In Loving Hate - a romance with suspense - #FREE this weekend only #Kindle

For most of us, foreign travel is off the cards this summer, but that doesn't mean we can't escape to gorgeous destinations through our choice of reading.  And if you fancy a sojourn in Greece this weekend, you can do so for FREE, if you have a Kindle.  Just click on the image, or this link:

http://mybook.to/InLovingHate

In Loving Hate begins with Lyssa actually leaving Greece, a country she loves, but where she was deeply unhappy and she shares her story with a sympathetic stranger on the ferry from Greece to Italy—a stranger who later becomes the only person to whom she can turn for help when she returns to England and her life turns upside down.

What readers say:

"In Loving Hate is a fascinating study of a woman who in order to embrace her future has to learn to leave much of her past behind her."

"Lynette has created fantastic characters and a plot that is fabulously constructed, building suspense and never quite giving away the answers until the very end. "

"Elegantly written, and filled with romantic entanglements and a fast moving pace this book is one exciting page-turner."

The Blurb:

How far will the rich and powerful go in order to achieve their goals? That is the question Lyssa must decide when she finds herself caught between two formidable adversaries: powerful business tycoon and shipping magnate, Alex Andrakis and close childhood friend, ‘Dynamic’ Nell Winters, brewery heiress and prolific businesswoman.

Following the failure of her marriage in Greece, Lyssa returns to her family home in London, to discover that her mother, a once-celebrated actress, is now facing crippling debts. When Lyssa begins to investigate these, she becomes embroiled in the intricate business dealings of Nell and her arch-rival Alex. Irresistibly drawn to widower Alex and his unhappy young son, Lyssa begins to uncover some unexpected and disturbing facts. 

The more involved she becomes, the more shocking are the discoveries she makes. The conflicts culminate in a frightening battle for survival as Lyssa finds herself the prime target between the possessive Nell and obsessive Alex. With her loyalties deeply divided, Lyssa needs to make the right choices for everyone concerned.

But does she?  Find out by downloading your FREE copy—but be quick; the offer ends on Sunday.  I'd hate you to miss it.

 http://mybook.to/InLovingHate

New Release– End of Lonely Street by Alicia Dean – Plus an Awesome Giveaway

I’m excited to share my latest release from The Wild Rose Press on what would have been Elvis’ eightieth birthday. ‘End of Lonely Street’ is a Vintage Romance Short Story set in 1957, in the era when Elvis first burst on the scene. Like my heroine in the story, I am a diehard Elvis fan. (As you probably figured out, I took the title from a line in Heartbreak Hotel, which was Elvis’ first million selling record).

Blurb:

Can she let go of the past, before it destroys her future?

All Toby Lawson wanted was to go to college to pursue her dream of becoming a teacher and to be free of her alcoholic mother and the painful memories of finding her and the guy Toby loved kissing. But when her mother nearly burns the house down, Toby must put her dreams on hold and return home to care for her. The only time she isn’t lonely and miserable is when she’s listening to her heartthrob, Elvis Presley. His music takes her away, helps her escape from everything wrong in her life. 

Noah Rivers has always loved Toby, but no matter what he says, and even though she knows her mother initiated the kiss, and that he didn’t kiss her back, she can‘t seem to get past what happened. He soon realizes that the true problem lies in Toby’s belief that she’s not good enough for him and in her fear that she will be just like her mother. 

What will it take to prove to her that she deserves to be happy, and that he would give anything to be the man to make her dreams come true?

Excerpt:

Chapter One

Mapleton, Tennessee, November, 1957

Toby Lawson closed her eyes and shut out all sounds of the diner, except for Elvis Presley’s voice. He was crooning about how she was the only one for him…no matter where he went or what he did… he’d spend his whole life loving her…

Rough hands landed on her waist and shattered the fantasy. She caught a whiff of hair tonic and too much cologne, and she snapped her eyes open. Wes Markham’s hateful face replaced the image of Elvis’ beautiful, crooked smile and smoldering blue eyes.

“Let me go.” She gritted her teeth, keeping her voice low. If her boss, Mr. Winstead, knew there was trouble on account of her, he’d explode. He’d barely let her have the job in the first place. Everyone in Mapleton knew the Lawson women were trouble.

“Come on, honey. If you like that hip swivel, Presley ain’t the only one who’s got it. I got it too.” He released her with his left hand so he could run it over his slicked down hair and gave her a big-toothed, wolfish smile. “Only we’d be naked.” He shot a cocky grin over to his two companions—Chuck Stenson and Billy Garfield—who were leaning against the jukebox making kissing and whooping sounds.

Toby gripped his right wrist with one hand, tightening her hold on the utensils she held in the other. “I said let me go. Now!”

“Aw, be a sport, Green-Eyes.”

The bulge of his pelvis pressed into her abdomen, and she gasped in shock. Nausea tightened in her esophagus. “Wes Markham, I’m warning you…”

She shoved against him, but he didn’t budge.

He pulled her tighter. “Your momma’s a whole lot friendlier than you are. They say the apple don’t fall far from the tree, so how’s about you cut the pretense and we go someplace quiet? Winstead won’t miss you for a few minutes.”

Her cheeks heated. She didn’t dare look around. No doubt the customers were watching, listening. Elvis had stopped singing and everyone in the place could hear what he’d said about her mother. It wasn’t like they didn’t all know, though. Constance Lawson hadn’t exactly kept her escapades a secret.

Toby clenched her teeth and brandished the utensils. She spoke loud enough for everyone to hear. “Release me this instant, or I swear, you’ll be pulling this steak knife out of your eyeball.”

He held her gaze for a split second, then gave a laugh that was somewhere between nervous and furious. “Sure, sure. Okay.” He released her and stepped back. “I was just foolin’ around anyway. I got better things to do with my time than waste it on a used up chick like you.”

Muffled laughter rose around her. Oh God, she could crawl into a hole.

“How about you apologize to the lady, then beat it?”

Toby whirled at the male voice. Noah Rivers stood behind her, looking handsome and sharp in his police uniform—even with his dark hair in the military buzz cut. Her knees weakened, and tingles swept over her skin. She swallowed against the sudden dryness in her throat. She’d heard he was back, but hadn’t seen him until now. And what a time to have a reunion.

*** 10% of all of Alicia Dean’s net royalties for End of Lonely Street will go to The Elvis Presley Charitable Foundation http://www.graceland.com/epcf/  ***

Check out End of Lonely Street and enter to win GREAT prizes…

GIVEAWAY: - Entries accepted from January 8, 2015 through noon on January 22, 2015

Three prizes –

Elvis Gift Basket including DVD, CD, plus more

$25 Amazon Gift Card

$10 Amazon Gift Card

First place winner has first choice, second place winner has second choice, third place winner receives remaining prize.


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About the Author:

Alicia Dean lives in Edmond, Oklahoma. She has three grown children and a huge network of
supportive friends and family. She writes mostly contemporary suspense and paranormal, but has also written in other genres, including a few vintage historicals.
Other than reading and writing, her passions are Elvis Presley, MLB, NFL (she usually works in a mention of one or all three into her stories) and watching her favorite televisions shows like Vampire Diaries, Justified, Sons of Anarchy, Haven, The Mindy Project, and Dexter (even though it has sadly ended, she will forever be a fan). Some of her favorite authors are Michael Connelly, Dennis Lehane, Lee Child, Lisa Gardner, Sharon Sala, Jordan Dane, Ridley Pearson, Joseph Finder, and Jonathan Kellerman…to name a few.

Find Alicia here:

Website 

Blog

Facebook 

Twitter

Pinterest

Goodreads 

New Ghost Story - UNWORKERS - Claim your free copy here

Rather than signing up to KDP Select and making my latest novel free for all, I thought I'd offer it exclusively to readers of my blog.  To claim your copy, all you need to do is leave your email address in the comments section, along with your preferred format.

What is Unworkers about?

The lives of five women converge at Chichester Court, an elegant Georgian mansion, now converted into apartments for women in need. 

Anne Baron is currently undergoing an unpleasant divorce.  Anne experiences strange time-shifts in the house, while her six year old suffers terrifying nightmares—though he claims he isn't dreaming.

Joanna Sterne is Anne's oldest friend.  She used to live at Chichester Court and knows something of its strange history.  Her visits there now bring back unpleasant memories and strange voices urging unspeakable acts.  She helps Anne explore the house's past in more detail.

Gemma Peterson is striving to make a new life for herself and her two young children with lover, Andy, but is haunted by a recurring dream and a mysterious woman in grey—not one of the residents—who watches over her children.

Rhia Masterson is Gemma's friend, a striking beauty who seems to lead the perfect life with her perfect house, perfect husband, perfect children… But Rhia is concealing a past so terrible that she has completely suppressed it—until now.  The forces of house exert a powerful influence over Rhia, leading her and new-found friend, Anne, to dabble in a past life regression experiment with curious results.

And finally Paige Hutton, the lonely teenage mother who has become a semi-invalid following an accident on the stairs which she insists was no accident.  Paige and her baby seem to be the chief targets of the more malevolent forces within the house.

Anne is the catalyst who brings the five women together, causing the disturbances at the house to escalate as its spirits clamour for attention and release.  Unworkers is not just a story about a ghostly house, but about five women and their very real struggles to find their rightful place in the world.

UNWORKERS is currently available at Amazon, but if you would like a copy free of charge, please leave your details below and I'll be delighted to send it to you.  

On being Kindled

I’ve been Kindled!  I realised this for certain one day last week.  

It happened like this:

The room I rather pretentiously call my office, is stacked high with bookshelves groaning under the weight of loved tomes.  Many, many times I’ve tried to Feng Shui my life and clear my clutter, but my books remain.  Sometimes they become temporarily rehoused into bags and boxes which I tell myself will be donated to the charity shop, but I’m kidding no one.  All that really means is that they come down from their high shelves to reside closer to the floor.

 

How can I get rid of them when I never know if and when I’ll want to re-read them?  When I lose books from dire necessity (such as moving from one country to another) or because someone has taken the liberty of borrowing them and not returning them, I’m bereft.  I remember books I read many years ago and which I sometimes have a fancy to read again but I no longer have them and they’re long out of print and I feel something nearly like pain.

When I do have an urge to re-read one of my books, I know exactly where to find it and half the pleasure is in the anticipation of reaching up to the shelf and luring it with my fingertips into my hands.  The other day I wanted to look up a passage from Jane Austen’s ‘Persuasion’.  I happen to have a large and incredibly tatty (well it is the most frequently-read book on the shelf) volume of Austen’s works.  I found the passage I was looking for immediately (as well as a collection of pressed four-leaf clovers and cards with long-forgotten scribblings on them) but instead of closing the book, I carried on reading.  One page, two pages and I was hooked.  Again.  I knew I had to sit and re-read the whole story.

Once I thought nothing of carrying that great volume around with me to read on London underground on my way to work; it went to university with me and still bears the scars in the form of pencilled annotations; I read it during coffee breaks or under my desk at work; lying in the garden; curled up on the sofa or snuggled up in bed.  I never considered its size to be an inconvenience.  Until last week.

The problem is, I’ve got so used to the convenience of the Kindle that the book seemed unwieldy; the print was small and the pages, like the spine were growing pale and fragile.  And there on Amazon was a Kindle version for a mere 77 pence.  Within a minute it was sitting on my Kindle.

But it didn’t stop there! 

I’ve  long been intending to re-read John Fowles’ ‘The Magus’ and duly went to my shelf to coax it into my waiting hands.  As a matter of interest, you might want to know that this book is 656 pages long.  Wouldn’t have bothered me in the least a year ago.  But then a year ago I didn’t have a Kindle.  And it only took a minute to do an Amazon search and download it.  I didn’t intend to.  I just looked out of curiosity, but then…

A year ago I quite distinctly remember agreeing with those people who said e-readers would never take over entirely from books.  Never, I agreed loudly.  I love my books – they are part of me…or rather they were.  But so too now is my Kindle.  I doubt I will clear my bookshelves just yet – after all, where would I press my four-leaf clovers - but given a choice between a good old-fashioned hard- or paperback and an e-book version, I’m afraid I’ve already made my choice.  I’ve been converted.  I’ve been Kindled!  Have you?

The Apple Tree - Free Download This Weekend

My publisher is giving away copies of my first contemporary romance, 'The Apple Tree' on Amazon this weekend.

Amazon UK
Amazon.com

Here is an except from Chapter 5 of this prize-winning romance.

She gazed at a street lamp in front of her, watching the moths jostling for position as they flapped round and round.  She thought Nicholas was like that light, attracting all the moth-like creatures, the Annabels, the Clarissas, the Livvies and probably many more, all irresistibly drawn to his lovely flame.  He could have married any one of them and made the same mistake as her.  Had he always been entirely truthful with them all?  Had he never come close to feeling that intensity of emotion he seemed to have shared with her, close enough at least to have wrong-footed somewhere en route?  Could he really know himself so well and be so perfect?  Robert certainly thought so.  He made him sound like a saint.  Saint Nicholas—no, sorry, got one of those already—and he was a do-gooder too!

Some ten or fifteen minutes must have passed and Julie wondered if Livvie and Nicholas had finished ‘catching up’ and whether Nicholas had been left with sufficient strength to have maneuvered her car from the drive without further damage to either it or the van.  Damage her insurance company would now have to sort out for her.

“There you are!” he exclaimed from a point close behind her.  “I’ve seen to your car for you.”

“And Livvie too, I trust?”

He actually managed the merest flicker of a smile, if it wasn’t just a tic in his cheek, that is.  Livvie’s ‘catching up’ must have been very therapeutic, Julie thought.

“She’s an old friend,” he explained dismissively, to no-one in particular.

But not very old, Julie thought.  Then she caught her breath as Nicholas came to sit on the bench beside her.  At last he was coming to his senses!

“Can I ask you one question, Julie?  Was it because you thought I was a simple gardener that you felt you had free license to trample on my feelings?”

She groaned.  “Oh Nicholas, you know that isn’t true.”

“Then it seems I know very little,” he replied dryly.  “I suggest you go home now before you freeze to death.”

She jumped up from the bench, her feet, in their light, strappy sandals smarting with the cold as she planted them solidly in front of him and gazed down at him.  “My marriage was over long before I met you.  It was a mistake that should never have happened.  I was ashamed of it.  It was like my career in a way.  Passing your exams doesn’t automatically make you a good doctor in exactly the same way that signing a book in a registry office doesn’t automatically mean that you’ll have a good marriage, or even a proper one!  Simon and I were never really husband and wife, we were just good friends.”

“Simon?”  He nodded and repeated the name in a voice heavy with sarcasm.  “Simple Simon?  Simply making mistakes?”

Julie knew he was referring to her observation that sometimes people simply made mistakes in their choice of marriage partners, so the insult was double-edged.  “You have no right to insult him.” she reproached quietly.

“No, of course not.  He’s your husband.”

“No, Nicholas.  Not anymore, but he is my friend.”

“Really?  That’s what I thought I was.  It seems you treat all your friends the same way.  Badly!  In my book, friends don’t cheat and lie.  You should have told me instead of deliberately letting me believe you were someone…something else”

“How could I, knowing your views?  I grew too attached to you.”

“All the more reason for telling the truth, don’t you think?”

“But I couldn’t bear to risk losing what we had.”

“We could never have anything built on a foundation of lies.  If I asked your husband, would he tell me you were never really his wife?  Would he betray you the way you betrayed him?  Do you hate all men, Julie?  Or is it that you simply don’t know the difference between right and wrong, or the truth and lying?”

She was as wounded by his tone as much as his words but still pressed on, her voice little more than a shaky whisper.  “I don’t hate you, Nicholas.  I love you.” 

“I’ll leave your keys on the bench.”  His voice sounded icy.

She backed away a pace and stared down at her feet in misery.  Was there nothing she could say to move this man with whom she had shared so much love?  Had she really damaged their relationship so irrevocably?  How could he have changed so much, her tender lover?  Had she done that to him?

She wanted a glimpse of the old Nicholas to reassure herself that he had existed and she hadn’t dreamed him up.  This cold, hard stranger bore no resemblance to him. 

When she raised her head, Nicholas was no longer there.  She had told him she loved him and he had simply walked away.  How much more humiliation could she take?

It's not what you say, it's the way that you say it...

I know a lot has been said on the subject of reviews recently – and most of it very eloquently too – but it’s a subject I’ve wanted to discuss for a long time, so am about to add my two pence worth.

 Every writer values honest reviews and when they are good, they can make one’s day, or week. Even ones that are not so glowing can offer constructive feedback, which is manna to authors. But there are certain people who seem to use the review platform for a rather different agenda.  And these reviewers really make my blood boil.

I’ve been doing a fair bit of reading and reviewing myself recently and I discovered something interesting. The glowingly good and gloweringly bad reviews often seem to have something in common – something that begs me to take both with a pinch of salt and read and judge for myself. That’s me with my reader’s hat on. But when I’m reading, I sometimes switch hats.

Three times recently I’ve downloaded a book on the strength of a very bad review which sits like a thorn beside a number of four or five star accolades. The chances are, if a book has a number of good reviews and then one scathingly bad review, either the negative reviewer simply didn’t understand the book or has written it in the hope of damaging the author’s reputation. And sadly, I know of several instances where this has happened to very good writers and the motivation mainly seems be jealousy – by other writers!

Being a champion of the underdog (a typically British trait I’m told) I feel a vitriolic review sometimes calls for further investigation. The “Click to look inside” option on Amazon is a great idea. Anyone with any experience as a reader can quickly judge the potential of a book from the first few paragraphs, or certainly the first chapter; and Amazon is pretty generous in what it offers as a taster.

If my curiosity is piqued to a sufficient degree, I might also click on the “See all my reviews” option beside the reviewer's name to see if this reviewer is genuinely hard to please or just venting spleen. If there are no other reviews, my hackles rise and the gloves are off. I really hate unfairness and injustice. Who doesn’t?

Reviews should be honest or they have no value, but I see no reason for them to be downright mean. Criticism that isn’t constructive is simply cruel when levelled at one person. If you buy a product and it doesn’t work, you won’t improve that product for others by attacking its manufacturer or inventor. If you can’t reasonably explain the faults, you can’t hope to be taken seriously and get the problem rectified. I’m not denying a customer/reader’s right to complain about an unsatisfactory product, merely questioning the motive and manner of execution of that complaint.

Many writers see their novels as their babies

Of course, when it comes to a novel, it’s the author’s personal ideas and skills which are under scrutiny. There are very, very few writers who receive any kind of sponsorship for their product. They invest their time and energy (often in vast quantities) in creating a product whose sole aim is to please.   The review process is their feedback and it is unfiltered and something they can’t share with a team of colleagues, peers, subordinates etc. They have no buffer. The damage done by an inconsiderate verbal assault really hurts and sometimes causes irrevocable damage.

I’m not suggesting that writers should be allowed to influence the review process, but simply that reviewers recognise their power and use their platform judiciously. The whole subject of reviews is a bit of minefield. It reminds me of that rhyme about the volatile little girl with a curl.

Reviews: 

  When they are good, they are very, very good

But when they are bad, they are HORRID!

The Painful Cost of Self-Publishing

The internet is full of people blogging about the wonders of self-publishing.  Ebooks are cutting edge and, according to many, the only way forward for writers old and new.  Most bloggers, however, acknowledge that chasing success is a very difficult race to run.  For some it’s punishingly painful.

Producing your ebook is the easy part in this almost-impossible quest for fame and fortune.  Once you’ve uploaded your precious novel to the various portals that will sell it for you, your work then begins in earnest.  Amazon won’t promote it for you, of course, and without promotion you are literally lost.  After your loyal band of friends and family has bought their copies sales will grind to a halt unless you become very active.

So what do you do?  Well you can sit on social network sites like Twitter and Facebook all day telling as many people as you can how wonderful your book is and begging them to buy it.  Some people might find that easy enough to do, but I’m not one of them.  Perhaps it’s my natural British reserve, but I never was good at blowing my own trumpet.  I want people to discover the good things about me for themselves. Fat chance!  With over 1.6 billion search queries a day, what chance does little old you stand of being noticed by the masses?  Well, unless you have 1.6 billion willing followers, that is.

Of course there are success stories, but they are the exception, not the norm.  The grim truth is, you have to put yourself out there, raise your followers up into the thousands and then, if you can bear it, spam them to death with tweets about your wonderful work in between thinking up  encouraging or witty tweets to keep them interested!  Now I can tweet like a good ‘un about other people’s achievements but when it comes to self-aggrandisement, I cringe with embarrassment.  Writers need nerves of steel, but all the ones I know are as sensitive as dormice.

Review blogs are a great solution, but by no means an easy one.  I’m an ace writer of polite - even grovelling - requests for superior bloggers to review my work of art in the hopes that a kind word from them will send readers flocking up the Amazon in their boatloads.  The fact is that attracting the attention of popular review blogs is almost as difficult as finding a literary agent, which of course, if you had in the first place, you wouldn’t be self-publishing!  Of those that do reply, some can be so abrupt, it’s like a slap in the face.

 

Of course there are some kind altruists in blogland who will accept your work, though they almost always begin with a warning about how busy they are.  I had one who informed me she would get around to reading my opus in six months’ time.  That’s genuinely how busy and in demand this wonderful and rare species of the human race is.  After all, most do it for love in their spare time and who, nowadays, has an abundance of that in their lives?

Keeping up your own blog (and persuading people to read it), responding to others, writing interviews and guest articles to generate interest in your work is time-consuming indeed.  Meanwhile your next piece of literary excellence sits on your computer neglected and reproachful.  And of course, when you do finish it, guess what?  You have to start all over again…

The Apple Tree and Bound to the Prince

 

[Please see previous blog entry]

The Apple Tree by Lynette Sofras is a contemporary romance of approximately 58,000 words

Escaping from your past is never easy, as young hospital doctor Juliet discovers when she tries to start afresh, leaving both her marriage and her career behind.  Love blossoms rapidly when she meets the mysterious and forthright gardener, Nicholas, who seems to herald the new beginning she craves.  The past quickly dissolves into insignificance as their all-consuming romance propels them forward but Juliet has to learn the price of happiness in the cruellest way possible.  Will she be able face the painful roots of her past in order for her future to grow strong and healthy?

Bound to the Prince by Deborah Court is a fantasy/erotic romance of approximately 100,000 words

Once a proud warrior, elven prince Elathan is living in exile, fallen from grace and separated from his own people. When he beholds a compelling mortal woman on a London bridge one night, he hunts her down and abducts her to be his slave of pleasure. Bound by magic and desire, Igraine Chandler finds herself in a world beyond her wildest dreams, fighting at her prince's side to reclaim his throne.

Feeding the Mechanical Cannibal

Friends always seem interested in the types of writing I get asked to do as a freelance writer and always ask me what I’ve been working on.  The short answer to their question is ‘anything and everything’ because there is not a single topic about which you can’t find some information on the internet – and all that information has to written by someone like me.

Every article needs to be informative and as accurate as possible (although I’m only too well aware that is not always the case with everything you read on the World Wide Web).  Needless to say, my knowledge is not encyclopaedic (if it only were, I would be applying as an understudy for the legendary Stephen Fry!) and of course worthwhile articles require painstaking research to give them any commercial value at all.  That, of course, means that I spend most of my day browsing the internet, sifting through the billions of words in search of reliable, verifiable facts.

I have two visions of the internet: one as something vaguely incestuous with interrelated links like a massively extended Eastenders family; and the other like a gigantic mechanical cannibal as it constantly feeds off its own kind, regurgitating the same information to be re-devoured and regurgitated in a slightly different way in order to evade accusations of plagiarism.  There are numerous devices available to check for copyright infringements, but after a few years of writing articles it become easy to trace these back to their source through their sometimes tortuous literary umbilical cords.  I have seen my own material re-created in this way and no longer feel indignant about what at school was once called ‘cheating’ but which has now become standard internet practice.  After all, it’s only words, and the spirit of the internet is to make knowledge accessible, which can only be a good thing.

Still, it does make general article-writing pall after a while.  Thinking up new things to say on a subject becomes more and more difficult as the internet expands at such a fast and mind-boggling rate.  Do we need one more article parroting the same information on this over-burdened super highway?  This is one of the reasons I have moved slightly sideways into editing and am finding this much more satisfying.

Most interesting of all is editing creative work.  With the growing popularity of ebooks, more and more writers are taking advantage of this platform to self-publish.  They say everyone has a book in them and just a quick glance at Amazon’s Kindle store seems to corroborate this urban myth.  However the internet also encourages brutal honesty and readers will write reviews telling you exactly what they think and one thing readers definitely dislike is reading a book with glaring errors of grammar, punctuation, syntax etc.  And this is where I come in.

I feel truly privileged to work with really creative people and help them to realise their ideas by tidying up a well-crafted story so that it flows properly and does not hinder its readers’ enjoyment of the narrative.  With my own aspirations to be a published writer, I can honestly say that this is a dream job – only one step away from enjoying success in my own right (or should I say write?)

Creativity and ambition are infectious too, it seems.  One particular writer for whom I edited an ebook quickly became a very good friend who began to encourage me in my own writing endeavours in a positive and helpful way.  The result was that within a week, thanks entirely to her, I published my first ebook on Kindle and that was a truly thrilling event for me!  It was something I had simply not considered for myself before.  The short blog to follow this will contain brief descriptions and links to both Deb’s debut novel (Bound to the Prince) and my own (The Apple Tree) and I would be equally thrilled if you chose to read either of them, as one shows my editing skills and one my writing.