Month: October 2018

Giving a Heart of Lace: Sweet and Clean Regency Romance – book review

Book Review by K.M. Saint James

Giving a Heart of Lace: Sweet and Clean Regency Romance is a lovely, sweet read. How many times has a novel left you wanting to ‘thunk’ the historical heroine in the head, and say, “Take control of your life, girl. Stop waiting for the inevitable.”? Too many times for me. Giving a Heart of Lace: Sweet and Clean Regency Romance is a great change of pace from that normal historical and often, hysterical female character. While staying true to the period, Ms. Richmond has linked two characters—one confined to rank by constraints of birth and one a true victim of circumstances beyond financial control—who find themselves on the outside of the TON plate-glass window looking […]

Chasing Destiny – The Donovan Legacy, Book 2

As I’m currently working through edits — CHASING DESTINY — and always on the look-out for snippets to share during release, here are a few that caught my Tuesday morning muse. My favorites for the day . . . 1) Garrick glanced toward the unopened bottle and glasses. She seemed far too at home, too at ease in his house. How long had this lovely stranger been living here—alone—with his father? “Enough of the cat and mouse game. Who are you?” Some strange woman, with endless mahogany eyes, was making herself quite comfortable. He would have his answer, and now. Sultry voice and cooking skills included, she could be a dangerous distraction for any guy, […]

Teaching an Old Dog (writer) New Tricks. Secrets to Better Writing.

The Donovan Legacy (HARM’S WAY – current release) actually started with a prequel. CHASING DESTINY CHASING DESTINY was written a year in front of HARM’S WAY and then promptly buried among all my floppy disks. Yep, that long ago.  Having recovered my earlier works, I realized the characters of CHASING DESTINY (Garrick & Jaycee) deserved their own release. To that end, the rewrites began. The process has been enlightening: good & bad. And that tenuous, often painful, process deserved to be shared as well. Producing better writing is hard work. Short cuts are not generally the answer, but you can learn to be a smarter writer by following some of these writing tips. New eyes […]

Book Review – Tempting Mr. Townsend by Anna Campbell

Book Review by K.M. Saint James

Suffering from historical romance fever? Burning to read about past-times filled with heroes & heroines? Then an Anna Campbell romance is the perfect cure. In TEMPTING MR. TOWNSEND, author, Anna Campbell once again captures the incurable romantic heart. In this dashing widow selection, Lady Deerham has known and lost true love. Comfortable in her widow’s shell, Fenella is resolved to raise her son alone and spend her remaining years without the comfort of a man’s presence. That is . . . until a bear of a man burst into her quite proper drawing room, and conveys her cross- country to find her missing son. Anthony Townsend has never wanted a woman as he does Fenella, […]

Book Review – Michael’s Blood by author, SS Bazinet

Book Review by K.M. Saint James

Michael’s Blood by fantasy author, SS Bazinet, is a unique exploration of angels – amongst us – and re-incarnation. Have you ever turned your head just right, cut your glance quickly to the side . . . and believed that there was another presence over your shoulder? Surrounding you? Then you have already stepped across the threshold of guardian angels. How about those tingles along your spine when you simply knew something – no true explanation for that insight, that glimpse of fact or feelings, but in your deepest soul, you knew them to be accurate? Author, SS Bazinet takes readers on a journey into the concept that past-lives are more than New Age language, […]

Writing It Right with Wordle.net

Chasing Destiny by K.M. Saint James

Breathing new life into an older manuscript (Chasing Destiny) brought me to Wordle.net Writers . . . do you want to know your most commonly used words in a chapter? Writers . . . Do you know your most common words in your blogs, newsletters, query letters? Here’s how to find out: DIRECTLY FROM THE WORDLE WEBSITE: ‘WORDLE is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, […]