Monday, August 29, 2011

Voting for a 5 star sweetheart.....


It's official. I love The Romance Studio. Not only have they just given me a fabulous 5 star review for Marrying Cade, but this is my third 5 star review for my work they've given me. They were also lovely enough to nominate me under their favourite author category last year.

And they've topped it all off by sending me this lovely badge to display on my blog today, as Marrying Cade has been nominated for this week's 5 Heart Sweetheart Vote beginning today.

Click here to read their review, and if you want to, you can vote for your favourite of today's selection of 5 star reviews (including mine, woo!) by clicking the badge above.

Thank you, TRS!

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Lovely new review just in...

A four star review on my Amazon.com Marrying Cade listing materialised today...

The Long and Short of It Romance Reviews said:

A palate cleanser in word form! This is an excellent, refreshing book just perfect for the dog days of summer. A well-written, entertaining novel to make you say "aah" when you reach the end.

The plot isn't a new one. Boy meets girl, girl falls in love with him, but she is too young. They meet up again at a wedding, and sparks fly. It's the details that keep this novel from being trite. The exotic Italian setting lent itself beautifully to wedding festivities and romantic moments. The family winemaking tradition also allowed for interesting plot twists and turns.


Our heroine is a lovely mix of modern femininity mixed with the "good" Italian daughter. Having a slightly misogynistic father who also happens to be very ill adds to her sense of duty as well as her desire to stand up for herself.

The hero, true to form, wishes to remain a bachelor, but has feelings for our heroine. His history with the family entwines him in the business controversy and his friendship with the groom causes the involvement in the wedding. His interest in Melo causes the story to become more interesting.

Be assured of some romantic tension, exotic locales, and a happily every after for all parties involved.

Grab your sunhat, lounge chair and an icy beverage - then kick back and enjoy this lovely romance!

Originally posted at the Long and Short of It Romance Reviews

I've been remiss in posting the reviews as they come in for Marrying Cade, this is the 13th - so if you'd like to read all of them, or download a sample for your Kindle, do pop over to Amazon and have a read.
The Amazon.com link is here
And the Amazon.co.uk link is here
There are only 4 reviews on the Amazon.co.uk site, so you'll have to visit Amazon.com link to read all 13 reviews!




Friday, August 19, 2011

Mills and Boon New Voices competition is back!



And the Minxes of Romance have Anna Boatman visiting today to spill the beans...

A must read for anyone intending to enter - check it out here.

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Writing Voice

I wanted to do a piece on writing voice, because it's something I'm very aware of in the stories that I write.
There's of course, the writer's voice, their own, individual style that makes a story so distinctive, and has us all reaching for the next Nora Roberts or Jeffry Deaver.
But within the bounds of the story, there are each character's individual voices - and writing them properly is something that I think it's always worth focusing on.
When I'm writing romance, I write in third person pov, and write approximately half the manuscript in the heroine's pov, and half in the hero's. In movies, we're constrained by language. Everything that the character feels and thinks must be conveyed through action or dialogue, or lack of it! Wonderful actresses and actors who can convey the unspoken with a look can really make a film or a tv series - I've blogged before about the female characters in The Good Wife, who are definite masters, or should I say, mistresses in this.
When I'm writing, I need to remember that each character should have their own voice too.
Their voice is different to my author voice, although of course, my voice comes into it as I weave the threads.
Here's an example:
When I'm writing a hero, it's easy to keep his dialogue authentic. After all, it's the spoken word, and reading it aloud will usually tell me if I've done it right. But I have to carry that further, into his thoughts, his ruminations, and the narrative told in his viewpoint.
Say he's faced with a beautiful heroine. It's tempting to rave about the glints of sunlight in her hair, the deep azure of her eyes...to wax lyrical. And as a writer in love with words, I have to keep an eye on this, and make sure I don't do it.
He's much more likely to appreciate her in his own way...in thoughts that match his dialogue, express his feelings in a male way rather than a female one.
So how do I keep myself on track? At the end of the first draft (I don't stop when the flow is flowing!) I highlight all the text in the ms that's written in male pov, and read it. I try to think like my hero. Try to make sure everything rings true to the man he is, the way he thinks.
I find this really useful. It means my story has (hopefully!) more than one voice, and the hero's distinctive personality shines through.
What do you all think? Writers, do you do something similar? And readers, does a story jar if thoughts seem to be expressed in a way that is out of character?

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Bound to Love...Again!

New cover, new price, same Tempest....

I'm delighted to announce that Bound to Love had been re-released today. You can find it on Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk and Smashwords now!
Bound to Love has a beautiful new cover (thank you, Heather Howland!), a new price of 99c, a new publisher (me) and a brand new life! Woo-hoo!

Lovely new review just in...

For Marrying Cade - I just found this 5 star review on Amazon. Woo! Thank you!

Marrying Cade was an excellent romance story that had my heart yearning with each page turn. From the beautiful exotic location to the sparks igniting between Cade and Melo it was a page turner that was difficult to put down. If you're looking for a good romantic read Marrying Cade is the book for you! Praises for Sally Clements!

And I have some news I'm dying to reveal, but won't for a day or so...check back for my next blog post!

Friday, August 5, 2011

My guest! Ranae Rose

I've mentioned on a previous blog post, the great gang of writers who were contracted to Embrace Books before they closed recently. I wanted to keep in touch, and find out what they were doing writing wise in the future, and I'm delighted to welcome Ranae Rose to Love and Chocolate to tell all! Ranae's book, Taken Hostage, is her smokin' hot debut...
Take it away, Ranae... (ooh! that rhymes! and, note to self, would make a good title...)


First off, thank you Sally for having me on your blog today to share the news about my new release, Taken Hostage. :)

Taken Hostage is actually my debut novella and the first of my two summer releases. It’s a contemporary romance tells the story of Tiffany, a small-town bank teller who’s taken hostage (bet you saw that coming, lol) by a gunman who robs the bank she works at. An ultra-sexy gunman. Being kidnapped turns out not to be as bad as she originally thought – in fact, she finds herself battling a growing attraction to her captor that began the moment they first met eyes in the bank parking lot. When it comes time for him to let her go, he also offers her another option – to stay. Here’s a brief excerpt:

She glared at him. ‘You want me to come with you as your partner?’ she asked incredulously. ‘Like Bonnie and Clyde or something?’

He shrugged. ‘Something like that.’

‘That’s ridiculous. Are you serious?’

‘Look,’ he said flatly. ‘There’s a reason I took you as my hostage instead of one of those bimbos you work with.’

‘And what’s that?’

‘Because you wanted to go. You wanted to get out of there. I could tell. And,’ he paused dramatically, ‘it seemed like there was a spark between us.’ He glared at her defiantly, daring her to deny his assertion.

She didn’t. Instead, she stared back at him, open-mouthed in her surprise.

‘You don’t have to go back,’ he murmured, his voice softer than before.

Her anger had slowly begun to seep away. Without it, her desire for him expanded and filled her to the extent that it scared her. What he was saying was crazy. But it was also true. She didn’t have to go back to her mundane life as a bank-teller in rural New York. She didn’t have to fill out another deposit ticket or listen to Alicia and Cindy’s incessant, shallow chatter ever again. She could leave all that behind and go with him, the impossibly handsome man she’d been fantasizing about since first seeing him on the bank steps. It wasn’t practical, but it was tempting.

Isn't Taken Hostage's cover fantastic?

Taken Hostage is available from Amazon.co.uk here,
And from Amazon.com here
And also available on Smashwords here.

Do pop in and visit Ranae at her blog where she's currently got an excerpt up of her new free read too!

Thanks so much for joining me here today, Ranae!

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Creativity - Expressing the interior

I've been thinking a lot today about creativity. As a fiction writer, I spend a lot of time living in worlds of my own creation, expressing them on the page and finally sharing them with people who read my books. It's been brought home to me recently what a powerful thing this can be, as I've had feedback from readers of my latest book, Marrying Cade, saying they'd love to visit the island where Marrying Cade is set - Isola dei Fiori.
I love it too. But it doesn't exist in reality, instead existing only as a manifestation from my mind. Does that make it any less real? The same is true of characters. The creations of many novelists live when shared with others. Sherlock Holmes, Mr Darcy, Harry Potter, all mean something deep and meaningful to the people who have read them, and their struggles and unique take on the world in which they live have made them transcend the 'cardboard cutout' and attain almost reality.
Our traditional view of reality is trammelled by science. If you can't see it, it doesn't exist. But I don't believe this - I can't believe it because my own experience is so different from this view. The locations and people I write about are very real to me. I know them, dream about them, and feel them in my heart and soul.
A lot of what I feel about writing and creativity is voiced here by the inspiring painter, John Bramblitt - who expresses himself by painting beautiful pictures from inside himself even though his eyes no longer see.
Watch the you tube of him at work - and be inspired.