Available Soon - Spoonful of Sugar

BLURB:

During a drug bust, friendly fire almost ended Brad Davidson's career on the St Louis police force, but his wife's social avarice, was the final blow. Divorced and disillusioned, Brad returned to his home town of Coker City to become its County Sheriff, content to keep the town, and his heart, safe. Until, he meets the new pharmacist. Brad decides he's wasted plenty of time running from his own broken heart.

Dana Barrett looks for a fresh start in a small town. Coker City, Illinois is about as far away as a young widow with four small children can afford to get from Chicago and its painful memories. Malicious gossip ruined her life once and she swears she will never let it happen again. While Dana struggles to keep a professional relationship with the handsome, attentive sheriff, Brad is ready to take a chance on love again. Dana's fear of gossip raises an unswayable wall between them.

The entire town is convinced Brad is the answer for Dana's family and the town's future. Through their eyes, Dana decides not all gossip is meant to be destructive. When she learns Brad is considering another job out of state, she risks the outrageous so she and her children can keep from losing the sweetest love of her life.

Cover by Bella Media management http://www.bellamediamanagement.com/

Available soon on Amazon.com

We had a lot of fun writing Dana and Brad's story and we hope you have as much fun reading about them.

Available soon in ebook and print -- Spoonful of Sugar.

Tia Dani

Hot Summer Heros Blog Hop Winner

Congratulations to KIM D winner of the Hot Summer Heros Blog Hop!  You win a copy of our book, Death Unseen.

Hot Summer Heroes Blog Hop

Thanks for stopping by our blog. Today we're talking about hot men. How we choose the hero in our books.  What makes them hot?  And what type of man makes us melt?

How do we choose those hot heroes for our books? It all depends on the characteristics they must have to make them hot. Not to mention make us fall in love with them. 

Since there are two of us, you can bet we’ll have two different opinions. Until...it comes time flesh out our hero to a T. We begin with the usual questions. Should he be a good six feet tall with broad powerful shoulders, glossy, black hair just a little bit too long? Eyes, dark, smoldering, appearing as if they could read your mind? And when he speaks your name he has the slightest hint of an accent?

Or, do we want him with sun-bleached hair falling forward into his eyes as he removes his Stetson? Maybe he wears faded jeans and a blue shirt, also faded, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows showing off muscular forearms built from working the ranch every day, just enough to tease you into wondering what the rest of him would be like if he removed the shirt entirely. Yep, either of these guys can get our hearts fluttering.

Which guy will win?  It all depends on the character we are writing about. We first study his background, like what part of the country he comes from, his ancestry, his job. With these important facts decided upon, we then begin fleshing out the man himself.

For example, Lance, from our book, Death Unseen, needed to be half Native American, live in New Mexico, and be a Navajo Tribal Policeman. With those requirements, we did our research and came up with this guy who, when Carly first meets, describes him in her view point.

            Masculine wasn't the only word to describe the man standing inside Two
            Moons' front door. Carly's mind refused to formulate what those particular
            words were at the moment.  She had difficulty enough taking in his chiseled nutmeg
            features, let alone his long hair, black as pitch, gathered at the nape and bound
            with a red yard.

A few paragraphs later, Carly adds:

Though she couldn’t see the color of his eyes through the sunglasses he wore, she ventured a guess they were dark and sharp as a hawk’s—not about to miss a thing. His jean jacket fit his body snugly. The faded shade of blue was a perfect combination with the prominent large turquoise red and coral and silver belt buckle attached to a unique hand-carved leather belt.

Can you picture Lance?

Once our hero’s background has been established, we dive deeper into his character. We go down our list of important hero traits.

How can he be solid in his beliefs, but not domineering? Will he respect the heroine’s opinions? Can he be self-confident, but not a jerk? If in the beginning of the story, he doesn’t admit when he’s wrong, what causes him to finally open up and share? How successful must he be? There are many ways to be a success. It doesn’t necessarily have to be only with money.

How can our hero be smart, both book and street wise? He has to be interesting because who wants one who will bore us to death?

And forget the completely silent type of guy, one who never opens up when hurting. We are women. We NEED to sympathize and understand.  Continually keeping us guessing may send us down the wrong path, and when we find out we’re wrong, we’ll be pissed.

There are other important traits we look at, but those can come at a later time.  

And, of course, the most important trait of all is the one that follows.

Because we, Tia and Dani, adhere to the true nuance of romance, in the end we want a sensitive man who loves kids, dogs, cats, and once in a while a neurotic parrot. We also want a man who’s not afraid of the kitchen, and doesn’t mind helping around the house.

Yes, it’s true. We want a perfect mixture of an alpha and beta man.  Give us him and we’ll be forever his.

 

Please leave a comment on our blog for a chance to win a copy of Death Unseen by Tia Dani

And this is a blog hop.  Runs August 13th thru the 19th.

http://www.hdthomson.com/hot-summer-heroes-blog-hop/

Grand Prize $100.00 gift card to Barnes and Noble. Winner to be selected by our lovely hosts, Caris Roane and H. D. Thomson from all who add comments on this hop. Join in the fun. Good luck!

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Hot Summer Heros Blog Hop

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Color of Dreams Coming Soon!!

What happens when a Wiccan high-priestess and three mischievous nymphs conjure spells on a enviromentalist and a jet engine designer?
Magic, mayhem, and wild nights of passion.

Justine Tori Cryst is to be initiated into Gia's universal coven.  Problem is...Justine must conjoin with a perfect soul-mate at the last stroke of midnight on her 29th birthday.

Shaun Kelly can't believe his luck, or bad luck, when the woman who crushed his heart in college magically returns into his life.  But crushed hearts mend.  He still loves her.  However, the chamces of his rekindling their romance are zip because he's certain Justine is hell-bent on putting hte company he works for out of business...permanently.

Unbeknownst to either, Justine's goddessmother is determined to bring Shaun and Justine back together because - Shaun has exactly what Justine needs to become the mother of the next generation of powerful little wiccas.
His gene pool.

Color of Dreams Coming soon from Breathless Press.

Available now:
Death Unseen
Come Fly With Me
Seduction to the Altar

How We Get Story Ideas

It seems that every time we meet a new reader the subject of storylines comes up.  One of the first questions we are constantly asked is, “How do you get your ideas?”

The answer is everywhere. 

We always have ideas.  They come to us in the form of a picture, a song, a piece of dialogue, or an object we find interesting.  Sometimes it’s an event which we say, “I wonder ‘what if’ it happened this way?”  Then we take our small idea and bounce it around.  We ask each other questions letting the answers take us to wherever they lead.  We have learned that a good story is a process.  With the two of us working together, we’re able to start with a small inspiration and expand it into a full blown storyline over breakfast.  And, we’ve also discovered this process of working on one idea usually creates another storyline for a future book.

An additional way is to be a people watcher.  We are notorious people watchers.  We love to have lunch at our favorite restaurant and observe different personalities, interactions, and interesting characteristic actions.  We see a couple across the room and imagine an entire story about them.  Did they meet online and this is their first in-person date? Or, are they superheroes plotting how to save the world? 

How about the great looking guy you noticed in line at the supermarket or at Starbuck’s?  Do you see him as the hero (or villain) in your next story?

The ‘what if’s’ are endless.  And, fun.

If we find ourselves still stuck for an idea, we take a break.  Maybe watch some TV.  Television is a great way to get inspired and discover ideas for characters, plus, we can see what is hot on the networks.  Or we pick up a book we’ve wanted to read for a long time and spend an hour or so letting our minds refill the empty well with words.

When we wrote our paranormal novel, Death Unseen, we knew we wanted our heroine to have psychic powers.  We wanted her to be able to see in dreams the murders as they actually took place.  We did extensive research on precognition dreams before we started writing.  This information was cataloged in our heroines character chart.  Then we decided to take it a step deeper and give her some extra powers.  Who we ended up with was a psychic heroine with clairvoyant powers who also had the ability to experience death in dreams.

Now our psychic heroine has to convince the police this skill she has is real. Will anyone believe her?  Probably not. So, we made our hero a Navajo Tribal Policeman with intuition of his own.  We wanted someone who was open minded enough to eventually believe her.  We spent hours on the internet researching tribal policemen and Navajo beliefs.  We established an extensive file for all our research material in case we needed to recheck our sources at a later date.

We also wanted this book to be a murder mystery, so we made the killer a madman who is after our hero’s DNA. We opted to have our story set around Lake Pleasant, in Arizona. The area is abundant with wildlife so we agreed to have a bobcat and a hawk as the animals involved.  Again we did research on both animals before we started writing.

We ended up with something like this:

Navajo Tribal Policeman, Lance Logan, discovers his cousin’s body brutally mauled and senses there’s more to the death than it appears.  His intuition leads him from the Four Corners, New Mexico to Phoenix, Arizona where he finds himself embroiled in another murder case.

Carly Carlton could be considered an ordinary woman—except for two traits she tries to keep hidden—clairvoyant powers and the ability to experience death in dreams.  Her talent to see beyond the veil of reality, as she and Lance try to find a killer, helps to soothe his embittered heart and softens his revenge.

Unbeknownst to either, Lance carries the DNA key coveted by a maniac—intent on creating a human with animalistic-killing tendencies.  But the madman’s plan doesn’t include Carly’s expanding talents or her unconditional love for Lance.  She will do anything too save him—even if it means sacrificing her own life.

And that’s how we do it.  A completed story all started because we wanted a heroine with ESP.

So the bottom line on where ideas come from, remember this. 

Writing is just like everything else, the more you do of it, the better you will be.  Don’t worry if your story line starts with a character you put in a certain situation or from a plot you have running through your head.  Make use of something you’ve read in the news, an event that keeps catching your attention.  Play with your ideas.  Have fun with them, brainstorm with your critique partners and get those ideas down on paper.  A story will come, trust us.  And more importantly trust in yourself.

Tia Dani

Seduction to the Altar by Tia Dani

We are excited to announce that Seduction to the Altar is now on the forthcoming list, and available for pre order, at Breathless Press.

Blurb:

Maria Tortorici needs a husband. Her high-school reunion is imminent, and awaiting her is a bet she made long ago. Bring a husband or face the music. Determined not to be the victim of her mischievous girlfriends, Maria devises a plan...enchant her younger assistant with a birthday present he’ll never forget.

Sexual attraction isn’t the only thing Edward Russell has for his boss. She’s everything he wants in a woman. The hang-up? How to convince her he’s man enough to handle a strong-minded woman like her.

But will he still want her once he learns of her conniving plan?

http://www.breathlesspress.com/seduction-altar

More good news for Tia Dani. We signed a contract with Breathless Press for a second book with them. We'll talk about that book next time.

Until next month happy writing.

Tia Dani

Death Unseen

Available now from The Wild Rose Press

Come Fly With Me

Available now from Amazon

 

Conquering the All Mighty Brain Drain

Writing is work. Hard work.

What did you say?

Writing should be fun, not work. We wouldn’t do it if it wasn’t fun. Lord knows we aren’t writing just for the money. LOL. Well…not yet…anyway. Maybe someday we will be but for now we write for the joy of writing.

Still there are times when the words just won’t flow onto the paper.
Fortunately it’s not for the lack of a story. We always have stories in our
head…er heads…it’s just sometimes the words won’t work like we want them to do.

Here are a few tips we use when we hit a wall or write ourselves into a corner. We refer to this as brain drain. Generally one of these suggestions will do the trick and get us moving again.

1. Return to the beginning of our manuscript and edit.

a. Search for missing visual detail, or too much detail.

b. Search and eliminate unnecessary adverbs, speech tags, etcs

2 Work on creating a blurb for the book.

a. Use The Double-barreled Attack

Situation, Character, Objective, Opponent, Disaster.

b. Use Defining The Plot Question

Character, Opposition, Conflict, Consequence of failure

3. Do some extra detailed research work on our story.

a. Go over some of our research material to re-familiarize ourselves with specific detail we are unclear about.

b. *If you haven't already, establish a file for all your research material in case you need to recheck sources at a later date.

4. Pick up a book and spend an hour or so reading. Let your mind refill with words.

5. Go take a walk or sit outside and enjoy the sunshine for awhile.

6. Write, write, write.

Occasionally we just put down words and pay no attention to what we write.

Sometimes it's just a matter of jump starting our brains again.

Desert Dreams Conference Will Be Here Soon.

Get past the slush pile and pitch your story directly to an editor
at the
Desert Dreams Conference http://www.desertroserwa.org