Conception by Sarah McCarty

Hi Guys, the first author I will be interviewing is the award winning author Sarah McCarty. Thanks to all the people who sent questions, unfortunately, the first few interviews will not include any of the selected questions, as I sent my original questions, before I posted the competition. Talk about disorganised huh?

Anyway, let the questions commence:

Author Name: Sarah McCarty
Website: http://www.sarahmccarty.net/
Genre: Western historical, Contemporary, Paranormal
Latest book in shops now: Unchained: Mac’s Law

Karen: Before we begin this interview, I need to check that you’re still grounded and that your head isn’t swollen from all of your success, so with that in mind, what was the last thing you bought on Ebay, and do you know how much a carton of milk costs?

Sarah: Let’s see. I bought something on Ebay a year ago. Horrible experience.
Item was not what was advertised and I had to threaten the folk with dire consequences, but after four months got my money back plus some. Have never purchased from there again and never will.

I don’t measure milk by the carton but by gallons. I buy $30 worth a week for the family. It’s a purchase that takes up a chunk of the weekly grocery budget so it keeps me well grounded.

Karen: Name your top five favourite books that you read as a child:

Sarah: All of Zane Grey, Jack London and Edgar Rice Burroughs (It’s easier to ask me authors than individual books)

Sarah: Coming Up Roses by Catherine Anderson, Whitney My Love by, Judith Mc Naught, The Outsider by, Penelope Williamson. The Bride by, Julie Garwood, West of the Pecos by Zane Grey.

I’m experimenting with a bunch of new authors looking for treasure. I just read two by Candace Sams that I really enjoyed. Stone Heart and Goblin Moon.

Sarah: Ah, you just had to go the heart of my neurosis didn’t you? There are only three things I’m obsessive about in the world, my kids, my fosters and my writing.

Even though I know it’s impossible, especially as I’m a character writer and therefore each of my stories will take on the personalities of the hero and heroine rather than the feel of the plot, (this means a different book each time rather than a consistent
tone).

Sarah: Promises Prevail. It was a story from my heart. A complete risk career wise, and totally draining emotionally, but from the moment Clint said he would have no other but his Jenna, I was enthralled with the challenge of taking this totally different type of heroine and finding her a home in readers heart’s.

Sarah: I, Robot. (I hate to sit still so I don’t do theaters well)

Sarah: I only have one. Murphy’s Romance with James Gardner and Sally Fields.

Sarah: Penelope Williamson. Her book, The Outsider, I thought was the most perfect I’ve ever read.

Sarah: Candace Sams’ Goblin Moon. Really enjoyed it. I’m going into Fictionwise
for more of this author.

Sarah: My next print book to release is Promises Prevail
and will be available September 28th. My next ebook releases August 31st from Ellora’s Cave.

It’s the first book of my new series. The OTHERS, Conception was difficult to write as it’s a new genre for me, (paranormal with suspense elements) but I just loved these two characters so I couldn’t back away from the challenge. Dusan is so formal and old worldly, while Eden is all modern sass and determination, yet the two of them work together.

His steadiness and calm gives her the balance to find her feet as their worlds collide while her sense of humor is a vehicle which helps them to bridge the differences between their cultures.

They often made me laugh and just as often sigh, thinking “Perfect.” Ok. And a couple times they made me blink and think, “Well, I didn’t see that coming.” Despite the fact that he drinks blood and she’d prefer to abstain, they are so good as a couple.

For those of you who are interested in any of Sarah’s offerings, you can find a list of her books here.

Coming up next week: Lori Foster

Utter Devastation

My heart goes out to all the people who have lost family, friends, and livelihood in the tragedy that is Hurricane Katrina.

Here in England we’ve had a three day weekend, which is always good. It’s been hectic to say the least.

Today, Paul and I, and some friends, visited a popular theme park here in England called Alton Towers. We went on lots of rides, ate lots of junk food, and generally behaved like children. It was lots of fun.

All in all, it was a jolly good weekend. Anybody do anything interesting?

For my regular visitors, the following post is for my benefit, and my benefit alone, so I wont be offended if you don’t read on, but I assure you, normal service will resume shortly.

Normal service will resume shortly.

Yeah, yeah, so it’s a mouthful, but I couldn’t find another title that could explain this post better than the above.

Basically, the heroine, Carla, had been married before, but as per usual, she was a married woman who’d never had good sex. Ever. Let me remind you, she’d been married for six years.

Obviously her husband had died in a tragic car crash (don’t they all?) and they had adored each other and all, but unfortunately, they were incompatible in the sack, (and they lasted six years?) so by the time the hero shows up, she’s feeling so horny that even the gherkin starts looking appealing.

Why do they have to wait until they meet the hero, before they can finally have good sex?

Bitch Fight

The reason I ask the above question, is because over and over again, I see examples of how much we, as women, seem to dislike other women.

It happens a lot in the work place.

I once had a female boss who could have been Attila the hun in another life, but do you know what, I thought she was f*cking great. All the men who were subservient to her thought she had balls instead of a vagina, (although I did catch one or two of them drooling over her, must have been the power thing) and the women thought she was Hitler disguised as Barbie, and thus, she became the number one focus of their bitch fests.

I once asked a colleague why she hated our boss so much. Do you know what her answer was? Well here it is for you.

“Because she acts like a man”.

Now apparently, acting like a man is a cardinal sin amongst other women. Being strong-willed is frowned upon, and is seen as an affront to sisterhood.

Sisterhood? What sisterhood?

It seems to me that it’s ok to be a ball buster as long as you’re not female. The fact was, most of the females in our company at that time, hated my boss because she was attractive, intelligent, strong-willed, had a good job, and had other men in her power. She was just too much competition for the average woman. She should have been applauded for being all those things, yet because of those very characteristics, she was villified by other female members of staff.

Another example is the Big Brother T.V show. In this country, every year without fail, the strong-willed women, and the women with big personalities always get voted off first. We’ve had six big brothers so far, and in all of those years, we’ve only had one female winner (and that was because all the men were either assholes or snooze- worthy). Nadia, who was last year’s winner doesn’t count because she was a transsexual. She used to be a frickin’ man.

Women in politics is another good example of woman on woman hate. When Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister over here, she was often referred to as the Iron Lady, The Bitch, and a whole host of other derogatory names, that had nothing specifically to do with her brand of politics. Why? BECAUSE SHE WAS A STRONG WOMAN.

In the few introspective articles that I’ve read about Condoleezza Rice, (articles written by other women incidentally) she’s often referred to as a cold woman who would benefit from a good lay. Did we ever say such a thing about Colin Powell? Why not just say, ‘she’s a tough talking politician who takes no prisoners?’ Why are emotive words and derogatory terms used by other women, when it comes to describing another woman?

In romance books, we generally seem to love the hero, and more often than not, find the heroines irritating, and even if we like the heroine, we don’t gush to the same extent as we do when a writer creates a truly wonderful hero. Why is that?

I, myself am guilty of this also. I find it hard to tolerate wimpy women, but ball-busting heroines who are overly aggressive, piss me off too. What is the happy medium?

We talk about feminism and sisterhood a lot, but I sure don’t see any shining examples of it. Even within the romance community, there is more bitching and backstabbing that goes on (and I’m not just talking about the readers) than I’ve ever known. This has to be because the industry is run mostly by women for other women.

Why is it so hard to support each other without letting petty jealousies get in the way? As women, are we generally more hateful than men? Scott?

Between The Sheets, Meg Bellamy

So, I read Between The Sheets by Meg Bellamy this weekend. What can I say, you gotta read it to believe it.

Because this book was so special, I insist on giving it the full KarenS stylie treatment.

Here’s the blurb: (BTW, this review contains SPOILERS)

Girl Woman Singer first shot to fame with her angelic voice when she was just an embryo…. I’m kidding of course, she was actually a young teenage girl.

But as with all romance books, everything is sorted out in the end, and Girl Woman Singer and Boy Raging Cock live happily ever after.

My Verdict

Jesus. Effing. Christ.

Now, the premise of the story, was a fairly interesting one, which is what drew me to the book in the first place. I’d actually only gone to the publisher’s site to look for a link, but the thing is, once I get onto those sites, I start browsing, and the next thing you know, I’m bloody buying. Anyway I digress…

The cover was rubbish, but I didn’t let that put me off, because the story sounded really good.

And it would have been… had it been written by Katherine Allred. (sorry, couldn’t resist Emjai) Anyhoo I had some MAJOR issues with this book. I’m really not sure how it got published.

It was amateur at best and f*cking awful at worst.

The heroine was so damned annoying, I spent half the time, hoping that the hero would have a psychotic episode, and beat her over the head until she stopped talking, and thus stopped irritating me.

She was supposed to be this girl, who was trying to prove that she was woman enough to sing love songs, but honestly, she came across as incredibly immature and petulant. (Did I mention that I wanted her to meet with an untimely accident?)

I was also staggered by the fact that she decided to seduce the hero just to prove that she was a woman of the world. From a practical point of view, I’m not so sure it’s wise to stalk a man and stick your tongue down his throat after having known him for all of two minutes. In years gone by (when I was a teenager), she would have been called a bitch-assed ho, but these days, this just makes her a liberated woman, so let’s just go with that shall we?

Also, for somebody who had majored in Philosophy (what kind of subject is that anyway?) she was bloody clueless.

The hero also left a lot to be desired, and he wasn’t even an arrogant asshole. He was just… well, he was just stupid. No more, no less.

The execution of this story was the poorest I’ve come across in a while (Even JW Mckenna did better… shit, did I just say that aloud?) and I’m still trying to figure out, how it got past the editor. It was just all over the place, and there were actually some glaring inaccuracies in the book, which I can’t be arsed going back to find in order to reference for you.

Technically, the book was incredibly flawed, the characters had very little depth, the dialogue was kindergarten-like, and amateurish, the situations that the characters found themselves in were too unbelievable to be taken seriously, and I still don’t believe that the hero had such a huge cock, with such a tiny brain. Two words. Frontal lobotomy.

All in all, (for me at least) the book stank, but the positive thing about Between The Sheets, was that I felt that the author had really enjoyed writing this book, unfortunately until I read another of her offerings, I’ll probably reserve judgement as to how far she’s going to go.

BTW Meg, if by chance, you Google search your name a hundred times, and find this review, please know this, I asked somebody else to do this write-up, but she read eight pages and couldn’t finish the book, (and no, I didn’t offer my own opinion before she started reading.) so don’t blame me, blame her.

Yeah, Anne, I’m talking about you *g*

Also remember, it’s just one teeny tiny opinion, and is worth shit in the great scheme of things.

11 Year Old Scottish Boy Murdered…

Why this or any child? Rest in peace Rory Blackhall.

Well Maili has her reader interviews, so I thought it would be a fab idea to have author interviews. I’m hoping to get a variety of romance authors on here to answer questions about themselves. Questions, that perhaps they haven’t been asked before.

To submit your questions, e-mail me at hairylemony@gmail.com , please write ‘Interview Questions’ in the subject header.

Gotta go and do some stalking now, so wish me luck!

Just to remind you budding writers out there, the time to enter Stella Cameron’s Scarlet Boa Contest has nearly run out. The competition is open to published and non-published writers. You have until September 1st to get your submissions in.

Good luck guys!!

Well it was inevitable that I’d piss somebody off sooner or later with my personal take on the books that I read. Whenever I write a review that is less than glowing, I’m always conscious of the likelihood, that the author whose book I’ve slammed, will eventually stumble upon my ramblings , and take issue with some of the comments that I’ve made.

This is what I wrote:

“Hi Emjai,

Ms Colbert took issue with me comparing her to another author, but in the real world, this is something that does happen a lot, especially if it’s a new author. It happens in the film and music industry, why not in romance?

As it happens, on this occasion, I wasn’t comparing their style and voice, I was comparing the quality, and as a reader, I’m allowed to do that I think.

I wrote in my review that I’d buy another book by Ms Colbert, and I meant it. It was her first book, and in my opinion it wasn’t perfect, but I think that she will get better, and as patronising as that may sound, my version of better, means a book that engages me, personally. Yep folks, it’s all about me.

PS, to see the original review, click on http://karenscottworld.blogspot.com/2005/08/my-verdict-on-if-tomorrow-never-comes.html

I’ve had a busy old week, this week, so I’ve been relaxing by web-hopping all over the place.

Most of you have probably read Mrs Giggle’s rant on erotic romance, but for those of you who haven’t, go take a look. It is rather amusing. If anybody else had written this, I probably would have dedicated a whole blog to it, but we all know Mrs G Tells it how she sees it, and does it very well too, so I’ll just leave you to form your own opinions.

This reader has stopped buying romance’s because of the “billious tripe currently being pumped out by publishing houses”. Bare in mind that this was written a couple of years ago, who knows, she may have gone back to reading romances again.

This guy thinks that romance novels are the used condoms of literature . If you have a heart condition, I wouldn’t even bother reading it cuz you’ll only get mad.

Apparently Eminem is addicted to sleeping pills. Surely he would be constantly asleep, if he was taking them all the time? Oh I get it, this is why he’s so exhausted… Poor thing.

I’ve just spent the last 30 minutes browsing round this website. This is just soooo American. Perhaps the Tall Guy and I should have had our own website to share our love story with the world? *g*
I hear that Al Reynold’s is gay, is that true? Is this another Liza Minelli and David Gest situation? Oh I hope not, the website is too beautiful for it to have all been fake… Check out the wedding pictures. I sure would have liked Hilary Clinton at my wedding…

I wonder if any of