Author Jacquie Biggar Shares Her Summer #RomanticIdea + Character Interview

Summer #RomanticIdeaJacquie’s Summer #RomanticIdea: a picnic on the beach with your soul mate. There’s nothing more romantic than moon and surf and loving kisses in the sand. 🙂

Guardian coverThe Guardian blurb:

Restitution begins with the truth

Lucas Carmichael and Scott Anderson had it all, money, fame, and fortune. But one night’s stupid mistake takes everything they thought they cherished and dumps it upside down.

A car accident ends Lucas’ life and leaves Scott injured and bitter.

As the local ME, Tracy York, investigates the case, discrepancies begin to point to more than a simple drunk driving incident.

When threats are made to Tracy’s life can Scott and his guardian angel, Lucas, protect her, or will she become another casualty?

Available at Amazon: http://amzn.com/b01d4d3lms

Add to your wish list at Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29510815-the-guardian

Excerpt:

“Look, Trace…”

“Don’t you ‘look, Trace’, me.” She sighed, and moved to his side. Her fingers sent tingles upward from where they rested on his arm. “You may be used to playing the hero for damsels in distress, but that’s not me, okay?” Her eyes were emerald green, mesmerizing in their brilliance. “I’m used to taking care of myself. I don’t need coddling.”

No, maybe she didn’t. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t use someone to take the burden away. He wanted to be that someone.

He raised a hand and brushed a velvety soft cheek, reveling in her body’s response. Eyelids fluttered and lips parted as though waiting for a kiss. Maybe she didn’t want the fairy tale, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t be her prince.

He leaned down and accepted her invitation.

Heaven.

Her taste reminded him of blue skies and endless meadows. Of songbirds and bubbling brooks. She was his fire when he got cold and food when he was hungry. She made him weak, yet superhero strong, all with a look or a touch. And he couldn’t get enough.

“Take me home with you,” he whispered.

Tracy gazed at him, her eyes conflicted. “We should…”

“What? Slow down? Deny what’s happening between us?” He tunneled his hand into her hair and cupped the side of her head, relieved when she leaned into the touch. “I can’t. If there’s anything I’ve learned in the past couple of weeks, it’s that there are no guarantees.”

He leaned forward until their foreheads touched. Until every breath was shared. Until there was no room for misunderstandings.

“I want you.”

Character Interview with Lucas:

What do you do for a living?

“I save souls. When I was a human I led a fairly selfish life as a movie star. Now that I’m dead my task is to make restitution so that I can move on to the other side.”

What is your greatest fear?

Shifts uncomfortably. “To be alone.”

What do you wear when you go to sleep?

“You’re supposed to wear something?” Grins slyly. “Come over one night and you’ll find out.”

What is your most prized possession?

Flexes shoulders. “Now that I have them, I’d have to say my wings.” Hesitates for a moment. “They give me worth.”

What do you think your greatest weakness is?

Looks down at his hands. “Natalya. She doesn’t know it, but she’s owned my heart from the moment we met.”

author Jacquie BiggarAuthor Bio:

Jacquie writes Romantic Suspense with tough, alpha males who know what they want, until they’re gob-smacked by heroines who are strong, contemporary women willing to show them that what they really need is love.

Jacquie has been blessed with a long, happy marriage and enjoys writing romance novels that end with happy-ever-afters.

She lives in paradise along the west coast of Canada with her family and loves reading, writing, and flower gardening. Jacquie swears she can’t function without coffee, preferably at the beach with her sweetheart. 🙂

Follow Jacquie’s website below – if you check out her giveaways page you’ll find tons of great prizes every month!

http://jacqbiggar.com
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Dark Brew and Summer #RomanticIdea from Author @DianaLRubino

Summer #RomanticIdeaAuthor Diana Rubino is here to tell us about her new release, Dark Brew, and share her Summer #RomanticIdea.

Diana’s #RomanticIdea:

Cook an authentic Italian meal, ravioli or linguini with homemade pasta sauce, garlic bread, a salad with Italian olive oil, a fine Italian red wine, and a sweet gelato for dessert. Then put on some Sinatra CDs and dance the night away!

Dark Brew coverDark Brew
A time travel romance
Learn from the past or forever be doomed to repeat it.
Worldwide release date July 22, with The Wild Rose Press

An interview with Diana about Dark Brew:

Where did the story come from?

This story took 11 years from start to finish. I’m a longtime member of the Richard III Society, and in the spring of 2004, I read an article in The Ricardian Register by Pamela Butler, about Alice Kyteler, who lived in Kilkenny, Ireland in 1324, and faced witchcraft charges. After her trial and acquittal, she vanished from the annals of history. I couldn’t resist writing a book about her.

How did you decide to make it a paranormal?

I’m a believer in reincarnation, and I go on paranormal investigations whenever I can. I’ve gone on several past life regressions. Cape Cod has a lot of history and paranormal activity. I’ve been on many ghost walks and ghost hunts there. I wanted to connect Alice in the past with someone in the present, her reincarnation.

Was Alice Kyteler famous in 14th century Ireland?

Not at all but she was the richest woman in Kilkenny, and for that reason the villagers hated her, especially the men. They accused her of killing her first husband, but she was acquitted. Then they accused her of killing her fourth husband, John LePoer, with witchcraft, the accusations more absurd than those of the 1692 witch hysteria in Salem, Massachusetts. Chancellor Edward de Burgh arrested Alice because her stepsons claimed she had murdered John by casting a witch’s spell with malefecia…and she used the enchanted skull of a beheaded thief as her cauldron.

She went to trial and her dear friend Michael Artson had her acquitted, but she vanished into the annals of history. According to legend, she went to England. But no one knows for sure.

Why did you make it a time travel?

Kylah McKinley lives on my beloved Cape Cod. She’s a Druid, a ghost hunter and owns a new age store in a restored Revolutionary War-era tavern. She was also the target of a hit-and-run. Another hit-and-run crippled her husband Ted. That’s no coincidence—she’s convinced someone’s out to get them both.

From many past life regressions, Kylah knows she’s the reincarnation of Alice, so she brews an ancient Druid herb mixture, goes back in time and enters Alice’s life to find out exactly what happened and who killed her husband.

These two months of hell change her life forever. Kylah’s life mirrors Alice’s in one tragic event after another—she finds her husband sprawled on the floor, cold, blue, with no pulse. Evidence points to her, and police arrest her for his murder. Kylah and Alice shared another twist of fate—they fell in love with the man who believed in them. As Kylah prepares for her trial and fights to maintain her innocence, she must learn from her past or she’s doomed to repeat it.

Have you ever spoken to Pamela Butler, who wrote the article about Alice?

Yes, we’ve corresponded. She lives in New Mexico, so we’ve never met in person. I asked Pam what inspired her to write about Alice. I’d never heard of Alice until I read her article, “Witchcraft & Heresy”. She replied:

“You asked why I wrote about Alice Kyteler, who preceded Richard by a century-and-a-half. I only wrote it because others on the listserv encouraged me to write about witchcraft, a subject about which I knew very little. I ordered three books from Amazon.com on the subjects of witchcraft, heresy, Satanism, etc. for research reasons. That was my basis, plus I searched the Internet. The Malleus Malleficarum was published in 1487, just two years after Richard’s death, so it’s almost contemporary. I chanced across Alice in this reading and thought that it was an interesting case. Witch burning was fairly rare in Ireland, and wasn’t as bad in England at that time as it had been on the Continent. I wish that the M.M. had never been published; still, the fact that it was published and accepted may reveal the mindset of those times.”

An excerpt from Dark Brew:

Kylah shut Ted’s den door. She couldn’t bear to look at the spot where he gasped his last breath. His presence, an imposing force, lingered. So did his scent, a blend of tobacco, pine aftershave and manly sweat. Each reminder ripped into her heart like a knife. Especially now with the funeral looming ahead, the eulogies, the mournful organ hymns, the tolling bells…

These ceremonies should bring closure, but they’d only prolong the agony of her grief. She wanted to remember him alive for a while longer, wishing she could delay these morbid customs until the hurt subsided.

Throughout the house, his essence echoed his personality: the wine stain on the carpet, the heap of dirty shirts, shorts and socks piled up in the laundry room, the spattered stove, his fingerprints on the microwave. But she couldn’t bring herself to clean any of it up. Painful as these remnants were, they offered a strange comfort. He still lived here.

“I’ll find that murderer, Teddy,” she promised him over and over, wandering from room to empty room, traces of him lurking in every corner. “I’ll do everything in my power to make sure justice is served. Another past life regression isn’t enough anymore. I know what I have to do now. And I promise, it will never, ever happen again—in any future life.”

She inhaled deeply and breathed him in. “Go take a shower, Teddy.” She chuckled through her tears as the doorbell rang. She cringed, breaking out in cold sweat when she saw the black sedan at the curb.

“Not again.” No sense in hiding, so she let the detectives in.

“Mrs. McKinley, we need your permission to do a search and take some of your husband’s possessions from the house,” Nolan said.

“What for?” She met his steely stare. “I looked everywhere and found nothing.”

“Mrs. McKinley, the cupboard door was open, four jars of herbs are missing, and the autopsy showed he died of herb poisoning. Those herbs,” Nolan added for emphasis, as if it had slipped her feeble mind. “Foxglove, mandrake, hemlock—and an as-yet unidentified one,” he read from a notebook. “The M.E. determined it was a lethal dose.”

Sherlock Holmes got nothin’ on him, she thought.

“Where’s this cupboard, ma’am?” Egan spoke up.

“Right there.” She pointed, its door gaping exactly the way she’d found it that night. Nolan went over to it and peered inside.

“Ma’am, it would be better if you left the house for a half hour or so. Please leave a number where you can be reached,” Egan ordered.

Nolan glanced down the hall. “Where is your bedroom?”

What could they want in the bedroom? “It’s at the top of the stairs on the right. But we didn’t sleep together,” she offered, as if that would faze them. It didn’t.

After giving him her cell number, she got into her car and drove to the beach.

An hour later, she let herself back in and looked around. They’d taken the computer, her case of CDs, her thumb drive, her remaining herb jars, Ted’s notebooks, and left her alone with one horrible fact: This was now a homicide case and she was the prime suspect.

Purchase Dark Brew:
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