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Saturday, January 31, 2015

Blog Swap with Susan A. Royal


First of all, I wanted to let everyone who didn't know that After received 6th Place in the Preditors & Editors Poll for Best Young Adult Fiction novel for 2014!!!


I was very excited and happy that it received such a finish!! Thank you to all who voted for it.



Today I have swapped blogs with Susan A. Royal, author of multiple novels and fellow author in MuseItUp Publishing. I am delighted to be swapping with her so that you can learn more about her and her books. You can read all about me and my books on her blog: Susan A. Royal If You Could Read My Mind.


Bio:
     Born in west Texas and raised in south Texas, Susan makes her home in a 100-year-old farmhouse in a small east Texas town that comes complete with a ghost who has been known to harmonize with her son when he plays guitar.  
     She is married and the mother of six (she counts her children’s spouses as her own) and five grandchildren who are all unique and very special. Her family is rich with characters, both past and present. Her grandmother shared stories of living on a farm in Oklahoma Territory with three sisters and three brothers and working as a telephone operator in the early 20th century.  She heard about growing up in San Antonio in the depression from her father, and experienced being a teenager during WWII through her mother’s eyes. 
    When she isn’t writing, she still has a day job working as a secretary in the public schools in east Texas. She also does her best to keep up with her grandchildren. Music and painting are two of her passions. Susan is a firm believer in getting what you want without breaking the bank. She loves to bargain shop anywhere there’s a sale and began repurposing long before it was popular. She paints, crafts and sews. Her office/craft/sewing room is littered with her latest projects. 
     Susan loves to take her readers through all kinds of adventures with liberal doses of romance. So far, she’s written two books in her It’s About Time series, Not Long Ago and From Now On. They are time travel adventures with romance about two people who fall in love despite the fact they come from very different worlds. In My Own Shadow is a Fantasy adventure/romance. Look for her books at MuseItUp/Amazon/B&N. You can also find Odin’s Spear, one of her short stories featured in a Quests, Curses, and Vengeance anthology, Martinus Publishing, available on Amazon.

     Want to know more? Visit susanaroyal.wordpress.com or susanaroyal.moonfruit.com for a peek inside this writer’s mind and see what she’s up to. You never know what new worlds she’s going to visit next.


  Susan, you have some interesting thoughts about your books our readers would love to know. Please tell us about your experience with your first book and why you decided to make it a series.

Not Long Ago was published in 2012. While writing it, I pictured a young woman in her twenties hurrying down a busy city sidewalk. One her way past a coffee shop, she notices a handsome stranger through the window. Their eyes meet and what she sees leaves her reeling. Not only does she recognize him, she knows things about the man…but how? Who is he?

From there, the story could have gone anywhere. Turns out it did. The idea of time travel has always fascinated me. Imagine getting up close and personal with history. Experiencing what life is really like in another time. My main characters, Erin and Griffin, meet and fall in love in a medieval world. I didn’t expect to be writing a series, but my daughter insisted the story wasn’t finished, and she was right.     

From Now On came out in June 2014, and it takes up where the first book left off. Some of my favorite characters are back. Arvo: the tall gangly young man with a disreputable shock of red hair who becomes Erin’s good friend and confidant. Sir Edevane: Griffin’s fellow knight and friend. Kat: Griffin’s fiesty little sister.

Sir Griffin travels across centuries to find Erin, the woman he loves. Before they can begin their new life together, he’s sent on a mission to a strange island. When he doesn’t return as planned, Erin assembles a group of his friends to search for him. Followed by his strong-willed sister, Kateryn, they travel to Swansea and secure passage with the notorious Captain Akin.
   
Erin discovers firsthand how the island has earned its dark reputation when she battles freakish weather, encounters a race of little people known as “Prowlies” and experiences ghosts of the long departed.  Even worse, she discovers there are “ley lines” crossing the island’s mountain peak, creating all sorts of strange phenomena.  Yet these obstacles pale in comparison to the secrets she uncovers while trying to rescue the man she loves.

If you love a time travel adventure with a twist (and a love 
story) and haven’t read Not Long Ago, please do. You can continue Erin and Griffin’s story with From Now On. As for what’s going to happen to them in Book 3? It’s too soon to tell, but here’s a hint. As the relationship between the two love birds grows, they’ll have more obstacles to overcome. In addition, you’ll likely see something about the caves in Wales, blood moons and ghost stories.


The It’s About Time series is available at MuseItUp, 
Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Goodreads.

Now I'm sure everyone would like to know more about each of these books.





Not Long Ago:

Blurb:

Erin has met the man of her dreams, but as usual there are complications. It’s one of those long distance relationships, and Griffin is a little behind the times-- somewhere around 600 years.  

Erin and her employer, March, are transported to a time where chivalry and religion exist alongside brutality and superstition. Something is not quite right at the castle, and Erin and March feel sure mysterious Lady Isobeil is involved. But Erin must cope with crop circles, ghosts, a kidnapping and death before the truth of her journey is revealed.

Forced to pose as March’s nephew, Erin finds employment as handsome Sir Griffin’s squire.  She’s immediately attracted to him and grows to admire his courage, quiet nobility and devotion to duty.  Yet, she must deny her feelings.  Her world is centuries away, and she wants to go home.  But Erin can’t stop thinking about her knight in shining armor.    



From Now On
Blurb:

Griffin has traveled across centuries to reunite with the woman he loves, but he and Erin may not get their ‘happy ever after’. Not if Lady Isobeil has anything to do with it. She forces Griffin to leave Erin behind and travel to eerie Manx Island. When he goes missing, Erin and his friends set out to find him. Followed by his strong-willed sister, Kateryn, they ride to Swansea and secure passage with the notorious Captain Akin.
     Erin sees firsthand how the island earned its dark reputation when she battles freakish weather, encounters a race of little people known as “Prowlies”, and experiences ghosts of the long departed. She discovers “ley lines” crossing the island’s mountain peak and making time travel possible. 

     Yet these obstacles pale in comparison to the secrets Erin uncovers while determined to rescue the man she loves.

Excerpt:

     I am a stranger in this world, even though I’ve traveled this way before.
     Fate and not design brought me the first time. It hurled me into a distant future, with no idea how or why, taking me from an existence dependent upon modern technology to a place where people fear such things and those who use them. While searching for my way home from this harsh and sometimes violent world, my admiration for its inhabitants who valued honor and duty above all else grew into admiration and respect. I found myself drawn to one in particular, a man who saved me more than once. Only I never expected to fall in love with him.
      Torn between my feelings and a longing for home, I returned to my time with only vague memories of my experience. My life went back to normal, but part of me sensed the loss of something more precious than anything I’d regained. Until one day, I saw him again.
     This time I’ve come by choice, and it is where I’m going to stay.
     Fate willing.

Here are some links where you can find Susan's work and website:

Xander’s Tangled Web (fantasy, mystery)
(Due out in Fall, 2015)
In My Own Shadow (fantasy, adventure, romance)
http://tinyurl.com/bqbxm41
Not Long Ago (time travel, adventure, romance)
http://tinyurl.com/85vgye3
Not Long Ago book trailer
All books available at MuseItUp, Amazon, B&N, Goodreads
http://susanroyal.moonfruit.com
http://susanaroyal.wordpress.com


Thank you so much, Susan for being my guest and for swapping with me. Your books sound so good. Who doesn't love a good romance with time travel!! 

Until the next time, my February guest for Red River Radio Tales from the Pages is going to be Susan A. Royal. She will be talking at greater length about her books and her life. Also on the same show will be Amy McCorkle, a good friend of mine and an awesome blogger and writer as well as a film producer and TV writer. Amy will be talking about her one woman show: Letters to Daniel, which will be performed by her in June. Amy's accomplishments are too long to list here. You should definitely visit her blog: Letters to Daniel which has been made into a book and is being shopped to several publishers. Amy is a multi published author and film maker. She is an Epic Book Awards Finalist and her films have been Official Selections for several film festivals. You won't want to miss this show. 

Thursday, January 8, 2015

Belated Happy New Year!!

Yes, I am very late in posting this, but in my defense I have been very busy since the New Year began. Each day brings its own emergency and somehow the holidays moved along and we got through them. Our New Year's Eve was fun. We spent it at Mohegan Sun and saw Amy Schumer, who was really funny. The photo here is me waiting for the show to begin. It's a selfie, so I look a little weird. The casino gave out those cheesy tiaras. But when can you be crazy if it isn't on New Year's Eve? Then we went to dinner and that is when the night got a little scary. We came out of the Arena where the show was held and there were a lot of people getting out of there with us. So we came into the main part of the casino and in the middle of the place a band was set up and there were rappers and break dancers on a stage. A crowd had formed in front of them about three rows deep and then there were people moving past us in two directions. We were trying to get to the restaurant on the second floor, but the people kept us from moving at all. So we watched the show and my other younger daughter who I was sure was on my left suddenly disappeared and we spent about a half hour searching for her. We, my older daughter and I, went up to the second floor to see if we could find her in the crowd. We couldn't see her at all. We went to the restaurant and she wasn't there. Then my daughter went to look for her. Without telling us, and because there was no way to communicate there,  our cell phones didn't work, my daughter had walked the opposite way. That is why we didn't find her. Finally after getting a little frantic she found us and we went to have a fantastic dinner. We even were able to see the ball drop at midnight. I actually wrote a poem about the New Year and my thoughts about this one and I am posting it here:


Hail to the New Year

Hail to the New Year with its
innocence bathed in the golden
haze of promise
All sparkle and glitz it arrives
with expectation
and at the stroke of twelve
we forget the year that has passed
and erase the unfulfilled promises
the sad moments not pressed into
our minds as tragedy
We celebrate with 
champagne and laughter and
every year we, you and I, 
were next to each other
our lips met at midnight
and we clinked glasses filled
with the bubbly
remembering why we met
and how New Years was our
invitation to love

Hail the New Year with its
glow of possibilities
an open blank space for
our dreams to flourish
and we think back to 
last year’s dreams
those that flew
and those that never
left the ground
and you were always there
next to me to put your arm
around me and I held tight
to you forgetting the bad
and hoping for the good
and now I wonder when 
the clock strikes midnight
and the ball drops 
will your spirit be there or
only an empty space where you 
used to be?


copyright 2014 by Barbara Ehrentreu

I hope you all had a great New Year's Eve and I want you all to know how much I appreciate your continuing to follow me. I will be posting more with guest authors and blog swaps coming up in January, Sara Jayne Townsend on January 23  and Susan Royal on January 30. If anyone has heard my show with Sara Jayne you will want to know more about her and her books.

My Blog Talk Radio Show, Red River Radio Tales from the Pages, is going to feature Julie Maloney and one of her writers from Women Reading Aloud, Jane Ebihara. Jane has a poetry book called: A Little Piece of Mourning.

Also, I wanted to give a shout out to my new poet friends from World Poetry Open Mic, jt Gunter, J Todd Underhill and Michael Amidei. Their program is on Friday nights at 8PM MST or 10PM EST. You can call in a read your poetry on the air. I love their program and it is definitely a great place to spend your night. I hope to have one of them on my program if our schedules can mesh. 

Until the next time, my resolution for 2015 is to get more time out in bookstores for me and my books. My book, After, has gotten some great reviews and If I Could Be Like Jennifer Taylor just got its 24th fantastic review that is 5 stars. After is on the Preditors & Editors Poll and is rising. Presently it is 6th on the Young Adult. Thank you to all who voted for it. 
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