The Sheriff and the Baby

The Sheriff and the Baby – CC Coburn (Harlequin American Romance)

County Sheriff, Matt O’Malley is haunted by a personal tragedy. It’s something that could have been avoided had circumstances had been different, but his dream of raising a family in the lovely Rocky Mountain home he’d planned, had to be abandoned because of it.

A woman is driving in a snowstorm. She’s in labour, and is fleeing from the men who killed her husband. When her car is forced off the road, Matt is the only one there to help. Putting his duty before his instincts he gets her to hospital and he stays with her while she gives birth to her daughter. The woman calls herself Beth Ford, and for reasons she can’t disclose she fights the growing attraction between herself and the sheriff.

Matt senses that Beth’s lying, in more ways than one, especially when she puts his name on the birth certificate as the baby’s father. But Beth brings out the protective instinct in him. With perseverance he gleans more information – enough to make the enquiries that alert her pursuers to her whereabouts. Eventually, Beth trusts Matt enough to tell him her story, by which time they’ve fallen in love.

I first met Matt, his brothers, and the rest of O’Malley family in Colorado Christmas, the first book of the series. I like this bustling family, with their push and shove, their kids with attitude, and their abundance of nosiness. This second book has a large dollop of the same heart-warming charm, plus a sense of danger and intrigue that keeps the pot on the boil and the tension high until the very end. A good read that I highly recommend.

Down in the dumps/

Despite the good news that my two latest books, Straw in the Wind & Salting the Wound will be produced in audio, I’m having one of those unexplainable “down in the dumps” periods authors get from time to time. As a result I dislike my current work in progress. Keeping going is hard at the moment. It’s not that I doubt my ability to produce a readable book in the end, but to borrow from John Denver’s song, “Some days are diamonds and some days are stones,” I’m definitely living in the stone age at the moment. My characters are no longer talking to me, which is a disaster of major proportions. I’m going to take my own advice to others at such times and I’m going to plod on in the hope that the result won’t turn out to be as flat as I feel, and I’ll be able to polish the stones into diamonds when I edit. Like most advice, it’s easier said than actually done. Example follows.

Yesterday I read a blog about pet peeves. The topic was grammar. What surprised me most was that the blogger didn’t seem to be aware of any difference between grammar and spelling, but lumped them both as one under grammar. Ditto the followers, who threw punctuation into the brew as well. In the free-for-all of unanimous opinions, the conclusion was arrived at that mistakes in a book couldn’t be blamed on the editor, because they are overworked. They were, in fact, the fault of the author, who should have got it right in the first place.

One of the commentators, who stated that she offers advice about such matters on her own blog, managed to include three incorrect spellings of simple words in her short comment (grammer-verbage-distradtion). Most writers know that mistakes happen (putting it politely) but if you're going to dabble in pedantry, it would be wise to make sure that your own contribution is correct.

Angelina

Joining Daughter of Darkness at Belgrave House is ANGELINA my latest book in E format. Set in Georgian times, Angelina is a tale about a beautiful and wealthy young woman, who is restored to her aristocratic family after it was thought she’d perished at birth. Her arrival is a catalyst for plotting and intrigue, Angelina is not welcomed by some, especially her sister, Rosabelle, who is her rival in love. Her mother can’t remember giving birth to twin daughters either, though the resemblance between them is remarkable.

Once again, Gainsborough has designed a most wonderful jacket for the book. He must be a master of light.

Straw in the Wind. Booklist Review.

Author: JANET WOODS
Title: STRAW IN THE WIND
Publication: BOOKLIST
Issue: 1st MAY 2010


Straw in the Wind, Woods, Janet (Author), Jun 2010. 256 p, Severn, hardcover, $28.95. (9780727868930).

Who is Sara Finn? Is she the baby sister long thought dead by the Honeyman sisters in Salting the Wound (2010) Adam Chapman sets out to determine if the baby exists and is truly the love child of sea captain Erasmus Thornton. Sara is happy to find a good position as a housekeeper at Leighton Manor in Dorset County. Her early life is a blur: first the home she hardly remembers, then the farm where she labored incessantly, followed by the workhouse, and lastly her position as an unpaid maid for a reverend by whom she was summarily dismissed when his oldest son tried to kiss her and she slapped him. Adam finds Sara at Leighton Manor and immediately falls in love with her, not knowing for certain whether she is the woman he is searching for. Once again Woods gives her readers an appealing historical romance with intriguing, multidimensional characters.

Looking the part

I've often wondered why writers pose with tools of trade on display. One office is very much the same as another office. We have desks with computers. Filing cabinets, and shelves. As a former professional housewife and mother (now retired) I suspect that the books make me appear more scholarly, the computer, more technically proficient. In actual fact I'm neither. What happened here was that I discovered that my computer (the one you can't see with the tennis court sized screen) could take photographs. So I decided to fiddle with it. I put my best blouse on, turned the computer round and posed with my retired computer and the new set of shelves I'd been waiting years for and finally got. Anyway, I squared myself up in the little square viewer and clicked my mouse. One...two...three!!! The resulting flash nearly knocked me off my chair. When I was a professional housewife and mother I didn't pose for photographs with my broom or mop and bucket held aloft. Do plumbers pose proudly with their plungers and S bends? No don't answer that one. Anyway, for what it's worth, here I am looking the part as best I can.

PS. Can I call myself a photographer now? No? Oh...okay.

DAUGHTER OF DARKNESS

A long time ago, I wrote my 2nd book. It was called Daughter of Darkness. As a beginning writer I spent a great deal of time on it, drawing on my scant knowledge of writing practices at the time to perfect it.

I entered the manuscript into a national competition for unpublished novels, which was sponsored by Random House and Australian Women’s Day. To my delight it was placed third from out of the hundreds of entries, and I won $2,000 for my efforts. I was delighted by this encouragement. Unfortunately, only the novel that won the competition was published. I sent the manuscript to Robert Hale, a library publisher who decided it was written well enough for public consumption.

Daughter of Darkness was published in 2001. The following year I decided to enter it in the mainstream section of the Romantic book of The Year award, an annual competition which is run by the Romance Writers of Australia. It won!

The book has long been out of print, though now and again a used copy turns up on the net, offered by some enterprising person for a hugely inflated price!

Readers often write and ask me where they can buy it, which prompted me to investigate electronic publishing. I gave the manuscript a light edit, but generally ignored the urge to unravel it all and rewrite it completely, because it still works as it is.

So I’m happy to announce that the book has now become available for download in ten formats, from Belgrave House. http://belgravehouse.com/bookstore/
The cost is US$5.00

Salting The Wound

Review: Salting the Wound – Janet Woods 4.50 stars.

"An epic tale of family loyalty, forbidden attraction and heartbreaking choices, Janet Woods’ latest historical romance, Salting the Wound, is guaranteed to hold readers in thrall!"

Sea captain Nick Thornton cannot wait to go back home to Dorset and see the woman he’s loved since childhood: Charlotte Honeyman. Nick is determined to leave the sea behind and to settle back home and open an emporium with Charlotte by his side as his wife. But on his return, Nick is shocked when the woman whom he has loved for most of his life coldly announces that she has married another man and that she never wants to see him ever again.

Charlotte Honeyman has always been aware of the fact that Nick was infatuated with her, but she could never consent to reciprocating his feelings; not when his uncle, Erasmus, was responsible for the death of her beloved mother. Crushed and heartbroken, Nick cannot believe that the woman whom he was head over heels in love with now belongs to another man. Realizing that he can no longer stay in Dorset now that his beloved is somebody else’s wife, Nick decides to head back to sea, but he vows to make Charlotte pay for this cruel betrayal…

Charlotte’s younger sister Marianne was flabbergasted when her elder sibling announced that she was marrying another man – and she was mortified when she heard Charlotte tell Nick that if she ever saw him near her again, she would shoot him! Determined to apologise on her sister’s behalf, Marianne heads to Nick’s ship before it heads off to Boston to atone for her sister’s less than ladylike behaviour, but when she has an accident on the ship, she finds herself trapped on board the vessel…and in close proximity with the brooding and dangerous Captain Thornton!

Nick is delighted when he finds a helpless Marianne Honeyman in his cabin, desperately needing his aid – and realizes that he’s finally found the perfect way to revenge himself upon the woman who scorned him: he will seduce her sister and marry her in order to save her reputation. Marianne is well aware of the reason behind Nick’s seduction, but in his arms, she cannot help but wish that her husband would realize that the younger Honeyman sister has been in love with him for years!

The more time Nick spends with Marianne, the more he finds himself attracted to her. Is he falling in love with his convenient wife? Or will his desire for revenge blind him to what’s in front of his very eyes?

Written with deftness, confidence and style, Salting the Wound is an outstanding historical romance featuring a wonderfully gutsy heroine who jumps off the page, a swoon-worthy hero, a well-rounded cast of supporting characters, poignant and riveting romance and an intriguing and dramatic sub-plot which will keep readers riveted until the final page!Fast-paced, dramatic and wonderfully romantic, Salting the Wound is another winner from the exceptional pen of the fabulous Janet Woods!

Reviewed by Julie Bonello - http://singletitles.com