Welcome to Book Fun Friday Welcomes Lauren Smith & Veronica Lynch

Welcome to Book Fun Friday!

Almost at Halloween and today we have Two Guest Authors!

Let's give a Book Fun Friday welcome to Lauren Smith and Veronica Lynch

First up Let's introduce Lauren Smith!

A Little Background:

Lauren Smith is an attorney by day, author by night, who pens adventurous and edgy romance stories by the light of her smart phone flashlight app. She’s a native Oklahoman who lives with her three pets: a feisty chinchilla, sophisticated cat and dapper little schnauzer. She’s won multiple awards in several romance sub-genres including being an Amazon.com Breakthrough Novel Award Quarter-Finalist and a Semi-Finalist for the Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Award.

Today's Post Title: True Hauntings an Inspiration for Modern Gothic Romance

Book Title: The Shadows of Stormclyffe Hall

      

Log Line: A love like theirs cannot die…

Book Tag Line:  A haunted castle, an earl with a tragic past and a woman destined to save him.

Book Blurb:  Bastian, the Earl of Weymouth doesn’t believe in ghosts even though his family’s ancient castle is full of them. When American graduate student Jane Seyton shows up to write her thesis, the attraction seems to go centuries back. The sparks between Jane and Bastian are undeniable, but ghosts from the past rise up to keep them apart forever.

Book Excerpt: 

There on the wall was the infamous woman whose swan dive off the cliffs had tainted his family’s lives forever. Bastian studied the portrait for a moment. A fair-skinned woman with a hint of rose in her cheeks gazed out from the layers of oil with serious gray eyes. Her pale blue gown molded to her curves, and waves of rich ebony hair tumbled down her shoulders to tease the tops of her breasts. There was a curious expression on her face. She was happy, but wariness lurked in the depths of her eyes, as though she expected to lose her joy at any moment.

Below the painting, a flesh-and-blood woman stood with her back to him. Windblown hair, dark as a raven’s wing, spiraled down her back in enticing waves. He had the sudden urge to thread his fingers through the silken strands and shape her full curves with his other hand. A curious burning settled deep in his bones, and a ringing filled his ears as visions of him pinning her to a bed filled his mind. Wild, erotic thoughts tumbled through him, stealing his breath before he regained control and focused on his visitor again.

As though she’d heard his lustful thoughts, the woman turned to face him, cheeks flaming. She couldn’t have known what he was thinking.  His hand dropped from the door handle, and his jaw slackened in shock.

The dreamy gray eyes fixed on him were identical to the eyes of the woman painted above her. Noble, high cheekbones, curving brows, a sensual mouth made for kisses, and that nose, both delicate and impish, a perfect fit for the face of the woman before him. Her inky-black tresses and curves designed perfectly for a man’s hands made her a living memory of a woman centuries gone.

Dear God… He repeated the words in his head over and over, mesmerized by the closeness of their shared features.

“You must be Lord Weymouth. I’m Jane Seyton.”

The woman strode over to him, hand outstretched. Without thinking, he took it. Heat flared between them. He inhaled sharply.

Question for You!: Have you ever had a ghostly encounter? If not, do you believe in ghosts?

Lauren's Links:

Website:http://www.laurensmithbooks.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/LaurenDianaSmith

Twitter: @LSmithAuthor

Goodreads:https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6553241.Lauren_Smith?from_search=true

Newsletter: Sign up at the bottom of Lauren’s website
Buy Link for today's book (copy and paste in your browser): 
http://www.amazon.com/Shadows-Stormclyffe-Hall-Entangled-Select-ebook/dp/B00NE06UI4/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1414158114&sr=1-1&keywords=the+shadows+of+stormclyffe+hall
 

Giveaway: Answer Lauren's question and get a chance to win an ebook of The Shadows of Stormclyffe Hall

Today's Post:

There is nothing better than visiting a place you believe is haunted. The chills that dance along your spine, the rising of the fine hairs on the back of your neck. The murmurs of voices, as though behind a thin, invisible veil and that pinprick sense of focus on the back of your head as though a thousand pairs of unseen eyes are fixed on you. I’ve experienced this on two different occasions. The first was in the dungeons of the ruins of Chateau Gaillard in France, which was one of King Richard I’s strongholds in France. The castle is little more than crumbling stones upon a hill overlooking a river, yet as I ventured down the worn steps into the dark dungeon, a breath of cold air seemed to exhale upon my neck.

After an experience like that I was hooked. I began to devour research materials on haunted homes, castles and mansions, especially in England. The stories included true accounts of hooded monks wondering graveyards, visitors touring homes seeing screaming skulls chase them down hallways and women in Elizabethan gowns drifting through libraries. These were only a few of the many fascinating tales I came across. But none was so powerful as the story of a woman in white. A woman in white is a type of ghost, often a woman betrayed by a lover, a woman who lost a child, or suffered from some other traumatic event and usually is either murdered herself or commits suicide. She usually haunts roads or lonely paths and can be spotted by travelers or visitors who have the luck, or perhaps bad luck of crossing her path. Women in white are mysterious, always wearing pale gowns, looking alluring, and tragic. It was the perfect choice of ghost to use when I sat down to write my modern paranormal gothic romance The Shadows of Stormclyffe hall.

I knew I wanted to write about that type of ghost. The heroine, Jane Seyton, arrives at Stormclyffe Hall and witnesses a woman in white ghost at the edge of the cliffs by the castle. It’s her first glimpse of one of the spirits that haunt the castle, named Isabelle, who happens to be one of the ancestors of the hero.

Getting to write the love story between Jane and the hero Bastian who is the current Earl of Weymouth and restoring Stormclyffe, his family’s castle, was a lot of fun. Jane as an American grad student writing a historical thesis on haunted castles, is the perfect foil to the more rigid, brooding figure of Bastian who would rather send Jane away to protect her than risk either of their hearts or their lives given the sometime malevolent nature of some of the spirits haunting the castle. With the backdrop of the ghostly encounters, Jane and Bastian butt heads as they attempt to solve the mystery of Isabelle’s death two hundred years ago and fight the growing passion that sparks between them.

Writing the story of Stormclyffe was one of the coolest things I’ve done because it was great excuse to research history and hauntings and work them into a passionate, steamy love story with a gothic backdrop.

  


Let's give a big Book Fun Friday welcome to Vernoica Lynch!

Veronica is featuring her 15,000 word novella which is part of The Wild Rose Press's Halloween series.

Caper Madness-- Enter the small town in Northern New York State which takes the entire month of October to celebrate all things Halloween. It's zany, it's crazy...

Tagline:  This attraction: Complete madness or—sheer magic?

Book Blurb:  P.I. Nick Forrester comes to Cape Brendan ostensibly to assist with Caper Madness, a month long celebration of everything Halloween. In reality he is tracking a woman on the run. Within days he is confronted by Annunciata Doyle, a vivid reminder of a pain-filled past.

          After retreating to Cape Brendan in defeat and humiliation, Nunie Doyle's only hope was to make the best of forced retirement. There, in this quaint tourist town on the shores of Lake Ontario, she earned the love and respect of new friends and neighbors—and put her talent for helping women to good use.

          With the mutual goal of making Caper Madness the best ever, Nick and Nunie fight tooth and nail on the personal level, each discovering a new side to the other, sides that make them consider making drastic changes for the rest of their lives. 

         

  Giveaway:  $25 gift certificate for a tote bag or any item from Kat's Kustom Karry Alls. Leave Veronica a comment to be eligible for a drawing for this generous prize!


Contact Veronica: 

https://wildwomenauthorsx2.blogspot.com

Buy Link:   http://www.amazon.com/Caper-Magic-Hauntings-Garden-Veronica-ebook/dp/B00O0FVUDC/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1414158231&sr=1-2&keywords=caper+magic