Rogue Phoenix Presents Check In Day

It's check in day at the Rogues Angels blog. 

Time to pay the piper! How did you do?

This is the Rogue's Angels weekly check-in. Every Thursday we encourage the Angels and visitors to let us know how their writing is going.

How well are you doing?

Had problems this week? That's ok. Just sit down this coming week and write. Whatever you do, don't let difficulties from the week before get in your way this week.

Every word is one word closer to the finished product.

I am making major progress with my WIP Sweet Sexy Sadie. I actually wrote five pages Wednesday morning. Then ran into a snafu called my Ana. Love to babysit but not too conducive to writing. 

Had a great week? Keep it up, the momentum is on your side.

Rogues Angels Presents Rekindled Love

Rekindled Love

Rosemary Indra

Excerpt Heat Level: 1

Book Heat Level: 3

He saw no one as he made his way up the incline to the dilapidated storage shed. Situated on the edge of an older residential area, the structure he’d picked was perfect. The weathered building appeared vacant, and a large empty lot separated the shack from the nearest house. He pushed opened the unlocked wooden door and removed the backpack full of supplies from his shoulders.

After wiping his sweaty palms on his pant legs, he opened two small containers and sloshed the liquid on the wooden floor. Soon the pungent aroma of gasoline filled the room. He placed the igniter in a bed of steel wool then attached the wires to the small batteries and the timer. After picking up his backpack, he hurried from the shed closing the door behind him.

He glanced in both directions. Confident no one was in the area, he walked up the dead end street. His heart hammered in his chest. Ignoring his trembling hands, he removed a pack of cigarettes from his coat pocket. After he flicked his lighter, he stared at the bluish-yellow flame. Excitement raced through his veins.

A foggy mist hugged the ground and darkness shrouded the sleepy little town. Despite the wetness from the damp, January air, he crouched at the edge of the trees across from his target and waited.

He pulled a long drag on his cigarette then checked his watch. Two minutes before the hour. He’d completed his work on schedule. He had everything under control. Nothing would stop him. With the heel of his shoe, he ground out the butt.

The ignition flared to life. Shattering glass and splintering sounds of wood interrupted the stillness. Debris shot in every direction. "Damn," he muttered as he covered his ears with his hands, blocking the pressure from the explosion. The detonation was more powerful than he’d anticipated. The flames were clearly visible through the gaping hole in the side wall. No alarms, no security, and no advance warning. Everything had gone according to his plan. His gaze locked on the growing flames.

"Fire! Fire!" A man pounding on a neighboring house drew his attention down the street. "There’s a fire over there. Call 911," the Good Samaritan shouted as he pointed up the street.

He didn’t plan for anyone to discover the fire until it was too late. He needed more time. The firefighters would destroy his masterpiece.

In the distance, the fire alarm clanged to life at the station. Within minutes, he tuned into the sound of sirens growing louder with the approaching trucks.

Anxiously, he looked at the shed. A smile formed on his lips when he noticed the flames reach the top of the window frame. Hopefully, the fire would finish the building before the crew arrived. He drummed his fingertips against his forehead.

Red lights from the approaching trucks flashed, brightening the pre-dawn darkness. He didn't intend to stay once the crew disembarked. On second thought, he'd enjoy watching their futile efforts to extinguish his creation.

Definitely not your normal run of the mill romance novel. On the whole a very good book and well worth reading.

Orchid for Long and Short Reviews

Rogues Angels Presents For Love of Sarah

Please welcome Hazel Statham author of For Love of Sarah.  

Hazel will be awarding winner's choice of either a Cream Coin Freshwater Pearl necklace or a digital copy of DOMINIC or HIS SHADOWED HEART (international giveaway) to a randomly drawn commenter during the tour, and a Choice of either Rhinestone Crystal Butterfly and Pearl earrings or a digital copy of DOMINIC or HIS SHADOWED HEART (international giveaway) to a randomly drawn host.  See earrings below.  And don't forget to leave a comment!

For Love of Sarah

by Hazel Statham

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

BLURB:

   

How many times can a heart be broken?  How many times can love be denied?  Sarah and Alexander were destined for each other but after just four short weeks of marriage, their lives were torn asunder.

   

Alexander, Earl of Thorne thought he had found his ideal mate but, when Sarah absconded shortly after their marriage, his world came crashing down.  Now, five years later, he discovers her in a remote Yorkshire village.

  

Sarah had thought she was safe, but when, severely injured in a freak accident, her husband is thrust once more into her life, she fears her dark secrets and the fact she has a son, will become known. 

  

Despite her own desperate longings, she continually repudiates Alexander’s efforts of reconciliation. However, fate conspires against her, and when her home is made uninhabitable by floods, she and her young son are forced to accept his aid and return to her former home.

   

Discovery threatens and, despite her breaking heart, she plans to leave Alexander’s life.  What is this secret that makes it so imperative that she should abscond from him yet again?  Can two broken hearts cleave and emerge victorious or will life's cruel forces tear them apart forever?  

Excerpt:

“There is no man with whom I live. I am thought to be a widow by the villagers.”

   

“A widow? By God, you would feel so, in fact, if I were able to leave this accursed bed. He would find no place to be safe from me!”

   

“There is no one,” she cried, her voice rising to the verge of tears.

   

“Then he has left you,” stated the earl, coldly. “Taken what he desired and left you to bear the consequences alone. Or did he discover your duplicitous nature and decide he would not play the fool to your deception?”

   

“My nature is not at all as you suppose, sir. I merely fell prey to a circumstance that has blighted my life.”

   

“Infidelity and desertion are definitely circumstances that blight your life, and those who are associated with you. When I sought your brother, it was reported that he had gone to India. Even your grandfather is in ignorance of your whereabouts. I thought you may have flown to him, but when I looked for you there, he had no more information than I and the poor man is desperate for knowledge of you.”

   

And if he should have that knowledge, he would disown me and his life would be in ruin. “It is best that you and he should forget my existence. I have built a new life far removed from your world.”

  

“You are still my wife, Sarah!”

AUTHOR Bio and Links:

Hazel Statham began writing at the age of fifteen, finally committing to paper the stories she spun as a child. Writing has been her passion ever since, although marriage, motherhood, and career left time for little else. Once she retired, however, she was able to devote herself to writing full-time, publishing her first novel in 2007. A long time student of history, she writes mainly in the Regency and Georgian eras, though she has been known to dabble in the medieval as well. She lives in Staffordshire, England, with her husband, Terry, and their beloved yellow Labrador, Mollie.

Hazel loves to hear from her readers and promises to answer all mail.

Website address   www.hazel-statham.co.uk

Purchase links (available from all Amazon domains)

Amazon.co.uk

Paperback:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/For-Love-Sarah-Hazel-statham/dp/1612186831/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1344777843&sr=8-1

Kindle

http://www.amazon.co.uk/For-Love-Sarah-ebook/dp/B008RBTPZ0/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1344778014&sr=1-1

Amazon.com

Paperback:

http://www.amazon.com/For-Love-Sarah-Hazel-Statham/dp/1612186831/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1344778163&sr=8-1

Kindle:

http://www.amazon.com/For-Love-Sarah-ebook/dp/B008RBTPZ0/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1344778163&sr=8-1 

Don't Forget To Leave A Comment!

Rogues Angels Presents Dragons Among Us

Dragons Among Us

C. L. Kraemer

Excerpt Heat Level: 1

Book Heat Level:

Aleda crawled from her sleeping bag and, individually, stretched her muscles. She’d always enjoyed camping. It was the only time she slept well. Something about the unpolluted air, the nights sounds of nature and knowing there were no other people about produced a sleeping potion no doctor could recreate. She dressed warmly against the morning chill and meandered to the stream to get water for coffee and cooking. Not having done much the day before, her ravenous hunger puzzled her.

“Must be the good mountain air.” She made coffee, scrambled eggs, and toasted bread with a slender wire camp toaster, which she held over the fire. As she sat in her chair enjoying the taste of food and quiet of the surrounding woods, hair on the back of her neck began to stand on end and her skin tingled. She shook off the feeling and poured another cup of coffee. The sensation of eyes observing her movements overpowered her senses and her amulet began humming, the sound increasing in volume with each passing minute.

“Enough!” Aleda tossed her plastic plate to the table with a clatter, stomped to her tent and retrieved a heavy coat. “I’ll nip this foolishness in the bud, right now!”

She hesitated as she started to storm from the camp. Camera. Quickly returning to her tent, she stomped away from her personal sanctuary, Nikon in hand, stomach complaining. Half a dozen paces from the camp, after wreaking a rushing flurry of birds into flight, Aleda realized, if she was to find out what was inducing her amulet to hum and her hair to stand on end, she would need to slow her pace—think before she stumbled into trouble. She proceeded into the stand of trees serving as the backdrop for her camp. Sauntering to nearest the evergreen, she placed her hand on the bark and felt a buzzing sensation tickle her palm. Aleda stumbled backward, dumbfounded by the commotion stirring within her. Logic and reason said she shouldn’t be sensing anything by touching the tree.

“This whole trip is turning out to be totally illogical.”

Aleda narrowed her eyes and concentrated on the skin of the tree. She began to see small creatures scurrying up and down the grooved surface of the bark, the scene recalling the Marquam Bridge merging into I-5 at rush hour. She pulled deeply of the air surrounding her and discovered she could taste ponderosa, yellow pine and western larch trees tinged by intermittent bursts of avalanche lily, trillium and huckleberry. Another deep breath captured faint blackberry and raspberry sensations. Standing very still and concentrating with an intensity she’d never utilized, Aleda began to recognize the buzz of life around her. In her ears, insect sounds whispered from every direction, her skin reverberated with the movement of air caused by birds flying and bees busy with spring activities. When the scene before her began to waver and tiny flashes of white light popped in her vision, Aleda realized she’d quit breathing. She pulled air into her lungs and crumbled to the soft pine needle and moss covered forest floor.

"All in all I was very impressed with this author’s imagination and the ability to bring the story to life for me within the pages of her book.  It held my attention and kept me wondering what was next throughout the pages."  Courtney Rene for Rogue's Angles 

Buy now at: http://www.roguephoenixpress.com/

Rogues Angels Is Hosting The Locket

The Locket by Chrsitine Young

Excerpt Heat Level: 1

Book Heat Level:

Oregon Coast,1894

Bone-weary from a hard day at sea, Misha trudged up the long mud-rutted road to the boarding house that sat on top a hill less than a mile outside Mist Harbor, Oregon. A thick, cold mist hovered close to the ground wetting everything: the rhododendrons that grew wild, the azaleas that lined the cement walkway to the front porch, and the saw grass that grew easily in the sandy soil. Misha paused a moment to push back a lock of hair that repeatedly fell across his brow and into his eyes.

The land was windswept and salt battered, yet he enjoyed the salt-taste of the air and the swooping sea birds as well as the playful sea animals. He loved the way the trees bent to the power of the wind and found a way to survive despite the brutality of the elements.

His purpose here was short lived, he reminded himself. He didn’t intend to find himself attached to these parts in any way.

He smelled of a hard days work. The lingering aroma of sweat and Chinook salmon filled his nostrils. It was not a scent he had any use for, but for the time being the job on the fishing boat gave him a reason for staying in the small coastal town. Right now he couldn’t wait to submerse himself in a hot bath, wash the stench from his body, and ease his stiff, strained muscles.

The sea had always been one of his favorite places. But fishing?

By God no, he’d just as soon relax and watch the sails billow on a clipper as the majestic ship rounded the horn or stand at the tiller with the wind whistling around him. He’d even rather battle a hurricane off the Bermudas.

Blending in with the people who lived in this small coastal village had been imperative.

The quest he’d undertaken had led him straight to Miss Ariel Cameron’s boarding house in Mist Harbor, and there the trail stopped. Thinking about Ariel set his nerves on edge.

Ariel was willow thin, femininely delicate, and hardly capable of the atrocities he’d set out to avenge less than a year ago. Yet the evidence he’d uncovered had sent him here, to her home. The name he’d followed had been her name. The men he’d followed had landed in Mist Harbor more than once, her father one of them.

He walked up the immaculately kept steps to the house and opened the door to the screened in porch.

"Misha," the captain boomed out a welcome. "Fine weather we’re havin’ now. Just right for the salmon runs."

The rocker squeaked as the captain moved back and forth in the wicker chair.

"Just right," Misha acknowledged and stepped through the next door to the parlor. A blast of heat met him as he nodded his head in polite recognition to the other borders. In a pale blue day dress, Ariel moved with a slight limp through the hallway and disappeared into one of the first floor rooms. Even though she seemed to favor one leg, the sway of her hips enticed all of Misha's senses.

He didn’t understand the feeling but in a way no other woman had touched him, she beckoned to him. Her amber colored eyes were wide and when she smiled, they glistened and shimmered, reminding him of the bronze mosques in Constantinople when the sun beat upon them. Miss Ariel Cameron was unique--unconventional--and she fascinated him. She was the key to his revenge as well as his salvation.

The Locket is a very exciting tale with a dramatic setting. Overall, this is a very entertaining story.

Maura
Reviewer for Coffee Time Romance