Thanks for all your kind comments last week. I do appreciate it.
My Snippet Sunday today is from "Journey to Her Dreams"
Blurb:
Would you travel around the world to uncover the reason for your dreams?
Hollie Anderson does. A young woman from Tasmania who lives on a farm
just outside Launceston, she has got good looks, likes her job and loves to hang
out with her friends. She should be happy, right?
But it’s a recurrent
dream that throws her daily life into chaos and takes her on a journey to
Ireland. While on her quest for answers she meets Sam in Dublin under unusual
circumstances and both women, so different in many ways, find out they have one
thing in common - and it changes their lives forever.
“You know. They want him as an executive in their company in Sydney, but they’re sort of watching him to see how he’s handling the job in Launceston.”
She sat down. “Great!” she said wryly.
But he missed the sarcasm. “I know. It’d be a great move.”
Hollie rolled her eyes and threw a towel at her friend. “For someone who apparently is so intuitive, you’re currently offline it seems.”
He cleared his throat. “Don’t tell me you didn’t know.”
She stood up and took her towel. “I think I need a nice shower.”
Thank you all for stopping by!
If you liked the above, you can purchase the book here:
Forced by his father into a marriage he
didn’t want, Prince Alan soon finds that his bride isn’t the sweet, submissive
creature he expected.Morgane
has the heart of a dragon and beauty beyond compare, but she isn’t thrilled
about the marriage either. When black treachery threatens the kingdom, Morgane
and Alan embark on a perilous journey that has an excellent chance of ending in
failure and death for them and all their people.
Excerpt:
Morgane advanced
on her enemy with deadly purpose. "No!"
Alan roared. "She has a knife." Morgane tried to
retreat, but it was too late. Aili's knife caught her in her thigh. Blood
spurted as if from a fountain. Renweard was closer to her than Alan. His sword
rose. Aili breathed her last as Morgane swayed and slipped to the floor. Alan ran across
the room and cradled her in his arms. In seconds he was coated with blood.
"ʺWe must stop the bleeding!" he cried. "Where are the
healers?" ʺI will find
one." Renweard left the room at a run with King Bowdyn right behind him. Morgane's eyes
fluttered open. "Your arms around me. No heaven can compare.ʺ Alan pressed a
kiss to her hair. "I love you, my brave Morgane." Morgane sighed. "I could not let
you face this battle alone.ʺ
Author’s
Note:
After spending most
of the last ten years writing contemporary romance, I decided it was time for a
change. So in the spring of 2012 I wrote my first romantic fantasy, The
Enchanted. Several challenges immediately presented themselves. First, I knew
that I didn't want the fantasy to overpower the romance which meant I'd have to
balance my world building details with the romantic elements.
Challenge two was finding characters who'd fit into my newly created world. I
didn't want plastic, stereotypical characters. I wanted real people with warts
and human imperfections, people whose lives and problems would draw you in and
make you care about them.
My third challenge was to craft a plot that included fantasy elements, yet at
the same time allowed my characters to be in charge of their own destiny and in
the process grow and change.
I'm pleased with the way it turned out. I enjoyed the experience so much I have
another fantasy/sci fi romance in the wings waiting for December and its turn
at publication. Given my new love affair with fantasy romance, will I write
contemporary romance again? I sure will. I'm working on one right now, and I
just love it. It will be my first full length romantic comedy.
Welcome to Six Sentence Sunday. My six today come from my release "Journey to Her Dreams" - Set in Tasmania & Ireland.
Let's send some thoughts to the Tassies (and of course all other Aussies affected) who over the last couple of weeks fought a vicious bushfire which has destroyed over 100 houses!
She sat down. “Great!” she said wryly.
But he missed the sarcasm. “I know. It’d be a great move.”
Hollie rolled her eyes and threw a towel at her friend. “For someone who apparently is so intuitive, you’re currently offline it seems.”
I love your thoughts so please feel free to leave a comment.
Would you travel around the world to uncover the reason for your dreams? Hollie Anderson does.
A young woman from Tasmania who lives on a farm just outside Launceston, she has got good looks, likes her job and loves to hang out with her friends. She should be happy, right?
But it’s a recurrent dream that throws her daily life into chaos and takes her on a journey to Ireland. While on her quest for answers she meets Sam in Dublin under unusual circumstances and both women, so different in many ways, find out they have one thing in common - and it changes their lives forever
Review by Frank Nolan, 99.9 VoiceFM Ballarat writer Iris Blobel’s first book was titled Sweet Dreams Miss England and was set in London and Dublin. She returns to the subject of dreams in her recently published second novel Journey to Her Dreams. The story is set in two small islands – Tasmania and Ireland- and involves the lives of two young women. Hollie lives with her father on a farm near Launceston while Sam lives in Dublin. A recurrent, disturbing dream inspires Hollie to visit Ireland and the two women meet in extraordinary circumstances, with momentous effect on both of their lives. A cleverly constructed plot, believable characters and lucid writing make Journey to Her Dreams enjoyable romantic fiction reading.
Review by J (Goodreads) Half romance, half women's fiction. Totally absorbing.Journey to her Dreams has two main characters, Hollie and Sam (Samantha), who live half a world apart, in Tasmania and Ireland, respectively. They don't know each other. They've never met, never heard of each other. But they dream about each other. When something awful happens, the other sees the occurrence in her dreams. (Good plotting, by the way, putting them on opposite sides of the globe. One's asleep when the other's awake, see.)
Sam's marriage is coming apart, no matter how desperately she pretends otherwise, and so her life is currently pretty awful. Her quiet despair comes through Hollie's dreams, invading Hollie's life and preventing her from sleeping. Finally desperate herself, Hollie journeys to Ireland to find the truth of her dreams. What happens on both islands changes everyone's lives.
The story is moving and haunting. While it could have been trimmed (it's over 300 pages long), the characters and plotline easily carry it along. The ending's not a huge surprise, and if one accepts the dream premise, it's all believable, the characters especially so.
Sorry I haven't been part of Sweet Saturday Sample for the last few weeks, but life's been busy with two girls at home on their term break. But I'm loving it! :-)
Nicky had just come out of the shower
when Daniel knocked at the door. She opened the door slightly and saw him smiling
at her, with a towel her only cover. Then her mobile rang and she went back
into the room. It was Shane, but she chose not to answer it. When she turned
around, Daniel had already stepped into the room with her.
“My timing seems to be just perfect,”
he said with a big grin. Nicky rolled her eyes at him.
“Okay – just a quick question. I just
talked to Sash. Vonnie, her family, Erin, her little princess and Alex are
camping down near Cork for a few days and are wondering whether we would like
to join them on the way home. Sash could bring all the stuff,” Daniel told her.
“You’re kidding me, aren’t you?” Nicky
was slightly baffled. “Camping?” Her eyes grew big.
Daniel moved closer. “Don’t tell me
you’ve never been camping.” He smiled.
“You don’t expect me to sleep in a
tent, on a mattress out there with all sorts of crawling little bugs,” Nicky
sighed.
“Miss England, it’ll be great. I
promise. You’ll camp with me and Sash in the tent and you’ll be fine. Come on.”
She thought about it and looked into
his begging eyes.
“You owe me big time for this, Mr. Callaghan!”
She quickly adjusted the towel that was in danger of slipping.
He donned a smile of anticipation,
took her face into his hand and softly touched his lips to hers.
“They say nothing beats sitting by the
campfire under the stars.” He looked into her blue eyes before brushing her
lips with his again.
“You’re taking advantage of the
situation here, Mr. Callaghan,” Nicky said softly.
He smiled conspiringly. “Shh,” he
whispered into her ear and took her hands off the towel. He kissed her gently as
he laid her down on the bed. Nicky closed her eyes in pure happiness as he
caressed her body softly with his lips. It was an overwhelming sensation that
made her give into her feelings.
As they all – seemingly – listened to the sermon, Hollie glanced towards Jeremy and noticed his arms resting on his knees and his head facing down.
Was he even listening? She watched his hands. There was something about them: strong, yet soft at the same time. He wore a subtle diamond ring on one of his fingers and a silver watch around his wrist. She couldn’t help but stare, and she suddenly had a vision of these hands touching her, caressing her body and taking her into an embrace. Hollie blushed and quickly turned her head. Feeling guilty, she tried to get her mind back to the minister’s words and the Christmas story he was telling.
Hollie and Sam
live at opposites of the world and their lives couldn’t be more different, yet
they share something in common.
Hollie
Anderson is in her mid-twenties and living with her father, Murray, on a farm
just outside Launceston in Tasmania. Her mother died at childbirth and Murray
raised his daughter on his own. According to his own words he’s done a
bloody good job with it, too. Hollie has got the looks, she likes
her job at a local newspaper and loves the company of her friends, who go way
back to school days. Two of those are Alex and Davo … she should be happy,
right?
But lately
Hollie’s dreams are literally keeping her from more than just having a decent
sleep.
Apart from those dreams Hollie’s life is good. She enjoys
life and her best friend Alex is a big part of it. The two young women have known
each other since Kindergarten and have grown up together. They are a close
team. At weekends they usually catch up with old school friends, like Davo, who
is the oldest in their group and the one organising most get-togethers, or
Ben, a primary teacher in Davenport and the one who has lately been the reason
for the butterflies in Alex’s tummy. During
one of those nights out, Hollie meets Jeremy who has just moved into town.
Jeremy seems to have everything a woman would like in a man, the looks, the
money, the good job – and he knows it, too. Their relationship blossoms
over the summer, but Jeremy knows that Hollie won’t fully commit to their new
relationship until she makes sense of her dreams and what they stand for. So
with the help from Alex and Davo, Jeremy organises a surprise birthday
present which takes Hollie to Dublin … but what she discovers is so much more.
Sam Shaughnessy lives in Dublin,
Ireland husband Padraic. Like Hollie, she works in advertising, though she is
the Head of Advertising. She seems to have it all – a successful career, gorgeous
looking husband, good looks and money.
But her life appears to crumble from
underneath her and it’s when she meets Hollie and Davo that life all of a
sudden takes a different turn. Sam as well will find more than she initially
had looked for.
I'm giving away one
free copy of "Journey to Her Dreams". This is an E-book (pdf) and is available
for international winners. All you have to do is:
comment on this post and either FB share or re-tweet this post (pls add the link).
Winner will be chosen using
Random.org
This giveaway is open to
International entrants.
eBook Giveaway will end
3 December when I log in in the morning (Eastern Australian Time).
Winner will be notified by
email and announced on my blog.
“You do know you could have it all,
Miss England. You just have to spread your wings and learn to fly. Simply reach
out and follow your dreams. It’s all out there,” Daniel, whispered into her
ear.
Check out what other readers thought of SDME:
"All in all I really did enjoy this book and I think the author has a real gift for story telling. So I’ll give the book 4 out of 5 stars"
"Overall, a very well written novel from a very talented writer. My Rating: 4"
"All of the characters are a VERY unique that are possibly people that you know in real life. The overall story (minus the extra back-story) is a story that is very real and very relate able"
"Sweet Dreams, Miss England" is now available as a pdf file for only A$1.
Sweet Dreams, Miss England - .pdf
AU$5.00
or on Amazon Kindle for 99c ....
What readers said about SDME:
The author's writing style quite surprised me as a debut author. She wrote this story with a fluid, flowing and detailed account of the plot. The narrative, characters, emotions and descriptions of the settings were written in such a seasoned style that her words were conveyed with the ability to form vivid imagery. The relationships between characters profound and meaningful on many levels . I thought that this would be another typical love story and would know the ending, but, the author delivered an unexpected twist which left me with thought provoking questions. (I will not include spoilers in this review). Overall, a very well written novel from a very talented writer. Cheryl 'Mash'
Great story, lovely characters .... Tami
All of the characters are a VERY unique that are possibly people that you know in real life. The overall story (minus the extra back-story) is a story that is very real and very relateable ...... Jamie
Really enjoyed reading "Sweet Dreams Miss England." I will remember it as being one of my favourite reads of 2009 and I look forward to reading book no. 2. ..... Heather
Hi Iris, Congratulations on your first book.I have just finished it & totally enjoyed it. I certainly didn't expect the ending. Wow, what a ride! I Look forward to the next one. Great job! .... Suzanne
