Author Spotlight - Romy Sommer

For the first time ever I get to appear in a Minxy Spotlight. After hosting so many other authors, I'm thrilled to be the one here talking up my own book!

Rather than answering the usual interview questions though, I'm going to take the liberty of doing something a little different. (I'm a Minx - I'm allowed!)
I'm going to give you a little eye candy instead....

The Trouble with Mojitos is set on the tropical Caribbean island of Los Pajaros, all lush vegetation, azure sea and sky, and balmy weather. (Not a hurricane or tradewind in sight to mar this idyll.) But as far as heroine Kenzie is concerned, Los Pajaros' greatest asset is...a pirate.

Rik is dark, dangerous and tattooed. Back in the days before his banishment from Westerwald, when he was still a serious and respectable prince, Rik's one and only form of rebellion was the tattoo hidden beneath his clothes. But what good is keeping it hidden? We want to see it, don't we?

A colleague of mine recently complained she was bored, so I set her the task of finding the perfect tattooed torso for this blog post. (Thanks Sarah. Yeah, I'm sure you hate me for it.) This is what Sarah found. What do you think - should she be allowed to choose eye candy again?

From www.PicsToPin.com

I'm celebrating the release of The Trouble with Mojitos with an All Day Happy Hour party over on Facebook today. Come on over and join the fun. There are virtual cocktails, games, give-aways - and loads more eye candy!

The Trouble with Mojitos

Turquoise blue waters. Sandy white beaches. Mojitos…

Film location scout Kenzie Cole has found herself in paradise. And working in the Caribbean for a week is just what she needs to escape the long line of exes in her closet.

Though the last thing she expects is to be picked up at the resort bar by a disgraced former Prince!

Luckily for Kenzie, exile is suiting the man formerly known as Prince Fredrik very well. And it’s not long before his rugged, pirate charm is proving hard to resist.

But Rik’s been spending his time in paradise exorcising demons of his own and he has danger written all over him. If Kenzie was sensible she’d run a mile instead of lose herself to her lust – although, they do say that sometimes you have to get lost before you can be found….

For a glimpse at the opening scene, visit I Heart... Chick Lit.

The Trouble with Mojitos is published by Harper Impulse, a division of Harper Collins, and is available from the following online retailers: Amazon, Amazon UK, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, iTunes and All Romance eBooks.

You can chat with Romy in all the usual places: Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads and on her blog.

2nd Book Syndrome

I'd heard of this syndrome before, and I've even had friends who suffered from it, but I never appreciated just how debilitating writing a second book could be.

I've already written a second book, in fact I've published four under my Rae Summers name, but even though there was a big life-induced gap between Rae books 1 and 2, the next book wasn't hard to write.

So why then has my work-in-progress, currently titled The Back-up Plan, been worse than drawing teeth (not that I've ever had teeth pulled, but I can imagine the pain would be about the same)?

The reason is obvious - all four Rae novellas were written in my own time and to my own internal deadlines. When they were finished, I submitted them. Easy.

The Back-up Plan is being written to a deadline set in contractual stone - very fair, very do-able contractual stone admittedly. I'm desperate to honour this first ever deadline, and I'm equally desperate to make sure that this book is just as good if not better than Waking up in Vegas.

And there lies the rub, as Shakespeare would say. I loved writing Vegas. It was fun, the words flowed, and I felt like I was creating magic. The Backup Plan feels more like pig swill. The kind that feeds the circling crows of doubt.

If you've ever suffered from 2nd Book Syndrome, please tell me this story isn't completely pants and I won't need to change my name and emigrate somewhere only penguins live. Please tell me there is light at the end of the tunnel and it's not an oncoming freight train. Tell me your story...

In happier news, Waking up in Vegas, is part of a special summer promotion on Amazon UK at the moment. For the bargain basement price of only 1.99, this piece of fun can be yours.

So if you're in the UK and haven't yet bought a copy, please think of me and buy one. Every sale helps me resist my growing dependence on chocolate as I wrestle with The Back-up Plan.

Waking up in Vegas is available from Amazon as well as Amazon UK, and in all the other major eBook retailers.

Waking up in Vegas - meet Phoenix

Last week you got to meet Max, the hero of Waking up in Vegas, over on Aimee Duffy's blog. Today it's Phoenix's turn.

My heroine was modelled on bar owner Lil in the movie Coyote Ugly, played by Maria Bello. A strong, take-no-prisoners kind of woman, Phoenix is tough as nails, completely unsentimental, but hides a wounded heart beneath all the attitude.

Raised by a musician dad, she's never lived in one place very long, and she's seen and done some interesting things along the way. Suburbia, with the white picket fence, SUV and 2.4 children, is her idea of hell on earth - so finding herself married to a man who believes in Happy Ever Afters has to be up there at #1 on her Not To Do List.

If Max hadn't come into her life, I imagine Phoenix would have ended up exactly like Lil - running her own bar and kicking ass.

Writing Phoenix was huge fun. She's nothing at all like me, but there's definitely a part of me that admires her and wants to be like her.

I'm going to leave you with one piece of trivia about Phoenix that didn't make the final draft of Waking up in Vegas: she has a tattoo of a phoenix on her lower back.

Waking up in Vegas is available now from Amazon, Amazon UK, Barnes & Noble, Kobo and All Romance eBooks.

* * *

What happens in Vegas…
Waking up to the bright lights of Vegas in an unfamiliar penthouse suite, cocktail waitress Phoenix Montgomery finds she’s covered from head to foot in gold glitter and not alone – aside from the empty bottle of champagne, there’s a mystery man in the shower and a huge sparkly ring on her finger!

Stays in Vegas?
There’s no denying Max Waldburg’s demi-god sex appeal but commitment-phobic Phoenix doesn’t do relationships. Only it seems her new husband (agh!) has other ideas…he’s trying to keep that ring on her finger and his wife firmly back in his bed. The only question on her lips is – why? Or maybe, why not?

An Innocent Abroad - A Minxy Release & Giveaway

We're thrilled to announce a new Minx release!

An Innocent Abroad is the latest release by our very own, very talented Minx, Rae Summers (aka Romy Sommer), and we know you're going to love it as much as we do! With every copy you get a super sexy Italian hero.

Blurb
An Innocent Abroad is a coming of age story set on the Amalfi coast of Italy in the early 1920s.

Fresh from finishing school, Isobel Harrington is sent to spend the summer in Italy with cousins in order to catch the eye of the eligible Hon. Christopher Barrett. But rather than Christopher, it is enigmatic Italian Stefano who awakens Isobel's sensuality, and who introduces her to the daring new idea that anything is possible, if only you want it enough.

An Innocent Abroad is the third novella by Rae Summers (aka Romy Minx) set in the 1920s.

Buy Links
Available from The Wild Rose Press, Barnes & Noble, All Romance eBooks, Amazon and Amazon UK.

If you'd like to join in the Minxy celebration and be in the running to win a copy of An Innocent Abroad all you need to do is leave a comment below and share something about your own first love. The best story wins a copy of Romy's latest release and there are bonus points for anyone who's first love was either a dashing Italian or occurred during a vacation in Italy.

Congratulations, Romy!

Mixing day jobs and writing

As I'm in a film studio today shooting a TV commercial (and battling with no signal and pathetic emails) it's got me thinking about how our day jobs diverge from or affect our writing.

I work in what may seem a glamorous or fascinating industry (after film school I worked in feature films and TV dramas before moving into advertising), so I should be ideally placed to write stories set in that world, right?

Wrong! When I sit down to write, I want to escape my day job, not focus my thoughts back on it.

Do you take your day job home with you when you write, or do you escape to other careers and other worlds through your writing? Do you have a day job that involves writing, or are you a full time writer?

We Minxes would love to know! (Cos we're nosy that way). And if you're lucky, we'll even share a little more about ourselves.

[Please note, these pictures are from a previous shoot, not today's studio shoot, which isn't half as interesting!]

In Remembrance

Here in South Africa we're approaching 11am, on the 11th of November 2011. 11-11-11-11.

As a child I still remember wearing a poppy on Remembrance Day. That tradition has long since fallen out of  fashion, and slowly out of memory too. I find this sad, as I think we need more days where we're urged to think of peace in our world, rather than less.

Why this day?

On 11th November 1918, at 11am, the armistice agreement was signed, ending the first (and what many hoped was the last) world war. Sadly, we now know better. War is still all around us, perhaps even more than ever, and certainly we're more aware of it thanks to media and the diminishing size of our world.

Why the poppy?

In the surprisingly evocative words of Wikipedia: "These poppies bloomed across some of the worst battlefields of Flanders in World War I, their brilliant red colour an appropriate symbol for the blood spilled in the war." As far back as the Egyptians, the poppy signified life and fertility, and for its sedative medicinal qualities it's also the flower of sleep. Life and death all rolled into one simple flower.

So today, I'd like to ask our blog readers to consider the significance of this day and to suggest ways in which we might each be able to bring a little more peace and a little less war into our world.

My suggestion, to get the ball rolling: teach the next generation to revere life.

Give me the same thing ... only different

The Minxes would like to congratulate Natalie Charles, winner of New Voices 2011. Even if you don’t normally read romantic suspense, read this one. The story will grab you.

If you’ve followed the New Voices contest (as I have - devotedly!) you’ll have heard the editors’ advice to avoid cliché. This is just a re-statement of what the editors have been saying at conferences for the last few years. 2010’s buzz words were ‘innovate, don’t imitate’ and this year it was ‘unpredictability’. But really these are all just different ways of saying the same thing: avoid cliché.

In the immortal words of Blake Snyder in Save the Cat: “You can be near the cliché, you can dance around it, you can run right up to it, and almost embrace it. But at the last second you must turn away.”

I was extremely fortunate to get feedback on my NV entry (see here) and one of the comments the editors made was that my set-up has been used often before and I need to be careful that it doesn’t slip into cliché.
Clearly the use of cliché isn’t an issue for them, since they praised my very clichéd opening (Once upon a time in a land far, far away, there lived a princess.) but it’s what you do with the cliché that’s important. My next lines show that I’m going to turn the cliché on its head: She wasn’t like any of the princesses in other stories. She didn’t sweep floors, or wash dishes, or sing with the birds.

The day after the editors posted the feedback, I re-read Blake Snyder’s chapter of Save the Cat, entitled ‘Give me the same thing ... only different’, an entire chapter devoted to avoiding cliché, and he sums it up with these words:
“In every aspect of creation - from the idea, to the way characters speak, to the scenes themselves - putting a fresh spin on it (whatever “it” is) is what we do every day. But to know how to avoid the cliché, to know what tradition you are pushing forward, begins with knowing what that tradition is.”

Yes, it really is that easy. Once you’ve studied your genre, when you’ve read enough books that are similar to what you want to write, when you’ve examined the movies in that genre, you’ll start to spot the clichés: secret babies, marriages of convenience, certain type of hero or heroine, certain turns of phrase. That doesn’t mean you can’t use these elements, just that you need to tread carefully when you use them.

“When it feels like a cliché - give it a twist. When you think it’s familiar - it probably is, so you’ve got to find a new way. But at least understand why you’re tempted to use the cliché and the familiar story. .... True originality can’t begin until you know what you’re breaking away from.” - Blake Snyder

Movie Review: Red Riding Hood

For weeks I drove passed an eye-catching billboard and thought "I have to see that movie!" Luckily it came out on DVD fairly quickly, and this weekend I got to enjoy director Catherine Hardwicke's take on this classic fairy tale.

For those who don't follow these things, Catherine Hardwicke directed Twilight (the first movie in the series). Since she worked as a production designer before becoming a director, it's no surprise that this latest movie is a visual feast. Red Riding Hood is sumptuously designed with stunning costumes and sets.

Don't expect historical accuracy. Do expect a fairy tale quality with more than a dash of sinister thrown in.

The film stars Amanda Seyfried of Mamma Mia and Letters to Juliet fame, and the back up cast is phenomenal: Gary Oldman, Billy Burke (also the dad in Twilight), Lukas Haas and Julie Christie. And for those who enjoy their eye candy (like me!), there are two rather attractive young men to ogle: Shiloh Fernandez and Max Irons (son of Jeremy).

Interestingly, Shiloh Fernandez made the shortlist for the role of Edward Cullen in Twilight. He has a remarkable resemblance to Robert Pattinson, though without the squashed nose. I would have loved to see him in the role, but since that's never going to happen, I'll take whatever I can get of him!

As for the movie itself ... I loved it. Just the right balance of drama, action and romance for my tastes - and it's beautiful to look at! Go take a look for yourself.

Remember Me

We usually preserve movie reviews for Fridays here on Minxes, but in honour of remembering New York on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, I'm breaking the tradition and featuring the film Remember Me.

Set in New York, this is a ponderous, atmospheric film starring Robert Pattinson and Pierce Brosnan, which centres around a family dealing with loss, each character handling the loss of a son and brother in a different way.

I found the film a little too slow moving, and spent most of the movie wondering just what the point was. The point is made clear in the closing two minutes of the film. Two minutes which pull all the film's strands together, give the entire movie a new twist, and leave viewers with an image so graphic and moving that you'll remember it long afterwards.

That final image is still clear in my head months after watching the film, and still brings a lump to my throat.

Our condolences to anyone who has ever lost a loved one, and to those who are gone: you will be remembered.

Revenge is sweet

Following on from Suzanne Minx's post last week on Writing vs Real Life, I'd like to add my own reason why I love to write: Revenge is sweet, but being happy is the sweetest revenge of all.

I'm pretty sure this happens for every writer and I'm not unique, but I love when I've had a hard day at the day job, and I'm feeling stressed out about some issue, then I sit at the laptop and start to write ... and next thing I know, I'm sucked into the story.

When I'm writing I forget all the bad stuff that happens outside my novel, and get so into the head space of my characters that nothing else matters. After a while, I even find I'm smiling (unless it's a tear jerker scene, in which case I'm smiling through tears).

The boss, the deadlines, the stresses of the day, don't mean a thing beside that incredible feeling when the words are flowing, and you're in tune with your characters and your story. You know what I mean, don't you?

I'm a big fan of The Secret, and one of the principles taught by Rhonda Byrne in The Secret is that you need to get yourself into a happy state of being before you can change your life and get what you want. And just as I write this blog post, an email pops into my inbox:

A Secret Scrolls message from Rhonda Byrne
Creator of The Secret and The Power 

When you find your purpose, it is like your heart has been set alight with passion. You know it absolutely, without any doubt.

So to everyone out there in my Real Life, this is my revenge: my heart has been "set alight with passion", and there's absolutely nothing you can do to stop it!

(Though it'd still be nice to get the ultimate in revenge by selling so many books that I can give up the day job stresses and enjoy the stresses of being fabulously successful instead.)

Making Sacrifices

The Prince & Me is a sweet romantic comedy that I last watched several years ago. I remembered it as a fun, light movie, aimed mostly at the young adult market. A bit of fluff. But when I flicked through the TV channels yesterday to find something innocuous to play in the background with the kids around, it seemed the perfect answer. Until I got so engrossed that they nearly went without supper!

Yes, this movie is entirely predictable. Yes, the idea’s a tad far-stretched. No, it was never going to win any awards. But I was riveted! Because this film ticked the most important box of all: it got me invested in the characters.

I also learned something important while watching this movie yesterday: the resolution of any story (the Happy Ever After) is so much more satisfying if one (or both) of the characters have first had to sacrifice something really significant in the Black Moment.

[Spoiler Alert ahead]

In The Prince & Me, both hero and heroine make a sacrifice. The Black Moment scene is incredibly poignant. There are no raised voices, no slammed doors. It’s a quiet moment between two people who have already acknowledged their love for each other.

But they cannot be together without the heroine giving up everything she has ever dreamed of doing and being. In that moment she has a terrible decision to make: to choose between love or her dreams.

I hadn’t thought of this movie as being an example of award-winning acting, but in this scene Luke Mably is simply superb. With a completely under-stated performance, he conveys so much emotion. The viewer absolutely gets that the Prince is losing the only woman he’ll ever love. Without the heroine at his side, he faces a life of duty without the one person who has brought meaning, joy and love to his life. He will be lost without her. But even so it is a sacrifice he makes willingly, as he only wants her happiness.

Aaaaw.

That tear-jerker moment really made the resolution so much more satisfying.

I’m still far away from the black moment and ending of my WIP, but when I get there I’m definitely going to make a meal out of the sacrifice my heroine will make to ensure the happiness of the hero (or in this case, heroes!)

Unpredictability

It's the latest buzz word at Romance HQ and everyone's talking about it: unpredictability.

Lorraine Minx brought this to our attention last week, and Maisey Yates has also added further sights, but it was really brought home to me just how important it is for aspiring writers to be fresh and innovative when I got a rejection last week from an editor at Romance HQ for exactly that - my conflict was too predictable.

It's a fine line we need to tread between fulfilling the promise of the line we're targeting and yet still bringing something original to the party. I have no deep insights, but I thought I'd share with you a little example that struck me this weekend.

I re-watched 27 Dresses on Saturday. This is the perfect example of a fresh spin on an old story. Katherine Heigl is the modern day Cinderella, who spends her life working to make everyone else happy. She watches all her friends, and her baby sister, get to be the belles of the ball while she sits on the sidelines. It takes the right prince to show her that she's worth putting herself first.

I have yet to meet anyone who doesn't love this movie. It's an old story, and we know exactly how it will end, but it feels fresh and original.

Sadly, this story has already been done (very well!) by India Grey in her Powerful Italian, Penniless Housekeeper, so you're going to have to come up with your own fresh spin!