Tuesday Teaser 11/13/12: Wolf’s Prize
Here is a little snip from Book 5. A man named Jeremy has been sent to Taye to tell him that his little cousin Ellie needs help. Enjoy!
The Wolfe compound was large and well guarded by a solid stone wall eight feet high. It looked to Jeremy like Mrs. Overdahl hadn’t exaggerated her cousin’s wealth. Only a man of means could hold a place like this. Jeremy presented himself at the gate and waited for the small reinforced window in the gate to open to ask his business.
The face in the small window was cold with suspicion. “Who are you and what do you want?”
“I’m Jeremy Potter, here on business from Mrs. Overdahl, Mr. Wolfe’s cousin. I have an urgent message from her.”
The gate was opened instantly and two very large dogs pressed against him, herding him into the compound. His horse came with him, snorting uneasily. A cluster of half-naked Native American men stood watching him. One of them looked him over.
“Give me all your weapons.”
Jeremy silently handed over his pistol and his knife, and waved a hand at the rifle in the saddle scabbard. “That’s all.”
The guy nodded. “Snake, Blaze, take him in to see the Chief. Paint, look after his horse.”
Two men flanked Jeremy like guards. When he got into a large room with a big fireplace he understood why he was being treated like a possible threat. Beside the fireplace sat a hugely pregnant woman with long brown hair. Standing protectively beside her on one side was a fiercely scowling man, and on the other side a three-year-old boy scowled just as fiercely. From the looks of their faces, they were obviously father and son. Several men lounged around the room, bodies appearing relaxed, but eyes keenly watchful. Their stares made Jeremy want to squirm. He turned his attention back to the man beside the woman.
“Mr. Wolfe?”Jeremy asked.
The man gave one sharp jerk of his head.
“I’m Jeremy Potter. I work for the Ryan Thomas Trading Company.” There Jeremy stalled briefly. “Your cousin, Mrs. Overdahl, sent me with a message for you.”
“Oh, thank goodness!” said the woman. “We haven’t heard from Ellie in ages. How is she?”
When Jeremy hesitated, the weight of the eyes on him grew heavier. “She’s well,” he said carefully. “But she needs your help.”
Taye Wolfe leaned forward, dark eyes hard under lowered brows. “What do you mean?”
Jeremy swallowed. “Her husband has died, and she has been sold to the Trading Company to be taken to Ellsworth. The men there are having a Bride Fight in a week or so …”
A snarl jerked Jeremy’s head around. He saw nothing but men with angry faces. No longer lounging in relaxed sprawls, they looked ready to spring. Most of the men were clearly Native American, but one of them had curly brown hair rather than straight black hair. He was on his feet, practically shaking. With rage? Jeremy was certain it was rage that clenched his fists and jaw. Jeremy hesitated before turning his back on the man.
Taye Wolfe’s set, angry face wasn’t any less scary. A bead of sweat rolled down the back of Jeremy’s neck.
“Where is my cousin?” Wolfe rasped.
Happy Saturday!
Today has been a good day so far! I slept until 7:45 am, got up and had cereal and tea while I goofed around on the internet, then began working on the first clue for a mystery shawl knit-along. Lace knitting and I are not friends, so it took me several tries to get the clue completed. But it’s done now, and I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.
What’s a mystery knit-along? Well, a designer will offer a pattern either at a reduced rate, or for free, and people can sign up to knit it. The designer will send out portions of the pattern (called clues) at weekly intervals. until the whole pattern is done. Last week we got a pattern for a gauge swatch, which included some of the stitch patterns this shawl will use, like double increases and nupps. A nupp is 7 stitches all purled together to create a puffy stitch. it’s tricky, and my nupps look rather inebriated, leaning over to the side instead of sitting neatly on top of the knitting. It’s sad. Here is what I have so far:
Last Saturday I received and R&R for Eddie’s Prize, so I’ve spent the last week in major revisions. Last night I re-submitted it to the publisher. Several scenes have been cut, including a lengthy one between Sky, Rose and others which I will be sending out in my newsletter in the future.
What this means is I have time now to play with yarn and read for fun! (I’m going to totally ignore the cat hair on every surface and the fact that the apartment is in dire need of cleaning) Off now to start Lord’s Fall from Thea Harrison. I LOVE her books!
Hope everyone has a great weekend!
What is an R&R?
An R&R is usually a good thing. It stands for Revise and Re-submit. If you receive an R&R, rejoice! That means someone saw something in your story that they really liked, but they had suggestions for how the story can be improved.
That is what has happened with Eddie’s Prize. I submitted the manuscript on October 24, and last weekend I received a very nice email telling me they really liked the story. They had a list of changes they’d like to see made, however, before they would offer a contract. So, I’m going to be pretty busy for the next week or so, making revisions, cutting some stuff (which will appear later in the newsletter) and hopefully whipping Eddie and Lisa into publishing shape. My goal is to have the revisions completed by this Sunday night. Wish me luck!
Tuesday Truth: I Love My Crit Group
Back at the end of January 2011 I got an email from a woman named Tina Holland, inviting me to join a local critique group here in Fargo, ND. Boy, was I excited! I’d heard of Tina Holland. She was a romance author with Liquid Silver Books. I was going to meet a real, live romance author!
You see, I felt so alone and isolated from other writers. I had tried to join a local crit group a few years before, but sadly, that group was made of people who sneered at the romance genre. They were “real” writers. So I tucked my tail between my legs and went home. This one, I hoped, would be different. After all, Tina Holland was a romance author, too, and with years more experience in the publishing world than I had.
For the first few meetings, we were a little careful with one another. Some of us had never been in a crit group before and weren’t sure how to critique someone’s work. We didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. There were seven of us, and we wrote in a few different genres, including poetry. We decided to call ourselves Word Weavers.
It wasn’t long before we learned how to critique effectively, but there were a few bumps along the way. We lost our leader due to health problems, and another woman left in a huff because she felt unappreciated. I believe she became increasingly unhappy as we learned to give tough critiques. Instead of just saying how much we loved this or that, we also began pointing out where improvements could be made. I don’t think she liked that.
When you’re a writer, you must learn to accept criticism. You may disagree with a critique, and that’s fine. You can say thank you and ignore it. But arguing and insulting the person who is giving the critique isn’t helpful. It’s taken us a little time, but my Word Weavers Crit Group has settled into a respectful and helpful groove. I really appreciate all their helpful advice. They have put up with my whining about Eddie’s Prize and helped me brainstorm through problems. They are sort of like cheerleaders, and sort of like mothers. They tell me I can do it, and they tell me I better do it. 🙂
To have a group of fellow writers to meet with is a great thing. I take my hat off to these ladies, who tell it to me like it is, and give it with a dose of praise.
Word Weavers:
Tina Holland – Erotic Romance Author
Mary Jean Adams – Historical Romance Author
Michelle Kent – Paranormal Romance Writer
Athena Hill Gracyk – Fantasy Writer/Poet
Kat Smith – Flash Fiction Writer/LARP game writer
Simone James – Contemporary Romance Writer
Shawl Winner!
The winner of the little shoulder shawl I knit by hand is Jessica B! I have emailed her and will have the shawl sent off to her as soon as possible!
Congrats, Jessica!
The Bewitching Blog Hop! (and a sneak peek at Glory & Shadow)
Welcome to Maddy Barone’s stop on The Bewitching Just Romance Me blog hop. If you have fallen off the tour or want to join, just click here. On this bloghop you can win free books, gifts cards, and a new Kindle Paperwhite ereader.
The prize I’m giving away to one commenter on this post is a cute little shawl I knit myself. See? The perfect thing to keep your shoulders warm. The winner will also receive a paperback copy of either Sleeping With the Wolf or Wolf’s Glory, their choice. 🙂 If you would like to win, just leave a comment below. As always, those who are signed up to receive my newsletter are entered twice in the drawing. Comments must be left before 5:45pm central time. I will announce the winner on Sunday night before 9pm central time.
And to get you in the mood for Halloween, here is a snippet about Glory and Shadow (the hero and heroine from Wolf’s Glory), a year after they have mated.
Glory folded her arms, considering the exterior of the small house her mate had built for her. It was painted white, with a wide porch of natural wood on three sides, and a chimney made of native Black Hills stone climbing the fourth. A wisp of smoke rising from the chimney showed white in the sapphire blue of the late afternoon sky. Glory stepped back a few yards, looking at the postcard-perfect view of the house against the reds and golds of the autumn foliage. It was cute. Glory didn’t do cute. How could she turn cute into scary? Halloween was only two weeks away. Except for last year, she’d always gone all out decorating for her favorite holiday. Last year … Well, last year she’d been too busy to do anything for Halloween. Between surviving a plane crash, meeting and marrying a hunky werewolf, and finding out she’d gone forward to a time after Armageddon, she’d completely lost track of the days.
But this year would be different. Glory put her hands on her hips, strolling from one end of the house to the other, considering where the spider webs would look most effective.
“Sunshine.”
At the scolding sound of her hunky werewolf’s voice, Glory turned to see him walking toward her from his mother’s house a hundred yards away. Shadow was, as always, all but naked in just moccasins and a breechcloth. His hair, black and thick and heavy, hung down his back to his butt, leaving his broad, beautifully muscled chest bare. At six feet and six inches tall, he was the only man who made Glory feel petite. Hell, he was six inches taller than she was, and almost outweighed her. The fierce Lakota Wolf Clan warrior, who was a terrifying sight in battle, tenderly cradled a pink and blue bundle in one arm.
“Sunshine,” he scolded again. “You are supposed to be lying down, resting.”
“I will. I just wanted to think about how to decorate for Halloween.” She lifted her lips for his kiss and twitched the edge of the baby blanket aside to peek at their daughter’s face. “Hey, there, little Miss Vicki,” she cooed.
“Sh, she’s sleeping.” Shadow hooked his free arm around her waist and towed her up the steps of the porch into their house. “I thought you wanted to call her Victoria.”
“Well, yeah.” Glory watched him set the baby down in her cradle with as much care as if the afghan Lisa Madison had made was wrapped around nitroglycerin. “Victoria for my grandmother, Jillian for Jill, and Tara for your mom. But Victoria Jillian Tara Wolfe is a big mouthful for such a little thing.”
Not that Vicki had felt that little while she was being born. The books in Kearney’s library that talked about the joy and beauty of childbirth were lucky she wasn’t allowed to burn them. Joy and beauty, her ass. Still, Glory didn’t remember the pain nearly as vividly she remembered the expression on Shadow’s face: terror and joy and awe, all mixed together, as he held the screaming scrap of humanity that was his daughter in his big hands. Glory wished cameras still existed. She never wanted to forget that sight or that moment in time.
“Hm … I wonder what she should be for Halloween? I think I could put together a little witch costume. Do you think we could get a pointy hat to stay on her head?”
“Sunshine, she’s only five weeks old.”
Glory reluctantly agreed. “She’s too young this year, but soon she’ll be going all around the neighborhood Trick or Treating, going to parties, playing with the boys …”
“PLAY—” Almost too late, Shadow remembered to keep his voice low. “Playing with boys?” he hissed, his eyes taking on that weird werewolf glow.
“Uh-huh. You know, Chase and Raven and Matt.”
His eyes went back to normal. “Oh, her cousins, you mean.”
Glory hid a grimace. Their daughter was going to have a hell of a time finding a boy brave enough to date her. That was years away, though, and Glory’s thoughts were on something in the here and now. She watched her mate put another log on the fire, admiring the way the muscles in his back bunched and smoothed as he moved. Her mate was mouthwateringly sexy. “For this year, I have the perfect costumes for us.”
He turned in a flare of hair, eyes wide in apprehension. “I don’t wear costumes,” he warned her.
“Good,” she purred. “I like you naked best. I thought I could be Little Red Riding Hood and you could be the Big Bad Wolf.” She let her fingers comb through his hair, smooth down his chest to the knot of the cord that held his breechcloth up. “But I don’t have a costume, so I guess we’ll just have to pretend. If I took off my clothes, could you pretend to take a red cloak off me?”
He swallowed hard. “Sunshine, is it too soon? It’s only been a few weeks.”
“Almost six weeks. Jill says everything has healed up just fine after the birth.” She succeeded in loosening his breechcloth. It dropped, showing that though his words were reluctant, his body wasn’t. She took him in her hand, loving the heat and the weight of him. “I’ve missed you, Big Guy.”
His teeth caught her earlobe. “I’ve missed you, Sunshine. I’ll go slow, I promise.”
“Go as fast as you want, but remember the baby’s sleeping. Don’t roar and howl at the end like you always do.”
“Me?” He let go of her ear to give her a wolfish grin. “Who is it that screams my name when she comes?”
She faked a scowl. “I’m not anywhere near as loud as you.”
Shadow lifted her lightly into his arms and shouldered his way into their bedroom. “We’ll see,” he threatened.
Glory surrendered to his hands and mouth. This was a contest she could live with. And if she lost, well, she could live with that too.
Twenty minutes after their bedroom door closed, a roar and a scream woke the baby. In the cradle her grandfather had carved for her, Victoria blinked startled blue eyes, shoved a tiny fist into her mouth and fell back asleep.
Win a Handknit Shawl or a Kindle Paperwhite
Starting this Friday, the Bewitching blog hop by Just Romance Me will begin. The grand prize will be a Kindle Paperwhite ereader, and there will be free books galore, gift cards to Barnes & Noble and Amazon, and a little shawl I knit myself. Bloggers will have excerpts of their books, eye candy and short short stores for you to enjoy. I have written a short snip of Glory and Shadow one year after the crash. Jump onboard any time on Friday through Sunday afternoon for your chance to win.
Tuesday Truth: Book Sale and Blog Hop-Win a Kindle Paperwhite
Thing #1: All Liquid Silver books are on sale 33% off at Kobo. That includes al of mine. Check it out!
http://www.kobobooks.com/romanceoffer
Thing #2: Win a Kindle Paperwhite plus a ton of other great prizes this weekend at the Bewitching Blog Hop. I will be giving away a cute little shawl that I knit myself.
Tuesday Teaser: Eddie’s Prize
This is from when Lisa is coming into Kearney for the first time. She and Carla are in a horse-drawn wagon a day after the plane crash.
Carla leaned toward Lisa. “Are you okay?” she asked with compassion. “Are you thinking about the little boy?”
Lisa nodded jerkily. Unlike some children she had encountered on planes, the four-year-old redhead sitting in the seat in front of her had been a perfect angel, quietly coloring and playing giggling peek-a-boo games with his mother. When the plane had finally come to its metallic screeching stop on the prairie, the mother was dead and the little boy so badly hurt that he could only cry almost soundlessly. Lisa had picked him up and numbly carried him out of the plane, allowing Carla to help her down to the ground, but never letting the boy go. She had hummed to him while he bled and cried and finally died. Lisa didn’t know what his last name had been. His mother had called him Alexander. All she had left of him was his blood on her clothes and the memory of his half-smile when he looked up at her right before he died.
That memory was too precious and too painful to linger on at this moment. There were other people counting on her and Carla now, those too hurt to go for help themselves, who needed doctors so they could live. The mayor of Kearney, Nebraska would get the crash survivors the help they needed. Even the crazy men from Odessa had done what they could to help by bringing them here. For the two hundredth time, Lisa forced her thoughts away from the crash to focus on the here and now.
She stared past the driver’s shoulder. “Is this an actual town? It looks as dilapidated as some of the abandoned houses we passed on our walk.”
Buildings looked like they had been half torn down and their windows taken away. There was a familiar fast food restaurant to their right, looking like it had been out of business for fifty years, abandoned for the elements to fade and wear away.
“The recession must have hit this area hard,” Carla suggested doubtfully.
Further in, roads became smoother, and it looked like efforts had been made to clean things up. They rolled past walls that separated whole blocks. The road went from dirt to something like cobblestones. The wagon seat bounced like a car with bad shocks. Even Carla, tough as she was, looked a little green. Lisa was afraid her lunch was going to escape. Soon they began seeing people, all men, come out of buildings and take notice of them.
“Women!” shouted one, pointing at the wagon.
13 things I Love About Fall
Fall is my favorite time of the year. Here is why:
1. Hot tea. I don’t really enjoy drinking tea when it’s hot out, but crisp fall air makes it perfect.
2. Baking. I like to bake. But heating up the apartment by having the stove on sucks, so I don’t do it in the summer.
3. Knitting. It’s so cozy to have a project in progress in your lap when it’s chilly.
4. Apples. They actually aren’t my favorite fruit, but a sweet, juicy apple is nice in the fall. Plus, you can make apple pie, apple spice scones, apple crisp, and drink hot apple cider.
5. The colors. Here in North Dakota we don’t have many trees, but if I drive east for 30 minutes, I can see the trees of Minnesota in vivid color.
6. The first snow fall. We’re expecting at least three inches tomorrow. Sigh. On Monday I had the air conditioning on.
7. Chili. It’s a great dinner for cool fall evenings.
8. The Northern Lights Quilters Guild Annual Quilt Show and raffle. I don’t quilt, but I love looking at the hundreds of quilts the guild puts on display.
9. The kids are back in school. My mom used to put the flag out of the first day of school. She said it should be a national holiday.
10. TV watching. I don’t watch much TV in the summer because that darn air conditioner is so loud.
11. Good sleeping weather.
12. Hot bubble baths.
13. Holiday season. Halloween!
Do you like fall?
