Meet author Delaney Diamond

Can you tell us a little about how you started writing; was it something you have always wanted to do?

Actually, no. I wrote my first romance novel at the age of fourteen (which I only shared with my friends), and I won a few short story contests throughout high school. Once I got to college, I didn’t write fiction any more. For years I never thought about fiction writing again. For some reason, a trip to Rome made me consider it, and in 2009 I decided to try. I joined the Romance Writers of America in January of 2010, and in November 2010 my debut novel, The Arrangement, was released by Amira Press.

What do you consider to be the key elements of a great story?

I think there are three key elements to a great story: 1) interesting main characters, 2) a compelling plot with good, well-defined conflict that keeps you turning the pages, and 3) a knockout ending.

Can you tell me a bit about your most recent/upcoming release?

I grew up watching wrestling with my father, and when I decided I wanted to write a romance novel with an athlete as a hero, I made him a wrestler. Fight for Love is the second book in my Hot Latin Men series. It’s a story about Rafael Lopez, a former professional wrestler, and Rebekah Jamison, a conservative science teacher.

I admire the athleticism and skill of wrestlers, and even though I don’t watch it like I used to, I still get a kick out of their showmanship. More than anything, the story is about how love can survive and stand the test of time.

Rebekah and Rafael met when she was seventeen and he was twenty. Her parents didn’t approve of him, and they eloped after she graduated from high school. About a year later, a tabloid scandal caused Rebekah to end her marriage to Rafael.  When the story opens, nine years have passed, and Rafael shows up unannounced at Rebekah’s door. He finds out he has an eight-year-old son, and that’s when the fireworks begin.

Is there a genre you haven’t done that you would like to explore in the future? 

I like reading historicals, and I’ve toyed with the idea of writing in that genre. I have to admit the research necessary to ensure the historical accuracy of the clothes, culture, language, etc. is daunting. At the moment, I don’t have any specific story ideas. I have plenty to keep me busy in the contemporary arena.

Do you listen to music when writing? 

No, I don’t. It’s too distracting. I need absolute quiet when I write.

What are your thoughts on love scenes in romance novels, do you find them difficult to write?

I don’t find them as difficult as I used to, but they are still difficult to write. There are only so many ways you can make it interesting and describe the act while making sure the scene flows smoothly and has the right amount of sexual charge you’d like your readers to feel. If it weren’t for a thesaurus, I’d really be in trouble. Love scenes are more fun to read than write!

What are some of your favorite things or hobbies to do?

I looooooooove to travel. If money were no object, that’s what I would spend most of my time doing. I like to learn about the customs and history of other cultures. I’m planning a couple of trips now. One will be a trip to Asia next year, which I’m very excited about. I haven’t decided which countries yet, but I hope to take at least three weeks off and visit three or four countries.

I also enjoy cooking and like trying new recipes. I have a radio mounted in the kitchen and listen to music while I cook. It’s very relaxing.

What do you have coming up next for you? Care to share any details with us?

Thank you for asking. Here’s what I’m working on:

1) The third free read for the Free Reads section of my website.

2) The third book in the Hot Latin Men series. The heroine is Samirah Jamison, Rebekah’s younger sister, who makes a brief appearance in Fight for Love.

3) An African-American romance tentatively titled The Temptation of a Good Man. It’s about Dr. Roarke Hawthorne, who’s shocked to see the woman he spent a passionate night with show up at his sister’s wedding on the arm of his brother.

Who are some of your favorite authors, and if we were to visit your home, what books would we find on your bookshelf, end table, floor or e-reader? 

I mostly read romance and mystery/thrillers. I have books on true crime, politics, and business, a small library of cookbooks, and books on the craft of writing.

Regarding favorite authors, how much time do you have? I’ll give you a short list of favorites: Dean Koontz, Tami Hoag, Beverly Jenkins, Maureen Smith, Rochelle Alers, Kate Walker, Trish Morey, Abby Green, Sarah Morgan, Adrienne Byrd, James Patterson, Agatha Christie, Lynne Graham, and Sandra Marton.

Where can readers find you on the web?

Website and blog: www.delaneydiamond.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/DelaneyDiamond

Once per month I blog here: http://sweetnsexydivas.blogspot.com

Thank you for having me. I enjoyed it! 

 Sneak Peek into Fight for Love

Blurb:

Science teacher Rebekah Jamison lives a quiet life in the suburbs of Atlanta. Devastated by a tabloid scandal nine years ago, she ended her marriage to the man her parents never approved of.

Rafael Lopez, former professional wrestler and “Sexiest Athlete Alive,”regrets the lapse in judgment that caused him to lose his wife. He shows up unannounced one day with some startling news, but he gets a surprise of his own. He finds out he’s a father. To get to know his son, he whisks him and Rebekah off to his home in the Hollywood Hills for the summer.

Warning: Get ready for a sensual battle of wills as a conservative teacher lowers her inhibitions and is reminded of why she fell in love with a sexy bad boy wrestler in the first place. 

Excerpt:

This scene takes place after Rafael shows up at Rebekah’s house and sees Ricardo for the first time. Rebekah sends him upstairs so she and Rafael can talk.

“Are we going to have this conversation in the middle of your foyer? Is your southern hospitality only reserved for people you’re expecting?”

Without waiting for a response, he brushed past her toward the kitchen, and she caught a whiff of an unfamiliar cologne. She followed him on unsteady legs, conscious of the fact she looked as bad as he did good. While he was dressed comfortably in a fine linen shirt and crisply pressed dark slacks, she was self-conscious about her unattractive gardening attire and pink cotton headscarf. She wasn’t wearing a stitch of makeup, and she was certain she must smell sweaty after working in the yard.

In the kitchen, Rafael leaned against the counter, staring at her as she leaned against the counter across the room. His arms hung loosely at his sides, but she could sense the leashed tension in him.

“Well?” she said to break the uneasy silence.

She was never good at remaining quiet, and he was the complete opposite. He was the quintessential strong, silent type.

“Is he mine?”

She hadn’t expected him to ask that question first, but it was inevitable. “Yes.”

Rafael’s hands clenched into fists, and he pushed away from the counter and took two long strides toward her. Rebekah brought her hands up in a defensive motion, drawing in a sharp breath. His steps came to an abrupt halt.

“I wasn’t going to hit you,” he rasped.

“You’re not exactly known for your long fuse.” Her rapid heartbeat began to slow down.

“I would never hit a woman, no matter how much she infuriates me.” His cold, angry eyes stared into hers. “How could you do that?” he demanded in a rough voice. “How could you keep him a secret from me?”

Now came the hard part—the inadequate explanation she couldn’t even justify to herself. “I did try to contact you, but you were always traveling. It was impossible to get in touch with you.”

 “You didn’t try hard enough.” He found her guilty and delivered a cutting indictment. His eyes were filled with accusation. He swiveled on his heel and stalked over to the door. He stared out the window at the backyard, his shoulders rigid and his neck muscles taut. “Dios, Rebekah, how could you not tell me?”

Buy lnks: Amira Press, Amazon, ARe, B&N

Meet author Jacqueline Paige

Why don't you start with telling us a little about yourself? What genre do you write in and why? I am a mother to five, most of which are now old enough to not need me hovering over them all the time. (mostly) I’m also a café and eatery manager, meaning I have a never ending supply of coffee, latte and cake to help with those times my muse needs a little boost. I write in the paranormal genre, in many assorted sub-genres, romance, romantic-suspense.  Witches (not the cackling variety) and magic are my favourite.  I don’t want to get stuck in one type though, so I’ve varied it from physic stories, ghost stories and curses.  All of course are fit into the romance genre on some level.  Why paranormal?  I honestly don’t know.  Probably because it’s the genre that doesn’t have any preconceived guidelines that people expect, basically anything goes and I love to see where I can take my characters.   What comes first for you when you sit down to write a book? Plot or Characters? A bit of both.  Sometimes a character will pop into my mind and I will shape a story around that fits around that person or an entire plot will just come to me and as I’m trying to map it out the characters that need to be in just appear. Do you "cast" your characters using pictures or actors to help inspire you when you're writing? No. At least I haven’t yet.  I just have entire collections of characters walking around in my head until it’s their time to get the staring roll in a story. What do you consider to be the key elements of a great story? Original characters I think are important to any story. As well as all characters have to have a reason to be there.  Whether it’s just to compliment a main character or for comic relief.  There’s nothing worse than random character that have no purpose appearing on pages. An intriguing plot is very important, one with unforeseen twists preferably. (It makes me sad when I can guess the entire story by chapter two.) I know the setting is usually listed in the top three, but I don’t spend hours tweaking the setting and describing it in lengthy detail.  For the setting I take general descriptions that could in fact be just down the road from anyone reading the story.  I’ve been told by many it reminded them of somewhere they knew and they connected with the story.  Of course I will probably get my fingers smacked by many for saying the details aren’t that important to me. Conflict and HFN (happy for now) are probably the top two on any author’s list. (readers as well)  If the characters are perfectly happy all the time it’s depressing to read, because no one wants to feel like they’re reading a child’s happily-ever-after fairy tale.   A little spice and friction always make the ending that much sweeter. Tell us a bit about your latest book, and what inspired you to write such a story. I have two new books coming out in the next few months, so they are the freshest in my mind right now.  Mystic Perceptions is the first in my Hidden Senses Trilogy coming out at Class Act Books in September.  It’s my physic stories.  In it Jacinda has a ‘gift’ that she’d rather not have.  Not only can she touch someone and actually feel their emotions, but she can do the same with objects and more or less see the history of the most recent people that also touched it.  As you can imagine this isn’t exactly a good ability to have most of the time. What inspired this story?  I can remember the day the idea came to me.  I’d had a long and frustrating day out in the “public” and had been at the mall (I am one of those rare females that loath shopping), I can’t remember all of the details but I remember thinking  after observing someone doing something more than slightly weird “What is that person thinking to do something like that?”  Jacinda’s story came to me as I was driving home.  (yes I wrote it down in my ever present note book while driving, shhh) Salvation is the second book I have coming out at Eternal Press in October. It is my pirate ghost story, with a bit of twist thrown in the form of a curse.  Miranda discovers the childhood ‘ghost’ she used to see is very much real when she finally meets him as an adult.  I don’t want to hand you the entire plot but I will say my favourite part of this is probably the tag line I came up with “What woman wouldn't want their very own sexy pirate from the eighteenth century?” I can’t say I had any inspiration for this one, I was just sitting at my desk one day (procrastinating with some edits) and I kept thinking how interesting it would be to do a story where one ‘unseen person’ watched another grow from Infancy to adulthood.  It took a few days to discover that the unseen person was actually a cursed pirate ghost, but once that part came to me the rest just fell into place. Did your book require a lot of research? With the examples of the two I just mentioned, Mystic Perceptions didn’t require a lot of research at all.  Salvation on the other hand required a lot more.  I had to do some pirate fact research, so when I mentioned this or that I was correct.  I also had to compare where places were called then and now as well as find a place that actually existed to use for the pirates cache. It was a lot of work to take all the details and fit them in so they worked and so any readers that were from the areas mentioned couldn’t call my bluff. I may not focus a lot of my energy on the setting details, but if I mention someplace or something in one of my stories, you can be sure I checked it out to make sure I got that part right.  Like the ‘air knife’ in the Magic Seasons series, it’s a real machine that is used in a real factory. If you could have any vice without repercussions, what would it be? To regenerate without sleep.  Between 60 hours a week being a manager, countless hours involved in being a mother of five and my writing I get tired before I run out of things to do.  If I could just regenerate and feel rested without having to force myself to close the laptop and grab a few hours sleep, I could just write on through the night and then go to work when it’s daylight again!  J What do you see for the future of publishing and ebooks? There can never be enough books in any form!  I don’t see ebooks affecting the print books too much, ereading isn’t for everyone.  As for ebooks, I think it’s just going to keep growing!  Never has there ever been so many vast genres and choices out there.  I myself if I am completely in love with a story want both (if available) formats of it.  Reading on the fly in a digital format is a wonderful, wonderful thing. But sometimes, just sometimes curling up with that paper copy in your hand is just what you need after a day of reality. Which of your characters do you love/hate/fear/pity the most and why? Oh no, this one is hard to answer.  This is like asking me to choose my favourite child!  Any character I dislike, you can definitely tell while reading.  My characters are very good at making snide comments about those secondary characters that somehow managed to squirm their way into my story. I love all of my main’s for one reason or another.  Let’s see… Jacinda in Mystic Perceptions because despite all the pain her gift has caused her, she just keeps on going. I love her for her strength to carry on. Miranda in Salvation because her life has been one disaster after the other and yet she laughs and moves onto the next thing. Dade in the Magic Seasons series because he is always there for everyone and always tries to do the right thing … even though it doesn’t always work out the way he’d like. All of the characters in the Magic Seasons made me laugh, so they get bonus points for that. Jennah out of In Our Dream and From a Dream because she’s so sweet on the outside, until she pulls her gun out of the holster and then she has a courage I wished I had. I could use pages to list more, but I think you get the picture. Do you get along with your muse? What do you do to placate her when she refuses to inspire you? My muse, whom I love, is going to wear me out!  I would like to work on one story at a time, start to finish, but she makes me pause in the middle (or wake up at night) to jot down her next idea.  At present I am working on one series, two trilogies and two stand alone stories. Lined up after those are three more stand alone stories and two more complete series – all 90% plotted out.  (that’s 19 books if anyone needs the numbers) Seriously if I could just sit at the computer all the time and not have to stop for reality, I would have enough writing to keep me going for the next two years.  Until she added more ideas that is… I rarely have to placate my muse but on the few occasions I’ve had to music and ‘big foot’ candies usually do the trick. Do you have another book in the works? Would you like to tell readers about your current or future projects I am presently on pause with edits for two separate stories, but I do have another Trilogy well under way.  My Animal (shifter) Trilogy.  I just have to rework the ending do the final proofing/tweaking on the first story Heart and then it’s finished. Here’s a bit about the trilogy: Three women without knowledge of their true heritage… Three men that have waited for their mate all of their lives... Hearts and tempers collide with wild passions and animal instincts in the Animals Trilogy I am also working on a new witch story; The Witch Within.  It’s an interesting ‘past life’ story of magic where the main character suddenly finds out she actually has the spirits of her ancestors inside her when life starts to get a little interesting and a family rival from hundreds of years ago reappears. Have you ever experience weird cravings while you write? If so, what kind? My usual snacks while writing are big foot candies or mixed nuts, but once while I was writing I had to have a pina colada … I have no idea why but it wouldn’t go away regardless of what I tried to use as a substitute. Finally, I had to stop and go out and search out anything flavoured like pina colada to get rid of it. What are the most challenging and the most rewarding aspects of writing? The most challenging part of writing for me is going through my own story.  Self-editing is hard.  My brain automatically knows what a sentence is supposed to say, so most times I have to go through it over and over again in random order.  If I edit in order then I miss too much, so I will start at the last chapter and go through backwards to catch most of the mistakes I would otherwise just breeze by. The most rewarding to me is when I get that proof of the cover. I’m not sure why but just seeing my story ‘come to life’ and presented on the cover makes it real for me. What character (s) in any of your books is most like you? I think, truthfully all of my characters have a little of me in them.  Especially those that are sarcastic (Miranda in Salvation, Steven in Magic Seasons for example).  You are told you have to meet one paranormal creature, no safeguards, what do you choose? What do you bring with you? Tough call, everyone wants to meet a vampire in which case I’d bring a UV light with me.  I’d also like to meet a were-tiger, while in tiger form, I love large cats.  For the tiger I’m thinking I’d come armed with a rare steak.  J You have to ask a fictional character out on a date—who would you ask and what would you do together? Any character that had the ability to transport.  I have a long list of places I’d like to see and I’m thinking we could spend the time bouncing from one to the other.  Watch the sunset from a pyramid, check out the stars from a castle in the highlands of Scotland, have a nice dinner under the stars on a beach in Jamaica, wander through the stones at Stonehenge while pondering the reasons to their existence and then watch the sunrise from the Mayan ruins in Guatemala … Okay maybe the date needs to be a weekend.    If someone hasn't read any of your work, what book would you recommend that they start with and why? I’ve tried not to fall into a rut with my writing and make each story / series different.   Let’s see, if you like witches and want something short and steamy then I would say start with Behind the Mask.  You can’t go wrong with a witch, a curse and sexy man in a costume! If you’re looking for something sensual then I would start with my Dream stories.  In Our Dream and From a Dream. She’s a small town cop. He’s an inmate uncover. They meet in a dream… For a longer series (4 books long) then the Magic Seasons series.  The first two are to be re-released in the near future and the third one is due to come out in January.  Books to watch for: 1st in the Hidden Senses Trilogy – Mystic Perceptions coming September 15, 2010 at Class Act Books Salvation coming October 7th at Eternal Press Harvest Dreams – Book III in the Magic Seasons series January 15, 2011 at Class Act Books Twice Cursed coming February 15, 2011 at Whiskey Creek Press Where can readers find out what's new and how can they contact you? My website: http://jacqpaige.webs.com/ My blog: http://jacqpaige.blogspot.com/ Associated Blogs: http://romancingthemuses.blogspot.com/ http://romancewritersbehavingbadly.blogspot.com/ http://eternalpressauthors.blogspot.com/ http://amirapresssays.blogspot.com/ Thanks so much for having me!! The questions were a lot of fun to answer. Jacqueline

Sneak Peek into In Our Dream

The nerve of that man! Why won’t he just accept things and go away? She paced back and forth, trying to control the frustration that was pumping through her. Every time she saw him, every hurt moment came flooding back to her and she just wanted him gone. She wanted to move on and live her own life and try her damndest to be happy!

“Jennah?”

She spun around, expecting someone to be behind her. There was no one there. Was that Dominic’s voice? Oh no, she was hallucinating now! Should she call her doctor? Maybe the stress had finally caught up to her. Was she going to end up spending her holidays alone in the psych ward?


“Jennah, why are you so upset?”

She squeezed her eyes shut. I am not hearing voices! I am not losing my mind!

She heard his deep chuckle. “No, you’re not losing your mind. This is really happening. I should have told you, but in our dream...it’s not really a dream. We’re connecting.”

Her eyes flew open. What? “What?” She stood perfectly still, waiting to see if she could hear him again.

“I can explain it better later. I just picked up on how upset you were...”

She squinted. “Picked up? How? How are you inside my head when I’m completely awake? How can we talk inside my head?”

She heard him chuckle again. “Inside mine, as well. I don’t have time right now. Are you all right?”

She laughed out loud, not knowing if he would hear it in her head too. “Clearly not! I’m talking to a man from my dream inside my head while I’m wide awake standing in the locker room at work!”

“Jennah...”

Buy link : http://www.amirapress.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=37_64&products_id=257



for part two From A Dream : http://www.amirapress.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=263