One Night to Remember by Kristin Miller

Being a Titanic nutty person, when I saw this pop up on a friend's feed, I had to have it and read it myself. Woman "Robin Hood" of sorts, Titanic, Romance..."

There were things to like and things not to like.

Liked: Even though I've read this story (the sinking) so many times, I still got goosebumps reading those parts. Especially as the dude passed by a couple counting to three, prepared to jump into the frigid water below. I don't think there's any way to write a Titanic book without rehashing what we already know. It's such a talked about and marketed subject. Also was surprised by a twist at the end involving one of the heroine's robbed victims.

Didn't Like: The love story. I found it preposterous that a woman in 1912 would be so inhibited as to sleep with a man right after meeting him... It's that immediate. He catches her stealing a purse and some silverware and chases her, puts her in handcuffs, questions her in his stateroom, and they have sex?? Not buying it. Nor do I fall for immediate feelings of love.

I would have gave this a different ending. It was too predictable. Every single Titanic book, in order to have a HEA without making the hero a numbskull jerk that pushes women and children off the lifeboats to make room for himself, has the hero on the very last, submerged, overturned life raft. Now, THIS is done to death. Man ends up trying help, ends in the water himself, is placed upon the last chance boat... Just once, someone needs to kill the man off. Hey, fiction should imitate life and most of the Titanic stories weren't HEA. More of those women lost their men...

Well written, properly edited, an engaging read, but I didn't buy into the love story, and the ending is overdone. Three bikes. I bought this on Amazon Kindle.

"They were all the same. Everyone was in need at some point in their life. It was only a matter of when."

Choc Lit Run Rabbit Run Blog Tour and Giveaway

Today, I'm pleased to be another stop on a Choc Lit blog tour. (I love their books. I wish I could write one long enough to sub to them. It's on my agenda. LOL) The book of the month is Run Rabbit Run by Kate Johnson. **Also, those of you wanting a paperback copy of Run Rabbit Run, please leave a comment on this post. A winner will be chosen and notified in a week's time.**

Something I didn't know as I read this book, but Kate divulged...this had to be rewrote, and when she rewrote it, she had to update all the technology... (Technology being what is, by 2012, something you wrote in 2004 is like historical fiction! LOL)


And this what Kate has chosen to talk to us about today:

Five things I learned about rewriting a book

I wrote the first draft of Run Rabbit Run about eight years ago, and when I came to rewrite it for Choc Lit there were more than a few things I wanted to change. Not just because of the hindsight of half a dozen published (and professionally edited) books, but because, when you’re writing about international espionage, you’ve got more than  politics to keep up with.

1. In 2004 my heroine, Sophie, was constantly running in and out of Internet cafes to check her email and Google stuff. When she buys a new phone, it needs to be one with WAP capability. Does anyone remember WAP? I had to look it up. In 2012, she has an iPhone.

2. Sophie spends pretty much the whole book on the run from MI5, so she needs some falsified documents in order to leave the country under the radar. Of course, international security, especially where flying is concerned, has got a lot more stringent in the last decade. Although interestingly, most of the changes came several years after 9/11; for instance biometric passports, which were only issued in Britain and the US from 2006. Biometric passports contain facial recognition technology and a whole lot of data about the holder. This makes it pretty damn difficult to get a black-market fake passport, as Sophie needs to. However passports issued before 2006 are still valid and don’t have all that biometric malarky to worry about. Also, Sophie knows some really dodgy people. Phew!

3. In the first draft, we only saw Sophie’s 1^st person point of view, whereas one of the most major parts of the rewrite was adding in her boyfriend Luke’s POV. This also meant I had to figure out what my MI6 hero actually did all day. I’ll admit, it was fun working out how he’d evade the many professionals watching him 24/7. Stealing car keys does feature...

4. Facial recognition technology. Argh, this was a headache! How effective is it? Does it apply everywhere there’s CCTV? Can you fool it? Unsurprisingly, these are not answers you can easily get from Google (and to any police officers reading: yes, that is why those search terms are in my broswer history. Ahem). What resulted was a lot of poetic licence.

5. This is going to sound really obvious, but eight years ago I was eight years younger, and so, in terms of her character, experience and maturity, was my heroine. For her, only a few months have passed since the events of Still Waters, but for me it’s been a few years. In 2004 I wrote a heroine who was in her early/mid twenties. As I rewrote it, I was staring thirty in the face. I thought about writing in a gap of several years, but there was one huge problem with this: Sophie’s best friend Angel discovers she’s pregnant in the previous book, and the way I planned it, the baby was to be born in the sixth book. Now, I’m not an expert here, but generally babies don’t need more than about nine months to make an appearance. I thought about rewriting the sixth book (which was after all uncontracted) but in the end decided to stick with the existing circumstances. As for Sophie’s age, well it’s undisclosed here, but let’s just say that when a girl becomes a spy, meets and loses the love of her life, gets shot and shoots in return, and is then accused of murder...well, she’s going to grow up pretty fast!

Kate Johnson lives behind a keyboard in Essex and belongs to a small pride of cats. She likes wine, shoes and dying her hair, and can be found online most days talking about these things, or about how much she fancies Richard Armitage. Her first book with Choc Lit, The Untied Kingdom, is shortlisted for the Contemporary Romantic Novel of the Year 2012. You can find Kate online at http://katejohnson.co.uk and on Twitter @k8johnsonauthor.



OMG. That was pretty fascinating!!! Thanks for this post, Kate. I had no idea about that passport stuff OR biometric passports. That's too cool.


Please leave a comment on this post to be entered for a drawing of Run Rabbit Run, Choc Lit's latest espionage thriller featuring a lady spy. 


Blurb:
Sophie’s in trouble. Must be Tuesday. 
Sophie Green’s an ex-spy, or trying to be. You wouldn’t believe the trouble she’s in. An MI5 officer has been shot with her gun, her fingerprints all over his office. And no, she didn’t kill him. 

But she has gone on the run. 

Now Sophie’s desperately seeking whoever’s trying to frame and kill her. She’s being forced to work with the least trustworthy man in Europe, MI5 is following her every move, and she’s had to leave the tall, blond, god of a man she loves behind. 

Luke Sharpe works for MI6. Or did, until his girlfriend became a murder suspect. 

Doing nothing wasn’t an option, so he started investigating. Who cares if it is means jeopardising his career? Sophie’s everything he used to say he never wanted. Young, irresponsible, bright and mad. Now she’s just everything – and she has to live. 

She will live, won’t she? 

The Captain and the Courtesan by Juliet Chastain

This was the perfect romance. I was real impressed. And it's short so it made it all the sweeter... I think it takes more talent to make a couple's love fly off the page and immerse a reader in 10k or less than a 600 page saga. Ill be seeking more historical fiction from this author.

Madame M is a mysterious courtesan... she strips slowly for an audience every night, but word is she's a lady and her first night as a courtesan will go the highest bidder. "Every nobleman in London fears that she might be of his household. They keep their wives and daughters safely at home under lock and key for fear that one of them in the masked lady..."


Truth is: she's widowed and the lawyers and whatnot took all she owned. She destitute and has no choice in order to feed her son.


Edward doesn't believe in the buying of sexual favors, but something about this woman... You get the picture. He scrapes up enough money to buy her first night, but what after that? After he's lost his heart to her... As the Madame of the house says, she buys low to sell high... She won't sell her newest moneymaker.


It has a perfect ending...almost too perfect, but I loved it. I was drawn into the story, it had just enough of a historical feel. Both characters were likable. For me, this was a winner. The prose, the descriptions, the sex and the mirror... wow.


Five bikes and I bought this off the BP website.

Surrender to the Roman by M.K. Chester

"You should pierce my heart now, Marcus Cordovis, General of Rome." Her dark eyes flashed. "Because if I live, I will not hesitate to kill you."

Wow. Tough chick. That's the heroine of this book, Ademeni, a Dacian princess turned slave after her nation is conquered by the Romans. So how does she go from threatening to kill the hero to warming his bed and fearing for his life?


Never judge a man solely by the actions of the group as a whole. Marcus does have a heart, unlike his brother in law. The evil BIL sets Ademeni in Marcus's home and sets him up for fall. He claims to the Emperor that Marcus has fallen in love with the slave (true...) and has changed his loyalties... (eh...sorta..)


See, Marcus realizes for the first time what Rome does to others. His loyalty as a soldier is not in question. He has a job to do and knows it, but as he falls in love with the head strong slave, he realizes...


"He did not like what his eyes beheld. A different side of history. The story of a people who had built an empire on the backs of others. Men who had turned on one another to gain power--only to do nothing good with that power. Did the deeds of a few good men truly extinguish the stench of the useless?"


Ademeni begins the story with intent to kill...then intent to seduce to gain her freedom, but instead, falls in love. The story builds up with awesome crescendo as we wonder what is going to happen with the Marcus and his BIL. As they go before the Emperor, the reader is left dying of suspense. Who will be rendered guilty? Who will be killed? How? Will the man be torn apart by animals? Will they be forced to kill each other? Will Ademeni ever see the man she loves again?


Well done. I think the relationship/romance between Ademeni and Marcus could have been built up a bit more...it felt choppy and sudden on her part, though I can't say I would do any better. 


Four bikes. I received this thru netgalley.

The Thirteen by Susie Moloney

This is probably the most disturbing book I've ever read...second only to Rosemary's Baby.

Imagine having everything you want: nice house, good looks, money, perfect children, hubby that works hard--until you have to sacrifice him, of course... and all you have to do is give your soul to the devil. Would you do it?


Thirteen women in this small town did. They have sex with him. (And that is one really creepy scene!!!! Whoa! Well done!) They offer their blood. They sacrifice dogs. (Hated that part.) And they also sacrifice their husbands down the road...and in once case, a son.


And then these crazy ladies become 12 (A NO NO) and so they recruit or try to recruit Paula and this is what didn't make sense: All these crazy witches sell their souls to the devil in order to make their children perfect, happy, and give them everything...so why in the hell are they asking another woman to kill hers?


Pretty gruesome and cool and disturbing. Barbie doll as a weapon! Fingers falling off. A Jeep running over pedestrians. A woman becoming a goat. Evil cats! And at the center of it all, Paula and her daughter, Rowan, blissfully ignorant.


Quibble: The Paula/Sandy romance came out of nowhere... One date? Hello? And the ending...did NOT fit with the rest of the book. Rowan didn't go that way. That was weird. But overall, the book really impacted and even scared me at times.


I received this as an ARC from the publisher. Four bikes.

Lucky Seven

 

Here are the rules:
1. Go to page 77 of your current ms
2. Go to line 7
3. Copy down the next 7 lines - sentences or paragraphs - and post them as they're written. No cheating.
4. Tag 7 other authors.

My current WIP does not hit 77 pages yet, so I used page 7, seventh line, next 7 lines. Here's what I have from my political thriller/joint project with Kelly Yeakle.

Sasha was taking advantage of the latter that day. There was something therapeutic about shooting the shit out of paper crotches.

As she  maneuvered her '66 Dodge Coronet into a parking space, she tried to smother the hard knot of dread that had begun in her belly and spread up into her lungs, causing her chest to feel constricted. Those commercials must have given me heartburn.

As soon as she unbuckled her seat belt, she slipped on a little denim jacket to hide the gun from innocent and delicate pedestrians, slammed the car door, and walked up the short paved path to the entrance of the adjoining gun range.


And I'm tagging....
Dahlia DeWinter
Staci Perkins
Raven McAllan
W. Lynn Chantale
D.M. Slate
Lisa Yarde
Gayl Taylor


If you don't want to, that's fine, but it is fun! 

Devil Wears Lace by L.B. Shire

Wild West and romance. I love books like this. And the chick isn't wearing a dress and washing clothes in a river, but wearing britches, packing a gun, and entering a horse race. 


She's hell-bent on revenge. Some fella shot her husband and child dead long ago and she's going to shoot him dead--after he hands over the race money that she means to win. It's a race of no rules so naturally, people are being killed left and run.

Sara happens to be competing again a man she thinks she loves too. She wants his body, that's for sure. So, we got a tough chick beating up bartenders, shooting men dead, riding her mare to victory, getting revenge, and having hot sex. 


A great read. My one quibble: I felt like the beginning of the story was missing. I think this could have been better as a novel. I'd love to have seen her before her family was murdered, watched how she changed afterwards, how she learned to shoot a gun, how she found her sister and the ban of outlaws. I felt we could have had a whole novel here. 


Four bikes. I bought this on Kindle.