Tag: love

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Weeds by Neetu

April 26, 2021 by Neetu Malik in category Poet's Day by Neetu Malik tagged as flowers, love, Neetu

Weeds

spread out
before me

pretty white flowers
like snowflakes
on grass

they remind me of love
blossoming until plowed down

by those who seek
only flowers

Some of Neetu’s Books

THE OCOTILLO REVIEW SUMMER 2018 VOL 2.2

Story Ideas by Kat Martin

December 17, 2020 by A Slice of Orange in category Guest Posts tagged as bestseller, bestselling romance, drama, fiction, intrigue, Kat Martin, love, newly released, romance', romantic, sexy, Suspense, suspenseful, women's fiction

woman using a typewriter with crumpled up paper around her and a cup of coffee next to her. Title of the post Story Ideas and author Kat Martin are place over the image.

People often ask how I come up with ideas for my novels. Sometimes I have no answer—it just seems to pop into my head. Best guess, the kernel of an idea probably came from a newspaper or magazine article or something I saw in a movie. It was probably just so far back I don’t recall.

Before I started to write THE ULTIMATE BETRAYAL, Brandon Garrett’s story, the third book in my Maximum Security Series, I had decided to set a book in Colorado, maybe even a new series. I ran across an article about the Army Chemical Weapons Depot near Fort Carson and started thinking… wouldn’t it make be interesting if someone stole chemical weapons from the depot? I wonder if it could be done? How would the good guys catch the thieves? And so off I went on a story that turned into The Ultimate Betrayal.

Having written over 70 novels since I began way back when, it’s harder and harder to come up with fresh ideas. I do a lot of research for my books. This novel, set around a military base, was particularly difficult. Lots of stuff I didn’t know.

In the story, when investigative journalist Jessie Kegan’s father, a colonel in the army, is accused of treason, Jessie is determined to clear his name. Reluctantly, she turns to former Special Ops soldier, Brandon Garrett, her late brother’s best friend–a true heartbreaker, according to her brother.

With danger coming from every angle, time is running out and the game being played is deadly. Working together, Bran and Jessie must risk everything to solve the riddle and confront the threat–before it’s too late.

I hope you’ll give THE ULTIMATE BETRAYAL a try and if you like Bran and Jessie as much as I did, you can also find them in THE CONSPIRACY, Maximum Security book #1 and THE DECEPTION, book #2.

Till next time, happy reading and all best, Kat

THE ULTIMATE BETRAYAL

Kat Martin

When investigative journalist Jessie Kegan’s father, a colonel in the army, is accused of treason, Jessie is determined to clear his name. Reluctantly, she turns to former Special Ops soldier, Brandon Garrett, her late brother’s best friend—a true heartbreaker, according to her brother.

Kat Martin Bio

Bestselling author Kat Martin, a graduate of the University of California at Santa Barbara, currently resides in Missoula, Montana with Western-author husband, L. J. Martin. More than seventeen million copies of Kat’s books are in print, and she has been published in twenty foreign countries. Fifteen of her recent novels have taken top-ten spots on the New York Times Bestseller List, and her novel, BEYOND REASON, was recently optioned for a feature film. Kat’s latest novel, THE ULTIMATE BETRAYAL, a Romantic Thriller, will be released in paperback December 29^th.

Social Media Links

Contest Link

Kat’s Monthly Contest

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MY UNROMANTIC HEART

February 15, 2020 by Rebecca Forster in category The Write Life by Rebecca Forster tagged as Craft, love, Love Inspired, romance genre, romance', romantic comedy, thrillers, writing process, Writing romance

By the time you read this it will be the day after Valentine’s Day, and I spent yesterday agonizing about what to write.

This angst over Valentine’s Day and romance is not unfounded. My first book was a romance. In Passion’s Defense was about a defense lawyer falling in love with a prosecutor during a gruesome trial. That should have been my first clue that perhaps mayhem rather than meet ups was my cup of tea. But I was slow on the uptake, and I wrote eight category romances. I think they are pretty darn good and they got better with each one. I wrote my heart out for Harlequin but I couldn’t seem to color in the lines, so I started writing women’s fiction. The editorial freedom, the more intricate plot lines, and the emphasis on plot rather than relationship helped me thrive. Dreams, Seasons, Vanities were just some of my titles. I wrote a lot of women’s fiction, but still I hadn’t hit my comfort zone as a writer. Then two things happened that sealed my fate.

First, the incredible RWA bookseller—Michelle Thorne—delicately informed me that my idea of romance was the hero chucking the heroine on the arm and giving her a smile. She was right. I was not a sexy writer in the years when other authors were pushing the envelope. My editor at Kensington was more direct. He said ‘You have to stop killing people before they get in bed!’. In essence he fired me from romance. I was devastated. Later I realized this was the silver lining in my very dark cloud.

When I started writing thrillers I found my passion and isn’t passion what love is all about? Still, without the learning curve of the romance genre, without the editors and readers, I wouldn’t have had the confidence to break up with women’s fiction as it was defined all those years ago and move on to my literary partner for life.

That doesn’t mean I left romance behind completely. Every book I write is based on relationships, but the emphasis of stories is little different from the classic romance novel. And then there’s my mom. One day she asked if I could write a book-without-bodies. I wrote three. On my mother’s ninetieth birthday, I presented her with a trilogy of sweet, romantic comedies: The Day Bailey Devlin’s Horoscope Came True, The Day Bailey Devlin Picked Up a Penny and the Day Bailey Devlin’s Ship Came in. These books encompassed every thing I love about romance: humor, honesty, confusion, honor, and affection for not just one man but all the men in Bailey’s life. Young or old, they be a lover or father or friend, it was all about love. I will always be most proud of, be in love with, the Bailey Devlin Trilogy because it reflects my definition of romance.

Today I put those three books in a boxed set and I hope when a reader finishes the stories, her (his) heart will be fuller, there might be a tear in her eye, she will have laughed out loud and then will turn around and pass all that feeling on to someone she loves.

THE BAILEY DEVLIN TRILOGY: BOOK 1-3 (The Bailey Devlin Series)

THE DAY BAILEY DEVLIN’S HOROSCOPE CAME TRUE

THE DAY BAILEY DEVLIN PICKED UP A PENNY

THE DAY BAILEY DEVLIN’S SHIP CAME IN

Happy Belated Valentine’s Day.

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Civil War Letters: I’ll be reading letters from Love Me Forever at Lady Jane’s OC Salon by Jina Bacarr

December 11, 2016 by Jina Bacarr in category Jina’s Book Chat tagged as books, Civil War, Confessions of a Podcast Goddess, Lady Jaen's OC Salon, letters, love, reading, rebel, Ripped Bodice Bookstore, romance, South, war letters

When was the last time you wrote a letter?

No, not email!

Or text.

Or a bunch of acronyms that no one can figure out without a dictionary.

I mean, put pen to paper and wrote out the words, one by one.

Hmm! I didn’t hear anything. You’re not alone. Unfortunately, the practice of letter writing is a lost art, but there’s something about a letter no email can take replace.

The crisp, crinkly paper.

The lingering scent of the writer’s perfume.

The personal style of every curved letter, dot and period, and question mark. The hidden message in their writing style that only you can see.

Especially during wartime.

Those letters are precious, the last letter from a soldier to his sweetheart is the epitome of love eternal, which is why I’ll be reading letters from LOVE ME FOREVER exchanged between my heroine and her Union Army major at Lady Jane’s Salon on Sunday, January 8, 2017 at the Ripped Bodice Bookstore in Culver City, California. I’ll be joined by other authors and the program starts at 4 p.m.

I’m grabbing my parasol and dancing around in my hoopskirt, getting ready to read from the letters of my time-traveling heroine and the handsome major she’s fallen in love with.

But can never have!

Best,

Jina

Website: www.jinabacarr.com
Blog: www.jinabacarr.wordpress.com

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***CHRISTMAS SPECIAL!

Love Me Forever is on sale for the month of December for 99 cents!

Women Soldiers in the Civil War from “Love Me Forever” from Jina Bacarr on Vimeo.

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What About Love? by Kitty Bucholtz

April 9, 2015 by Kitty Bucholtz in category It's Worth It by Kitty Bucholtz tagged as It's Worth It, Kitty Bucholtz, love

After six weeks of Lent and the booming joy of Easter, I’ve got love on my mind. Not just the cute, mushy stuff that most of our acquaintances seem to think we write about. 😉 But love with power and strength and purpose, the kind of love that changes people and changes lives.

I’ve been thinking about a sermon I heard recently where the pastor told a story about an elderly woman who was kidnapped and forgave her kidnapper, asking the judge to get the man into a drug rehab program. The pastor said what I often think – I’d like to think I would be that forgiving. But he also said the other thing I think when I hear these stories – I’ll probably never be in a position to know.

So he challenged us to something else. Don’t worry about loving your enemies today. Start with something easier. “How about if this week you just try to love the annoying people in your life?”

And it occurred to me that that just might be harder.

Then he said, “When you get so you can love the annoying people, take a step up and try to love the irritating people.”

Ouch. I think I’d rather try to love the kidnapper. At least I can blame it on the drugs and believe in his potential rehabilitation.

And then I started thinking about my writing. If I can’t personally love the annoying and irritating people I come across on a daily basis, how can I write about people with a dozen layers – no, a hundred layers – of relational emotion? Because that’s who we all are – people with uncountable layers of emotion covering hundreds of different relationships in each of our lives.

Love is the emotion that packs a punch. It’s active. It changes things. It changes people.

Love changes us.

We’re romance writers. But do we love the annoying and irritating people in our lives, let alone our enemies? If not, how can we write about love?

How does the love we write about change the people who read our stories? Does it change them at all? Are we afraid of saying too much? Too little? It takes a double dose of vulnerability to put that kind of love on the page.

We must be fearless.

We are among the bards of our generation. Bards tell tales of heroes, warn of danger, and give people courage. All in a fearlessly entertaining way.

That’s the power of love.

Kitty Bucholtz decided to combine her undergraduate degree in business, her years of experience in accounting and finance, and her graduate degree in creative writing to become a writer-turned-independent-publisher. Her novels, Little Miss Lovesick, A Very Merry Superhero Wedding, and Unexpected Superhero are currently available on Amazon. The free short story “Superhero in Disguise” and the new short story “Welcome to Loon Lake” are available wherever ebooks are sold. You can find out about her courses on self-publishing, marketing, and time management for writers at her website Writer Entrepreneur Guides.