An Interview with Coleen Kwan

Today we have the wonderful Coleen Kwan with us to tell us about her new release When Harriet Came Home from Carina Press. Join us in welcoming her to the MFRW Authors’ Blog. Welcome, Coleen!

Tell us about your latest book, including its genre. Does it cross over to other genres? If so, what are they? (Please include the cover so we can post it as well.)

My debut novel, WHEN HARRIET CAME HOME, is a contemporary romance set in Australia. It’s a fun, sweet story about an ‘ugly duckling’ heroine who reluctantly returns to her hometown only to meet her old teenage crush. Here’s the blurb:

After ten years of exile, Harriet Brown is back in town. Things have definitely changed, but so has she. Now the confident owner of a catering business, she's no longer the shy, overweight girl everyone—including her hot teenage crush—used to ignore. In fact, she's determined to make peace with Adam Blackstone for her part in exposing his father's secret affairs and corrupt behavior as mayor.

But Adam has changed as well. No longer a pampered, rich pinup boy, he just wants to reestablish his family's good name. He reluctantly agrees to a truce with Harriet, and is surprised by how changed she is. He doesn't want to be drawn to her, but he can't seem to resist her allure.

As Harriet struggles to come to terms with her past, her adolescent infatuation with Adam morphs into something more serious… Will she ever be accepted again? Or will ancient history ruin the chance of a future full of possibilities?

The book is available from Carina Press, Amazon, and other ebookstores.

What can we expect from you in the future?

I’ve recently sold my first steampunk romance to Carina Press! It comes out next year, but I don’t have a publication date yet.

Do you have a favorite comment or question from a reader?

I was lucky enough to receive a great first review from Naughty Cougar Tales. “I could not put this book down, I read until the early hours of the morning, until my eyes refused to stay open. As soon as I woke up the next morning, I did housework then got right back into the book until I finished it. The emotions, secondary cast and most of all Harriett and Adam kept me enthralled until the end.”

Do you feel humor is important in fiction and why?

I love a bit of humor in my characters, but humor is very tricky to write as it’s so subjective. I’m not very good at writing humor. A judge once wrote on my score sheet, “Your heroine, Tamsyn, reminds me a lot of Stephanie Plum… without the humor.” Ouch!

Please tell us about yourself (family, hobbies, education, etc.)

I live in Sydney, Australia with my partner and two children. I graduated from university with a science degree and for many years I worked in IT. About three years ago I quit my job and started writing. I’ve had a lot of setbacks and rejections, but writing is such fun I couldn’t stop. I made my first sale to Carina Press in February of this year, and it’s been a steep learning curve from then on, not just in terms of editing, but all the associated marketing and promoting. My favorite hobby is reading! Now that I write, I find I have much less time for reading, which is a great pity.
Are you a member of any author groups - RWA, critique groups, etc.?

I belong to Romance Writers of Australia. They’re a great organization. As an unpublished writer, I entered many of their competitions and learned so much from the judges’ score sheets. Through them I’ve also joined online critique groups, face-to-face groups, and attended online conferences.

Where do you see yourself in five years?

I hope I’ll still be writing! I’d love to be multi-published, perhaps in several genres, but most importantly I hope I will still enjoy creating stories and characters.
How long have you been writing - have you always wanted to be a writer?

I dabbled a bit in my early twenties, but starting getting serious about three years ago. Although I’ve always been an avid reader, I haven’t always wanted to be a writer. It’s just evolved over the years.

What do you hope readers take with them after reading your work?

I hope readers will be transported away from their everyday lives, at least for a small time. I hope they will become emotionally invested in my characters, even if they hate them or want to strangle them, that’s good! The last thing I want is for my readers to be bored.

Where can your readers find you?

Website: http://www.coleenkwan.com  

Twitter: http://twitter.com/ColeenKwan

Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Coleen-Kwan-Author/131730270256044

Facebook profile: https://www.facebook.com/coleenkwanauthor

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5210210.Coleen_Kwan

Where’s your favorite place to hang out online?

My website http://www.coleenkwan.com

An Interview with M.S. Spencer

Please Help me today in welcoming M.S. Spencer to the MFRW Authors’ Blog.

Tell us about your latest book, including its genre. Does it cross over to other genres? If so, what are they? (Please include the cover so we can post it as well.)

Three sisters, three lovers, and three spirits guarding a dangerous river. Add long-lost master artworks, stolen prototypes and a resident genius and you have a recipe for jealousy, sex, love and a little larceny. Triptych, due out November 9 from Secret Cravings Publishing, is a full-length novel of romantic suspense.

Miranda Cabot lost all interest in love after her husband Edward crashed into the Potomac River rocks called the Three Sisters. Her sister Honor likewise prefers her tower and her writing.  Not so the third sister Sybil, who longs for romance with a dashing Frenchman.  She advertises for said hero on Craig’s List and is rewarded with the Chevalier du Bon Arnaque, who comes to Washington from Strasbourg on unidentified business.

Miranda and Honor believe the Chevalier is a crook and ask their neighbors Dieter Heiliger and his grandson Corey, to act as chaperones. With three beautiful, strong-willed women in a house filled with three handsome, virile men, the inevitable result is an intricate web of jealousy, sex, and intrigue. Who will end up with whom, and will the Three Sisters take another life as the legend calls for?

Purchase Information:

Triptych, by M. S. Spencer

Published November 9 by Secret Cravings (www.secretcravingspublishing.com)

eBook, 65,000 words, M/F, 3 flames

ISBN: 978-1-61885-064-5  

What can we expect from you in the future?

I have a murder/suspense/romance in final draft, tentatively entitled The Torpedo Factory Murders. It’s the story of an artist who falls in love with the man who wants to destroy her beloved art center. Along the way they get mixed up in a complicated stew of murder and politics. At present I’m in Florida to research my next story, set at the famous Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, Florida.  It will involve intrigue, murder and suspense. And love. And sex. And international trafficking of exotic birds. And dolphins and sea turtles. That’s as far as I’ve gotten. 

What is your writing routine once you start a book?

By the time I sit down to write I’ve already spent hours thinking about the story, plotline and characters. Once I have a general picture in my head I’ll bang out an outline—listing the salient traits of the hero and heroine, what they do, etc. and a few sentences describing the plot. Then I make a loooong list of potential names for the principals.  I know now not to settle on a name till I’ve reached the third chapter of the draft.  The characters haven’t defined themselves well enough before that. I used to write bits and pieces of scenes & then try to fit them together but that was too complicated for my tiny brain, so now I simply keep writing from start to finish. Each day of writing begins with rereading the earlier couple of pages and fiddling with them. Then I find something else to do—check email, look for the cat, any activity I can think of that could be described as useful, if not productive. About 10 am I begin the serious writing.  Quit at eleven for my constitutional, back to work at 2 but a nap beckons. About four I wake up wand write madly for two hours, grumbling about all the time I wasted.  I wonder how many other writers find they are most creative when the dinner bell is about to ring?

What kind of research do you do? 

All kinds.  It’s so important to be accurate in the details when you write. I’m reading a thriller by Steven Berry now, and it threw me when he described a garden as brimming with mums, asters, and pansies.  I mean, really. I use the internet to recheck facts and maps, as well as for basic research. For example, for Triptych I had to look up train schedules for the Paris to Strasbourg route to fit my time-line. I also spend a lot of time on the ground wherever the book is set. My third book, Losers Keepers, is set on the eastern shore island of Chincoteague and, even though I’d visited it at least twice a year for some fifteen years, I went back and followed the itinerary of my heroine to make sure she didn’t make a wrong turn into a dead end when she was supposed to be following the bad guy.

Who, if anyone, has influenced your writing?

My father loved to write, although most of his published works were academic.  I inherited my love of writing from him, but my mother gave me my love of reading. When I was young I read everything I could lay my hands on, which has stood me in good stead now that I’m writing. I absorbed a great deal of literary structure, sense of place, and the richness of human nature from my reading. The strongest influence came from the English romantic writers—Austen, the Brontes, and Thomas Hardy, but also from Iris Murdoch, Dostoyevsky, and the early works of Anne Rice.

How many books have you written, how many have been published?

I have written six full-length novels so far. The first one, a murder mystery set in Yorktown, Virginia, sat idly awaiting an act of God for years, until it was inadvertently thrown out by my husband, may he rest in peace.  It was good practice (I mean the writing) and I would have probably reworked it at a later date, but unfortunately I wrote it before the existence of flash drives and off-site storage and all I had was one hard copy.  My second novel, Lost in His Arms was published in 2009, my third, Lost and Found, in 2010, both by Red Rose Publishing. The great folks at Secret Cravings took on my third, Losers Keepers, which came out in July, and will release Triptych November 9. My sixth, tentatively titled The Torpedo Factory Murders, is still a WIP. The seventh remains a twinkle in my mind’s eye.

Are there any words of encouragement for unpublished writers?

 

Practice.  Like any skill, the more you practice the better you get. I’ve been writing all my life (granted, in fits & starts), but I’ve noticed a distinct improvement in my writing from my first published work to my latest. Write every day, even if it’s a grocery list or a haiku. A very good tool is a journal.  Try to write in it every night before bed to calm you and sort your thoughts out.

What is the most rewarding thing about being a writer?

No question: it’s rereading a passage and thinking, “Wow, that’s good! I wonder who wrote that?

If money were not an object, where would you most like to live?

Vienna. Absolutely. I have visited and lived in many places—in the Middle East, Europe

North America, and South America, but the week I spent in Vienna was the most magical. The food is wonderful, the architecture varied and eclectic, and the history romantic. But what I loved most of all was the music. It was everywhere—in the parks, spilling out of cafes, in churches and museums. I remember passing an orchestra playing Mozart in the street in honor of a store opening. How cool is that?

I love pizza with...

I love pizza with Phil. Oh, and with anchovies, jalapenos, and capicolla. The tomato sauce should not be sweet but abundant, the crust medium thick and the capicolla crisp.  Of course it’s very hard to find a restaurant that offers these ingredients. I found one and when I called to place the order, the order taker fell silent. Finally “Joe” said wonderingly, “I think you’re the first person to ever order this combination. And I’ve been in business for thirty years.”  I was so proud.

M.S. Spencer

Where can your readers find you?

Website: www.meredithellsworth.com

Facebook Author Page: www.facebook.com/M.S.SpencerAuthor

Blog: http://msspencertalespinner.blogspot.com

Twitter: www.twitter.com/msspencerauthor

Where’s your favorite place to hang out online?

My website is a freebie from Google and extremely difficult to edit, I try to keep it updated with links etc. and have even posted a lot of my poems there, but the blogspot is SO easy to deal with that I’m gravitating more to it.  At first I only posted news of blogs, interviews etc. but I noticed that the only posts that garnered comments were off-the-cuff remarks about events in my life or musings.

An Interview With Rebecca J. Clark

Today we have the wonderful Rebecca J. Clark here to tell us about her latest book. Please help me in welcoming her to the MFRW Author’s Blog.

     

Tell us about your latest book, including its genre. Does it cross over to other genres? If so, what are they? (Please include the cover so we can post it as well.)

My latest book is Her One-Night Prince. It’s a sweet romance I wrote for Bookstrand, about a shy, sheltered woman who wants to go to her 10-year class reunion as a changed woman. Don’t let the “sweet” tag put you off though—there’s still plenty of sexual tension and steam.

What can we expect from you in the future?

I have a book coming out in the spring or summer of 2012 from The Wild Rose Press. It’s a far cry from my current books, which are light-hearted and funny. Deliver the Moon is longer and much more emotional and angsty.

Do you have a favorite comment or question from a reader?

My favorite letter from a reader was for my first book, Borrowed Stilettos which is VERY steamy. She told me she and her husband hadn’t had sex in more than 6 months. Then she read my book and couldn’t wait to jump her husband when he got home. She told me my book changed their marriage.

Why did you decide to write romance novels?When I was a kid, I wanted to be Nancy Drew. Then, when I was 11, I read my first Harlequin Romance, and I was hooked. I loved how that little book made me feel at the end and how I felt like I was that beautiful, smart heroine. I became a die-hard romance reader right then, and I knew that was my life’s calling—to someday make readers feel the same way I did after reading that first romance.

Generally, how long does it take you to write a book?

I am not the right person to ask about this. One of the pros of writing for a small press is that I have no deadlines. I can write when I have time or feel like writing. But that’s also one of the cons of writing for a small press. If I had a deadline, I would meet it. But with no deadline, I tend to flit from project to project, working on whichever one I feel like working on at the time. If I focused on just one project at a time, however, it would probably still take me a good 6-8 months to write a full-length novel.

Do you have a set schedule for writing or do you just go with the flow?

I have really wacky hours in my day job (I’m a personal fitness trainer and instructor), so my writing routine depends on the day. Some days, I work a triple shift, which means I’m fitting in my writing that day in 20 minute increments. Other days, I work just a few hours in the morning, which means I can write in a 1-2 hr block in the afternoon or evening.

What is your writing process?

I can define my process in just one word: a mess. Okay, that’s two words. I start out as a pantser, then finish as a plotter. I always start out with a premise and a title—I have to have a good title before I can start writing. And so far, my publishers have let me keep my titles. Next, I figure out who the characters are, their basic GMCs, then I start writing until I get stuck, usually on page 70 or so. By this time I know a little more about my characters and their problems. At this point, I plot out the rest of the book through the end. Then I write again until I get stuck, and repeat the whole process. Like I said, it’s a mess. I’m trying to become more of a plotter, but…

What about your family, do they know not to bother you when you are writing - or are there constant interruptions?My kids are both teenagers now, and they know if I’m sitting at the computer that means I’m writing, even if my fingers aren’t moving. My husband, however, hasn’t figured that out yet, no matter how many times I remind him. Luckily, he’s super supportive of my writing, and has gotten used to doing his own laundry and eating dinner at 9 p.m. most nights.

What do you do to relax and recharge your batteries?Because I’m in the fitness industry, you can probably figure this out LOL. I work out to recharge. This might mean a long walk outside or on the treadmill, or strength training or Zumba class (which I teach twice a week).  I also like to play the piano and paint. And read as much as possible, of course.

If I was a first time reader of your books, which one would you recommend I start with and why?

That depends on your taste. If you like super steamy (as in, “I would never let my mom read this?” even though my mom did read it—YIKES!) then I’d suggest my first book, Borrowed Stilettos. If a bit sweeter is your cup of tea, then I’d suggest my newest release, Her One-Night Prince.

Are there any words of encouragement for unpublished writers?

Don’t ever, ever give up. If you quit today, how will you know that you might have sold tomorrow?

If you came with a warning label, what would it say?

Mood can go from 0-60 in about 2 seconds without warning or reason.

Where can your readers find you?
http://rebeccajclark.com

http://rebeccajclark.blogspot.com

http://shywriters.blogspot.com/
http://blameitonthemuse.com/

Twitter: @rebeccajclark

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/#!/rebeccajclark.author

Where’s your favorite place to hang out online?

Either Twitter or Facebook.