Welcome to Romance

I am a contemporary romance writer. I published my first novel, Take 2, in Dec 2012. I chat about relationships and love. I'm no expert! I'd love your feedback!

Sunday, August 19, 2012


This week on the Blog tour my guest it Nikki Noffsinger. I have the pleasure of interviewing her and getting to know her better. Please welcome Nikki!



When did you start writing? I have always loved writing and I wrote my first story about the 1st grade. I won a box of crayons from my teacher. 

How did you get into writing paranormal? Well I’ve always loved horror movies, ghost stories, and those were just the books I’ve always been drawn to besides classical lit and historical romance.

Where did you get the idea for your book Curse Awakening? The idea came from 2 television shows I was watching. One was a special on the Oprah show about how Native Americans are living in such terrible conditions and I was always big on Native American history as well as lore anyway and then I caught a 20/20 show about the FLDS church’s runaway girls and “lost boys”. I knew after I wrote my first book, that I wanted to try to write a shifter themed book but it wasn’t until I saw those two shows that the story really took off in my head.

Where do your ideas from leading male characters come from? From every obsession I had with every boy/guy that hung on my bedroom walls and I wanted them to have the same values that I would want in a man with some extras. 

Are you ever in the middle of writing one book but ideas come to you for a new book? How do you keep track of all the information thats popping into your head? I run into this all the time Linda. I call it “writer’s ADD”. Right now I am in between five different stories and sometimes it is hard to be able to be in the middle of writing for one-get an idea for another and then try to find some way to write down the ideas so I can put my brain back on the one I was working on. Some days the voices in my head are quiet and I can work on just one at a time-but that is rare. 

Lets change gears!

What’s your favorite book and why? My absolute favorite book in the whole wide world is Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I grew up for a time as an only child in an all adult neighborhood and I was sick a lot. My Kindergarten teacher, who took a special interest in me, would come to visit me and sometimes she’d take me to her apartment and we’d read books, draw and paint, and visit museums. One of the books we read was Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. You could say that book is what shifted my imagination into high gear. The descriptive and colorful words that form the pictures of Charlie and his amazing adventure through the Chocolate Factory and how each page made me eager for the next was what made me want to write. I wanted to affect people with the words I wrote. 

Are you still in the fence about 50 Shades of Grey? Yes. I can appreciate it for its creative work but to say it is the most original, most passionate, and best book out there for women I have to disagree. I hate to criticize other authors because who knows, people might never like what I write, but Fifty Shades of Grey to me ripped off original character ideas in my opinion and let’s face it-there is nothing in that book that can’t be looked up on Wikipedia. I’m not into BDSM but if she had even touched on a hint of that lifestyle-then why are so many people who are die hard BDSM practitioners up in arms about it? For me, she wrote a book that is hot right now because there are a lot of Twi-moms that don’t have to feel like cougars anymore or like they’re raiding their daughter’s book shelves. However, she did get it published and she did put work into it. So yeah, I’m still on the fence. I do not think that it deserves a movie but I will probably end up seeing it and leaving the theater as I did when I saw the sequel to the Sex in the City movie. 

If you could be a character in any book or movie, who would you want to be and why?  Right off the top of my head-Vianne Rocher from the movie, Chocolat for two reasons: Johnny Depp and the story.  It is one of my favorite movies. As for books, wow the question is more like, who wouldn’t I wanted to have been. 

What’s your favorite vacation spot? King’s Island is one of my favorites because I am a thrill ride junkie. I might end up crying, snotted up, and nearly peeing my pants but I can’t resist a roller coaster…well maybe just two but I don’t have a death wish just yet.

What’s the most embarrassing thing that has happened to you? Well before I had children I would have said,  “Falling on my roller skates at the skating party?” but since I have had children, who are both 16 and 7 now; I would say, “You really want me to just pick one thing?” Lately the most embarrassing thing was my son towards the end of his school year for the muffins with mom event, told the whole table when he was asked what he would like to get his mom for Mother’s Day and his reply was, “Her nerves ‘cause she says I jump on the last one and I don’t know what I’m jumping on”. Yeah, parent of the year, that’s me. 

What is the one thing you miss most from your childhood? My grandpa; he was such a big part of my entire life and looking back I wouldn’t have had much of a childhood had he not been there. He was the dad I didn’t have, the grandpa who loved and adored me, and the friend I needed when I didn’t think I could face another day of teasing or when I felt like I couldn’t do anything. We lost him six years ago and it still hasn’t faded with time the ache in my heart. 

If you could indulge in anything decadent and have no repercussions, what would it be? Life. I would indulge in doing, seeing, and experiencing life. I would toss caution to the wind. 

Thanks for visiting today Nikki! It was great getting to know you!





About the Author

Nicole Noffsinger or Nikki as she is known is a 37 year old mother of two children and has always loved writing and creating stories from a young age. She lives with her family in a mid-sized Indiana town. Aside from writing she has an eclectic taste in both music and art, loves to travel, and has a great love of all things that go “bump” in the night. 
Links


Monday, August 13, 2012

My Guest blogger this week in Anjie Harrte. Learn her definition of Romance.


What is romance?

I googled this word for others opinion of romance.
Dictionary.com defines romance in the verb form as; “to court or woo romantically; treat with ardor or chivalrousness” But what I found interesting was their definition of the noun form of the word, that is, “a baseless, made-up story, usually full of exaggeration or fanciful invention.” Is this what we romance writers do? Do we write baseless stories full of exaggeration and fanciful inventions? As a romance writer who spent my early adulthood reading a lot of Harlequin and Mills and Boons, I would have to agree that those books do fall into that category. They often relate stories of this wonderful, handsome, strong man who sweeps in to love and adore some fragile damaged woman looking for someone to save her. They often do their wooing in these extravagant passionate ways that leaves a girl wishing a man can come into her life and treat her the same way. But, isn’t this part of the reason why we read? That is, as a means of escape. Romance stories like these give us just that, a world to escape into where romance is of the extravagant kind, where men are of the kind we dream of and stories often have a happy ending. Romance novels are just that, romance.

The freedictionary.com defines romance as “a love affair, especially an intense and happy but short-lived affair involving young people” This definition, I can say, I don’t believe. For romance doesn’t come to only the young and it certainly isn’t short lived. Sure, once you read a romance novel it often ends when the two people have conceded to their feelings for each other, sometimes in marriage, or sometimes just in them coming together. But anyone who reads a romance novel that ends at this point is left with the idea that this is just the beginning for the couple and not the end. In one of the novels I read lately, “Happy Hour” by Michelle Scott, the novel shows you romance in the lives of these different characters at different parts of their life. The novel is not purely based on romance, but it is a major factor in the novel. Romance is shown in the lives of a married woman, a divorced woman, a widowed woman and a woman scarred by the past. It shows romance in its early stages and romance as it is resurrected between a couple who have been married for awhile. I believe this is romance in its true form.
I have a friend who has a friend whose novel was turned down by publishers for not following the normal sketch of a romance novel. I was left asking; what is the normal sketch of a romance novel? This person’s novel is a M/M romance novel with the following plot; the MC has lost his life partner and is going through the grieving and healing process when he meets other love interests. It shows him as he heals and moves past his pain to finally let other people in, then he is left with choices and the novel revolves around which one he will choose. I agree that the writer dealt a little too much on the grieving process, and maybe that should be looked into, but I don’t see how this novel strays from the normal romance sketch outside of that aspect. The publisher’s suggestion is that the author should have the MC’s life partner cheat or walk out on them instead of dying. I believe remaining true to one’s story is important and these true facts would help readers to identify with characters and their pain and loss. What do you think this author should do? Should they change their plot at the opportunity of being published? OR should they remain true to their story and hope someone will pick it up someday?
My lesfic contemporary romance, An Unexpected Desire, is about romance between a young woman and a middle aged woman. It shows romance building from friendship. It shows romance that is different from the usual Mills and Boons or Harlequin romance.
The blurb for my story is as follows:
Fiona is a recluse, she has given up on the search for love because no one seems to fit into her puzzling life. She has few friends and is regarded as the ice queen.
Nyasha is a fiery spirit and an outgoing ambitious woman with a detailed plan for her life. She dates and enjoys her time with her women partners, but she doesn’t get emotionally involved because the last time she did, it cost her.
The two women meet in a workplace where situations push them together and they forge a friendship as they both try to suppress how they actually feel about each other.
Will Fiona accept that she has found the right peg for her puzzle and open up herself to Nyasha? Will Nyasha trust that this woman wants more than to just satisfy her curiosity? Will the two women suppress their feelings for each other or will they let go of their fears and let love reign?
What sort of romance do you like to read? What sort of romance do you write? And is there anything as a specific romance sketch that all romance writers must follow?

Anjie Harrte: Romance with some Caribbean flavour
Anjie Harrte is a twenty nine year old mother of one who resides in sunny Guyana, South America. Sometime between running a small business, having a full time job and being a mother and partner she finds time to pursue her passion for creating stories. Anjie dreams up stories of contemporary fiction splashed with some romance, a little dose of murder or an ounce of suspense and sometimes when no one is looking she dashes in a little twist. When she isn’t doing any of that, she is decorating a cake, knitting a chair back or sewing her latest design. Anjie even finds time to lurk around and stalk people and pages on facebook and you too can stalk her if you like at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Anjie-Harrte/  or you can follow her on twitter @anjieharrte or keep updated with her writing at http://authoranjieharrte.blogspot.com/

Sunday, August 5, 2012


This week on the blog tour my guest is Raymond Frazee. Are you ready to be put on the edge of your seat?


Here it is a year beyond when I wrote this, and I still consider it one of the best stories I’ve written.  So, if you’re up for a little Indonesian/Bali horror, enjoy this excerpt from Kuntilanak, Copyright 2011, Raymond Frazee, all rights reserved.
They parked the van not far from the Tukad Mungga roundabout, close to the location of the first kunti sighting.  Though the last two of three sightings had it appearing a few hundred meters over in the neighboring village of Pangji—which puzzled Indri greatly since kuntilanak tended to haunt close to a particular location—she wanted to cover the most fertile ground, which was the location of the first sightings.
Buana also had a few questions about the kunti’s travel patterns.  “I don’t know why she does this,” he said as they set up.  “I’m certain it’s the same kunti, though one of my colleagues isn’t.  But to have two kunti’s in the same area is nigh on impossible.”  They stopped before a gated house, the grayish walls wet along the top with a sheen of the earlier evening’s humidity.  “It is a question to ponder, because it doesn’t make sense for it to be traveling afar.”
They finished setting up Indri’s equipment and networking it into her tablet computer not long after 21:00.  Buana found the process of covering an area of 150 by 150 meters in Tukad Mungga challenging, but Indri’s eye for “scientific examination” was incredible.  Now, two hours later, they were walking along Jalan Satria Dhama, looking and listening for signs of the kuntilanak.
While walking the silent streets a few minutes past 23:00, Indri listened to the creaking of bamboo in the wind.  Growing up close to Pajangan there were many of the same sounds near her home.  As a young girl her mother told stories of how the sounds of the bamboo were actually restless spirits trying to speak with the living.  Pajangan had a rich history of spiritual lore, and the older she grew the more that world called, until not long after returning from university she decided to spend as much of her time discovering what it was the spirits were trying to say.
A light breeze touched her face.  Indri looked to her right:  in the distance, under the iridescent stars of this moonless night, she saw a banyan tree, the limbs solid and defiant, with the leaves rustling in gentle accompaniment to the bamboo.  Indri felt compelled to abandon their investigation and go sit amongst the roots and dream of being a young girl once again, watching the stars and dreaming of her future.
Have I made the right choices? she wondered.  She knew she shouldn’t debate her life decisions, but that was the scientific part of her mind challenging the spiritual part, and that tug-of-war was constant.  Such was her jihad, to question when she shouldn’t, and one day she would find the path to allow both sides of her mind to coexist in peace.
She snapped back into the present and asked Buana, “I’m sorry; what did you ask?”
He forced himself not to chuckle too loud.  “I wondered why you are wearing tennis shoes.”  Even with tonight’s breeze the night was warm, and like many Balinese Buana preferred to wear sandals at all hours so as to remain comfortable.
Indri cast an amused glance his way.  “I didn’t want to ruin my pedicure,” she said, then waited a few seconds before telling Buana, “When I first started doing this, I was like the guys in my group, sandals and sometimes shorts—being comfortable, you know.”  She checked the small secondary tablet she brought along that allowed her to monitor her main computer in the van.  “After getting tore up in the bush a few too many times, it was comfort be damned, I’ll keep my feet covered up.”
Buana nodded.  He understood her concern.  His work didn’t often put him in a position where he’d need to hike a mountainside through most of an evening, and he could afford to stay comfortable.  “You are a woman of contradictions,” he said, his eyes scanning the road ahead.
“One of these days you’ll have to tell me why that’s true.”  Indri had heard that comment a couple of times before and wondered why Buana thought so.  “You string a girl along with enigmas and innuendo long enough, eventually you’ll need to come clean.”
“One day soon, never worry.”  Buana stopped walking and listened.  The night had been unusually quiet.  Even near midnight in a small village like Tukad Mungga there were often people out and about, but tonight—no one.  A few cars had passed them but very, very few people.  And the ones they did encounter were not eager to exchange pleasantries.  “They know.  They know what we are doing.”
“It’s more likely they want to know where we are so they can steal my equipment.”  Indri was now checking her instruments every minute or so, cycling through the separate video feeds.  “Are you getting anything?” Buana asked.
Shaking her head, Indri said, “No, nothing on video.  Nothing is showing at the moment.”  She turned slowly, looking back the way they’d come.  The houses were silent, most already dark.  The streets were devoid of illumination and pools of blackness lay everywhere.  The breeze from the mountains was upon them again, stirring up the bamboo, and while not constant, the creaking was no longer intermittent background noise for Indri.
Her heartbeat was loud in her ears.  “You feel it, don’t you, Buana?  You know she’s here.”
Buana didn’t answer immediately, for the part of him that was always in tune with the niskala—the unseen, capricious forces of the natural world—was ablaze with sensation.  There is so much here requiring balance, he thought.  Pushing the negativity aside, he instead sought envelopment by all that was in harmony with the world.  “So much here is wrong,” he whispered.  “I’ve never felt it until now, but the bhuana agung . . .” Buana was searching for the right words.  “There’s a huge wound here and only now is it making itself known.”  He didn’t realize his breathing had quickened ever so slightly during his foray into the niskala, and Buana spent a few moments returning to a state of calm before saying, “This village is in so much pain, Indri.”
Before Indri could respond they both heard the laughter of a girl somewhere behind them, so close it seemed as though she were standing only a few meters away.  Indri turned toward the direction of the laugh, knowing before she looked there was no one there.  The kuntilanak: she is here.  The laugh was always like that of a young girl, but the loudness was deceptive, for this was the way of the kuntilanak.  When the laugh was loud it meant the kuntilanak was far away, seeking someone at a distance.  It was only when the laugh was faint did one need to worry, for it was then one would discover the kuntilanak standing next to them, ready to strike . . .
Author Bio
A native of Northwest Indiana, Raymond Frazee has been writing from a very early age, but has only recently seen success.  His first work, Kuntilanak, is a horror story self published on Smashwords, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon, in September, 2011.  His second story, Captivate and Control, is a story of mild erotica/BDSM, published on 6 May, 2012, by Naughty Nights Press, and also found on Smashwords, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon.  He current has two novels being reviewed for publication:  one he calls “A modern steampunkish fantasy,” and the other he describes as “full of erotic horror”.
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