TO WOO OR NOT TO WOO

 By Caroline Clemmons

How much of the two main characters’ history should an author reveal at the beginning of the book?  This problem worries every author. Should we use flashbacks? I hate those, but I admit I sometimes use them. Should we write a prologue? What about alternating current chapters with background chapters?

Most readers have a preference. Perhaps you don’t have a favorite. If the author’s writing is compelling enough, I don’t mind any devices.

Except one. I have recently been reading a lovely series with a librarian heroine and interesting recurring characters. Suddenly, at the very end of book three, the hero broke up with the heroine. What? Wait, that can’t happen! I felt cheated. I was cheated.

What? I was cheated!

I’m pretty sure they get back together in the next book in the series, but I feel betrayed by that author. I’m still deciding whether to buy her next book.

In literary fiction, that sort of thing happens. Not in romance and romance combined with cozy mysteries. The author didn’t follow the genre guidelines: happily ever after. She had built these two people into a believable perfect couple. The hero had all the qualities of a great hero. For him to doubt the heroine’s affections enough to break up with her was not credible.

On a similar subject, I don’t like romances with a heroine who can’t decide between two men. For a couple of books, I’ll tolerate it perhaps, but not longer. This is more common in cozy mystery romances than just romance. There are series I abandoned because the heroine couldn’t make up her mind which man she loved most. If they’ve had sex and she waffles back and forth between them, she’s not a heroine, in my opinion.

I’m not referring to a seemingly insurmountable obstacle such as the common example: If he’s a fireman, she’s a pyromaniac. Extreme, but you understand why it’s used in romance workshops. Maybe they can’t resolve the obstacle until the last chapter. That’s good tension, right?

What are some pet peeves you see in books? Tell me in a comment to be entered into a drawing for an ebook. 

If you’re looking for a book that guarantees romance with a happy ending, please try one of mine.

My Amazon Author Page

Keep reading and stay safe!

WANT A READING SUGGESTION?

 By Caroline Clemmons

How is your weekend going? I hope you're spending part of it reading a good book!

Our family members are voracious readers. My father is responsible for my love of reading, he and my fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Huff. My mother didn't discover the joy of reading until she was retired and my aunt brought her a copy of THE THORN BIRDS. Later, my mom said she regretted not reading for all those years. She was hooked! She was so proud when I became a published author. Sadly, my father and aunt had already passed away by that time. I know they would have loved the idea. They were both such good people that perhaps they look down from heaven. So far, I have over 80 titles published, and I have many more planned. Here's my Amazon Author Page link, in case you want to order one of the books I mention. https://www.amazon.com/Caroline-Clemmons/e/B001K8CXZ6

The first series I published was the Kincaids, in which the first three books are sensual and the later titles are sweet. I love that series. The first book's heroine, Pearl Parker, was inspired by a story kernel my grandmother told me of a girl in the town in which she lived. Can you imagine a woman so steeped in false pride that she would try to kill her own granddaughter? It really happened, but the rest of the book is pure fiction. I thought any woman who began life as an unwanted child deserved a happily ever after That book was THE MOST UNSUITABLE WIFE. I had used bride instead of wife, but Kensington changed it, supposedly because they had already published a book with The Most Unsuitable Bride as the title. 

The second series was The Men of Stone Mountain (Texas), my first efforts at self-publishing. I simply love the three brothers who launched that series. Their aunts are patterned after my mom and her sister. I confess that I like Alice from HIGH STAKES BRIDE best of the heroines, though the heroine of BLUEBONNET BRIDE is a close second. I continued the series with several more books set in the fictional town of Radford Crossing. The first three are sensual and the rest are sweet. The first two are available as audio books.

Occasionally, I write contemporary romance. One of the series is Texas Time Travel. I was able to combine my love of history with romance adventures for three couples in TEXAS LIGHTNING, TEXAS RAINBOW, and TEXAS STORM. The last book is about the Woman's Auxiliary Support Program, from Avenger Field in Sweetwater, Texas. The women who served in the WASP were very brave.  My author friend Sherri Easley is writing a series about the WASP, called The Avenger Girls. I can hardly wait until she publishes them. She has a day job, and that gets in the way. My Texas Time Travel covers are included wsith the Loving A Rancher series below.

                                   

I enjoyed writing in Debra Holland's Kindle World, and was devastated when Amazon cancelled that popular program. I changed the names that belonged to Debra and relaunched the sweet romance series, Loving A Rancher,  but I lost all the reviews I had when it was in Kindle World. The first, AMANDA'S RANCHER, is my favorite, but MURDOCH'S BRIDE sells more.

Instead of mail order brides, I created a series where seven women were brought to a Texas town by a widow who was left with plenty of money to do such a thing. I'm not giving away spoilers when I tell you each of the seven women found a husband--including the widow who brought the women to Texas. This is a very popular series of sweet historical romances. I enjoyed writing each of these, and readers have appeared to enjoy reading them. The first of this series is JOSEPHINE.

I wrote single titles in a number of multi-author series. Those were fun and gave me a chance to work with some very pleasant and superb authors. Those include DESPERATE IN DELAWARE, THEODOSIA, three books in the The Pinkerton Matchmaker Series, two in the Widows of Wildcat Ridge, and many more. 

My current series is The Texas Hill Country Mail Order Bride Series. Whew, Why did I choose such a long series title? 😉Anyway, I love the series. The heroes are GENTRY, JESSE, QUINN, and LEVI, and I'm writing KEITH's story now. I hope you'll give this series a read. I've worked really hard to make each unique, even though they take place in the same fictional town of Harrigan Springs. My daughters and I laugh about the town name. When they were small, they watched Saturday morning cartoons. There was one with this little dog who did a dance, wore a bowler hat, and sang, "H. A. Double R. I... GAN spells Harrigan." The youngest said she can't keep from singing that in her head every time she reads it.

I hope to reach 100 titles someday. Guess I'd better busy and write.

Stay safe and keep reading!

FINDING MY MOJO

 

By Caroline Clemmons

Mojo

Mojo (mainly US, informal, slang)

Mojo is a singular noun meaning magic, power, (life) energy or something intangible. It can mean anything, but it is mostly used to mean magic. For example, saying “I’ve lost my Mojo” means you can no longer do something as well as you did before, or maybe you are downcast, depressed.

Where's my Mojo?

There you have it—me. For the last few weeks, I have spent too much time contemplating life instead of either cleaning out the bedroom closet or concentrating on writing my next book. I like the characters of the book, but the plot was getting too far off my usual stories. I have been despondent. Fortunately, Hero is patient and hasn’t told me to get over myself.

In general, authors are highly strung individuals who spend a lot of time listening to characters only they can hear. You may be thinking that mental institutions are filled with people who have similar problems—and you’d be right. The difference is that authors understand that no one else can know these characters unless we translate what’s in our heads onto the computer monitor.

Author obsessing about sales

We also totally obsess over methods to sell our books. Should we have ads on Facebook and Amazon? Does our newsletter have enough opens and clicks? Are the new covers working? Should we run an ad on this site or another? Would we recoup the expense of a Book Bub ad?



But I digress. You see, I lost my Mojo a couple of months ago. I moped around the house, spend too much time on Messenger and Facebook and email, read too many books, dithered over this and that, until it’s a wonder my family didn’t take me to a mental hospital.

This is about retrieving my Mojo! I have to thank Australian author Margaret Tanner, whose books I enjoy. In a Facebook author group, she mentioned that she doesn’t run ads and doesn’t have a newsletter, yet she makes a living wage. (Not luxury living, but a watch-your-budget living). Reading her comments was as if Margaret had come to my house, taken me by the hand, and said, “Just write. Write what you love.”

Me at Margaret's news

So, that’s what I’m doing and my Mojo is back! I put aside the book I was struggling to like well enough to finish. Joyfully, I started work on a new book that I love. I hope you will love it, too. It's titled KEITH AND THE MAIL ORDER BRIDE. He is such a cutie!

Celebrating--sure, that's how I look. To

be truthful, my hair is shorter than this.

(Would you like to buy a bridge?)

Stay safe and keep reading!

EVERYONE HAS A STORY!

The job that was the most fun (before I wrote books) was as a feature columnist and reporter for a small town newspaper. I met so many interesting people! The position was one for which I sort of stumbled into innocently. Hero joked that I spent so much time writing for the newspaper that I was making only pennies per hour. I suspect he was right.

We’ve moved several times. Being a “joiner” was how I became acquainted with members of my new community. First, we joined a church, and then I found groups in which I could meet others of mutual interest: newcomers clubs, home extension clubs, book clubs, docent, bridge clubs, and so forth. Our two daughters were (are) severe asthmatics. They were ill too frequently for me to work away from home. As a volunteer and/or club member, I was able to miss a meeting whenever I had a sick child.

Because I loved journalism, I often became the publicist for a group. I took the stories of meetings and events to the newspaper office, complete with photos labeled with captions. One day I took text and photos for three clubs to the local newspaper. The editor came out to speak to me. The woman who wrote a weekly column on local happenings had just told the editor that “nothing happened” and she had no column for the third week in a row.

The editor/co-owner, who was a lovely woman, was understandably upset. She had held space for the weekly column, but there was no content to use. She asked if I would like to become the new weekly columnist. I was flattered, but explained about my daughters’ frequent serious illnesses. So, the editor told me I could work at home and just come into the newspaper one day a week when I could. She pointed out that I’d be getting paid for stories like I’d just submitted. Of course I accepted.

When the previous columnist learned I’d taken her place, she was so angry that she called me. She informed me that she had a masters degree in journalism from Northwestern University and was an excellent writer—and who did I think I was that I could take her place? I listened to her rant, and then explained that I did not ask for the position, I was invited and accepted.

Obviously, I love to write. My only training was three years of journalism in public school, one of which was as editor of the school newspaper. My father had told me that a good writer could create a story about anything. One example he used was a fly on the wall—what had it seen, where had it been, where was it going, etc.?

I wanted to prove myself worthy of the editor’s trust. I filled the column inches set aside for me, but I found so much more that I thought readers would find interesting. I sought and wrote about fascinating people in the community. Subscriptions increased substantially. The editor credited my human interest features as the reason.

Here is my theory. People don’t take the local newspaper for global news—that’s on television and radio 24 hours a day. Instead, they want to be aware of what’s happening in their town/county. Everyone you meet has an interesting story.

Why did I share this anecdote? To let you know that the main character in my latest novel has a similar job. Zoe Wilder is a feature writer for The Spencer’s Ridge Gazette in Winston County, Texas. She has many more adventures than I did (fortunately for me). Although I received a bomb threat via telephone, I was never in actual danger. Zoe has a knack for finding trouble.

I hope you’ll give Zoe (and me) a chance. The cozy mystery series is lighthearted and sweet. You can find the first Zoe Wilder book, DEATH IN THE PERFECT HOUSE, at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09RY7G2NW You can find it in e-book and print and enrolled in Kindle Unlimited.

Everyone has a story--what's yours?

Stay save and keep reading!

  

A FAST-PACED ROMANTIC SUSPENSE /TIME TRAVEL

Welcome Fall! Although North Texas can’t compete with New England for colorful leaves, our trees are showing varying shades of gold and orange. Mixed in with our native dark green Live Oaks, these present a pleasant delight for the eyes. The Mountain Cedars—not so much! They’re green, but they bear powerfully irritating pollen that has many of us sniffing, sneezing, coughing, and rubbing our reddened eyes.

In spite of that, I love the Fall season. We get cooler temperatures, a little rain, and the building anticipation of the coming holidays  through the end of the year. I’m not particularly a Halloween fan, that is, except for the candy. I do love the treats available this time of year. Hero and I deliberately buy things we don’t love to prepare for the trick-or-treaters we anticipate. Otherwise, we’d have to go buy more as the day came closer. Not that that has ever happened….

To celebrate the spirit of the spooky season, I have lowered the price of my romantic suspense and time travel combines, OUT OF THE BLUE, to 99¢ for the entire month of October. Caveat: When I checked, Amazon had not yet lowered the price. Please don’t give up—they’ll get around to it soon.

The fault for the delay is mine. You see, Hero and I are downsizing, and I mean really, really downsizing! We are so involved in sorting, packing, and donating that each of us has threatened to go to bed and pull the covers over our head. Life has been so hectic that I let my blog time slip up on me.

Here’s the description for OUT OF THE BLUE:

1845 Ireland: Herbal healer Deirdre Dougherty never cursed at anyone, much less put a curse on the potato crop of her remote Irish village. She’d rather take her chances with the Atlantic lapping at the bottom of the cliff than the mob intent on burning her as they have her cottage. Deirdre leaps . . . and plops down over 175 years later in a Texas lake. She doesn’t understand how she’s ended up with the man from her recent visions or why he has the same name as the saint to whom she prayed. She’s in danger of falling for the handsome policeman who rescued her, in spite of the fact that he thinks she’s lying to him. How can she convince him her story is true when she’s finding it difficult to believe the tale herself?

Texas Today: Police Detective Brendan Hunter wants answers. Who shot him and killed his partner? Why? And why does Deirdre know details of the event? Her story has to be a colossal fabrication or else she’s a beautiful psycho. Either way, he wants her gone before he becomes even more fascinated with her. But he can’t let her out of his sight until she confesses to how she learned details no one but he and his late partner knew.

You can grab an e-book of OUT OF THE BLUE here:

https://www.amazon.com/OUT-BLUE-Caroline-Clemmons-ebook/dp/B008ULBEK6/

Enjoy an excerpt from OUT OF THE BLUE:

            A huge black car apparently had been parked at the back of the lot by the Dumpster and pulled alongside her. Deirdre saw the dented fender before the door opened. Then she realized the two scary guys from the bar were inside, partially obscured from view by the tinted windows. The blond stepped out and reached for her.

            She understood his intent so she screamed for help and ran away from him. People came to the store window.

            Polly rushed to the door. “Blossom’s calling the police. Hold on, Deirdre, we’re coming.”

            But no one rushed to her aid. What could a few ladies do against these two frightening men? She’d have to save herself, so she screamed again.

            The blond caught up with her and grabbed her arm. “No use screaming, lady. You’re coming with us.” He dragged her toward the car.

            She kicked him and screamed again, clawing at him with her free hand. She drew blood along his arm and scratched his face.

            He jerked her and grabbed both her hands. “You’re gonna be sorry you made me mad. I have lots of ways to get even.” He told her what he planned as he yanked her toward the car’s back seat.

            Strong as an ox, the man held her in an iron grasp so her feet barely touched the ground. He heaved her toward the open door. Suspended above the ground, she braced a foot against the car’s body. With her other, she kicked him between the legs, just as Ma had taught her.

            He turned red and released her as he doubled over and dropped to his knees. Without him supporting her, she hit the pavement hard. Her back took the force of her fall and the air whooshed from her. She couldn’t stand but she rolled away.

            The driver pointed a gun at her. “Get in or you die right here, right now.”

            What had Brendan said about this situation when they watched television? “Never get in the car with anyone.” But how could she resist without him shooting her? She recalled the blonde’s threats. If she had to die, she’d rather it be here quickly than at the hands of these two later. She made the sign of the cross and prepared herself for death.

            A horn honked and tires squealed. Brendan yelled. “Deirdre, I’m coming.”

            Blossom and Polly hurried toward her, each carrying a broom and wielding it as if they intended to beat on the blond man. Several associates came with them and lobbed jars of something at the car. In the heat, the jars exploded like small bombs. After one loud crack, red oozed along the spider-webbed glass windshield.

            “What the hell?” The scary man in black turned back toward the steering wheel. “Damn it, Rod, with or without her, get the hell in here.”

            She struggled to her knees then stood, backing away.

            Apparently unable to straighten, the guy she’d kicked hoisted himself back into the car. He yelled, “I’ll get you for this, bitch. When I do, you’re gonna beg me to kill you before I’m through.”

            The black car took off with a squeal from smoking tires, dripping red salsa and leaving glass shards in its wake. The driver had his head stuck halfway out the side window, his front windshield obviously too damaged and dirty for the wipers to clear. Aromas from the salsa’s spicy contents filled the air—cilantro, tomatoes, chili peppers. Deirdre fell in love with those scents.

As with most of my other books, OUT OF THE BLUE is also available in paperback and is free in Kindle Unlimited. If you haven’t yet read this fast-paced story, I hope you’ll take advantage of the October price to grab your copy.

What’s your favorite part of Fall?

 

 

THEODOSIA -- A NEW RELEASE!

 

By Caroline Clemmons

Help me celebrate my book's birthday!

THEODOSIA: A Proxy Mail-Order Bride is now available for your reading pleasure. I love these characters and hope you'll agree with me. This is the book I was writing when Covid knocked me for a few loops. I had to finish other projects and dropped out of a few, but now Theo and Houston's story is ready for you. 

Houston and Theo make a lovely couple. I knew they'd be perfect for one another from the first, but they had to get a few things worked out. Their marriage is going surprisingly well... then the blow falls. You knew there would be an obstacle or two, didn't you?

She barely escapes death...

He is angry he has been jilted…

They must defend themselves against mysterious assailants.

Theodosia “Theo” Jordan has lived with the harsh aunt and uncle who are her guardians since her parents’ death eight years ago. In three weeks she will turn twenty-one and inherit the estate now controlled by her uncle. When she overhears her aunt and uncle planning her death, she immediately escapes Atlanta by becoming a proxy bride and heading for a small town in Texas.

Houston Kingsley yearns for a happy family like he had before his wife’s death earlier that year. A fraudulent mail-order bride who jilts him and keeps the money he sent her discourages him. Is he destined to raise his children alone? His brother convinces him to try for a proxy bride.  The process sounds simple enough—if he can scrape up the cash for a second fare and travel expenses.

But unknown forces create danger for Theo and Houston. Can they discover and defeat the guilty to achieve the happy home each desires?

THEODOSIA is a sweet western historical romance set in 1878 Denison, Texas, although Theo is from Atlanta, Georgia.

https://www.amazon.com/Theodosia-Proxy-mail-Order-Bride-ebook/dp/B09BD7RKXF

Here's an excerpt when Theo first arrives at her new home:

           Shyness struck Theo as her husband led her toward their home's front porch.

At the door, he stopped and unlocked it before pocketing his keys. “Always planned to do this. Hope you don’t mind.” He scooped her up and carried her across the threshold.

She couldn’t keep a surprised squeal from escaping, followed by laughter. “I always hoped my husband would do that.” That meant he hadn’t done so with his first marriage. That knowledge created more questions.

Appearing pleased, he gestured around them. “You see the foyer isn’t large, but accommodates a hall tree. They also had a grandfather clock against that wall, but they took it with them. Maybe we can get one someday.”

She removed her hat and added it to the shelf on the hall tree, then hung her coat on a hook. “That sounds nice.” She’d need elbow grease to polish away faint marks of where the clock had stood.

After adding his jacket and hat to the hall tree, he studied her. Slowly, he walked around her as if assessing her appearance. “I never expected a redhead for a wife. A lot of folks think redheads have a bad temper and are bad luck.”

Luckily for him, she realized he was teasing, his blue eyes sparkling with humor and mischief. “I never expected my husband would have a beard. A lot of women don’t like a man with whiskers on his face. Some men grow them to hide a weak chin.”

He grinned and spread his hands. “Hey, I can shave off my beard.”

She shifted her shoulders and sent him a saucy smile. “Hey, I can shave off my hair if the color doesn’t suit you. Would you prefer a bald wife?”

He laughed. “I give up, you win this round. Although, I know many women color their hair. Many even try for the color of yours.”

He gave a mock bow. “By the way, I find your hair a pleasing shade. Let’s continue the tour.” He guided her through the downstairs.

Have you followed me on BookBub? If not, please do.

Here’s the link:

https://www.bookbub.com/authors/caroline-clemmons

 

Stay safe and keep reading,