This is a blog hop. Be sure to check the link at the bottom to see posts from other authors!
Blurb:
Betrothed by her father to a man twice her age, Sarah Forsythe does the unthinkable—she escapes her arranged marriage and runs away with the son of a Methodist minister. Not to Gretna Green, to colonial America—the New World. For Sarah, a “new world” of broken promises, abandonment, poverty and shame. Around her, the American Revolution is quickly developing and the siege of Boston worsens by the day. As British soldiers seek out traitors and treason, a desperate Sarah breaks open a safe looking for cash. Instead, she finds a box holding Bank of England documents. Through willpower, bitter determination, and lying through her teeth, Sarah manages to make her way home to England. What she doesn’t know is that two men follow, and they will do anything to claim those documents.
Bank investigator Neil McAlister faces an almost impossible task—to determine the true owner of the documents by deciding who is lying. Most of all, as danger creeps ever closer, he needs to know who wants the secretive, beautiful Sarah dead.
Buy link:
Kindle Unlimited
Excerpt:
A voice from behind made her jump. “Why aren’t you dancing?”
Sarah whirled around. “Because…” She didn’t know what to say.
“No one asked? I can barely believe it.”
Feeling stupid and awkward, she remained silent.
“Don’t tell me you can’t dance,” Neil taunted.
“Take care of your bank business and I’ll take care of my shortcomings,” she bit back.
“I can’t take care of my bank business if you won’t allow me to take the documents to London.” he said sharply.
“I told you I want a written assurance of a reward. I know and you know I will never see them again.”
Neil leaned closer. “I told you we can apply to the courts for a warrant to seize them.”
“You will seize a pile of ash.”
“You could go to prison,” Neil replied coldly.
“Really? I should have burned them in Boston to keep warm.” She shrugged. “I believe they are quite genuine, otherwise you wouldn’t be in such a fuss.”
“They must be examined properly. Forgeries are the bank’s biggest headache.”
“If they are genuine, the bank can hold them for Claude Westfield and give me an appropriate reward for bringing them safely to you.”
“You are not shy in demanding money,” Neil said caustically.
“No, I’m not. I rely on my brother for a roof over my head and it—” She broke off as her cheeks flushed. “Go and enjoy yourself and leave me alone.”
As she moved away Neil put his hand on her arm. “There is no need to be unpleasant. If they are genuine, we will discuss it further.”
“Nothing more to discuss,” Sarah’s eyes never left his. “Remove your hand.”
Neil’s face hardened. “You think you hold all the cards, madam, but rest assured, until you are more amenable, you’ll get nothing.”
“Neither will you, sir. Beneath your smooth bank exterior, you are no better than your forebears who loaned their gold at outrageous interest.”
Neil’s fingers dug into her arm. “You are no better than a street hawker yourself.”
“Get your hand off me,” Sarah’s voice rose as she wrenched her arm away. “Leave me alone!”
Neil’s expression changed from irritation to disbelief to shock. “Good God,” he breathed. “It was you.”
About Jan:
Jan Selbourne was born and educated in Melbourne, Australia and her love of literature and history began as soon as she learned to read and hold a pen. After graduating from a Melbourne Business College her career began in the dusty world of ledgers and accounting, working in Victoria, Queensland and the United Kingdom. On the point of retiring, she changed course to work as secretary of a large NSW historical society. Now retired Jan is enjoying her love of travelling and literature. She has two children, a stray live in cat and lives near Maitland, New South Wales.
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Blurb:
This year I made a big, fat boo-boo. I had in mind to fix a ham for dinner. Ham is something we rarely have, so it sounded appealing—a treat in this year that has been no treat. So I bought a ham. Jack, at nearly the same time, said that a local grocery had turkey thighs and breasts on sale. Since he doesn’t like white meat and I don’t care for dark, and there are only two of us, so we didn’t need a whole bird, that seemed like a great solution. Without conscious thought, we ended up with both turkey and ham for Thanksgiving dinner. Talk about a plethora of goodness! We’ll have a little of each for dinner and then I will cut and package the rest to use in leftovers or to freeze.
ham and mac & cheese, and of course sandwiches. But with the turkey I’ll make turkey pot pie. Here’s my recipe, give or take. I kinda make it up as I go along but this is a reasonable facsimile. I make two—one with white meat and one with dark. I know, I know. I spoil the man but what can I say? I love him.
The question this week is whether characters are more fun as idealists or pragmatists. You know, do you prefer to write (or read) those characters who always strive for the vision and tilt at windmills, perhaps, or characters who see tings as they really are—and who maybe take advantage of that realism, as J.R. did. I think the answer is, too much of anything can be, well, too much.
dream a little bit are necessary. In my newly (re)published erotic romance The Cinderella Curse, heroine Charlotte dreams of meeting and capturing her Prince Charming, the head of her publishing firm. He’s somewhat out of her league in that he’s rich, influential, and worldly. And she’s…not. But still, she sees her goal and simply won’t accept that she can’t have him. We all know what happened to Cinderella when she made her wish and then made it to the ball: Katy bar the door!
Would I have enjoyed these two if I had written them too strongly in one direction or another? No. Charlotte had to have some common sense and Cooper some flexibility in order for them to be fun and realistic. A good book is composed of characters of both stripes. That can create good conflict and fun reading, no matter which type of character you tend towards.
Excerpt:
Someone asked me a while back if my book, Burning Bridges, was romance or women’s lit? She said the description sounded like women’s lit, and she doesn’t review that genre. Gosh, this was something I hadn’t considered before. I thought of my book as romance. I think of women’s lit as centered around a woman and how she solves her life problems, but with elements of romance. In fact, so many books I read as “women’s lit” were actually (in my mind) romances. The woman’s problem was so often being alone (after a long-term breakup or a failed marriage) and finding a new partner while solving her problems. I fail to see how that is different from most romances.
there is very little romance or bonding with someone else? Is that women’s lit? 
