Bell Bridge Books

Books of the Heart

by Eve Gaddy

Have you ever heard the expression a “Book of the Heart?” It’s a common phrase among writers. We toss it around, certain that everyone knows what we mean when we say it. Recently I heard from another writer that readers might not know what the phrase a “Book of the Heart” means. “Aren’t all your books written from your heart?” a reader might ask. And the answer is yes. Absolutely. But a Book of the Heart has a different meaning.

A book of the heart is often a long time in the making. I know of several writers whose books took years to develop. Mine certainly did. I haven’t heard of one that wasn’t a struggle in some way. Sometimes a book of the heart is very difficult to write. The subject matter, the format, the genre, something makes it different and harder for the author to write it. Are there any books of the heart that come easily? Yes, but we call those “gift books.” More on those in another blog.

To me, a book of the heart is a book that calls to the author. The book insists on being written. It won’t let the author alone. It hangs around in the back of our mind, sometimes dormant, sometimes perking away and demanding we stop whatever we’re doing and write the thing. Books of the Heart do not care if the author has another contracted book due. They do not care if it’s difficult to write, if it wrings you dry. Quite simply the book of the heart demands to be written. We might put it off for many years, writing other things, but the time is never quite right. We know when it is. Mine rose up and whacked me in the head.

I was talking about books of the heart to amazing author, Justine Davis. I said that I didn’t know of anyone who hadn’t thought about their book of the heart for a very long time before writing it. Often years. The writing itself might not take years, but the book needs time to develop before you can write it. Justine said, “But to me it means not only one that’s close to your heart, but one you’ve had to carry in your heart because the time/situation wasn’t right, or you didn’t have the time to devote to it.” I’m planning a series of future blogs in which other authors discuss their own Books of the Heart.

My book of the heart, Cry Love, was not written quickly. It was not written easily. At times I wondered if it would ever be written at all. It is far and away the most complex, difficult, different book that I’ve ever written. I love romantic suspense and write a lot of it. In fact, my next book for Bell Bridge Books is romantic suspense. I also write contemporary romance. I’m a bit confused about what genre to place Cry Love in. It’s a love story about lovers from three different time periods. It’s about how the past connects to the present. There is triumph and tragedy, suspense, and a mystery that runs through much of the book, including the present. And romance. Cry Love is definitely a romance.

For the longest time, I wasn’t sure I’d ever write Cry Love. Then I wasn’t sure I’d finish it. I was also unsure that it would ever be published. Every new book is a thrill to me. Every book I write is important and matters to me. My heart is in every book. But Cry Love is my Book of the Heart, the one that’s been on my mind and in my heart for many years. I’m so happy to be able to share it with you now.

Just click the link above to buy Eve Gaddy’s romantic new release! 

Music to Write By

by Eve Gaddy

For many writers music is an integral part of their process. Just as everyone has their own method of writing, everyone has their own way of incorporating music into their process. Some writers listen to music while they write, either a playlist they’ve made for the book, classical music, or as Roz Denny Fox once told me, “I have to listen to kickin’ country music. My husband made a classical playlist for me one time and I fell asleep.” On the other hand, my editor, Pat Van Wie, is another who listens to music while she writes. She listens to only classical piano music, with no words, preferably Chopin. Our musical tastes are as unique as our writing.

Each writer’s process is different, so it’s no surprise each writer has a different way of using music to aid in his or her writing. I can’t listen to music while I write. It’s far too distracting. I can’t even listen to instrumental because I’ll hum the tune. But I listen to music, and my playlists, at all other times. In the car, when I clean (Stop laughing. I wash out my coffeepot. That counts, doesn’t it?), when I shower, before I sit down to write. And listening while driving seems to help when I’m stuck.

I make a playlist for every book. When I first started writing I would only have one or two songs I played for the book, but then I discovered playlists! Much better. You can get awfully sick of a song you play 10,000 times. For me the playlist has to develop. I may start out with one song that’s key, and as I write, others are added and become more important.

Cry Love, is a book unlike anything I’ve ever written. While it is a romance, it’s also a love story. There are subtle differences. Love stories don’t always end happily. Just read the first scene of Cry Love and you’ll see what I’m talking about. So, yes, there’s tragedy in Cry Love but there is also triumph. And a love that won’t die.

When I first heard the song Cry Love by John Hiatt, I knew it would be important in writing this book. I wasn’t sure how, but I knew it would be. For one thing, it’s a beautiful song. Then it dawned on me that Cry Love was the perfect title for this book. Haunting, beautiful, evocative, different.

My playlist for Cry Love includes songs about forbidden love, hopeless love, songs about mad, passionate, and dangerous love. One song, Andy Brown’s Ashes, I’ve yet to fully understand but it’s so beautiful I added it to the list. The Vivaldi Guitar Concerto by Los Romeros, was added just because I love it. Another song that really spoke to me was Jessica Andrews’ Helplessly, Hopelessly, Recklessly. Musical genres include Rock and Roll, Pop, Country, and Classical songs. Not every musical genre is represented in the Cry Love playlist. However, I cover a lot of genres in my playlists for upcoming books. I like variety. What can I say, I have eclectic tastes.

In the coming weeks, I’ll be tweeting, posting on Facebook and my website the songs from my playlist for Cry Love. Enjoy!

Here is my playlist for Cry Love, with links:

Cry Love John Hiatt http://bit.ly/1m0enN1

Ashes  Andy Brown http://bit.ly/1oVXJof

Helplessly, Hopelessly, Recklessly Jessica Andrews https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKVJPnEbOkA

Wrong to Love You  Chris Isaak http://bit.ly/1ohIhfL

Forbidden Love Jim Verraros http://bit.ly/1pzJORx

Lips of An Angel Hinder http://bit.ly/1djs3T7

The Right Kind of Wrong LeAnn Rimes http://bit.ly/UGkHCx

Standing on the Edge of Goodbye John Berry http://bit.ly/1j4fbBF

We Can Be Together Jefferson Airplane  http://bit.ly/1ncB28A

Dangerously In Love Beyoncé http://bit.ly/1qy5ehK

Wicked Game Chris Isaak http://bit.ly/1qX4EMY

Midnight Confessions The Grass Roots http://bit.ly/1ldq4Ug

Endless Love Lionel Richie & Diana Ross http://bit.ly/1pAhQ9t

Concerto in B Minor for 4 Guitars & Cello RV 580 (L’estro armonico No. 10): I. Allegro Los Romeros Vivaldi: Guitar Concertos http://bit.ly/VvOX3F

Click the cover above to buy CRY LOVE – out now!!

A Long Time Coming

by Eve Gaddy

Some books are a long time coming.

I had the original idea for Cry Love in 1999.  I found the file not too long ago.  It was a one line description that I had saved in my idea file, many computers ago.  But it was a very different idea and at the time I was writing for Harlequin.  There was no way this book would fit what they wanted.  Since I am one of those writers who does best in total immersion, I filed the idea and kept writing other things.

I am also one of those writers who periodically experiences burnout.  I think it has something to do with being so obsessive.  (What, me obsessive?)

Anyway, every once in a while, especially when I was feeling burned out and battered by the business, I would pull the idea out and play with it.  I went to see the movie Hurricane and found it and Denzel Washington, who plays Hurricane Carter, very inspiring.  My husband and I were the only people in the theatre and it seemed as if it was playing just for me.

Several years ago, maybe around 2003 or 2004, I wrote the first scene.  I was at a conference and laid down to rest and the scene came to me.   A year or so later, I worked on the plot during an endless drive back from Savannah to Tyler with my daughter.  Then I put it aside again.

I couldn’t get going on it.  I would write random scenes occasionally but what I had in no way resembled a book.  I went on that way until I quit writing for about two years due to burnout, family death, twin grandbabies<g>, and life in general.  I played with my grandbabies, did a lot of needlework and didn’t write a word of fiction.  I decided if I never wrote anything else that was okay.  I’d published sixteen books and that was enough.

Then I talked to Debra Dixon, President of Belle Books, and a friend I’d known for many years.  The self-publishing boom had hit.  Although I thought I had retired, almost all my friends are writers and I was still a member of many writing communities.  I had the rights back to eight books and was toying with publishing them myself.  But I couldn’t figure out a number of things.  Formatting for one.  At the time I wrote in Word Perfect.  Everything now requires Word, which I loathe and use only when I absolutely must.

So I asked for help on one of my writers loops and Debra Dixon gave me some great advice.  She also mentioned I didn’t have to do this all on my own.  “I don’t?” I asked.  She said Belle Books was interested in reissuing my backlist.  I knew about Belle Books, of course.  I had always wanted to write for them, in fact.  But I hadn’t realized they had branched out from publishing only original southern fiction to more genres as well as reissues.  I was in heaven.  Belle Books bought my backlist in January 2011.  My first reissue, On Thin Ice, came out with Bell Bridge Books in August of 2011.  I love those books and it is such a pleasure to know they have a new life. I not only have a new publisher but I’m lucky enough to have a publisher and editors who are a dream to work with.

In one of our discussions about my backlist, Deb asked me if I had plans to write anything new.  She knew all about what had been going on with me and that I had mentioned retiring, but she let me know Belle Books would be interested in an original from me.  I said, “Well, I do have an idea for a book that’s unlike anything I’ve ever written.

That was what it took.  Not too long after I talked to Deb, I sent a synopsis of my new book to Belle Books. It was very vague and very short since I still had no idea exactly what I was doing, or even what exactly I was writing.  We decided I’d write the whole book and submit it.

Except I couldn’t write.  I had the synopsis but the book was so complex I couldn’t figure out how to write the thing.  I contacted the fabulous April Kihlstrom, published author and writing coach extraordinaire.  With her help I was able to begin seriously working on my book.  April was a lifesaver.  I truly doubt I’d have been able to write again without her help and encouragement.

My friends, many of whom I list in the acknowledgements, were essential to writing my Book of the Heart. I can’t tell you how many talks we had on every subject under the sun. Or how many times I’d call one of them up to try to hammer out a scene. Or email someone with a problem I couldn’t figure out. I’m pretty sure my friends were almost as glad as I was when I finished Cry Love. For that matter, so was my family. I might be just a tiny bit hard to live with when I’m writing.

Finally, nearly a year after I started writing it seriously, I typed THE END on Cry Love.  Thirteen years after the original idea occurred to me, I finished the book.  To call Cry Love a book of my heart doesn’t even approach how I feel about it.  This book was wrenched, sometimes agonizingly, from deep within my heart and soul.  I love this book.  I hope you will too.

TIKI ROAD TRIPS AND FLAMING COCKTAILS

by Jill Marie Landis

According to Wikipedia (and we all know how reliable Wikipedia is!) the tortured artist is both a stock character and a real-life stereotype. Artists who suffer for their work often succumb to self-mutilation, a high rate of suicide, hours of therapy and/or gallons of Ben and Jerry’s.

I wouldn’t exactly describe myself as a tortured artist, but I will go to just about any length in the name of research. When I wrote western historical romances, I rode horses and rounded up cattle. I watered down pigs. I’ve visited so many historical sites and museums that my husband now punches the car accelerator as we approach any building or rock that might be sporting an historical marker.

Since I began writing The Tiki Goddess Mystery Series for Belle Books, I’ve gone overboard doing research. I’ve devoted countless hours to paging through Pintrest, pinning photos with the subject heading “Tiki.”  I’ve shopped eBay for tiki mugs to add to my collection. I’ve spent many a night in the local watering hole here on Kauai writing notes on cocktail napkins and taste testing umbrella drinks. An author’s life is one of sacrifice. Believe me, I’ll go to any length to get things right on the page.

So, in the name of research, I’ve visited Tiki Bars on Kauai and on every other Hawaiian Island. When we’re on the mainland (you know it as the continental US), I refer to my handy dandy “Tiki Road Trip, A Guide to Tiki Culture in North America” by James Teitelbaum. I’ve been in tiki bars in some of the most unlikely, out of the way places in the world and lived to tell about it.

I’ll have to admit my husband and our dinner guests were surprised on evening when I walked into the kitchen armed with a long handled gas lighter and a fire extinquisher. I explained I’d decided to create a recipe to include in TOO HOT FOUR HULA, Book 4, the latest of the Tiki Goddess Mysteries and I needed assistance.

I handed my friend and fellow author, Stella Cameron, a fire extinguisher. As I recall, I said something like, “Stand back Stella, and if I blow myself up, use that thing!”

Stella laughed until I started lining up the ingredients which included chocolate candy kisses and three kinds of liquor, one of which was a bottle of 151 Proof rum, the liquor most mixologists recommended for igniting a flaming cocktail.

That night “The Flaming Manic Monkey” cocktail was born. The drink was inspired by a scene in TOO HOT FOR HULA when Uncle Louie relates a trek to the Amazon in search of the legendary Amethyst Monkey Skull.

Thankfully, Stella didn’t have to use the extinguisher after all because we later noticed that warranty on the thing expired ten years ago!

Do stop by and visit me at www.thetikigoddess.com and sign up for my newsletter and read other fun blogs.

Don’t forget to grab Jill Marie Landis’s newest release

– TOO HOT FOUR HULA –

out today!!

Just click the link above!

And make sure you grab the other fabulous books in the Tiki Goddess Series! Just click the links below!

BE CAREFUL WITH THE LITTLE DETAILS

by Melissa Ford

The first thing you need to know is that I don’t know a lot about television.  I watch whatever my husband puts on at night, and if he doesn’t turn on the television, then it wouldn’t occur to me to choose something myself.  One time my husband went to Berlin for ten days. When he returned and clicked on the television, it was still set to ESPN which he was watching before he left.  He looked at me and said, “you either missed me so much that you watched sports… or you didn’t turn on the television for a week and a half.”  Ding, ding, ding!  We have a winner.

The second thing you need to know is that when we were making Bermuda shorts in our Home Ec class in eighth grade, I didn’t align the front and the back properly so the fabric pattern went in two different directions.  I had hand-stitched my shorts together because I couldn’t get a hang of the sewing machine, and the fabric puckered strangely between the holes in the seam.

I know nothing about television and nothing about sewing.  So why did I make one character in Apart at the Seams a writer for a comedy news show, and the other a finisher for a clothing designer?

It was sort of by accident.  Noah and Arianna were supposed to be minor characters, meant to help hold up the plotline, but they were thrust into the spotlight when we decided to tell the same story over two books from two very different points of view.  If these two characters were a television writer and a finisher in Measure of Love, then they needed to have the same jobs when the story flipped over and was told from their point of view in Apart at the Seams.

The moral of this story is to be careful with even the little, throwaway details.

I was lucky in that a bunch of kind people in New York jumped in to teach me their craft so I could create a believable television writer and finisher.  Jill Katz at the Daily Show brought me to the set and taught me what goes into crafting a half hour comedy show from script to performance.  She didn’t even roll her eyes when I meekly asked her what the man working the camera was called.

And Brenda Mikel, the Atelier Director at Narciso Rodriguez, spent hours walking me through the process of designing clothing. It’s thanks to her that Arianna attaches sequins before the pattern is cut rather than after as she did in the first draft of the book.  There was no question too basic that Brenda didn’t take time out of her busy schedule to answer thoughtfully.

I’m grateful for all the people who stepped in to help bring veracity to the characters and storyline.  Though next time, I’m going to stick with what I know and make my character a women’s fiction writer, working out of her house.  Then again… it was pretty cool to see the Daily Show in action…

Make sure you grab Melissa Ford’s new release

– APART AT THE SEAMS-

out on June 14!!

Just click the link above!

And don’t forget to grab the first two books in this series – LIFE FROM SCRATCH and MEASURE OF LOVE!

Just click the links below!

Today is National Cherry Pie Day! So to celebrate, we are giving you a delicious cherry pie recipe to create and share with family and friends today!

Ingredients
4 cups fresh or frozen tart cherries
1 to 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
4 tablespoons cornstarch
1/8 tablespoon almond extract (optional)
Pie crust or pie dough recipe for 2 crust pie
1 1/2 tablespoons butter, to dot
1 tablespoon granulated sugar, to sprinkle

Cook cherries in medium saucepan over low heat and cover. Remove the pan after the cherries have lost much of their juice. Mix the sugar and cornstarch into a small bowl, then pour the sugar and cornstarch into the pan of heated cherries and mix. (You can also add in the almond extract now if you would like). After mixing, put the pan back onto the burner and continue cooking over low heat, stirring frequently until the mixture has thickened. Take off the burner and let the mixture cool. If your mix is too thin, you may add more cornstarch; however, if it is too thick, you should add a little water to thin it.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Now time to prepare your crust. Cut your crust in half and flatten or roll each half into a piece that will be big enough to fit into a pan that is 8 to 9 inches. After preparing your crust,  pour your (now cool) cherry mixture inside of it. Use the butter to dot and to moisten the edge of your crust bottom. Now place your crust top on top and crimp your edges. Use a knife to make a cut into the middle of the top crust to let steam escape (and also for decoration ;)).  Sprinkle the pie with sugar and bake for 50 minutes before removing and letting it cool.

I recommend setting on top of a windowsill like they do in movies. Haha. 🙂

Also in honor of National Cherry Pie Day, we are putting Trish Jensen’s STUCK WITH YOU on promotion for only $0.99!! Just click the link and grab it now!

And while you’re there, make sure you grab the rest of Trish Jensen’s fabulous romances! 

And coming soon….

We are RE-VAMPING the entire Vampires in America series! 

 RAPHAEL, SOPHIA, ADEN, JABRIL, and RAJMUND have all been given new covers…..

And now DUNCAN – Book 5 in the Vampires in America series is being revealed!

   Just click the links and you’ll be taken to Amazon where you can get this entire series with the new covers! Don’t wait! 

This series by D.B. Reynolds is just too good to miss out on!

THE BLENDER APPROACH

by Mary Strand

I grew up loving blenders.  Much like my mom, the only thing I really enjoy doing in a kitchen involves a blender and rum, and she taught me how to make a killer daiquiri before I was old enough to drink one.  In college, I went on to become a bartender.

I’m sure this made her proud.  heh heh.

Before long, I left my bartender and college days behind for law school, then the practice of law, going from killer daiquiris to killer shoes and suits, killer mergers and acquisitions, and killer hours.  Lots and lots of killer hours.  All-nighters at the printer.  Making critical word choices in closing documents at three a.m. when we were blinking to stay awake.  Arguing over inane details that often didn’t matter as much as we pretended they did.

Here’s a not-so-secret secret:  lawyers daydream.

They daydream about not being lawyers.

When I started daydreaming in earnest, I thought about writing novels.  I didn’t have the faintest idea how to write a novel, mind you, but as a lawyer I learned to be ridiculously confident regardless of the facts.

I blithely assumed I could write a novel even though at that point I was entirely left brained (logical thinking) and hadn’t really used my right brain (creative thinking) in 15 years.  For my birthday one year, my husband bought me a software program that helps a left-brained thinker conceptualize a novel using a logical question-answer process.  Perfect.

My debut novel, Cooper’s Folly, was the first book I wrote, many years ago.  I started by using my left-brained software program, assisted by my completely unwarranted confidence.  When I began, I hadn’t taken a single writing class.  In the first draft, I changed point of view Every Single Time someone spoke, because, gee, the reader would want to know what everyone was thinking, right?  My first critiquers laughed.  I was too confident to know better.

I had a blast.

I also returned to blenders, but this time minus the rum.  I quickly learned it was easier to write about characters I already “knew”—so I put everyone I knew, everyone I’d ever met, into an imaginary blender in my head.  I’d turn on the blender, imagining it swirling them all around, then poured out characters made up of tiny pieces of my friends, my not-so friends, and me.  Lots and lots of me.  Cooper Meredith of Cooper’s Folly is chock full of pieces of me, and I wrote the book for that part of me:  a lawyer who daydreams of not being a lawyer.  Of having more fun and being more fulfilled.  Of figuring out what I was meant to do and be.

I still use the blender approach with every book I write, which means that pieces of my friends and me—especially me—are scattered all over all my books.

But which pieces?  Try to guess.  And good luck with that.  🙂

Go grab Mary Strand’s debut novel, COOPER’S FOLLY, out now!!!

BONKERS IN BOCA

by Miriam Auerbach

Boca Raton, Florida, has been hailed as the Beverly Hills of the East Coast.  Now, to me, that’s a claim that cries out for corroboration.  So let’s see – what are the commonalities between Beverly Hills and Boca?  Opulent mansions and beautiful shopping areas?  Check.  Young blonde women precariously balancing a size sixteen stack atop a size two tuchus?  Check.  But frankly, I think they’ve got it backwards – it should be Beverly Hills that aspires to be the Boca of the West Coast.  After all, we’ve got some home-grown beauts that they can’t shake a stick at.  Namely, we’ve got Boca Babes.  What is a Boca Babe?  Here are some clues:

• If you live in a house the size of a jumbo jet hangar, then you are likely a Boca Babe.
• If Neiman Marcus is #1 on your cell phone speed dial, you might be a Boca Babe.
• If you’ve had diamond studs soldered into your earlobes, you could be a Boca Babe.
• If your dog owns more clothing and toys that some people’s children, you just might be a Boca Babe.
• If the only thing you know how to make for dinner is reservations, you are probably a Boca Babe.
• And if you are all these things but you’ve hit the big 4-0, then you’re no longer a Boca Babe – you’re now a Botox Babe.

My series protagonist, Harriet Horowitz, is an ex-Boca Babe.  Why an ex?  Here’s the thing: a rich husband, no matter how revolting, is the price of admission to the Boca Babe Club.  Harriet’s husband was indeed revolting.  He abused her for ten years.  Finally she’d had enough.  One day when her husband raised his fists at her one last time, she told him, in the words of movie anti-hero Dirty Harry, “Go ahead – make my day.” He obliged, and she shot him through the heart – with his (now hers) .44 Magnum.

Harriet’s act was ruled justifiable homicide, and she embarked on a new identity – Dirty Harriet – and new life.  She sold everything, bought a Harley, and moved to a desolate cabin in the Everglades.  She swapped swank for swamp, indulgence for independence.

Harriet embarked on a new career as well: she opened up her own private eye agency, ScamBusters.  And business is booming.  Boca’s got a slew of scams.  Investment scams, insurance scams, immigration scams – you name it, we’ve got it.

So Harriet is doing just fine as a ScamBuster.  But occasionally, murder intrudes.  In my third Dirty Harriet mystery, DEAD IN BOCA, a prominent Boca developer hires Harriet to find the con artist who stole his elderly mother’s heart and identity.  It’s just another routine case for ScamBusters – that is, until Harriet’s client is murdered when he’s buried by a bulldozer at one of his construction sites.  The dead man’s new bride asks Harriet to continue the search for the con man, who just may – or may not – be the killer.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to get back to my work in progress.  But first, I’ve got to head to the salon to get twelve subtle shades of highlights put in my hair.  After all, this is Boca – we’ve all got to keep up appearances.

 Make sure you grab Miriam’s newest release, DEAD IN BOCA, the third in the Dirty Harriet Mystery Series OUT NOW!!!

And don’t forget to grab the first two in this awesome series!!