rears its monstrous head in all situations: like when your head of sixth form wants to know why you write so well, or why you want to apply to read English literature at degree level. In any case, things had taken an exciting turn: age 16, I had a literary agent. Cue all sorts of new problems. For example, I had to include this information on my university application, to forewarn them of what they were getting themselves into if they accepted me. That led to a lot of grovelling at interview to insist I was as committed to a degree as I was to my writing.

I was extremely lucky that news of my publishing deal with HarperCollins missed my last exam by days, because coping with the misery of exams and the excitement of seeing my work published would have been too much. But I can’t have missed targets in too many subjects, or put too many professors off with my animated summary of Dinner With a Vampire ('another vampire novel?' was often said with raised eyebrows) because this autumn I start at the University of Oxford to read English language and literature. Thoughts, too, are moving to a sequel. A rigorous academic programme combined with a writing career... piece of cake, right?

--Abigail Gibbs

 

 

 

Tasmina Perry On Location

In this guest blog, Tasmina Perry, author of Perfect Strangers, talks to Kindle Post about the influence of where she writes upon what she is writing.

 

One of the things that authors get asked the most is how to write a novel. Whenever it's my turn to answer that question I paraphrase a quote from PG Wodehouse, who said something along the lines of 'Put your bum on the seat and type'! Yet over the years I have found that where I write has really inspired what I write. Here are some of the places which have got my creative juices flowing:

Winchelsea Beach

My friend has a cottage in Winchelsea Beach, near Rye, where I've been a couple of times to write my novels. It's a little clapboard beach house with no TV, no internet, bare floorboards and at night all you can hear is the sound of the wind down the chimney and the swoosh of the sea. It's a brilliant place to work--atmospheric and a little eerie (I wrote a particularly moody scene that features at the end of Perfect Strangers here). And with no WiFi connection, it reminds me how productive you can be when you have no digital distractions--a piece of advice I'd give to any budding writer!

Port Isaac, Cornwall

I got my first book deal, for Daddy's Girls, when I was seven months pregnant – and had to start my second novel, Gold Diggers, only three months after my son was born. We'd just moved house and were in a state of chaos, so we decided to decamp to Cornwall to a cheap and cheerful cottage that had a room with a view and the peace and quiet that a new mum craved!  We stayed in Port Isaac, a lovely coastal village, which provided a complete contrast to the hustle and bustle of London. Staying and writing there really shaped the character of Erin, the heroine of the story – a small-town girl from Cornwall who moved to the big bad metropolis and was corrupted by what she saw there.

Hana, Maui

In the middle of writing Original Sin I agreed to do a home exchange with an American family for the summer, swapping their Maui house, tucked away in a remote corner of the island, for our London home. It was one of the most wonderful places to write in in the world. Every morning I went to the local fruit stall and bought a fresh coconut and a bottle of water, and I wrote more words per day there than I have ever written back home! In fact, it was such a stunning place I knew I just had to put it in the book, so in Original Sin the hero, Sean, takes Tess to a glorious, secret red sand beach in Hana – it exists, although you have to ask the locals how to get there! Wherever I go I always take a notebook with me, because inspiration often strikes when you are away from home. A scene for Kiss Heaven Goodbye struck me as I was wandering around the backstreets of Manchester, a visit to the Cotswolds inspired the setting for Guilty Pleasures, a garden square I visited in London provided a scene in Private Lives. I think everywhere has something to inspire you.

New York 

I always wanted reading one of my novels to be 'an armchair journey', so I put lots of beautiful locations in the books. I try to visit every place I write about because I think there's no better way to really get under the skin of a town or city and it means I can describe it in true technicolour. Right now, I'm writing a novel called The Proposal which is set in Manhattan over Christmas time. So last Christmas I spent five days in New York, taking the exact trip that the main character Amy takes, even down to the same walks she does in Central Park. It made the book come alive in my own mind.

--Tasmina Perry

The Research Diet by Liz Harris

In this guest blog, author Liz Harris writes about a particular form of dieting associated with researching her novels. Liz's book The Road Back is included in this month's selection of 100 Books for £2.99 or Less.

 

 

I heard you! You groaned at the word 'research'. And, I must admit that I, too, have been known to groan when faced with a day of fact-digesting. A vision immediately springs to my mind of me I'm bending over a pile of dusty books. And to be honest, it's not a vision that I like. No, I'm more at ease with the vision of myself wherein I'm chatting with friends over a glass of wine.

But needs must.  If you set a novel in Wyoming, 1887, as is A Bargain Struck, you'll have to research that period. So I mentally fortified myself for what lay head, and went off to Wyoming to do some hands-on research.

And what research it proved to be! I travelled the same paths as my characters (albeit by air-conditioned car, not stagecoach) and I breathed the same air that they’d breathed. OK, it's been recycled a few times since 1887, but that's a small point. And I did the same things as they did. Well, some of the same things. I passed on making the soap I was about to use and the butter I was about to spread on my bread. Too difficult to get the ingredients, I thought, walking at speed past a cow.

But when it came to mounting a bucking bronco, I was there, clad in leather boots, lipstick safely in a bag slung over the saddle horn, ready for anything. At my side rode the wrangler-rugged, handsome, tanned from a day on the range, deep blue eyes. Not that I noticed any of that-I was too busy watching the horse and the beautiful scenery at the foot of The Rockies.

My performance on the horse was impressive, though I say it myself. Happily, one of my rare moments of repose on the horse was captured on film, and I put it on the Choc Lit blog and on twitter. To anyone who saw the photo and who insists that 'docile mare' should be substituted for 'bucking bronco', I say you are mistaken! Prior to the click of the camera, the horse had been rearing, snorting and steaming. It had been all I could do to keep my seat. And that's the truth. Ahem.

And did you go to Ladakh, north of the Himalayas, when you were writing The Road Back, the novel which is now on Kindle? I hear you ask. Did you walk in the steps of your hero and heroine? Yes, sort of, is my answer. I went to Belsize Park, London, the home of Patricia, whose fate it is to meet Kalden, a man destined by circumstances beyond his control to be a monk.

I see, you remark. But where does dieting come into this? You ask, bemused Aha! Researching your novel, whether on location or in your house or at the library, is so completely absorbing that you will totally forget to eat! You see.

--Liz Harris