It’s Release Day for What Lies Beneath!

 

I’m delighted to present my new young adult historical fantasy novel, What Lies Beneath, out today from Book View Café!

War. Spies. Gossip and lies. Mythical Creatures. Falling in love. And it’s still only July.

It’s 1917, and everyone is doing their bit now that America has entered the Great War—everyone except 17-year-old Emma Verlaine. Her overprotective dad won’t let her go to nursing school while he’s off doing war work; instead, she’s been sent to stay for the summer with her Gran on an island off Cape Cod, and the most she’ll be able to do for the war effort is knit socks. Socks!

As it happens, island life isn’t so bad. There are the seals that seem even more fascinated by her than she is by them. There’s the new Navy Air Station that guards the coast from German U-boats where she’s determined to get a job. But most of all there’s Malcolm, whose family owns a resort hotel on the island and who gives her swimming lessons and delicious kisses.

But danger lurks in the waters off the island. Only Emma can save her new home—if she accepts that everything she thought she knew about her life is a lie, and that the seals are following her for a very good reason…

 

“Malcolm and Emma are appealing characters, and their sea-crossed romance keeps readers turning pages.... Engaging and fun.” –Kirkus Reviews

 

I’ve already talked about how different it was to write a story set firmly in the 20th century… and in a place that I know and love. That second part was especially important—to be able to use home in a story is both a delight and a challenge for any author, I think. There’s the desire to show what is beautiful and compelling about one’s home tainted by the fear that we won’t be able to communicate it to our satisfaction. I hope that I’ve done justice to my home world in What Lies Beneath.

And of course, selkies. You already know they’re my favorite mythical creature; it was exciting and challenging to dive a little deeper into their world and speculate about what might have happened if selkies lived near Cape Cod and how their world might intersect with the human world.

“What Lies Beneath beautifully knits patriotism, self-discovery, and bravery galore into a mystical pattern of young love and legendary lore!” –5 stars, InD'tale Magazine

 

What Lies Beneath is available in ebook direct from Book View Café as well as from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Apple, Google Books, and Smashwords, and in both paperback and hardcover from your favorite bookstore and from Barnes and Noble and Amazon. You can also read a sample on my website.

I hope you'll enjoy it!

What Lay Beneath Those Teaser Posts…

 

This!

 

I’m happy to announce that my new young adult fantasy, What Lies Beneath, will be out on September 14 from Book View Café!

War. Spies. Gossip and lies. Mythical Creatures. Falling in love. And it’s still only July.

It’s 1917, and everyone is doing their bit now that America has entered the Great War—everyone except 17-year-old Emma Verlaine. Her overprotective dad won’t let her go to nursing school while he’s off doing war work; instead, she’s been sent to stay for the summer with her Gran on an island off Cape Cod, and the most she’ll be able to do for the war effort is knit socks. Socks!

As it happens, island life isn’t so bad. There are the seals that seem even more fascinated by her than she is by them. There’s the new Navy Air Station that guards the coast from German U-boats where she’s determined to get a job. But most of all there’s Malcolm, whose family owns a resort hotel on the island and who gives her swimming lessons and delicious kisses.

But danger lurks in the waters off the island. Only Emma can save her new home—if she accepts that everything she thought she knew about her life is a lie, and that the seals are following her for a very good reason…

It was quite a change of pace to write a story set firmly in the twentieth century, after dwelling so long in the nineteenth. Telephones! Airplanes! Bathing suits! Working women! And as you saw, the research for this book was a lot of fun: 1917 had so many more similarities to our world, yet still some crucial differences. But some things will never change—young women striving to find their place in the world…and love. It was also great fun to set a book in a place I know and love so well, and to incorporate real bits and pieces of history, both national and local, into the plot.

What Lies Beneath is up for pre-order at Amazon (affiliate link), Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Apple, Googleplay, and Smashwords, and will also be available in print from your favorite bookstore. And if you're feeling impatient, there's a sneak peek over on my website to whet your appetite.

I hope you'll enjoy it!

I'm Not Really Here...

Thanks to the wonderful pre-posting function on Blogger, I can type this up on Monday morning to post for you to read later on, because I won’t be here. Regina and I are off to the RWA National Conference in New York City for our annual girls’ sleepover, and by the time you read this on Tuesday, we’ll be happily attending the Beau Monde Chapter (Regency) annual one-day mini-conference. Then Regina’s coming home to Cape Cod with me for a few days, so this will be a quiet week at NineteenTeen.

But we promise a full report and lots of pictures, so toodles till next week!

Release Day for Skin Deep!

Sometimes it's what's on the outside that matters...

That’s the tag line for my newest book, Skin Deep, which I’m very happy to announce ships today from all the usual online retailers—Apple, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Kobo—and in paperback as well!

Skin Deep is a contemporary paranormal romance (yes, that means adult not YA, but the level of steam is restrained) with a bit of a twist: while the hero is a selkie (I have been obsessed with selkie folklore since childhood), the heroine does not fall into the usual human-with-no-powers role often seen in shape-shifter romance. Unbeknownst to her, Garland Durrell has a strange gift: the quilts she creates are imbued with magic. She’ll have to learn to use that gift to save the man—er, selkie—she loves as well as the town that is her new home from an evil entity bent on destroying them—and claiming her magic for itself.

As much as I lurrrve writing historical settings and characters, this book was just as fun to write. It’s set on Cape Cod, near which I grew up and where I still spend a lot of time, and writing a setting I know so intimately was both easy and hard—easy because all I have to do is close my eyes and I’m there, but hard because I needed to make readers see it as well and not just assume you would feel the contours of the land, the colors of the ocean, and the scents and sounds that I do.

In addition, I’m a quilter (though not with my heroine’s talent!), and again it was both easy and difficult to bring the tools, the processes, and most of all the sensibilities of the craft to life in a story.

And of course, there’s that thing I have for selkies...but we’ll talk more about that later. ☺

Skin Deep has already received a 4 ½ star/Reviewers Top Pick designation from Night Owl Reviews; I hope NineteenTeen readers will give it a try!  You can read an excerpt on my website to get a feel for the story...and just for fun, I’ve created several quilt templates that can be downloaded so that you can color and create your own enchanted quilts.

Have fun, and thank you for celebrating with me!

 

Surprise!!

Hey, guess what? I have a new book coming out, and it’s available for preorder!

I haven’t talked much about Skin Deep here because it’s (a) not YA and (b) not historical fiction. But it’s based on a couple of my other passions: quilting, selkies, and Cape Cod. I suppose it was only inevitable I'd have to write a book including them at some point.

Here’s the blurb:

After a painful divorce, Garland Durrell looks forward to settling into her home on Cape Cod to make the quilts that are her passion. On the first morning of her new life she finds a man and a small boy washed up on the beach, both badly wounded. Since the town chief of police is strangely reluctant to help, Garland takes on the care of the mysterious pair who don't seem to remember what happened to them--and feels her own heart begin to heal.

Alasdair does remember. He and his son Conn are the last of the ruling family of selkies from the waters around the Cape, locked in a decades-long struggle with an evil that threatens all, selkie and human. He’s not sure if he can trust the lovely, blue-eyed woman who takes them in until he touches one of her quilts and feels the magic she’s sewn into it...and the emotions that he never thought he’d feel again.

But the evil entity that stole Alasdair’s sealskin and left him for dead quickly senses both his presence and Garland’s magic, and is determined to destroy one and possess the other. Only Garland and her quilts, made with a power she barely believes she has, can save them all from destruction—if she can avoid being destroyed first.

Skin Deep’s official release date is April 12, but it’s available for pre-order now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple ibooks, and Kobo, and will be available for pre-order in print as well in the next couple of weeks.  I promise that I’m working on more historical stories (set in 1810, if you recall) but sometimes those other pesky interests will demand my attention too. I hope you’ll give Skin Deep a try!

Blogging from National, Part 3

Okay, so the RWA National Conference is now a week over, but we had so much to report between it and now that we thought we should wrap things up for you. I was so impressed with the Newport Mansions that I kind of skipped over a few things, like going to the ball.

You see, the RWA National Conference is my Season, just as so many ladies in the nineteenth century enjoyed the Season in London. It’s a time to visit with old friends and make new ones, to dress up in pretty clothes, to see the sights and learn new things, and to feel like a member of the “in” crowd for a short time. And just like the Season, it’s a time to go to soirees and balls. Every major publisher puts on some kind of event to honor their authors, but the very best, in my humble opinion, is the Harlequin party.

This year it was a tremendous crush, my dears, held at the Waldorf-Astoria and themed the Black and White Ball. Everyone dressed in black and white, and some of the dresses were worthy of the red carpet! Here’s my old friend Jenna Mindel (Season of Dreams), new friend Christine Johnson (The Matrimony Plan), me, and Dream (Love Inspired’s talented social media guru) in our party togs.

And a look at the crowded dance floor, with about 198 women and 2 men all rocking out. Too much fun!


Unfortunately, the event was so crowded that only select authors were allowed to bring guests, so Marissa couldn’t join me this year. {pout}

Alas, the Season was too soon over, but Marissa invited me to her very own house party on Cape Cod! After our detour to the Newport Mansions, we arrived in the Chatham area. Sometimes I bemoan the fact that our town is short on history. Most of the homes here date from the 1950s. Imagine my delight in visiting towns started in 1712 or earlier with extant homes still in existence!

What else I learned in Cape Cod:

• Cape Cod houses really come from Cape Cod. They were everywhere! I adore the design and enjoyed seeing all the ways people made them unique, from different shutters and doors to flower boxes and gardens. Then there were the grander homes, like the one at the top of this post, named Hydrangea Walk.


• To sail properly, you not only need sea legs but a sea butt. I knew enough to sit down in the sailboat Marissa’s family owns, but that didn’t stop me from sliding right off onto the floor at the first turning. I decided to stay there. You can still take great pictures from the deck. :-)


• The dark of the moon is really dark at sea. We motored over to Pleasant Bay to watch the fireworks (which were fantastic!). But coming back, with a thin sliver of moon and hazy clouds obscuring the stars, the night quickly turned to pitch. It was extremely disorienting. As I’m currently writing my second book in the Everard Legacy miniseries and my hero is a sea captain, I wondered how he dealt with the absolute lack of sight. I also got to experience how it feels to run aground, when our boat got stuck in the shifting sand bars of the bay and we had to wait an hour for the tide to raise us off.

We are both back home and back to our usual writing schedules. We hope you enjoyed our adventures as much as we did. Look for more of our usual types of posts next week. And please continue commenting. We love hearing from you! Comments through next Tuesday, July 12, will be included in the drawing for an Irresistible Earl prize packet. I’ll announce the winner on Friday, July 15.