​Everything is 25% off at the Dreamspinner Press store through April 1st, so it's a great time to pick up some spring vacation reading (or to catch up on the Chronicles of Tournai books...).

It's weekend, and that means more Rainbow Snippets. Rainbow Snippets is a fun group on Facebook that asks its members to post six sentence snippets of their work each weekend. This week I had no idea what snippet I wanted to post! It's Easter tomorrow, but I have nothing related to Easter at all. So I just opened The Artist's Masquerade to a random page and what I read first was a pretty good snippet, so I went with it. Here's something from Cathal and Flavian:

Don't forget to visit the Rainbow Snippets group on Facebook to read the rest of the week's snippets. Happy Saturday! And Happy Easter to all who celebrate!

Rick R. Reed was kind enough to feature The Prince's Consort in the Good Karma, Good Books feature on his blog today. Find the post here and read a little about The Prince's Consort and why it's so special to me.
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It's weekend and time for Rainbow Snippets! As always, don't forget to go to the Rainbow Snippets group on Facebook to read six sentence snippets from great authors. I'm going back to The Prince's Consort for my snippet this week. Two weeks ago, we had Amory's father's horrible proposal to Prince Philip, and here is a little bit of what Amory feels right after.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

This weekend I'm attending the Liberty State Fiction Writers Create Something Magical conference. It's my first time attending this conference and I'm really excited to go. I'm looking forward to the workshops which sound fantastic. If you're attending the conference, please say hi, and if you're not attending the conference but you're in the NJ area, you can still stop by the book fair on Saturday. I'll be signing along with a lot of great authors. Find more information about the book fair here.

But before I get to go to the conference, I need to get some more work done on Tournai 4...

I'm a little late posting my snippet this week because I've been immersed in the last set of edits for The Scholar's Heart, which will be out from Dreamspinner in a couple of months. Since I've been concentrating so hard on the edits for this book, I decided to give you a sneak peek of The Scholar's Heart and then return to more of something else next week. Here is a snippet from the beginning of the book:

“There you are!”
Tristan’s musical voice made the simple sentence something special, or perhaps Etan’s feelings made it seem so. Etan smiled as he looked up from his book, a glow of warmth and welcome lighting him up inside.
Tristan strode into the small room that Etan had claimed for his own in the palace’s labyrinthine library. He sat there, book forgotten as he watched Tristan, the morning sun streaming in through the window and glinting off Tristan’s bright gold hair. Tristan seemed to bring the sunshine into the room with him, brightening what had been an ordinary morning until that moment.


I don't have a cover yet, but here is the blurb for The Scholar's Heart:

Youngest son of a royal duke, Etan is a scholar at heart who juggles his work for the prince with his studies of the history and legends of Tournai, something of particular interest to him because he shares the magical Talent that runs in the royal bloodline. Etan’s peaceful world turns upside down when his best friend—the man he secretly loves—unexpectedly marries a woman. Though Tristan values his friendship with Etan and has always been attracted to him, he is a dutiful son, raised to shoulder responsibility for the family business one day. That day comes far sooner than anticipated, and he makes a deathbed promise to his father to marry the woman his father chose and become head of the company and family.

A year later, Tristan is a widower with an infant daughter and a mother who demands he marry again quickly—something Tristan resists. Circumstances throw Etan and Tristan together, and even as they succumb to the desires they’ve always harbored, Etan battles his feelings, wary of being cast aside again. When Tristan’s daughter is kidnapped, Etan and Tristan must come together to find her, find the person responsible, and support each other through the ordeal… and maybe beyond.


Don't forget to stop by the Rainbow Snippets group on Facebook to read more snippets from some great authors. Have a wonderful Sunday, everyone!

I meant to write this post last week, which would have been a bit more appropriate, but writing snatched all of my time as I raced to finish Tournai book 4 so I'm a bit late with this wrap up. So February was the New Jersey Romance Writer's Jersey Romance Writing Month, or JeRoWriMo, in which participants challenge themselves to write 30,000 words during the month. The group broke records this year with 35 people writing 30,000 words or more and over 1.5 million words written by the group as a whole. I'm proud of myself for writing 42,199 words last month, finishing the challenge and bringing Tournai 4 up over 100,000 words.

The challenge really helped me get back on track with my writing, writing more and more consistently every day, which is something I should have been doing anyway but hadn't managed recently. Part of it was definitely due to the sense of competitiveness I always feel at a challenge, and part due to accountability and the sense of community in the group. Participants cheer each other on all month, celebrating all the milestones and victories and sharing advice. The cheering was led by Nancy Herkness and Tricia Ann Waters this year, and they were dedicated to answering every email with praise and encouragement. Writing is a solitary activity so it's nice to have that sense of community during JeRoWriMo.

I love this NJRW event, and I'll certainly participate again next (as I did last year and the year before). I'm hoping to keep the motivation that JeRoWriMo gave me going through the rest of the year too.

And now, the reason I delayed so long in writing up this post: Tournai 4 is finished! I kept my momentum into March and wrote an additional 10,000 words the first week of March to get it finished. I've started editing it, but I've had to slow down on that slightly because I just received edits for The Scholar's Heart and I need to make that deadline (this is the last round of edits - yay!). As soon as I'm done with those, it's back to Tournai 4 to get it edited and ready for submission to DSP.

And to come up with a title. I really need a title...

It's the weekend and that means it's time again for Rainbow Snippets! Participants post six sentence snippets (though I have been notice to cheat a bit on the sentence count...) to the Facebook group for everyone to enjoy. Head over to the group page to read all of this week's snippets.

My snippet is from The Prince's Consort. This is from when Prince Philip first meets Amory. Amory's father, Arnau, is a wealthy merchant who owns the finest glassmaking business in Tournai, but he's late on a commission for the prince, and Philip has called him to account for himself. Philip is shocked by what Arnau tries to do.

Have a great weekend, everyone! Am I the only one who can't believe it's March already?