Jane Richardson

A Warm Welcome to Jane Richardson

Scots-born Jane Richardson has – amongst many other things – worked as a management trainer, a holistic therapist, and a deputy stage manager in the wonderful world of opera. Now married to a fabulous man she met while working in the theatre, she’s a full-time mum to their two gorgeous kids and lives with her family in the historic seaport of Hastings on the beautiful south coast of England. She loves walking on the seashore, cooking up feasts for friends and family, good movies and great books, and planning family holidays to her favourite country, Italy. She writes stories about men and women, love and relationships and hopes quite simply that people will like them.

Here's the blurb for Jane's latest release: A Different Kind of Honesty

Always the one who ends relationships before they’ve barely begun, it’s way out of character for Maggie Lawless to take a risk with a man she hardly knows…the man she meets in a seedy New York City diner has a truth about him, a sincerity like no one she’s ever met before. Tony Valentino is an FBI agent fresh from a long-term undercover operation that’s left his life in tatters. His marriage over, separated from his children and with nowhere to call home, he’s frustrated and angry. All that keeps him going is the sweet memory of a brief encounter with a beautiful woman, though it wakes him from crazy dreams that leave his mouth dry and his sheets soaked with sweat. When he meets her again, it’s obvious the fire that burned so briefly between them never really went out...but as their affair rekindles, both Tony and Maggie find the very people they thought they could trust are the first to turn against them.

Before treating us to an excerpt, Jane Reveals:

From where do you get inspiration and what inspired you to write 'A Different Kind of Honesty'?

Inspiration comes from everywhere and anywhere.  It can be a conversation overheard on a train, a snippet in the newspaper, or reading or watching another story and wondering what might have happened if the characters had decided to take another journey instead of the one they did.  The inspiration for the book I’m working on right now came from one moment in type – I was standing in a field one evening beside a rural cottage my family rented for a while, watching a WWII Spitfire flying overhead as part of an air show taking place in the town nearby.  I was holding my daughter on my hip, she was just a toddler then, and I found myself wondering about the other women in the past who might have stood in the same spot, watching a war plane fly by, and wondering if their husband was safe, and if he’d ever come home.  A tiny moment in time can start of whole string of stories.

Who controls the story – you or your characters?

It must be a bit of both – I have the idea in the first place, but once your characters are fully-formed and you know them as well as can ever be, then they can drive along the story in the sense that you just KNOW how they’d react, what their next move would be.  You have to be careful, though, and not let the characters run away with the story, especially the secondary characters – if you don’t watch out, they can take over!  There’s a character like that in A Different Kind of Honesty – Danny Chang is the heroine’s best friend, and he’s naughty, hugely lovable, and just such fun to be around, but I had to rein him in or he would have been just too much.  Great fun to write, though!

What do you hope your readers come away with after reading your book?

I’d like to think they’ll still be thinking about the characters some time after they’ve finished the book, and with a good feeling inside.  If a reader recognises something of themselves in a story – that moment when a reader can say, ‘yes, I KNOW that feeling!’ then I’m very happy.

What do you think are the main ingredients for a successful book?

Good, controlled writing, and a book that’s been well edited – by which I mean a reader shouldn’t notice either of those things!  Writing that flows well, and dialogue that sounds natural and unstilted.  A believable plot, but one that will still take the reader by surprise.  A range of emotions, too – everything

Do you have a writing routine?

Not any more!  When my children were younger and went to bed early, I’d write in the evening for a couple of hours.  Now they’re older, as that, along with the fact that we home-educate, well, you can imagine that takes up a lot of time, not just with the work we do at home together, but the many activities, workshops and visits outside of the home that we’re involved in.  By the end of the day, I’m pretty much done in – happy, but done in!  So these days, I write when I can.  If I can have a few pages done in a week, that’s real progress for me!  But I’m very happy with that, right now the children’s education comes first.

Anything special you require to keep the creative juices flowing?

I need peace and quiet.  I can’t even deal with music in the background, my annoying butterfly-brain just hooks into the melodies and any handle I had on the story is gone!  Having said that, music is always, always a huge part of anything I’m writing.  Each story has its own ‘soundtrack,’ and I’ll often compile a cd of the music that goes with a particular story to play in the car on in the house during the times I’m not writing.  It somehow keeps me connected with the story, especially when finding consistent writing time isn’t easy.

What is the best writing advice you have ever received? 

It was ‘just get on a write!’  Can’t argue with that!

How do you like to spend your free time?

I’m lucky to live in an area with lots of wonderful walks, we can choose to be right by the sea, or we have some wonderful country parks with wild woods and space to breathe deeply.  The dog and I will just get up and go, and within minutes, we really are ‘away from it all.’  Besides that, my hubby and I are in the process of renovating a 1930s house we bought last year.  Most of the original features were removed years ago, and it would be an enormous job to replace them all - not to mention the somewhat prohibitive cost! – and so we’re trying to redecorate as sympathetically as we can and restore something of the original character back to the house.  That means I’m spending a lot of time sourcing things like classic fabrics, pretty china and lighting, prints in period frames, and so on, and it also means I get to research architecture, illustrators and designers in order to pull it all together.  It’s great fun, and it’s lovely to feel we can bring the house up-to-date but still be true to its heritage.

What would you most like to accomplish this year?

I’d like to get a lot further on with my writing.  And – whisper this one – I’m on a diet, and would like to lose at least another 10lbs!

What is your culinary speciality?

I really love to cook, especially Italian food, so it will be something like linguini with garlic and lemons prawns – quick, healthy and really delicious.  My family would probably vote for my roast chicken Sunday dinner, or our good old home-cooked old fish and chips!

Now A Taste of Jane

From A Different Kind of Honesty – Chapter 1

“I don't want to lose you, Maggie. Really I don't!”

Detective Sergeant Danny Chang shuffled along the corridor on his knees, his hands clasped over his heart in a frenzy of unbridled passion.  “Please! You want me to beg? Look at me—I’m begging.”

Maggie Lawless sighed. “Aw, come on, Danny. You know how much I love you. No matter what happens, we'll still be friends.”

“Ha! You say that now, but when you've finished with me you'll crumple me up and toss me aside like a used tissue. You're just like all the others!” Danny threw himself face down on the floor and sobbed, his shoulders heaving in distress. Maggie stepped over his prostrate form and leaned against the swing doors at the end of the corridor.

“You're a nut, Chang.” She shoved a door open with her shoulder and walked through backwards, laughing.

Danny picked himself up and brushed the dust from his already grubby jeans. Pushing the door open further, he stood aside to let a young female constable pass, eyeing her curvaceous bottom appreciatively as she scuttled by in too-tight uniform trousers. Maggie folded her arms and watched his undisguised lust with an amused smile.

“You never miss a shot, do you?”

“Life's too short,” he answered, flicking his over-long fringe out of his eyes. His sleek, glossy hair gleamed with the black-blue sheen of a crow's back. He watched the WPC’s retreating form as it disappeared around a corner. “So anyway—what's all this crap about you leaving?”

Maggie shrugged and turned away. “I never said I was actually going.” She loosened the belt of her damp raincoat and shook her hair out of the collar as she walked down the corridor.  “All I said was I feel like a change. That's all. You know, try something different.”

Danny fell into step with her, slipping off his battered leather pilot jacket to reveal a T-shirt that might have once been white, but had long ago washed out to rain-cloud grey. A ladder of rips ran down the left leg of his jeans. One of the tears gaped open, revealing a knee with every step he took.

“Don't do it, Maggie,” he pleaded. “It won't be the same without you. I'll really miss you if

you go.”

“Danny, you haven't seen me in six months.”

“Ah, but I thought about you every day and most nights. Dreaming of running my fingers through your soft auburn hair, losing myself in those beautiful baby blues. What do you think kept me going, up there in Miserable Manchester?”

“You really are a loony, you know. What are you now, thirty-two, thirty-three? You're the youngest dirty old man I know.”

Maggie was only pretending to be serious. She and Danny Chang had been friends since day one at Police College. They'd laughed, cried, and got roaring drunk with each other, more often than not all on the same night. But never anything more, not even so much as a drunken snog, never mind a chaste kiss. If asked, Danny would have said their friendship was too valuable to spoil. Maggie would have said she’d trust him about as far as she could throw him with the wind behind her. Either way, they were best friends who told each other everything.

Most things, anyway.

Their pace slowed as they turned the corner, where two rows of doors faced each other across the corridor. A particularly evil variety of one hundred percent nylon carpeting covered the floor. After walking across it, you had to be certain to neutralize yourself on a wooden surface before touching another living soul for fear of zapping them half-dead with static shock.  Maggie rapped her knuckles on a mock-teak door with a black plastic nameplate announcing in white letters the lair of Detective Inspector Rachel Arden.

“I wonder what she wants?” Maggie whispered. “She only just caught me, too. I was trying to sneak off early. I haven't had a free weekend in ages.”

“Yeah,” Danny agreed. “And it's Poet's Day.”

“Poet’s Day?”

“Yeah, Poet’s Day. You know. Piss Off Early, Tomorrow's Saturday.”

REVIEW

From Night Owl Reviews, http://www.nightowlreviews.com/v5/Reviews/Edie-reviews-A-Different-Kind-Of-Honesty-by-Jane-Richardson
‘Jane Richardson has written a riveting story with unexpected twists and turns... A Different Kind of Honesty is a fast-paced tale filled with strong relationships and unexpected twists and turns... A Different Kind of Honesty is a fast-paced tale filled with strong relationships and unexpected drama, with a fascinating plot that will leave you breathless.  This story is well worth reading!

Many thanks for regaling us today, Jane. Great to meet you and I love the look of 'A Different Kind of Honesty'
Wishing you huge success!

Janes' Links: BUY click here MuseItUp Publishing   for Jane's Home is Where the Heart Is blog click here

Mary Curtis

A Warm Welcome to Mary
Mary Raimes Curtis was an editor and freelance writer for many years before an early retirement when she had the time to indulge in writing for herself. Her first novel, Taming the Hawk, was published by MuseItUp Publishing in June 2012.
Mary, a one time Brit, now lives on the banks of a tidal river in Nova Scotia. This beautiful area is the genesis for her second novel, Luscious & Lethal—the first book in the Gilded River Chronicles.

BUY

 
Here's the Blurb for
Luscious and Lethal:
All is not what it seems in peaceful Jancy’s Cove. Renowned New York model and designer, Dani Renaldo, believes her new home on the shores of the Atlantic will provide a peaceful haven after an abusive marriage and the loss of her unborn child. But peace is a rare commodity.

Someone stalks the dark shadows and a boat slides into the cove after midnight. Between unknown prowlers and an arrogant but sexy neighbour who is determined to claim her, Dani wonders if the mean streets of New York would be less hazardous to her well-being.

Before treating us to an excerpt, Mary Reveals:

Show More

What inspires you to write?

Show Less

Thank you for inviting me to your blog, Megan. You asked what inspires me to write. Finding inspiration is the easy part, ideas seem to arrive with little prompting. The impetus for my latest ebook, Luscious & Lethal, arrived one morning as a visual. My desk sits in a window overlooking a small bay on a salt-water river. Early one evening, I watched a woman walk into the scene through the long grass as a large dog ran out from the bush. Then a small boat chugged into view. Suddenly the boat speeded up and disappeared around the headland. That was the moment Luscious & Lethal became real to me.

In a couple of sentences, describe the hero’s character.  What do you like best/least about him?   Like most of my heroes, Simon has a dark side, of course he hides his vulnerability after a troubled past. He’s tough, arrogant and determined to deny the growing attraction between him and Dani, his provocative neighbour. Dani maintains he acts like a low-land gorilla, albeit an extremely sexy one. I like that Simon can change and open up to the woman who zings all his strings.

And the heroine? How do you relate to her?   The woman seen from my window became Dani, a plus-size supermodel who must come to terms with the fact that you can run but can’t always escape the bad guys. She’s experienced a thousand knocks in her life and managed to make it in a tough profession. So there we have it: a woman running from her past, a dog who belongs to a faceless man, noises in the night and an arrogant but sexy neighbour. Dani is my hero as she overcomes the bad guys.

Who controls the story – you or your characters?   Maybe I’m a sadist, but I love turning the hero inside out as he meets a woman who gives as good as she gets. In Luscious & Lethal, Dani doesn’t yield easily. But then, it wouldn’t be a story if everything fell into place without a ripple that develops into a storm.

What do you hope your readers come away with after reading your books?   Megan asked me a tough question: What do I hope readers will come away with after reading my books? When I thought about it for a while, it wasn’t really such a tough question. I realized that all my heroines have some kind of a dark past and must fight to survive and move on. In real life, many, many women face what sometimes seem overwhelming odds. I hope readers can relate to that in my books and realize the past can be overcome.

What do you think are the main ingredients for a successful book?   I believe great characters make for a successful book. Well-developed characters, whether good or evil, can draw you into the story. Then of course you have to provide an interesting plot and setting. It’s very frustrating, my characters arrive unbidden and demand I give them space to create the story. So I have little to do with the mayhem or otherwise they create.

What do you like best and least about writing?   As I write these words, I realize that writing isn’t something I thought of doing. It’s something I just do, like breathing, and have done since I was young. As a child reading was an escape from situations I could do nothing about, writing came from wanting to tell stories to someone who wasn’t there. I know it sounds sort of enigmatic, but that’s the way it was.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block? What would be your tips to overcome it?    I understand many writers experience writers’ block. I had no idea what that was like. Once upon a time, my day job involved writing for corporate clients. It would have been a serious mistake to call in and tell then I didn’t feel like writing that day as my muse was missing. Besides, characters were always knocking at my brain wanting me to listen and write their story. Until one day, my long-time companion died and I absolutely couldn’t write or paint for two years. I thought my creativity had gone walk-about forever. Then a friend asked me to write an article about one of my cats for the local animal shelter newsletter. Oh, wow, that was a daunting. I am a supporter of the shelter and my four cats were abandoned in one way or another, so what could I do? I agonised for two days and nights, literally couldn’t sleep. Then one morning I got, up made my mug of kick ass coffee and sat down at the keyboard. The article about Smokey Joe, who is a demolition expert, clicked into place. That’s what broke the dam. I still haven’t produced another painting yet, but I’m not complaining. One breakthrough at a time is about all I can handle.

Do you have a writing routine?   One of my regrettable quirks is that I hate routine. I seem to live life as it comes. Writing is no different, a character pops into my head and I sit down and type. Once, at a conference, a young woman asked me what my magic formula for writing was. There is no answer to such a question. At least I don’t have one. All I could offer was an old adage: If you want to write you have to sit down and do it instead of talking about it. I did learn, over time, that as you write, write, write, it’s a good idea to read other writers. Not to copy, to learn what works and what doesn’t. I once took painting lessons where we were supposed to copy well-known paintings. I discovered I can’t copy worth a damn. That ineptitude spills over into the written word. 

Anything special you require to keep the creative juices flowing?   Except for those two years of mourning, I find a myriad of things that help to keep the creative juices flowing. At the moment I’m working out an idea for the follow-up book in the Gilded River Chronicles. A friend is active in a program she helped develop that humanely reduces the overpopulation of feral cat colonies. It’s an amazing program. I call it the nip and tuck program, meaning spay/neuter. After listening to the stories from behind the scenes, I woke up one morning and sat at my laptop. 5,000 words spilled out about an ancient barn, glittering eyes watching from high rafters, the dark of night and someone hiding a long-ago crime. Really, I don’t have much to do with the process, it just happens, although my friends should definitely get credit for sparking the idea and answering a multitude of questions about their work.

Asking questions comes with the territory. When I decided that I really should try and write stories for a larger audience than one, I took on-line workshops, soaked up advice from a number of sources, listened to all the naysayers who said you can’t do this and you can’t do that and you must do the other. (It seemed to me that there were more rules and twisted regulations in the publishing business than comes out of a totalitarian regime.) One person who read an early WIP said that editors would reject the story because a character, who was a whore who married a lord, was unbelievable. Then an author whose books I enjoy told me that I should write my story and ignore the conformists. Now I have Lea Schizaz at MuseItUp Publishers to thank for taking one of the stories that starts out with a non-hero, hero and publishing it. That book was Taming the Hawk.

What was your favourite book as a child/teen/adult? Are you currently reading anything?   Books were hard to come by when I was a child so I’m not sure I had a favourite. I loved them all, the bad the good and the ones I shouldn’t have been reading. My brother tried to hide his stash of hard-bitten detective stories. I always found them. When asked by a teacher what I read at home, my answer: Dashiel Hammett and Edgar Allan Poe, that didn’t go down too well. A note went home to my mother…which was ignored. At the moment I’m lusting after a copy of Iced by Karen Marie Moning. Love her Fever paranormal series.

There really isn’t enough time, or funds for that matter, to read all the books on my wish list. Which is just as well, I’m determined to complete the second book in the Gilded River Chronicles, finish edits to a historical and submit it to my editor then do some more research on seaglunking for the third story in the Chronicles.

In a few words, how would you describe yourself? How do you think your husband/partner would describe you?   Megan asked how I would describe myself. I’d rather answer her final question regarding how a husband/partner would describe me. Back in the day, my partner declared that I was from outer space.

Before I step into another dimension, I have to tell you that talking about myself is my least favourite topic. Thankfully, Megan made it easy.

And Now A Taste of Mary:
Next morning Dani’s time was spent catching up on a slew of emails, trying to sort out the office into some semblance of order and doing three sketches for her next Luscious Rags collection. Plus some notes on a new design for a slinky gown, size two, for Meridee Crane. Meri, an old friend and rising movie star, had sent a frantic email plea in purple typeface.
HELP! Drop everything. Movie nominated for Academy Award. Need a Dani special. Double slinky with a dash of whore. Meri.
Oh, dear, Dani felt her own panic start with a twitch in her left eye, a sure sign her blood pressure was going to crank up. She sorted through her file folders and found Meri’s and hoped she hadn’t gained or lost weight. What if the actress wanted her to travel to New York to do the fittings? She couldn’t do that. Just the thought of being in the same city as Tom was enough to bring on a case of hives. After sending an email to congratulate her on the nomination and requesting more information on what kind of outfit Meri had in mind, Dani tried to settle down and figure out what to do. Meri stood by her during the divorce and she didn’t want to let her down. But, and it was a big but, how could she design something spectacular at long distance? And what about the trip with Simon? It would have to be put on hold.
Hours later, frazzled and nursing a doozy of a headache, she closed the studio door on chaos. A flitter of an idea for a slinky beautiful gown that had a definite touch of whore, had begun to take shape on her sketchpad, and, she had scattered enough discarded sketches around her desk to obliterate the honey-coloured sheen of the plank floor.
There was a note on the fridge door from Jay when she walked into the kitchen. She smiled. He’d gone into town and would be there for the evening. She bet she knew whereabouts in town—a house beside a barn by the river. Going up to her bedroom, she took a shower and pulled on a pair of caramel-coloured slacks and a crossover sweater in soft cream wool that tied at the waist. The evening was chilly but the clouds had sailed out over the Atlantic. Gathering the few sketches she saved from the discards, she picked up a bottle of Sangria and set off through the trees to Simon’s house.
The warm sweater was a good idea as the sun had set some time ago and it was dim and cold under the heavy canopy of branches. There was a rustling somewhere on the rock-strewn hill behind her. Her head turned sharply. Nothing. Or at least, nothing she could see. Who would know if someone was hiding up there in the shadows? She should have brought a torch and a bazooka. Trying to shake off her over-active imagination, she followed the faint trail that wound its way down to the cleared space behind Simon’s house. All the while she had a horrible suspicion someone was following.
Just as she was about to step out from the trees and into the muted lilac-grey light of evening, a sound close by, like the harsh inhalation of a breath, made her skin crawl and her heart thumped as she turned to stare back. Still there was nothing but shadow and the twittering of agitated birds.
Was that the slide of footsteps through old leaves? Suddenly she began to run, pushing aside branches, jumping fallen deadwood. Simon, she had to reach Simon before…she didn’t know what or who was following, only that it wasn’t benign. Long moments later, she burst from beneath the trees and headed for the welcoming light on Simon’s veranda. Dashing up the steps she realized the sketches were gone, although the bottle of Sangria was still clutched under her arm.
“Damn!” She turned again. Nothing moved back there in the darkness, the only sound the rasp of her breath in her throat and the soughing of wind through the treetops. Nevertheless she wasn’t about to venture into the woods again to find her sketches. What a terrible coward she was.
“Something wrong, Dani?”
She whirled around to find Simon standing still as a monolith. Nerves twanging she lashed out. “Why do you do that? At least sing, or bang a pot or something, to let me know you’re there.” She bit her lip and held out the bottle as if it was a burnt offering.
Simon took it and laid an arm around her shoulders. “Did something frighten you, sweetheart? You were running like a tornado was on your tail.”
Dani shook her head but couldn’t help looking over her shoulder. The shadows were deep beneath the hemlocks and hoary old pines but no dark figure stood there watching her. Damn! She had to get a grip. For a moment she thought of resisting, going back just to show that she wasn’t afraid. Stupid, what did she have to prove? She allowed Simon to draw her into the warmth of the house.

BUY LINKS: For those readers who would like to check out Taming the Hawk and Luscious & Lethal, both are available from
MuseItUp Publishing click link here , Amazon click link here and other on-line bookstores.

Now leave a comment for the chance to win a copy of Luscious & Lethal
  or Taming the Hawk. (two prizes on offer - please leave an email address)

If anyone would like to get in touch, Mary would love to hear from you, her website is: www.maryraimescurtis.com

 Pleasure to meet you, Mary, and I wish you huge success with Luscious and Lethal!

 

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