Louise Wise (also writes as T E Kessler): historical
Showing posts with label historical. Show all posts
Showing posts with label historical. Show all posts

Thursday, 14 February 2019

Sue Barnard discusses what makes authors want to write new stories on existing characters.#giveaway #author #guestpost #alternate #history #romeoandjuliet .@AuthorSusanB .@rararesources



NEW LIFE FOR OLD CHARACTERS

a guest post by

Sue Barnard

Sebastian Faulks, Charlie Higson and Anthony Horowitz have all done it for James Bond. Alexandra Ripley did it for Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler. Jill Paton Walsh did it for Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane. There have been numerous attempts to solve Charles Dickens’ unfinished Mystery of Edwin Drood.  Even Thomas the Tank Engine has been given a new lease of life, by the son of his original creator. 

So what is it that makes authors want to write new stories centred on existing characters?

In one respect, I think, it’s because once the original author has died, there can be a great sense of regret that there will be no more from the same pen. So if the authors’ stories and characters are popular, why not give their fans more to enjoy, in the form of sequels, prequels, or simply more adventures?

You don’t need to be a famous, or even a published author to take advantage of this very useful literary device. Using a well-loved character (or set of characters) as the basis for a new story can be an excellent way of dealing with an attack of writer’s block. Think of a favourite character from a book, a play, or even a poem. Imagine what it might be like to meet that character face to face. What would you say to them? How do you think they would respond? Try writing a short dialogue between the two of you, and see where it leads. You may well find that it gives you a springboard to a whole new story. No writing is ever wasted, even if it doesn’t end up in the final version.

Or think about how the character behaves in the original work. If his or her behaviour is unusual, what might have happened in the past to affect their actions in the present? Let your imagination run riot – prequels make fascinating stories!  My current WIP is a companion story to my second novel, Nice Girls Don’t, and explores the background to one of the characters who barely steps out of the shadows in the original story.

Or you can even give the original story an alternative ending – as I did with my debut novel The Ghostly Father. It is a sort of part-prequel, part-sequel to the original Romeo & Juliet tale, and explores what might have happened to Shakespeare’s star-crossed lovers if events had taken a different course. In the play, a sequence of misfortunes leads to a maddeningly preventable double-suicide. But what if just one of those unfortunate events had not occurred? What difference could this have made to the eventual outcome?

Read the book and find out…
Introducing...
The Ghostly Father

by

Sue Barnard

Was this what really happened to Romeo and Juliet?

Think you know the world’s most famous love story?  Think again. 

What if the story of Romeo and Juliet really happened – but not quite in the way we’ve all been told?
This part-prequel, part-sequel to the original tale, told from the point of view of the Friar, tells how an ancient Italian manuscript reveals secrets and lies which have remained hidden for hundreds of years, and casts new doubts on the official story of Shakespeare’s famous star-crossed lovers.

If you love the Romeo and Juliet story but are disappointed with the way it ended, this is the book for you.
~

Sue Barnard is a British novelist, editor and award-winning poet.  She was born in North Wales some time during the last millennium, but has spent most of her life in and around Manchester.  After graduating from Durham University she had a variety of office jobs before becoming a full-time parent.  If she had her way, the phrase “Non-Working Mother” would be banned from the English language.

Her mind is so warped that she has appeared on BBC TV’s Only Connect quiz show, and she has also compiled questions for BBC Radio 4's fiendishly difficult Round Britain Quiz. This once caused one of her sons to describe her as "professionally weird." The label has stuck.

Sue speaks French like a Belgian, German like a schoolgirl, and Italian and Portuguese like an Englishwoman abroad.  She is also very interested in family history.  Her own background is far stranger than any work of fiction; she would write a book about it if she thought anybody would believe her.

Sue now lives in Cheshire, UK, with her extremely patient husband and a large collection of unfinished scribblings. 

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Giveaway to Win a signed copy of The Ghostly Father (UK Only)

*Terms and Conditions –UK entries welcome.  Please enter using the Rafflecopter box below.  The winner will be selected at random via Rafflecopter from all valid entries and will be notified by Twitter and/or email. If no response is received within 7 days, then Rachel’s Random Resources reserves the right to select an alternative winner. Open to all entrants aged 18 or over.  Any personal data given as part of the competition entry is used for this purpose only and will not be shared with third parties, except the winners’ information. This will be passed to the giveaway organiser and used only for the fulfilment of the prize, after which time Rachel’s Random Resources will delete the data.  I am not responsible for despatch or delivery of the prize.

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Thursday, 24 January 2019

When best-selling writer offers you tips, it's best to listen! .@laratemple1 @rararesources #blogpost #historical #novels #howto #wip #regency #romance #mills&boon

How to: the Anatomy of the Book from Hell

by


Lara Temple



I have just written the book from hell.
It didn’t start out that way. In fact, I’ve had the opening to that book for a while – a perfect beginning three chapters, just waiting for the rest of the story to be written. I was utterly in love with the hero, adored the heroine, and the chemistry between them sizzled. Everything was peachy.
Until I wrote the book.
I know writing is like riding a yoyo between heaven and hell and a ton of drudge work in between – I’m used to that. I even expect the occasional attacks of the “oh-my-God-I-suck-as-an-author-no-one-will-ever-want-to-read-my-books” (usually around the 30,000 and 60,000 words points).
But this was a whole different category of agony. I really wasn’t sure I could save this mess.
Sometimes the smartest thing to do is move on to other projects, let it stew in brain-juice, and take it out again later with clearer perspective. 
But that’s not always possible – what if that is a book you have under contract? What if it’s the next book in your series? Time, stewing, and writing other, more enjoyable projects can be luxuries you can’t afford. That was my case at the time.
So - how do you fix a broken book without breaking down yourself?
I’ve just been down this very rough road and frankly I could write a dissertation about what went wrong and what I did to get out of my personal Pit of Despair. But here I’ll touch on one ‘Do’ which is also a ‘Don’t’: Know your limits! 
My first mistake was to think I was superwoman. 
I have young kids and another, non-writing job, and though I love writing, I have limited time to do it. Usually I do one book at a time (though I always have various drafts at different stages, but only one main commitment). 
This time I made the mistake of accepting another book under contract just as I was picking up steam on this book (NewBook was due two months before OldBook). That’s not necessarily a mistake – it was a great opportunity to join a series with authors I love and NewBook did eventually write itself so easily I was deceived into thinking I was actually quite good at exponential multi-tasking. And so Superwoman was lulled into thinking she could do it all. 
But!
But once NewBook was done I picked up OldBook and looked at the calendar. Two months to deadline. One month to end of school term. Meanwhile, I’d become wholly committed to NewBook and lost touch with OldBook’s story, characters, and world
For a moment Cautiouswoman piped up: maybe you should renegotiate that deadline before you hit it? But Superwoman, like the captain on the Titanic, elbowed Cautiouswoman off the deck: ‘that tiny little ice-cube on the horizon? Not a problem! I’ll plough right through it!’
So I blazed ahead. I wrote the heck out of that story but still missed my deadline (my first time ever) which only added to my superwoman stress. So when my editor came back with a very valid critique I didn’t pause to breathe – I ripped that story up by the foundations, I hacked it to pieces and glued them together, adding on new, better, brighter. 
Needless to say, the end result wasn’t much better.
I won’t take you through the two hellish revision stages as Superwoman reigned supreme until I realized I was going at this the wrong way. 
When I did I took a mini break from banging my head against the wall. 
First, I admitted – I’d failed. Missed my deadline, ruined a perfectly good story, been stubborn and arrogant and made things worse.
Then, instead of cutting into that poor abused story once more, I went for a few long walks which I spend chatting with my characters – I tried to see the story from their perspective, not from the perspective of an author with a deadline-gun to her head. I asked them what wasn’t working for them and found three things that were stuck in the story’s throat. Unfortunately, two of those things were otherwise parts of the story that I loved. 
But this time instead of trying to save them while everything around me sank – I removed those beloved but unnecessary plot lines and suddenly the story could breathe. And so did my characters. They came together and took centre stage and…it worked. 
I am absolutely certain there will be other books from hell in my future. I think it is part of the creative process – to hit walls, to make (big) mistakes, to have flops. We are spinning worlds out of nothing more than electrical and chemical surges in our brains and that is as amazing as it gets. So of course things go wrong. 
But if there is one thing I’ve learned from this book that went from heaven to (several) hells and settled somewhere in the middle which is where books should be, it is – be kind (to yourself). That means knowing your limits, either beforehand or during a project. 
And when you recognize them, admit to them and ask for help – from your editor, your family, your friends, and from colleagues. I’m lousy at asking for help and recognizing approaching icebergs, but hopefully next time Superwoman will learn to partner with Cautiouswoman.



  The Earl's Irresistible Challenge



Could this infamous rake finally have found his countess?
Part of The Sinful Sinclairs.



Buy NOW!
When Lucas, Lord Sinclair, receives a mysterious summons from a Miss Olivia Silverdale he’s skeptical about whether he can help her. But Olivia, although eccentric, is in earnest about her quest to restore her late godfather’s reputation. Lucas’s curiosity is piqued, and not just by Olivia’s intelligent eyes and lithe form. 

A new challenge quickly presents itself: keeping Miss Silverdale at arm’s length!

About the author
Lara Temple writes strong, sexy Regency romances about complex individuals who give no quarter but do so with plenty of passion. After moving around the world for her career as a financial analyst and business consultant she returned to her childhood love of making up stories, and was surprised to discover that other people don’t mind reading them.

She lives with her husband and two children who are very good about her taking over the kitchen table for her writing (so she can look out over the garden and dream while Oscar the dog keeps her feet warm by sitting on them as she works).

The Earl’s Irresistible Challenge (out December 2018) is the first in her Sinful Sinclair series. In May 2019 Unlaced by the Highland Duke, part of a four book series with three other Harlequin Mills and Boon authors will be released.

Giveaway – Win 5 x e-copies of The Earl’s Irresistible Challenge (Open INT)

*Terms and Conditions –Worldwide entries welcome.  Please enter using the Rafflecopter box below.  The winner will be selected at random via Rafflecopter from all valid entries and will be notified by Twitter and/or email. If no response is received within 7 days then Rachel’s Random Resources reserves the right to select an alternative winner. Open to all entrants aged 18 or over.  Any personal data given as part of the competition entry is used for this purpose only and will not be shared with third parties, with the exception of the winners’ information. This will passed to the giveaway organiser and used only for fulfilment of the prize, after which time Rachel’s Random Resources will delete the data.  I am not responsible for despatch or delivery of the prize.
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Saturday, 19 January 2019

A sassy author interview, prizes, a fab book... what more do you want! .@jennifermacaire .@rararesources #historical #timetravel #funbooks


Jennifer Macaire is a brave author who has agreed to be interviewed in a style that many authors shy away from—derogatory. The sassier the answers to WWBB’s rude questioning method the better!

So welcome, Jennifer, and let’s get the ball rolling, shall we? In your book, the protagonist, Ashley Riveraine (what kind of name is that, Jeeze!), gets pitched back in time some 300 years BC (before chocolate) and meets Alexander the Great—her hero.

Hero? Oh, come on! Okay, I’ll go with it for now. So, is Ashley Riveraine happy now their story has been told or is there more to come (God help us!)?

The funny thing is, this was going to be a short story. I started out as a journalist writing articles for magazines, and at the same time, I wrote a few short stories and published them. One was nominated for the Push Cart Prize, and I'm afraid it went straight to my head.

I set about writing a short story about Alexander the Great not dying and going on to conquer the world (you see how things can get out of hand – one mosquito gets squashed, and we're speaking Greek instead of English and the Romans never got to build their straight roads anywhere. Much less paperwork too, and we'd still be offering sacrifices to Zeus.

We could always offer this book!

We could, but as my neighbour’s rooster wakes me up every morning at the ass-crack of dawn… anyhow, I was going to send The Road to Alexander to a Sci-fi magazine as a time travel tale and things got out of hand.

I didn't realize Alexander would kidnap Ashley – I forgot how omnipresent gods and goddesses were at that time. And I didn't realize how crazy Alexander's mother was, and, to make a long story short, there are 7 books in the series.

Seven! Jeeze… you get less for murder! Okay, so give me the best one-liner from your poor excuse of a book.  

I realized I was now over three-thousand years older than my own mother.
Do I have to elaborate?

Please don’t.

The instructions say a 'one-liner', so to go on and explain would be a clear indication of my inability to follow the simplest instructions, which is why I did so badly at school, and why my husband has given up trying to tell me what to do…)

Yawn, so basically, you're the same as all the rest of the authors on Amazon, and you’re the Next Best Thing. I don’t think so. Come on, tell me why I should spend time reading YOUR book over more well-received authors?

Oh, come on – who likes best sellers, I mean, besides the teeming masses. But you know the teeming masses yearning to be free – it says so on the Statue of Liberty (written in Gothic Script somewhere around her big toe, I think). So, feel free to try something different – the hero and heroine don't hate each other on sight! The hero is Alexander the Great, and how much more heroic can you get? There is action and adventure! It's based on real history (at least part of it is – it's time-travel, so there is a slight wobble in reality. Be prepared!).

It’s a mad, tongue-in-cheek romp across mixed genres of Sci-fi, romance, adventure, and history. It’ll make you laugh and cry. Oh, and there's lots of hot, bouncy sex. (If you like that sort of thing. Otherwise, just skip those parts!) But most of all, just relax, sit back, and enjoy your trip back in time. You can always close the book and come back to the present – but Ashley is stuck in the past!

Hang on, there, lady. Bouncy sex? Sex that’s bouncy? I may just have to read this malarkey of a book! So, spill, as an author have you ever regretted anything, i.e. written your own review (or written a bad review on a competitor's novel), argued online, copied someone else's idea? Any juicy naughtiness at all?

Mark Twain once said, ‘The kernel, the soul, let us go further and say the substance, the bulk, the actual and valuable material of all human utterances is plagiarism.’

In a way, he was correct. We, the people of the present, are standing on the shoulders of those who went before us. Our stories, our art, our science – it’s all based on work that our ancestors did. We simply keep it growing, expanding on it – but we invent nothing brand new. (And stop screaming, ‘The Internet!’ that's just another way of communicating, and there are more ways of doing that than stars in the sky… I exaggerate, but you get my gist).

I wrote The Road to Alexander after falling in love with ‘Outlander’, so the time travel element was copied from the fantastic Ms Gabaldon. She may have gotten it from H.G. Wells – who in turn, got it from somewhere else.

Time is an interesting subject. I'd like to say I was the only one who ever wrote about Alexander the Great, but Mary Renault did a fabulous job with her series of historical fiction novels – if you haven't read them, you've missed a rare treat.

As for arguing or regretting, or writing bad reviews, I've only written two bad reviews, and both were for novels that featured super-alpha-male-control-freaks, and I'm a staunch feminist. 

I have argued online, but that was then. Nowadays I just refer people to PubMed (peer-reviewed scientific publications) or Snopes and let them learn for themselves. I never wrote my own review, but I encouraged my daughter to read one of my children's books and write her own review. It was awful, but this proud mama didn't mind – I fixed up the spelling, changed a few words (terrible to great, boring to amazing,) and had it published…. well, not really, but it's an idea. Probably not an original idea – those are all taken!

Describe your writing style in ten words or less. I’ll begin with the first two: Crap, dull…

Pedantic springs to mind. That's what my editor kept saying. ‘Jennifer, you're being pedantic again. No one needs to know where the army's food came from, just tell them what they ate and be quick about it.’ Or, ‘Jennifer, three pages on oral hygiene in ancient times is going to put readers to sleep. I barely got through it without dozing off. Scratch that. I dozed off twice.’

Otherwise, my style has been variously described as fluid, engaging, easy-to-read (not my fault – my editor keeps correcting my spelling and grammar!), and one reviewer—who said the book had way to too much sex in it—admitted it was 'well-crafted and proficient'. Hmm. Was he talking about my writing or about the sex scenes?

Fuck knows! He certainly wasn’t my husband! All right, just for a laugh, share with us one of the WORSE reviews you’ve had.

I’ve had so many – where to begin? Let's see – one said (1 star): ‘Why, oh why must the 'heroine' of these sort of time travel books be so smug, so captivating to their target and so unreal. No-one in their right mind is like this. Go away Ms Macaire, and think real. I suppose I have been spoiled by Diana Gabaldon whose heroine at least shows some reticence towards the hero or Jodie Taylor who is constantly amusing and deep by turns.’

 I like this review on so many levels – it perfectly describes Ashley, who arrives from the future feeling smug and superior to the ancients (Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall, Ashley!). It compares the book to Outlander and the St Mary's series, both of which I adore – (thank you, terrible review, for at least hitching my book to their star for a brief instant before you demolished it).

It is confusing in that it acknowledges the book as being time travel, then beseeches me to 'get real'. That's where I'm not sure if she doesn't like the alacrity Ashley and Alexander (trying to think of another word starting with 'A' and failing here…) fell in love, or was it the improbability of Ashley being a real person?

At any rate, I enjoyed having my book in the same paragraph as my two favourite writers! (There are other, more brutal reviews, but they actually had more stars, so the readers must have liked the cover art or something.)

What qualifications do you have for writing in your genre? (Apart from waking up in the morning, that is).

I was afraid someone would ask me this one day. Can I take the fifth? No? Well, #1: The book is science fiction (I love science and work with scientists as an information researcher – I know, it doesn't count, sorry!) with a #2: time travel element (I have the worst case of left/right, before/after, letters, and numbers, dyslexia. So time has no meaning for me. It's a miracle every time I show up at work or to an appointment. #3: It's in English (I was born in the USA and grew up in the Caribbean, which accounts for that part, anyway). #4: It's set in Ancient Greece, and my mother is a history teacher. She gave me lots of hints about where to look for information on Alexander the Great. No, she didn't help me – how many of your teachers wrote your assignments?

Many authors use their qualifications to show off their so-called talents, i.e. crime writers are often coppers (or police, for the non-Brits present) and the book becomes boringly technical. How have you managed to keep your knowledge low key? Or haven’t you bothered?

When I was a kid, I was skinny, had glasses, big teeth, and was dyslexic. I was also clumsy because my glasses didn't correct my huge astigmatism, which meant I could not catch a ball, no matter how gently it was tossed to me.

I was the last to be chosen in gym for the teams, and, on one sad Valentine's day, at a party, the boy I had a gigantic crush on threw chocolate kisses at me, telling me I could only keep the ones I caught. I caught none.

Sobbing, I went into the house, collided with his father, and made him drop his finest bottle of wine that he'd been keeping for a special occasion. I stared at the mess, listening to the howls of rage, wishing I could become invisible or at least grow some sort of backbone and stop snivelling (I was nine years old at this time, so excuse the melodrama).

At dinner, the grown-ups drank their not-so-nice wine and glared at me. The other kids snickered. And I decided I'd show them – I'd become so knowledgeable about dinosaurs I'd write and illustrate a fabulous book, and they would come begging for an autograph. This has nothing to do with the question – or everything, depending on how you look at it. I'm actually quite knowledgeable about dinosaurs but have managed to keep all that info out of my books.

Sorry, I asked! Jeeze… whinge, whinge, whinge, me, me, me… If your book disappeared forever, do you think it’ll be missed?

Honestly? No, I don't think it will be missed at all unless you've somehow time-travelled to read all the series and missed the first one and decided you had to read from the beginning. Then it might be missed. Maybe. I'm not sure anything on this earth is irreplaceable except maybe chocolate. I would definitely miss that. And coffee.

Don’t forget the wine. Not expensive wine, obviously, as you drop that! Describe your perfect death (in case I must kill you. Touch my wine and I will!)

Need you ask? Death by chocolate – of course!


and now...
The Road to Alexander

by

Jennifer Macaire
What do you do when the past becomes your future?

The year is 2089, and time-travelling journalist Ashley Riveraine gets a once in a lifetime opportunity to interview her childhood hero, Alexander the Great. She expects to come out with an award-winning article, but doesn’t count on Fate intervening.
Purchase  Link
Alexander mistakes Ashley for Persephone, goddess of the dead, and kidnaps her, stranding her in his own time. Being stuck 3000 years in the past with the man of her dreams wouldn’t be so bad if the scientists of the Time Institute hadn’t threatened to erase Ashley from existence if she changes history.

Ashley must now walk a tightrope, caught up in the cataclysmic events of the time, knowing what the future holds for the people she comes to love but powerless to do anything to influence it.
Join Ashley on her hilarious, bumpy journey into the past as she discovers where her place in history truly is…




Jennifer Macaire is an American living in Paris. She likes to read, eat chocolate, and plays a mean game of golf. She grew up in upstate New York, Samoa, and the Virgin Islands. 


She graduated from St Peter and Paul High School in St Thomas and moved to NYC where she modelled for five years for Elite. 


She went to France and met her husband at the polo club. All that is true. But she mostly likes to make up stories

Giveaway to Win a $10 Amazon gift certificate (Open INT)

*Terms and Conditions –Worldwide entries welcome.  Please enter using the Rafflecopter box below.  The winner will be selected at random via Rafflecopter from all valid entries and will be notified by Twitter and/or email. If no response is received within 7 days then I reserve the right to select an alternative winner. Open to all entrants aged 18 or over.  Any personal data given as part of the competition entry is used for this purpose only and will not be shared with third parties, with the exception of the winners’ information. This will passed to the giveaway organiser and used only for fulfilment of the prize, after which time I will delete the data.  I am not responsible for despatch or delivery of the prize.
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Friday, 14 September 2018

This looks brilliant!! Remeber the classis Prince and the Pauper? Well, here's the modern-day adaptation! .@rararesources @KatieWWriter


Katie Ward discussing her character from the novel

The Pretender



It’s clear from the start of my debut novel ‘The Pretender’ that Sophia Lazarus has had a rough start to life but fear not she is a survivor. In this guest post, we will delve further into Sophia and what makes her the way she is. 

Firstly, it is worth noting that ‘The Pretender’ is a modern-day adaptation of the Mark Twain classic ‘The Prince and the Pauper’. Set in Tudor England, the pauper comes from an abusive home, however, it is portrayed in the original as almost an acceptable part of life. When I came to write the story, I really liked the idea of having two characters at the extreme ends of the scale so this is how Sophia came to have such a difficult start in life.

Sophia has a real strength of character, although she feels her mistreatment keenly she uses it as her force to succeed not as an excuse to fail. The more her father tries to stop her by belittling and abusing her the more she stays firm. This leads to her being targeted by her father even more.

Despite her appalling parents, she has a very special bond with her sister Mireille, whom she looks to as a mother figure. In turn Mireille adores her baby sister, even a long separation can’t weaken the bonds between them. It is her loyalty to her sister that brings her back to her family home, it is her greatest wish to see them both out of that situation once and for all.

Sophia is a very kind and gentle person, she isn’t brash or aggressive but she can stick up for herself if she has to. Given her background, she can’t stand to see people being bullied or harassed and her inner strength means she will always stand up for others too.

On the fateful day she returns home, Sophia is confronted by her father. Initially she tries to avoid a confrontation but when he pushes her she tells him exactly what she thinks. This is Sophia to the core, she isn’t one to cower even when she feels scared and she has a real defiance towards her father. She knows how much he wants to see her scared so she makes sure she stands proud, as she knows it will irritate him. While she is so scared of her father, she won’t let him know that.

The one thing Sophia wants most out of life is to be happy and to have the family she never had as a child. She places a lot of importance on security and safety, that’s what her attraction to the Palace is. Ever since she was a child she has idolised Princess Isabella, for Sophia it isn’t really about the fact she is a Princess, when she looks at Isabella she sees the life she always wanted. Not in terms of material possessions as these haven’t ever been that important to her, but the fact that Isabella is from a family who obviously love her. Isabella seems happy and contented in a way that Sophia would love to be. Given they are the same age and born on the same day, Sophia has always been curious about whether Isabella and herself would ever be alike and similar in nature.

When Sophia comes to swap places with Isabella, she becomes her protector and ends up trying to fix the problems that Isabella places her in to. Sophia is the perfect counterbalance to Isabella’s tempestuous and spontaneous nature. Despite being virtual strangers, Sophia cares a lot about Isabella’s wellbeing and takes a lot of responsibility in the situation they find themselves in, which causes her a lot of anguish that isn’t really of her making.

 You might think, having such differing backgrounds to each other, that Sophia would become jealous of Isabella and her Royal life but she doesn’t. While she does wonder why things couldn’t have been easier for her, having seen how Isabella lives, she never succumbs to jealousy. To the contrary, she believes in Isabella when others don’t and sees the good in her when others only see her as selfish.

Sophia is the friend we would all want, she is truly selfless and loyal. As her family life has always been so difficult, her friends mean the absolute world to her, they are her rock and while she doesn’t easily confide in them, she knows she is truly loved and that she has their support which truly means everything to her.

The Pretender

France 2000: Two babies are born on the same day just two hours apart - but to very different lives.
Isabella is a Princess and heir to the French throne, while Sophia is born into a life of poverty and abuse at the hands of her father. 



At the age of 18, Sophia runs away from home. That same night, Isabella is also fleeing from the burden of her royal life when she finds Sophia slumped at the palace gates. Amazed by how alike they look, Isabella proposes a daring plot - to exchange their lives for one week. 
‘The Pretender’ is an emotionally intense and compelling story of friendship, love and the strange power of destiny.

Giveaway – Win a signed original illustration from Emma Haines (Open Internationally)
*Terms and Conditions –Worldwide entries welcome.  Please enter using the Rafflecopter box below.  The winner will be selected at random via Rafflecopter from all valid entries and will be notified by Twitter and/or email. If no response is received within 7 days then I reserve the right to select an alternative winner. Open to all entrants aged 18 or over.  Any personal data given as part of the competition entry is used for this purpose only and will not be shared with third parties, with the exception of the winners’ information. This will passed to the giveaway organiser and used only for fulfilment of the prize, after which time I will delete the data.  I am not responsible for despatch or delivery of the prize.
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Author bio

Author, Katie Ward always knew she wanted to write for a living. However, she was told by her careers advisor that “it might be more appropriate for you to work in a shop”. When Katie didn’t get the grades she needed to get into college, she negotiated a three month trial. After successfully completing the course she secured a place at her first choice university to study Journalism.

After realising she wanted to be an author, Katie moved to Dublin where she worked her way up from receptionist to Executive Assistant at Merrill Lynch. Katie continued to write in her spare time, submitting her short story into the “Do the Write Thing” competition being run by Irish TV show ‘Seoige and O’Shea’. This story was originally written when Katie was 14 after she was inspired by an article in her favourite teen magazine. Katie was the only non-Irish author selected to have her story published in an anthology of the same name which reached 19 in the Irish Best sellers List. Katie was also shortlisted for a competition judged by MAN Booker Prize winning author Roddy Doyle which was run by Metro Eireann newspaper.
Katie currently lives in Devon with her cat (aka ‘Her Royal Fluffiness’) where she sings in a community choir and has recently taken up Archery. Katie’s favourite author has been Roald Dahl since she was a child as she loves the dark edge he brings to his books. On the flip side though, Katie loves Disney, magic, unicorns and a good rom com film at the cinema with her friends.