Thanksgiving is a time of friends, family, and sharing, so Happy Thanksgiving to everyone.
I’ll be back on Sunday with Sunday News, and the winner of the title contest. I hope to see you then.
Warm regards,
Ella
Posted in Ella Quinn, tagged Ella Quinn on November 28, 2013| 13 Comments »
Thanksgiving is a time of friends, family, and sharing, so Happy Thanksgiving to everyone.
I’ll be back on Sunday with Sunday News, and the winner of the title contest. I hope to see you then.
Warm regards,
Ella
Posted in Uncategorized on November 27, 2013| Leave a Comment »
I’m on Karen’s Killer Books with an excerpt of The Secret Life of Miss Anna Marsh and a give away today. Look where I am today!! http://bit.ly/1fITmYB. But I thought you’d enjoy this as well.
Happy Turkey Day Eve!
No time to talk turkey today – I know most of you need to get back to the last lap of NaNoWriMo. I am just going to jump right in with one of my favorite quotes about fiction writing from On Writing Horror, a book put together by The Horror Writers Association. Don’t click away if Horror isn’t your genre! I’ve found many gems within the pages of this book that could be used with ALL genres.
Horror fiction deals in aberrations—aberrations of nature and circumstance, of fate and destiny, of the cosmic and the exquisitely human. Of these facets, the most memorable and compelling are the humans who populate the writer’s fictional world. Through their eyes, the reader is able to behold existence from a unique and unexpected perspective. The reader is able to live another human’s endeavor in order to understand, avoid, or…
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Posted in Ella Quinn, Givaway, Historical, Monday Blogs, Regency, The Marriage Game, The Secret Life of Miss Anna Marsh, tagged #MondayBlogs, Ella Quinn, Giveaway, Historical Romance, regency, The Marriage Game, The Secret Life of Miss Anna Marsh on November 25, 2013| Leave a Comment »
Monday Excerpts will be back next week. Today I’m honored to be on Karen’s Killer Book Bench with a giveaway of The Secret Life of Miss Anna Marsh!! Please come by and visit!
Posted in Ella Quinn, excerpts, Historical, News!, Regency, The Secret Life of Miss Anna Marsh, Winner, tagged Anne Cleeland, Ella Quinn, Excerpts, Historical Romance, regency on November 24, 2013| 14 Comments »
This has been a pretty quite week. I’ve not received the names of the winners from the blogs I’ve been on, and, due to a cyber glitch, my editor has not selected a title yet. We do have one book winner though!!
Melissa Keir won Anne Cleeland’s book!! Congratulations, Melissa!!
Except for a wonderful day spent with fellow author, Amy Pfaff, when she came in on a cruise ship, I’ve spent most of the week working on my Christmas novella for 2014. This is Georges and Madeleine’s story. If you’ve read The Secret Life of Miss Anna Marsh, you’ll remember the not always very likable, shadowy French guy. Having to limit my word count to 25,000 is a real struggle for me, but it will get done. I also foresee lots of editing.
Here is an excerpt. Tell me what you think.
September 1814, Beaune, France
Madeleine, Comtesse du Beaune, laid her pen down on the old cherry desk. Thank the Lord she had a head for numbers. Each vineyard, even the ones that held only one or two rows were accounted for. If only the central government had allowed her to completely take her father’s position as négociant. Better a wine-trader than a dead Aristo or a pauper, papa had said. Mamma had begged him to take the family to England, but he would not leave France. Yet now he was dead, and no one could explain how it had come about. After all, a man who did not ride horses anymore could hardly fall off one and break his neck. What was worse was Monsieur Coupe, the person who had been assigned to oversee Madeleine’s work.
A knock sounded on the door, and it opened. “Milady, Monsieur Coupe”—her butler, Durant’s, lip lifted in a sneer—“is here to see you.”
She’d like to cut Monsieur Coupe’s male parts off and feed them to the pig.
This time of year Magen’s gets every north swell going. It makes walking a challenge, and paddle boarding not much fun. So, I’m taking you to Secret Harbor on the East end of the island.
I wasn’t the only one paddling.
I love seeing the boats.
So what do you think of the new beach?
Have a wonderful week,
Ella
Posted in Uncategorized on November 20, 2013| 2 Comments »
As all of you know, I’m very fond of WITS posts. They’ve helped me quite a bit. If you like them as well, here is your chance to help.
Jenny Hansen here, popping in to share some topics we’ve been buzzing about behind the scenes at Writers In The Storm.
First of all, this is our 500th post. That is so unbelievable to me. Four years ago, when we started this blog, we had no idea where it would go, or that we’d find nearly this much to post about. THANK YOU for taking the journey with us!
This milestone brings up a second one on our list of goals:
Write To Done’s yearly contest, the8th Annual Top 10 Blogs For Writers Contest 2013 is happening right now! They’re soliciting nominations for the Top 10 Blogs for Writers of 2013 and I’ve had Laura breathing down my neck about it.
(She’s that way, you know…why do you think she has 3 books out in a year?)
I’ll tell y’all what I told her:We’re not in charge here. Our…
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Posted in Ella Quinn, excerpts, Historical, Monday Blogs, Release, The Marriage Game, The Secret Life of Miss Anna Marsh, tagged books, Ella Quinn, Excerpts, Historical Romance, The Marriage Game, The Secret Life of Miss Anna Marsh on November 18, 2013| 24 Comments »
Due to the blog tour, I missed last week. So today, post any excerpt of 500 words or less. Keep it PG-13. I also invite you to post your buy links and social medial info.
Here is mine from my new release, and Amazon bestseller, The Secret Life of Miss Anna Marsh.
Anna was at the table with her breakfast plate and had poured a cup of tea when Rutherford walked in.
She blinked. “What would you like?”
“Tea and food?” He smiled, charmingly.
“Help yourself to the dishes on the sideboard.” She waved her hand in the direction. “I’ll serve you tea. Are you early, or am I late?”
“I’m early. I awoke at dawn, and rather than bothering my staff, I came here. I knew you’d be up. Besides, I rather like the idea of eating breakfast with you.” He’d like the idea even more if he’d woken up with her. Anna blushed as if she’d heard him. “Where would you like to ride this morning?”
She tilted her head first one way then the other. “Hmm, I don’t know. Where would you like to go?”
He studied her face. “Not really fair turning the question back to me. I haven’t ridden the beach in a while. What do you think?”
A smile dawned on her beautiful face and grew broad. “The beach it is.”
Less than an hour later, they entered the shoreline from the opposite end of the one he was on last night. They walked their horses for a while, before nudging them faster, galloping down the beach. Rutherford tried to look for any changes since the last time he’d been here, but it was too long ago.
He hung back a little to watch Anna ride. A creature of nature. She infected him with the same desire to be free.
“Race,” he called.
She urged Thunderer faster. Her horse was a good seventeen three hands. He’d been there when Harry had bought the horse for Anna and had tried to talk Harry out of giving such a large horse to his little sister. Harry had remained firm, saying Anna rode as well as either of them, and that she deserved the same type of horse. It occurred to Rutherford his friend had been right. Anna reached the end of the beach with Rutherford behind.
She turned, smiling. “Did you let me win?”
“No. You did have a head start though. I should have called the race when I was even with you.”
Anna glanced narrowly at him, as if she didn’t believe him.
“I was thinking about when Harry bought him for you.”
“Ah. Did you approve?”
He smiled ruefully. “Not at the time. I can see now why he did it.”
She grinned. “I’ll let you race me back.”
“You call the mark.”
“Very well, on three. One, two, THREE!”
She took off at full pelt. It was all he could do to come in on her tail. They walked the heaving horses into the surf to cool them down and then back up the path to the cliffs.
“I love it here,” she said. “I love the wildness, the sea, the air. I love everything about it. I want to stay here forever.”
Buy links:
Amazon US ~ Amazon Canada ~ Amazon France ~ Amazon Germany ~ Amazon UK ~ Barns & Nobel ~ Kensington * iTunes
Posted in Book Review, Desiring Lady Caro, Ella Quinn, Givaway, News!, Regency, The Marriage Game, Winner, tagged Desiring Lady Caro, Ella Quinn, Giveaway, Historical Romance, regency, The Marriage Game on November 17, 2013| Leave a Comment »
Good morning. Congratulations to Eileen Dandashi for winning Regina Jeffers’s book!!
I’m on Bookworm 2 Bookworm blog today with a new excerpt from The Secret Life of Miss Anna Marsh, and a giveaway. They have also done a lovely review for the book. I’d love it if you stopped by.
It was a busy week. I had the copy-edits for Desiring Lady Caro due on Thursday. Then, as soon as I sent them in, my editor wanted the final manuscript for book #5. Thanks to all of you, I have lots of good choices for title. I’ve already sent them to my editor. I’ll let you know as soon as he picks one.
The bay was pretty rough this week, so no sand castles or other art. This gives you an idea of the surf.
The waves have been so high, the sand started to bury the picnic table.
As you can see here, the outlet from the mangrove swamp is sanded in again.
We had a visiting catamaran.
Have a wonderful week.
Ella
Posted in Contest, Ella Quinn, Historical, Regency, The Marriage Game, tagged Contest, Ella Quinn, Historical Romance, regency, The Marriage Game on November 13, 2013| 59 Comments »
It’s time to put your thinking caps on.
My editor and I cannot agree on a title for book #5 in my series, The Marriage Game, so I decided to have a contest to chose the title. My original plan was to hold it on Facebook, but quite frankly, I get lost on all the posts, so I’m going to have here where I know I’ll see all the entries. The contest will run until Saturday, November 16th. The winner will receive a signed copy of the book, acknowledgement in the book for coming up with the winning title, lunch with me at either the Romantic Times convention in New Orleans, or RWA Nationals, or a basket of Caribbean spices.
The title must have the heroine’s name in it in some form. Book #4 is entitled Desiring Lady Caro.
Here is a blurb so you know what the story is about.
William, Viscount Wivenly, is determined to escape marriage minded ladies before his luck runs out, and he’s trapped. When asked to investigate the problems surrounding his deceased great-uncle’s family, William jumps at the chance to assist. Yet after arriving in the West Indies, his attention is drawn to a sultry, young French widow. Now all he can think about his making her his mistress.
Life has not been easy for Miss Eugénie Villaret de Joyeuse since her step-father, Nathan Wivenly, died. She’s had to continue their work freeing slaves, hold her family together, and discover why the business is mysteriously losing money. She doesn’t have time for a spoiled Englishman whose kisses ignite her passion.
When Will learns his widow is in fact an innocent and his father’s ward, he immediately proposes marriage, on his terms. Yet Eugénie has something else in store for the arrogant viscount. If he wants her hand in marriage, he’ll have to work for it.
My editor will pick the winner. Good luck and tell your friends!
Ella