Witches’ Cliff - a novella about modern-day witches

It’s the middle of summer and hot as a firecracker. So, with that in mind, let’s think about falling autumn temperatures.  Witches’ Cliff is a Halloween novella about modern-day witches.

When Penelope Winters stepped out of her black-as-night BMW at the Deerbourne Inn located in Vermont, she felt she was home. Her family was originally from Vermont and she and her mother left when she was a baby. She’d never been back.  But there was something about the place . . .

Penny came from a long line of witches. She and her late mother were modern-day practicing wiccan ad she was there for Halloween – and not just for the trick-or-treating. She planned to see where her family once lived and try to talk to her dead grandmother on Halloween night.

Modern Halloween tradition came about from the Christianizing of ancient pagan practices. The trick-or-treating we see today probably began as parades for All Souls Day (also known as All Hallows Day), a Catholic holiday which now falls on November first. The ancient festival was then renamed All Hallows Eve. October 31st is the midway point between the Autumn Equinox and the Winter Solstice. It was just the time for Penny to contact her ten-times great grandmother. She had a question she needed help with.

Penney knew it was more than a feeling that she was not the only witch in Willow Springs, Vermont. Would that be good or bad? Willow Springs had once had their own witch trials but instead of being burned at the stake, the unfortunate women were thrown from a rocky cliff and Penny planned to see that cliff while she was there. It would be just the place to contact her grandmother who died a horrible death along with others in that dark time.

Penny came with a purposed to the inn that weekend, and then she met Liam.

The Deerbourne Inn series is a fun romp through the Vermont bed and breakfast scene.  Several authors for The Wild Rose Press wrote stories of various genres and times.  Check out Witches’ Cliff and the other stories of the Deerbourne Inn. 

Peggy Chambers

http://peggylchambers.com/

Available on Amazon

and other online retailers

The Izzy O’Donnell series – Eye for and Eye.

I am Jocelyn Pedersen, a Canadian-born award-winning, AP-published, professional journalist with hundreds of published clips in various newspapers and magazines. And I decided to write a novel. A lover of the mystery and thriller, I digest every piece of Criminal Minds with my friends and family. And that is where the Izzy O’Donnell series came to mind. The first in the series is titled Eye for an Eye.

Rookie detective Izzy O'Donnell is on the trail of a serial killer who's murdering victims and leaving behind body parts wrapped in Bible verses.  Izzy tracks him down with the help of her two partners, Moreno and Cal.

Her friend, Apple, thinks she's telepathic and she and her pet rabbit can smell death on Izzy's clothes.  Unnerved by unexplained dreams, Izzy forges forth to solve the case. A homeless man, a philandering televangelist, and a mentally challenged gardener are among the suspects who distract Izzy from seeing the killer, who has been getting to know her all along.

Izzy is a Rookie - it is obvious the way she up-chucks on a crime scene and hesitates to make her opinions known.  She’s at the bottom of the rung on a long ladder that may never reach the top.  But she has instincts and knows a pervert when she works a crime scene. And they have one in this case.
She was a uniform cop for years and grew up in a household of policemen.  Her dad retired from the force, and now she looks after him and his bar after every shift. The most important thing in her life is to make him proud of her and to become the caliber of cop he was.

The latest round of murders are getting the better of her and everyone who works it.  And that is just how the perp wants it.  If they are pitted against each other, the crimes will never be solved. 

Check out the first in the Izzy O’Donnell series – Eye for and Eye.

An Eye for an Eye

by Jocelyn Pedersen

Available on Amazon

and other online retailers

Blooming Justice

Erin grew up in a loving home – just she and her mom after the death of her father. They had little money, but they were happy. She had friends, family and a plan to go to college to become a lawyer. 

Todd grew up with a bully for a father, a scared mouse for a mother, and a brother who left home as quickly as possible.  The two things they had that Erin didn’t was money and power.

They could not be more opposite.

Erin quickly realized she was out of her league when she accepted the date from Todd and showed up at the senior prom in a borrowed dress.  She was bullied and sexually harassed at the prom in front of the entire senior class.

Once at college, Todd escalated from bullying to rape and Erin began to hear about it on campus.  She wasn’t certain at first who they were talking about and then it became obvious. Todd was on the University of Tulsa campus too and he was the main topic of conversation some nights in the girls’ bathroom at the library.

After the incident at the prom, Erin grew up quickly the first year of college with a new job in her aunt’s law firm, leaving home, and learning about the law.  She still maintained her friends, but she had changed. 

 

According to Webster’s dictionary a bully is someone who seeks to harm, intimidate, or coerce someone perceived as vulnerable. To persecute.

Stuck on the same campus as Todd, Erin decides it is time to turn persecution into prosecution with the help of her aunt, an attorney in a prestigious Tulsa law firm after her best friend, Bernadette, goes missing.

Blooming Justice is the first in the Keystone Lake series set in beautiful, green, eastern Oklahoma. It is a new twist on an old story. Money and power do not keep you from justice and Erin will prove it.

Peggy Chambers

http://peggylchambers.com/

Available on Amazon

and other online retailer

Publishing in Today's Market Part Two

I remember 15 years ago before we started The Wild Rose Press, writers were starting to talk about epublishing and not in a positive light.  But RJ Morris saw that this was going to be the next big thing in publishing and we decided to open The Wild Rose Press knowing there were authors who wanted this option. Some writers were resistant, they didn’t think that was “real” publishing. 

At the same time, authors who were published through vanity presses were scorned.  They were looked down on as not good enough for traditional, royalty paying publishing. How soon the times change. Now small press, traditional, and yes, even vanity publishing, are all options for writers. All are career choices for many successful writers.

While The Wild Rose Press has always been and remains a royalty paying publisher in the traditional sense of the word, it has become apparent over the past few years that in order to stay current and meet the needs of all writers – we needed to offer more.

We worked with our business advisors and came up with a division of the company called The Write Advice (www.thewriteadvice.com). 

TWA is not meant to replace The Wild Rose Press. It is a different and separate option for writers who want more control over their books. The Write Advice allows writers the option to pay the one time, upfront costs to get their books published.

TWA offers options for authors. An author just starting out can pay for coaching/consulting sessions by phone or email or a combination of both. Authors who purchase these packages have the sole attention of a professional editor or marketing person at their disposal for any and all questions.  Again, it is a service that we found was needed. Authors who have purchased this option were thrilled with the one on one attention they received.

There are those who will say that we have become a vanity press. They're wrong and it's just not true. We are and will always be a publisher that is open to what is needed in today’s market. We are offering writers more options. We're a business that wants to meet the needs of authors.

There isn’t a right or wrong way to be published.  Our mission, to grow writers into authors, remains the same now as it ever was before. We are customer oriented and believe in the personal approach to all we do. We are hands on and want what is best for our authors. 

Voted P & E Best Publisher of the Year 11 times isn’t a small achievement. We value your support. Having authors who have been with us since 2006 speaks volumes.  And now, offering more options for writers and not forcing them to only be published in one way is how we continue to evolve.  Vanity press?  Traditional publisher? Small Press? E-Publisher? It doesn’t matter what someone might call us. we will always be here to meet the needs of authors.  We want to be YOUR option when you decide what to do with your next book.  

Rhonda Penders

President, Editor-in-Chief

@wildrosepress

https://www.facebook.com/TheWildRosePress/

Instagram - thewildrosepress 

Publishing in today's market

With the arrival of Internet, and every possible technical device and software you can imagine, in less than a few seconds your words can be sent around the world, be it through a post on a blog, or tweet, or other social media.  The same is true for books.  Oh, I could argue for and against all the ways books are published, but in the end,  it is up to the author to choose what is right for them and their work.  No longer is there a ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way to publish. 

Many say that self-publishing your book isn’t real publishing.  That you have to go through a traditional publishing house to be ‘really’ published.  Let’s examine the definition of published. 

PUBLISHED:  (of an author or company) prepare and issue a book, journal, piece of music, or other work for public sale.

Nowhere does it say it must be by a traditional publishing house.  So why would you define yourself and your work based on some tweet or comment off the Internet?  As the old adage goes, if they said you had to jump off a bridge to be published, would you do that?  Of course not.  Then why would you choose what isn’t right for you?

It’s been said that the hardest part is writing the book.  Well, that is true, it is hard to write a book, but it’s also difficult to publish it when you have no knowledge of formatting manuscripts, designing cover art, obtaining ISBNs, filing for copyright, getting a book prepped properly to go to print, dealing with distributors and the many steps they require to sell your book.  Although it’s all possible in today’s point and click world, only some want to do it all, others only care to do some of it, and then there are those that want to do nothing but write the book. 

To meet this growing need for choice in the rapidly changing world of publishing, The Wild Rose Press has created various options for you to choose form.  True, we are a traditional, royalty paying, publishing house, but it seemed silly not to offer our skills and knowledge to help writers in every way we can.  That’s the reason we started this company in the first place.  To help writers and grow authors. 

If you don’t wish to go the traditional route, don’t.  You can create your own publishing package through our new Assisted Publishing program.  You don’t even have to allow us to publish the work for you, you can choose only to have us assist you with some of the difficult steps.  You choose your publishing path, because in the end, it is your work, they are your words, and you should be in control of what happens with your book. 

Ms. RJ Morris

Vice President, Operations Manager

Co-Founder of

The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

July 2019 - Midsummer Magic

Original posting https://www.authorsandramasters.com

July 2019 - Midsummer Magic

July 15, 2019

|

Sandra Masters Best Selling Regency Romance Author

THE DUKE’S MAGNIFICENT BASTARD

by Sandra Masters  

Reduction in Price – Only 99¢

For a limited time

JULY 5TH – 26TH

“I expect you to behave like a perfect lady in my absence.”

Sweet heaven, these three years had sped by. She’d have her nuisance of a debut soon.

“You’ll find yourself well occupied with gentleman callers, I’m sure. I promise to be back for your introduction to society for I’ll be your first dance.”

She smiled with delight, and he leaned in to give her a tender kiss on her forehead.

Could the man be made of Gibraltar rock? Alicia raised her head in perfect alignment with his lips, and a kiss meant in tenderness turned into an explosion of desire. When he entered her mouth with his wicked tongue, she answered with all the longing in her body.

He withdrew, inhaled a long breath, exhaled, and again cautioned, “Never let anyone do that to you, and don’t tempt me again, my dear. It cannot be between us.”

She sensed the regret in his tone and pulled at his greatcoat. “Why not, Thorn? We are so well suited for each other. Don’t we always enjoy our time together? Give me one good reason why, and I’ll stop dreaming of you.”

The back of his hand touched her cheek, and slid to the cleft in her throat. “Another good admonition: don’t dream of any man at night. That will lead to inappropriate consequences.”

Thorn moved away, and her face became outlined in the semi-darkness of the coach. She was the sweeping vista that justified his secret beliefs. Yes, he wanted her to dream of him. If she knew how much he craved to be in those dreams, he’d not be able to contain his desires—or hers.

Purchase here!

You may purchase all my books on my website. All descriptions and buy links at: 

www.authorsandramasters.com. 

Thank you.

TWRP goes to the Movies

Every author dreams of getting the call.  Not just the call offering a contract for their book but THE call, the one from Hollywood.

For TWRP author, Karilyn Bentley that dream became a reality this past spring.  Okay Karilyn didn’t get the call, I did,  but then I got to make the call to her.

This wasn’t the first time that Hollywood has called me.  I’ve talked to producers over the years, have gotten excited a few times only to be let down when nothing comes of the conversation.   Even a few projects that have gone into contracts, frankly, died on the table.  Nothing. 

But this was a bit different.  This production company wasn’t looking to take a book that we had published and make it into a movie, they wanted to have a book written specifically for them to make into a movie.  They had a specific author in mind and wanted to discuss their project with me.    

Karilyn Bentley has a series of books about Demons.  The producer emailed me and asked me about these books and the author.  A phone meeting was set. 

I spoke with the producer, Charlie, in early February.  I was pretty tough on him wanting all the details, telling him how I knew this would never go anywhere and how did I know if we worked together on this project it would ever get to the movies? Having called authors in the past with exciting news about a production company interested in their book only to have nothing ever happen, I’m a lot more cautious these days.

 

Charlie assured me that there were 9 other books in process of being written and he wanted Karilyn to write him a proposal for the 10^th.  It was a series called The Deadly Ten.  Would she be willing?  It had to be written very fast, needed to be ready to release in mid summer so they could begin filming in September. 

The Deadly Ten project is a 10 book series that would go to Amazon Prime movies.  He wanted to film the makings of each of these movies and live stream them on his site as they were being produced.  He felt that people were curious about how movies were made and he thought this was a unique spin on this series.

A quick phone call with Karilyn confirmed her interest and we set up a joint phone call with Charlie.  Charlie gave her an outline of what he wanted in this book and she was to fill in the rest.  She wrote a full synopsis, we presented it to Charlie and he loved it.  Contracts were started.  Then stalled. 

Did I say I’m stubborn?  I’m not an easy person to get a contract past.  I was going to fight for our author and her rights to this book even if he had been the one to commission it. I dug in my heels, I negotiated, he tried charm, and being the tough guy.  I held firm. Finally, I had an agreement I felt good about going to Karilyn with and she agreed to the terms as well.   

After a quick conversation with Lill Farrell, Karilyn,’s editor and asking if she could get the editing done in a short turnaround, and a conversation with RJ Morris who decided to handle the cover herself, the contract was signed and we were on our way to the movies!

Karilyn was amazing and created the book of Charlie’s vision in record time.  RJ created a cover that blew him away and everything snowballed from there.  A few more conversations with our producer and then bam, the links were live, and Charlie’s vision of a 10 book/movie production was underway.

We will have live streams on our website the entire time filming for this series takes place.  We will have some special events around the actual filming of The ShadowHeart Curse which they say will now be sometime in October.  All the movies are set for a release date sometime mid February 2020.  We will be celebrating for sure and walking a virtual red carpet. 

Rhonda Penders

President, Editor-in-Chief

How writing can help with your mental health – an author’s musings

An author’s musings on their writing journey

I have had anxiety for as long as I can remember but writing is better than therapy. I’m that person who always pictures the worse-case scenarios, take hours, to fall asleep and is still awake when the sun comes up.

Medication barely helps my tightened chest and I lack the focus for meditation. My mind wanders too often and my whole body fidgets. Sometimes I even laugh because I don’t know what else to do.

Writing drowns out the noise in my head – maybe because I’m focusing on fictional characters and storylines far removed from the real world. At work on my breaks, if my mind starts to spin out of control, writing for a few minutes straight helps me refocus. People cope with anxiety in different ways but writing with some form of exercise helps me.

But being an author, brings a whole new level of worry. Not everyone will support you. The rejections sting every time. Negative feedback can dampen your confidence, erasing every glowing review. I often wondered whether my efforts were worth it or if my writing skills were good enough. With an industry full of self-doubt, it’s so important to find your tribe.

My mother encouraged me to enroll in a creative writing course at RMIT. This university in Melbourne, Australia does short courses that runs for 8-10 weeks for three hours a week after work. I loved every moment of the class and ended up doing three short courses. The teachers were inspiring, and it was great to speak to likeminded people. I workshopped my stories in class and continued with my manuscripts after the courses finished. At first, I was terrified of reading my work out to people, but the more I did this, the more I got used to the process. Everyone was always supportive and gave constructive feedback.

Yet, I never thought a traditional book contract would ever happen for me. To me, a book deal was equivalent to be an actor or a singer. The odds are so highly stacked against you. When I first received my contract from The Wild Rose Press for Law & Disorder, I kept reading the words in disbelief. Any moment I thought someone would say, “actually you suck and we’re taking the contract back”.

Now, I’m pleased Law & Disorder has come to life. Every time I receive a good review, it’s often a surprise to me. Perhaps it’s the anxiety talking. I am so grateful people have been enjoying my book.

Thanks for reading.

Liv

Author Bio

Liv Arnold has worked as a copywriter for several global companies and now runs her own freelance business. She grew up in Melbourne, Australia, and lives with her husband and their spoiled dog, who only eats freshly cooked meals. When she’s not writing, Liv’s avoiding the gym, devouring a cheese platter, or marathoning way too much TV. And of course, she’s a massive book addict and often reads until all hours of the night.

Law & Disorder blurb

Lawyer Juliet Jackson has come head to head with Sergeant Jesse Burns on numerous occasions in court. He is provoking. Pigheaded. Punch-worthy. They don't get along. Not one little bit. The unfortunate fact he's also her next-door neighbor brings her loathing off the charts. But when Juliet's caught locked outside her home in nothing but a skimpy towel, she must swallow her pride and turn to Jesse for help. She doesn't expect the explosive chemistry between them and can't help but wonder if Jesse's as demanding in the bedroom as he is in the courtroom.

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Contact me

I would love to hear from you! Contact me on:

www.livarnold.com

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