Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Seven of my books now in Kindle Unlimited...

I have just put the following books into kindleunlimited



Angel All Year
Bound to Love
Catch Me A Catch
Marrying Cade
Challenging Andie
Mile High
Love on the Vine



So if you're in, and you want them, they're there!







Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Got Kindle Unlimited? Try these...

A few of my friends have books in Kindle Unlimited, and I'm just about to make seven of my titles available in KU, so I thought today I'd pimp some recommended reads.... I've linked to Aimee and Suzanne's author pages on Amazon, because they both have other books in Kindle Unlimited too that you might like to check out while you are there...



First up - and this one is also FREE at the moment, and #1 in Amazon.co.uk and #2 in Amazon.com


The Accidental Life of Greg Millar - by Aimee Alexander...
From the best selling author of Pause to Rewind comes this moving family drama about the lengths we go to for the people we love.
Lucy Arigho is not the sort of woman to be swept off her feet. She is sober, career-minded and numb since the death of her fiancé. So it's completely out of character for her to race a man in traffic - and even more unusual when they meet again and she is irritated, intrigued and finally enraptured by the driver, writer Greg Millar. Within eight weeks, she is seriously considering his pleas to marry him and wondering if she can take on his two motherless children. But before she can make a decision about becoming part of Greg's world, events plunge her right into it. Her careful existence is shattered as she has to figure out how to handle two vulnerable children and face the fact that she doesn't really know the man whose life has so overwhelmed hers.

Next, from the very talented Suzanne Ross Jones...

See You In My Dreams - by Suzanne Ross Jones...
When Vicky Simpson arrives from Edinburgh as a worried relative in nurse Ryan McGregor's hospital, there's an immediate attraction between the two.
As a trained nurse herself, Vicky stays in the area to help care for her sister's injured husband. It's a small town and it proves impossible for Vicky and Ryan to avoid each other. And, the attraction grows.
But Vicky doesn't intend to stay in Aberbrig once her brother-in-law has recovered and Ryan is firmly settled there. So they face a dilemma: Should they nurture their growing romance knowing that any future it has would be long distance? Or should they end things before someone gets hurt?
See You In My Dreams can be read as a stand-alone novella. This sweet romance was originally published by D C Thomson as a People's Friend Pocket Novel and will be published as a large print Linford Romance in 2015.


And last, but not least, the fabulous newly released, erotic romance from Kitty French, Genie...

Genie - by Kitty French...
The queen of the sex scene is back. USA Today bestselling author Kitty French returns with a brand new, smokin' hot story to set your kindle on fire.
One complete story. No cliffhanger. Hold onto your corset strings, we're going burlesque!
Feathers. Lies. Glitter. Secrets. Lust. 
Meet Genie Divine, the wise-cracking London show-girl on a hell-bent mission to save her beloved family theatre.
Now meet Abel Kingdom, the australian gym mogul determined to buy it out from underneath her. 
On paper they have nothing in common, and when they meet, they have even less. 
The only thing they DO have is chemistry.
Undeniable, rip-my-clothes-off-and-do-me-now-against-the-wall chemistry. 
He wants her theatre. She wants him dead. 
The stage is set for an explosive summer…

Download one, two, three, or more! And if anyone has a book they'd like to recommend, just leave a comment with a link in...



Friday, March 6, 2015

Character Depth and Grey's Anatomy - part one





There's a lot to learn from TV series - and today I thought I'd write a post about how Grey's Anatomy manages to create such compelling characters through the use of family. I haven't gone into all the family members of the various characters, just a few, to illustrate...

If you don't watch Greys, it doesn't matter - this post will be general enough to make my points (hopefully) so don't tune out just yet!

Grey's Anatomy is the creation of the hugely talented Shonda Rhimes.


So, the titular character in Grey's is Dr Meredith Grey.
She's married, and has 2 kids. She's a busy doctor juggling work and family. But where the character depth comes in, is her history - her family dynamic. 
She's driven to succeed in her job, because her mother was a famous surgeon who would only love her if she was successful. Her relationship with Dr Shepard (McDreamy) starts with her one night stand with a married man - her mother also had an affair with a married man. She is fearful of developing Alzheimer's Disease - just as her mother did. She's closed off and slow to trust. Her mother left her father, and she had little contact with him-he had another family after his marriage to Meredith's mother broke up. She relies on close friends, and is suspicious of strangers.

So Meredith's wound: Brought up by a woman determined to succeed in her career, and see her daughter follow in her footsteps. Only child. Hothoused, Lonely. Not shown love, and therefore unable to handle it when she is shown it.

How is this illustrated? By throwing family members at her! Her mother reappears in flashback episodes - in a moment of lucidity from her disease, she confesses she is disappointed at how ordinary Meredith has become. Next, her half-sister Lexie starts to work in the hospital, and we see how different their upbringings were, and how difficult Meredith finds it to trust. In the current season, another half-sister that Meredith didn't know she had, Maggie, appears. When Meredith learns that Maggie is her sister, her reaction is typical. First she doesn't believe her mother could have had a secret child and given it up for adoption, so she challenges Maggie. Next, she accepts the fact, but doesn't hold out the hand of friendship, it is up to her more balanced, emotionally giving husband to embrace the newcomer. The family, appearing in flashback or real time, explain how Meredith is the way she is - and with her wounds visible, the audience gets to see her work through them, to grow and change.

Meredith's struggles with emotional matters is also illustrated through her interactions with her husband Derek's big, open, family. He has many sisters, some of whom pop up in Greys. In one scene, his sister Lizzie arrives and berates Meredith for not letting her know that they have adopted a daughter - she says "We're family."   But family means something different to Meredith, and we see how uncomfortable she is being embraced by her sister-in-law, she wants to keep things at arms length. When later she softens towards Lizzie, she confides that she is pregnant...sharing precious news to let Lizzie know that she does understand what family means to Derek and his sisters-showing that she is trying to change.

In my next blog post, I'm going to continue in this theme - and explore some of the other characters' family dynamic and how bringing family members in to the series acts as a powerful way to show the clash between their hidden inner selves (formed through childhood and family) and their surface selves.