J.L. Sheppard: Heavenly Desire

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About Heavenly Desire

Will he sacrifice his wings for a woman he loves but can never keep?

Jade Ashley has a past she’d like to forget and a destiny she isn’t aware of. A stranger, Clyde, saves her from an attack and demonstrates extraordinary abilities she believed only she possessed. She soon realizes he’s her guardian angel sent to reunite her with her long lost sisters, who like her are part of a new breed of immortals, Elementals, prophesied to determine the outcome of the upcoming war.

Clyde, an angel, battles the one thing he believes will lead to his fall from heaven—his new found emotions, forbidden among his kind. Nonetheless, the Angel Lords promise to promote him to warrior when he completes his last assignment—to find Jade. When he does, emotions he never knew possible arise. For the first time in two thousand years, he curses his existence, knowing she can never be his. Will he sacrifice his wings for a woman he loves but can’t keep?

Wild Rose Publishing • Amazon • Barnes & Noble

Excerpt

Clyde swallowed, summoning the courage to ask, “Is she yours?”

“No, idiot,” Jacob spat. “She’s yours.

A wave of relief washed over him, and he released a breath. Exhausted from his fear, anger, jealousy and the scorching pain eating him alive, he didn’t respond to Jacob’s goad. He knew, despite what everyone else believed, Ashley wasn’t his because he was an angel.

She wasn’t Jacob’s either, but he knew every time Ashley spent time with another immortal male his fear would again rear its head. It would only happen so many times before she met him—her mate. Each time, it would be more painful than the last.

Before he found the energy to turn and walk away, he acknowledged: If it hurts this bad now, when she finds him, it’ll kill me.

About the Author

J.L. Sheppard was born and raised in Miami, Florida where she still lives with her husband.

As a child, her greatest aspiration was to become a writer. She read often, kept a journal and wrote countless poems. She attended Florida International University and graduated in 2008 with a Bachelors in Communications. During her senior year, she interned at NBC Miami, WTVJ. Following the internship, she was hired and worked in the News Department for three years.

It wasn’t until 2011 that she set her heart and mind into writing her first completed novel, Demon King’s Desire, which was published in January of 2013.

Besides reading and writing, she enjoys traveling and spending quality time with family and friends.

Website • Facebook • Twitter • Goodreads • Pinterest

Previous Releases:

Demon King’s Desire, Elemental Sisters I: January 2013

Burdened by Desire, Elemental Sisters II: January 2014

Rebecca Lee Smith and “A Shadow On the Ground”

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About A Shadow On the Ground

Morgan Maguire is afraid to believe in second chances. The family orchard is failing, her twin brother is being framed for murder, and the sharks are circling. The tough exterior she’s spent years hiding behind is beginning to crumble, just as the man who shattered her heart is back in her life. Gage Kirkland is as compelling and magnetic as ever, and he’s offering the kind of help she may not be able to refuse. But can she trust him?

To finance his troubled son’s therapy, Gage, a former investigator, takes one last job–recovering a stolen Civil War artifact. Unfortunately, it’s in the possession of the woman he left behind, the woman who’s haunted his dreams ever since. The electricity between them still crackles, but unless he helps exonerate her brother and finds a way to confess his true reason for returning, how will he ever recover Morgan’s heart?

Available

Digital • Paperback

Excerpt

“Stay where you are!” Morgan cried. “I have a weapon!”

Gage didn’t move. Beneath the mercury vapor lamp, his shadow stretched across the ground in front of him like a dark crack in the earth.

“Morgan.” His low baritone sounded distorted and gruff, as if his voice had pushed her name through the thick night air. “It’s Gage.”

“What are you doing here?”

He stepped forward and cupped his hand over his eyes to shield them from the glare. Beneath the light, all he could make out was her silhouette standing on the porch. If her weapon of choice was a loaded gun, and it was pointed at him, he hoped she knew what she was doing.

“I asked you a question,” she said.

“I’m here to beg a favor.”

“Well, that’s easy. The answer is no.”

“Look,” he said. “I get that you don’t want to see me. I understand. But I can’t change the past.”

“Neither can I. Go away.”

“I need—”

“I don’t care what you need. Get back in your car and drive toward the mountain. Or off the mountain. Your choice.

“Not a good time to stop by, huh?”

A long, silent pause. “No, Gage, this isn’t a good time. This is a terrible time. The only thing that could make this time any worse was if I was covered head-to-toe with poison oak and had scarfed down the Fried Clam Special at Maxie’s Diner. I can’t talk to you right now. I can’t talk to anybody.”

He edged closer. “I know you’ve had a bad day, but please, hear me out.”

“A bad day?” She laughed harshly. “This just keeps getting better and better.”

About the Author

Rebecca lives with her husband in the beautiful, misty mountains of East Tennessee, where the people are charming, soulful, and just a little bit crazy. She’s been everything from a tax collector to a stay-at-home mom to a house painter to a professional actress and director. When she’s not churning out sensual romantic mysteries with snappy dialogue and happy endings, she likes to travel, go to the Outer Banks for her ocean fix, watch old movies, hang out at the local pub, and make her day complete by correctly answering the Final Jeopardy! question.

Contacts

Amazon Author Page • Twitter • Website

Guest Interview: Author Linda Carroll-Bradd + Giveaway

Thanks for inviting me to your blog, Susana.

What inspired you to start writing? After years of reading romances, I thought I knew what was involved in writing one. Ha! Following several months of rough drafts, I gifted myself with a one-day class that covered the basics. The best tip from that class was the reference to Romance Writers of America. My involvement with RWA meetings, workshops and conferences taught me how to hone my skills.

How long have you been writing? This year marks twenty years, but I wasn’t published until I’d been writing (albeit part-time) for almost ten years. (see answer to advice)

What advice would you give writers just starting out? Know that at least fifty percent of writing is revision. By this I mean reorganizing (words, sentences, paragraphs, chapters) and layering. Not many writers can get the character definition, depth of emotion, plot twists, etc. included in the first draft. 

Do you ever suffer from writer’s block? If so, what do you do about it? During a period of unemployment from my day job, I suffered with writer’s block. I could revise old stories but couldn’t come up with anything new. A relocation to a new state changed all that. I focused on collecting calls for submission from various publishers and wrote for six weeks solid. Those themed calls gave me a starting point for the plot, a word count and, most important, a deadline. Within a couple months, I had seven contracts in hand and the block was gone.

What comes first, the plot or the characters? Characters. I have to get acquainted with one of the protagonists before I know what type of situation will challenge him or her and who is the best archetype of character to create as an opposite. Then I can plunk them down into action and a setting and see how they react.

Are you a plotter or a pantser? A die-hard plotter who on occasion can be surprised when the characters appear to resist where I’m steering them. The few times I have tried to just sit at the computer and write, I get stalled after 3-4 chapters.

 Leave a comment here with your email address for a chance to win a copy of Dipping in a Toe.

Dipping in a Toe

Jessa Landers has a secret crush on her teens’ swim coach. A widow for three years, she’s managing her life and enjoys her freedom—except for long, lonely evenings when she craves an attentive man.

Coach Rick Grant loves being a high school teacher and swim coach. Surrounded by families has him yearning for his own romantic connection—and his eye is on Jessa.

Will Jessa protect the balance of her family life, or take a second chance on love?

Excerpt

As if pulled by an invisible thread, my gaze went to the tall, fit man with the ever-present clipboard in one hand and a stopwatch in the other. Normally an adult wearing tropical-print board shorts and a faded surfboard tee-shirt looked like he clung with desperation onto his youth. Instead Rick Grant wore the attire like a medal of honor—like he’d earned the right to promote a Hawaiian surfing competition from a decade earlier.

Maybe he had. The image of his tan, lean body balancing on top of a surfboard flittered through my mind. I pictured him, thinner but still muscular, body sparkling with water droplets, wavy hair streaked with blonde highlights, outlined against a cerulean blue sky. A heartfelt sigh escaped.

Christy stopped to turn in her ascent up the metal bleachers, and cocked her head. “You okay, Jessa?”

Caught. I whirled toward the bleachers and set a foot on the lowest step. “I’m fine. Where do you want to sit?” Heat burned my cheeks and I ducked my head, pretending the need to focus on placing my wedge sandals on each step. I didn’t want the other mothers to learn about my pathetic infatuation with the swim coach.

An infatuation I kept telling myself was wrong. Didn’t I have enough to do between my paralegal job, keeping up the house, managing the kids’ activities, and arranging visits with their grandparents? How could I possibly add dating to this hectic lifestyle?

Even if by some wild chance the man in question were to show interest…

Excerpt © Linda Carroll-Bradd

All Rights Reserved, The Wild Rose Press

Author Bio

After years spent in the administrative support field, Linda decided to exercise another part of her brain and write a novel. She loved reading romance and figured that’s what she’d write. Easier said than done. After years of workshops and RWA chapter meetings, she finally saw her manuscripts place in contests. Twelve years after her first writing class, she sold a confession story. From that point on, she couldn’t be stopped and is always pleased when her sweet contemporary and historical stories find homes.

With interests as widespread as baking, crocheting, watching dog agility matches, and reading thrillers by Swedish authors, Linda is the mother to 4 adult children and grandmother to 2 granddaughters. She currently lives in the southern California mountains with her husband of almost 34 years and their two spoiled dogs.

Where to find Linda:

www.lindacarroll-bradd.com

http://blog.lindacarroll-bradd.com

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Linda-Carroll-Bradd-author/440814942635289

Twitter: @lcarrollbradd

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1806413.Linda_Carroll_Bradd