Lynette Rees

As today is Good Friday, the beginning of the Easter weekend, I would like to share a poem. I don’t write poetry that often as I have to be in the mood. However, my mother, who goes to the Salvation Army over 60 meetings on a weekly basis, said they were looking for poems on the theme of HOPE. So I picked up a pen and paper this morning and this poem flew from my pen.

Hope

~ Lynette Rees ~

Hope is expectation of the unseen

Hope is having faith to believe

Hope is found in the name of one man

Hope is a gift from God

Hope is a burning candle in the night

Hope is a belief that things will turn out right

Hope is eternal – it never fades away

Hope is a gift from God

Hope is here today – right now with you

Hope is within and without ever true

Hope is all – both Alpha and Omega

Hope is a gift from God

Hope is one man who has a blessed name

Hope fills an empty space where despair has been

Hope gives meaning to our lives full of care

Jesus is that gift from God

Jesus is our hope, diminishing despair

Jesus is our light in the darkness out there

Jesus is our precious gift from Him

Jesus is our hope, our eternal King.

I was coming home from work this evening, waiting for a connecting bus at the bus station, when a lady from the village where I live shouted, “You’ve been on my mind this week!” I turned around expecting that she was speaking to someone behind me, but there was no one there.

Oh dear, I thought, what have I done?

“I couldn’t remember your surname,” she said enthusiastically, “I want to get your books from the library!”

So of course, I gave her the correct spelling of my full name and both books. Now you might think, what’s the point of that because I’m not going to earn anything from it, but I think libraries are a good thing. I’ve taken out books by new authors and then gone on to purchase further copies of their books.

I know there are authors who don’t like having their books sold in charity shops or passed around for others to read, but I’m not one of those. To be honest, I’m flattered when I’m told someone has enjoyed one of my books so much they’ve passed it on to their next door neighbour or posted it their daughter-in-law who lives on the other side of the world. As far as I’m concerned, my name is getting out there.

So, I hope that lady from the village manages to get both copies of my books and if she enjoys them, she’ll tell others. After all, wasn’t it Donald Maas that said: “It’s not reviews that sell books but word-of-mouth.”

Always wanted to know the secrets of successful romance authors?

Welsh author, Lynette Rees, has written this guide because when she started out ‘trying’ to write romance, very much by trial and error, she would have loved to have had a concise guide that put it all in a nutshell for her.

Instead, she did it the hard way – read many how-to romance books and taught herself the elements of writing romance by writing her own short stories and eventually, a romance novel.

Not that this is a bad thing of course, but if you are someone who would appreciate the facts, right now, then this is the guide for you!

Lynette has put together a system that is so successful she always gets customers emailing her with their thank yous and congratulations. All you need to do is see her reviews below to see how successful this guide really is.
Customer Reviews
“No other instructor has compared to the attention Lynette gives to a new writer.”
T.Widemire ~ Ohio
“I have won first prize in a short story competition with the added bonus of £150.00 in prize money!

Please give yourself a massive pat on the back, Lyn, because I know I couldn’t have done this without your fantastic tuition!”

R. Brimble ~ United Kingdom
These are just a sample of reviews. Trust me you will not be disappointed!
Lynette has developed a package that is so successful, so easy to understand, so carefully written that any writer could come up with a romance story within weeks. Just check out the sort of things this guide will give you and soon you’ll be confidently writing your own romance story.
What you will learn
* Learn how to craft the romance story
* Discover the tricks of professional romance authors
* Learn how to compile a successful submission package
* Useful web links
* Learn how to hook the reader in
* How to avoid a sagging middle to your story
* How to construct a successful black moment
* How to write a satisfying ending
* And so much more!

Remember, this is over 50 in-depth pages created by a top writer.

Lynette recently had one of her romance novels published in e-book format at Samhain Publishing, entitled: “A Taste Of Honey”. This will be available as a paperback  at Waldenbooks/Borders and at the number one online book store Amazon from February 26th, 2008.
Lynette also has two more books due out this year at The Wild Rose Press! “It Happened One Summer” and “Return To Winter”. That’s three novels in a short space of time.
If you read this guide, in time you might be able to say the same thing too!
This could be the step up you are looking for. Lynette Rees has put together the key points that she found difficult when she began to write romantic novels.
She has also featured interviews with 3 top authors including Maggie Shayne.
Below are some of Lynette’s published articles, please feel free to view them.
* Romance Readers’ Pet Peeves

* Seven Ways to Inject Suspense into Your Novel

* Develop a Kick-Ass Plot!

Are you ready to begin?
Buy
A Beginner’s Guide to Crafting the Romance Story in a Nutshell
Today for just $15.00

over 50% off!

CLICK HERE TO BUY NOW!

©2006 Lynette Rees

Affiliates!

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What are your favourite Christmas movies? Here are some of mine:

1. Scrooge [Albert Finney musical version]

2. White Christmas

3. It’s a Wonderful Life

4. Bridget Jones’s Diary

5. Miracle on 34th Street [the Natalie Wood version]

6 Holiday Inn

7. Scrooged

I’m sure I’ll think of more given time!

 ** The winners of this competition are Evelyn Guy and Lisa Griffin.

Congratulations ladies! 

Blurb:

When Sandy Perkins encounters an awkward customer, sparks fly. Making matters worse, the ‘customer’ later reveals himself to her as new boss, Matt Walker.

Can Matt heal the rift with Sandy to help thwart the evil stalker threatening her life? Will Sandy finally allow herself to fall in love again?

To win a PDF copy of It Happened One Summer, let me know what song makes you think of summer? Post here to ensure your entry.

Good luck!

You pick up a book from the shelf, deliberating whether or not you will buy it. Now, if you are anything like me, after scanning the picture on the front cover and reading the back cover blurb, then giving them the thumbs up, you open the book and read the first couple of lines. If those lines do not immediately grab you by the throat, then chances are, you won’t purchase that book. The author in question has lost another sale.

So, what first lines grabbed you, making you want to read on?

Here are some of mine:

Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden:

Suppose that you and I were sitting in a quiet room overlooking a garden, chatting and sipping at our cups of green tea while we talked about something that had happened a long while ago, and I said to you, “That afternoon when I met so-and-so…was the very best afternoon of my life, and also the very worst afternoon.”

What a powerful start to a book! It’s the type of sentence that makes me want to read on even though it’s quite a long sentence as sentences go. It has a kind of an intimacy about it as though the narrator is talking to an old friend. It also poses the question: How on earth could that afternoon be the very best afternoon of that person’s life and also the very worst? Intriguing.

It Had To Be You, Susan Elizabeth Phillips:

PHOEBE Somerville outraged everyone by bringing a French poodle and a Hungarian lover to her father’s funeral.

This sentence is a very visual start to a book for me. It immediately makes me think this book is going to have comedic elements to it and begs the question: Why is Phoebe Somerville intent on putting everyone’s backs up at her father’s funeral?

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens:

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

The two cities Dickens refers to in the title are London and Paris. Throughout the novel, pairs of people, places, etc. are compared and contrasted. The book takes place just before the start of the French revolution. Again, this is another long sentence and very poetic at that. In some ways I find it similar to the start of Memoirs of a Geisha in so much as the way the narrator provides us with the element of contrast.

Not only does this book have a very famous first line, it also has a famous closing line:

“It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.”

So what are your favourite first lines? Please post them below for discussion.

Certain genres are renowned for being more suspenseful than others: horror, crime fiction and romantic suspense, but each and every book, no matter whether it’s an Historical Romance or a Paranormal Fantasy, HAS to have a level of suspense interwoven between the pages!

All stories need to have this element, otherwise the reader isn’t going to want to turn the page, it’s as simple as that. So if you’re interested in what makes a suspenseful page turner, then please read on…

Creating conflict in your novel is a given, otherwise there would be no story. If all went smoothly it would be as dull-as-dishwater, wouldn’t it? They all lived happily throughout the story and ever after, yawn…

I’ve listed seven ways you can inject suspense into your novel:

1. Introduce your characters to their worst nightmare!

Find out about your characters beforehand. If possible, write up their likes and dislikes etc, and most importantly of all, find out what it is they fear most? What is it that causes their hearts to thump loudly, beads of perspiration to form on their upper lips, and the hairs on the back of their necks to stand on end? Find out what that thing or things are, and then give it to them, both barrels. For example, if your heroine is petrified of flying because her parents died in a plane crash, create a story where she HAS to take a journey on an airplane. If your hero fears water because he almost drowned as a young child, put him in a position where he HAS to get back in the water to rescue someone.

Introduce them to their worst nightmare and watch how they react!

2. Lull them into a false sense of security

When your character is really frightened of something, throw in a red herring. For example, if your heroine thinks she hears a noise outside, allow the plot to let her fears grow and grow. Let it be something quite innocuous, like the dustbin blowing over in the wind. Then, when she has reassured herself, breathing a sigh of relief, petrify her to death by placing a prowler outside her back door!

3. Throw the spotlight on at least two people

This might sound a little obvious, but for goodness sake, don’t make the villain of the piece stand out a mile. Instead, have suspicion fall on at least two, possibly three characters. This will have the effect of your reader not really being sure until the end, when the other shoe falls! But, by all means, leave some clues and some red herrings along the way!

4. Pacing

Pacing is important to create suspense. In general, short, snappy sentences will enable the reader to race ahead so they feel their heart is beating in time with the frightened protagonist. Longer sentences tend to slow things down. You might want to speed things up for a car chase or slow it down for a love making scene. Imagine your novel as if you were watching it on the big screen. How would it be filmed? What would that particular scene look like to the audience?

5. The calm before the storm

Make use of the weather to good effect. Thunderclouds brewing overhead, often give the reader the feeling that something is about to happen [prophetic fallacy]. A bolt of lightening hitting the night sky, power lines down, a stranger at the door, etc. Think of the last time you watched a horror film; didn’t the weather come into somewhere?

6. When all goes well, throw in a dead body!

When you hit a sagging middle of a novel, and you find there’s no where to go, try throwing in a dead body. This doesn’t necessarily mean that a character has to be killed off, although you might want to do just that, it can mean that something unexpected happens, such as the birth of a baby, etc. Something that injects a little more oomph into the plot!

7. Setting

Setting is very important as a tool to create suspense. What about that dark stone staircase covered in cobwebs? Or the elevator that suddenly stops in between floors? Choosing the right sort of setting can make or break a novel. And sometimes, placing the object or person the protagonist fears in an innocuous setting can make the story all the more horrifying.

Be cruel to your characters and watch them run for their lives!

A question popped into my mind the other day: Why do Harlequin Mills and Boon books only exhibit a certain type of hero? It came to me after reading an interesting post at Romancing the Blog, ‘Let’s hear it for the blonds’:

http://www.romancingtheblog.com/blog/2007/05/10/let%e2%80%99s-hear-it-for-the-blonds/

Basically, the writer of the blog, Alyssa Hurzeler, is asking why we don’t often get to read about the blond hero? It got me thinking she’s got a point. Most of the Harlequin Mills and Boon heroes I read about are tall, dark and a little arrogant, like modern day Mr. Darcys.

Currently we have titles like:

* The Greek Tycoon’s Virgin Mistress

* The Sicilian’s Hot Revenge

* Kept by the Spanish Billionaire

All Mediterranean men, all in positions of power.

We never get to hear titles such as:

* Seduced by the Swede

* Bought for the Dutchman’s Bed

* In the Arms of the Austrian

Or what about the books where the hero’s profession is prominent:

* The Italian Doctor’s Perfect Family

* The Soldier’s Seduction

* The Runaway and the Cattleman

* The Bodyguard Contract

We never get to see titles like:

* The Dane’s Dysfunctional Family

* The Prodigal Plumber

* Swept off her feet by the Dustbin man

* The Runaway and the Bricklayer

Of course, you’ve gathered by now that the alternative titles I’ve suggested are very much tongue-in-cheek!

But why do almost all the British Harlequin Mills and Boon books at the moment only appear to have Mediterranean heroes?

British author, Betty Neels, broke the mould with her Dutch heroes. [Betty was a nurse who married a Dutch doctor]. But even when Betty’s books were in print they didn’t mention anything about a Dutchman in the title. They were usually titles like:

Sister Peters in Amsterdam or Nurse in Holland, but more frequently, her books would have titles like A Christmas to Remember or The Promise of Happiness. You’d have to peek inside to discover the Dutch connection

Sadly, Betty died in 2001, and although she broke the mould herself with her writing, I think she was pretty unique. All the books I’ve read that were written by her, have only included the heroine’s point of view and yet they seem to work. Nowadays, we usually get the hero’s point of view as well. Her books are still in print today, a testament to how loved as an author she was and still is. See here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betty_Neels

So, what do you think? Would you like to see a different sort of hero in a Harlequin Mills and Boon book, or are you more than happy with Modern day, Mediterranean Mr. Darcys? And if you would like to read about a different sort of hero for a change, what sort would he be?

I found this review today when I Googled my name at Sensual Reads.net:

Travis O’Connell was a bloke that needed a job. His former job had ended badly. Could he find what he needed in this town? Anything was possible.

Fran Santini worked at her family’s restaurant. She had a side job as well even though no one knew about it.

Fran, was worried she would never make a good honey catcher. She needed this job at “Peace of Mind” to help her family out after she was duped by her so called ex. What Fran did not plan on is finding out the man she was trying to catch was applying for a job at her family’s restaurant. What will she do now that she has come face to face with Travis?

A Taste Of Honey is an awesomely funny story. Lynette Rees tickled my funny bone even as she turns up the heat between Travis and Fran. I laughed. This book is full of heart and family.

Reviewer: Deb

Just got a nice review for A Taste of Honey from Once Upon a Romance:

What I like about A Taste of Honey is that the characters come across as real and believable. They are fallible, average people getting on with their lives the best way that can. I like that as I don’t always want to read about perfect people. Fran and Travis are attracted to each other but wary of the other’s motives. Do they pursue their feelings despite the constant misunderstandings between them?

The romance is slow and sweet in this book as the characters circle each other wondering ‘what if’ and ‘should I’. I enjoyed that. It built up the tension. I also felt there was a strong theme of Fran and Travis rescuing each other even when they weren’t entirely sure of what they were feeling. That was nice.

A Taste of Honey is a good solid romance. If you want a happy ending where the bad guy gets his comeuppance and the good guys win you will enjoy this book.

Janet Davies