Come and visit Jacqueline Piage

on September 22nd

 when she gives a guest interview about her latest book.

Love in the Sticks... Part One

Once upon a time, many years ago, there was a Robin, minding his own business, when one day a new feature turned up in his territory.
He couldn't know it was a 24 inch square black plastic tray. He just knew someone had loaded it with 'goodies', and all the other birds in the area had discovered it before him.
He set about clearing out the competition, and settled down to feast.
He'd been picking through the windfall for about ten minutes when he spotted, from the corner of his eye, something small and round and pink staring at him from the middle of a small green box.

He'd never seen anything like it before in his life and went closer to investigate....

...and promptly fell in love.




Food forgotten the robin serenaded his new love for several minutes, he sang loud and clear without stopping to give her time to reply.
Undaunted when his new love failed to respond, the robin doubled his efforts. He sang louder and longer and stopped only to chase off intruders who dared to filch the sunflower seeds while he concentrated on serenading his new love.
For two days he sang and preened and puffed up his feathers, only stopping long enough to search round the side of the green box to see if his love was hiding behind it.
The longer she failed to respond the more desperate he became. Overnight he perched on a nearby branch to watch over the love of his life, and during the night the wind blew up a storm...
... and his love disappeared.

To be continued…

Bookmark give-aways

Don't forget, you can win one of this doublesided bookmarks when you comment on my booktrailer - two blogs below.
The Brat: release date 1st October by The Wild Rose Press

Who do you read for relaxation

Georgette Heyer  and Jane Austen.  are two great authors I cut my eye-teeth on.
One of my favourite Georgette Heter characters is Avon in These Old Shades and Mary in The Devil's Cub.
It's no surprise that Pride and Prejudice is my favourite Jane Austen book and that Colin Firth's Darcy epitomises Austen's hero.
To this day when I am stressed I'll search out these books.  It's like reconnecting with old friends.

Who is your favourite author ahd which of their characters stand out for you and why?

New 'British Romance Fiction'

Lindsay Townsend has started a group  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BritishRomanceFiction/message/19
for writers who enjoy everything British in their books.

Win a signed bookmark

Win a signed bookmark

I have twenty signed bookmarks of The Brat to give away to the first twenty visitors to leave a comment on my book trailer. 

(Bookmarks will be posted from the UK)
Please click the 'contact me' button on the top right to leave your contact details.  Thank you.

Book Review of Sandra Cox's book Flower Power.

“The world of publishing is changing,” they said. “If you want to sell your book these days, you have to ‘get out there’ and get yourself noticed!”

“Geese! I like my seclusion, what do you mean I have to ‘get out there’?”

“You need to visit author blogs and websites and leave comments for one.” They went on to list several other essentials for the debut author , but after belly-aching for a couple of months I finally got off my butt and began my foray out of my comfort zone and low and behold almost immediately I won a contest for leaving a comment.

My Prize? A personalised pdf copy of Sandra Cox’s Flower Power.

And what a prize!

This book is a veritable wealth of knowledge backed up by stunning black and white photographs with the colour versions available for download at her site.

“I’ll just take a peak",” I told myself before getting ready for an appointment I couldn’t get out of. I almost missed it. When I returned home I promised myself I’d get those pesky household chores caught up before I went near the PC.

Oooops, “Whaddayamean they’re still not done?”

Did I mention the wealth of information in this book? I did? Well, O.K. but really, it’s crammed full.

Sandra Cox provides links for further information and where you can find the plants included in her book.

And if a pdf version isn’t enough, you can also obtain the print version. Now you have no excuse not to discover what that unidentified plant is that’s flourishing in your garden and you keep forgetting to ask about when you visit your garden centre.

Sandra describes her visit to a daylily farm and her enthusiasm carries you along beside her. You want to ‘be there’ too.

Now I LOVE azaleas, the range of colours they display is awesome, and yet, did you know they are categorized as a danger to health? I didn’t.

And one of my all-time favourites… Lily-of-the-Valley is dangerous for animals? Wow!

Ms Cox takes you through a list of Carnivorous Plants and then follows this up with a section about plants that are edible.

Now, I could go on. I really could! But if you want to know what else she talks about I suggest you put your hand in your pocket and buy this dynamic and charming book. You won’t be disappointed.

Visit Jupiter Gardens for more information aboout Flower Power.

And to buy the book visit Jupiter Press

Writing Style ~ who if anyone, would you like to emulate?

Today while visiting various blogs I came across a post giving a link to a site that analyzes your writing style and likens it to a well known author.  I hasten to add while great fun, don't be led astray with the comparison!  Of the three excerpts I offered up, my regency novella wip gave me the biggest laugh, it likened my writing style to Mario Puzo!! 

Mario Puzo just happens to be the author of The Godfather!  Now what a Regency romance has in common with  Mario Puzo's The Godfather, I fail to understand.

But it had me wondering which author has most influenced your writing style?

Reviewers Wanted

If you enjoy reading and have opinions you'd like to share about the latest books you've just finished, have you ever considered becoming a reviewer? If not, perhaps you might want to investigate the oportunities.
Below are two links that will open doors to online reviewing and the oportunity to meet othe like-mined, and wonderful, people.
All books come in ebook formats which makes them so easy to store and receive.
There are incentives and rewards and the chance to widen your reading environment.
If you are interested or even mildly curious, please give it a go.

For LASR/WC, the link is: http://www.longandshortreviews.com/reviewerapp.htm


For Aurora, the link is: http://www.longandshortreviews.com/AURORA/reviewerapp.htm

One down and one saved from the brink...
I'm talking about computers...
So I have spent the last few weeks attempting to create a book trailer, and apart from the personal frustration of not managing to grasp the intricacies fairly quickly, the additional cost of one computer going down and another threatening to go up in a puff of blue smoke didn't do my nerves much good either :-)
Did I finish it?  Yeah!  Am I pleased with it?  I'm not sure :-)  Did I expect this to be an integral part of writing a book?  No!! LOL 
But heck, after all the hassle, managing to complete this learning curve has left me on a great high.