Liz Curtis Higgs
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

LIZ CURTIS HIGGS is the author of twenty-seven books with three million copies in print, including: her best-selling historical novels, Thorn in My Heart, Fair Is the Rose, Christy Award-winner Whence Came a Prince, and Grace in Thine Eyes, a Christy Award finalist; My Heart’s in the Lowlands: Ten Days in Bonny Scotland, an armchair travel guide to Galloway; and her contemporary novels, Mixed Signals, a Rita Award finalist, and Bookends, a Christy Award finalist. Visit the author’s extensive website at www.lizcurtishiggs.com.

ABOUT THE BOOK

A mother who cannot face her future.

A daughter who cannot escape her past.

Lady Elisabeth Kerr is a keeper of secrets. A Highlander by birth and a Lowlander by marriage, she honors the auld ways, even as doubts and fears stir deep within her.

Her husband, Lord Donald, has secrets of his own, well hidden from the household, yet whispered among the town gossips.

His mother, the dowager Lady Marjory, hides gold beneath her floor and guilt inside her heart. Though her two abiding passions are maintaining her place in society and coddling her grown sons, Marjory’s many regrets, buried in Greyfriars Churchyard, continue to plague her.

One by one the Kerr family secrets begin to surface, even as bonny Prince Charlie and his rebel army ride into Edinburgh in September 1745, intent on capturing the crown.

A timeless story of love and betrayal, loss and redemption, flickering against the vivid backdrop of eighteenth-century Scotland, Here Burns My Candle illumines the dark side of human nature, even as hope, the brightest of tapers, lights the way home.

View the book’s trailer below:

My review:

This book got off to a slow start. But the writing is lyrical and poetic and will draw you in. Margaret Kerr is not particularly likable. And neither is Donald, Elizabeth’s husband who cheats on her many times over.  Elizabeth saves the day, however and you won’t be sorry you invested your time in this book. Well worth the read for the glimpse of hope it offers, especially if you like literary-type fiction.

I’m giving away a copy to one commenter on this post. My blog comments are moderated, so don’t worry if the comment doesn’t show up right away. I’ll get to approving it just as soon as I have a moment. The drawing will be held next Monday, April 5th.

Oh, and I was given a copy of this book for free. I tried to demand that they pay me $5,000,000,000 to write a top notch review, but Waterbrook was having none of it. So I didn’t get paid a dime. But I’m still giving a positive review of the book.

You can find out more about this book here: http://waterbrookmultnomah.com/catalog.php?isbn=9781400070015

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http://psalm516.blogspot.com/2010/03/give-away-nora-interviews-lynnette.html

That link will take you to a blog that is hosting a give-away for Rocky Mountain Oasis. Just leave a comment on that post to be entered to win. You might find out some interesting things about what a strange person I am, too.

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Nora St. Laurent posted a nice review of Rocky Mountain Oasis over at Novel Reviews.

You can view it here:

http://novelreviews.blogspot.com/2010/03/lynnette-bonners-rocky-mountain-oasis.html

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The other day I had to run my 11 year old somewhere. When I jumped in the car I glanced in the rear-view mirror and said, “Drat! I don’t even have any make-up on yet!” My son looked over at me and replied, “Mom, you are just as pretty without your make-up.”

I posted this precious bit of conversation on my FaceBook account, warning all parents of 11 year old girls that this boy was on his way - and promptly received an offer of arranged marriage between my son and someone’s daughter.

When I told my son about the offer, he refused, for some strange reason - even when his dad promised him we’d allow at least 2 weeks for him to get to know the girl before the wedding.

Now let’s look at this situation in light of romance, which is, after all, what this blog is about.

If you have your two main characters in a similar situation and the girl comments that she doesn’t even have any make-up on yet, you can take your story in one of several ways.

• If you want the story to turn mushy, you have the hero tell her just what my son told me.
• If you want the situation to turn tense, he might say, “Yeah. You don’t want to scare the natives.”
• If you want to raise a little jealousy you have him comment casually that he’s never seen so-and-so without her make-up on and he bets she’d look just as good without it on as she does with it.

Okay, so here’s a little exercise for you:

“Come on. We need to go.” Brad held the door open for Kara.
Kara snagged her purse and coat from the hall-tree and glanced at her reflection in the mirror over the entry table. “Oh! Drat! I don’t even have any make-up on yet.”

Finish that scene with one sentence of dialogue from Brad. Give us the emotion you would attempt to invoke and then his line of dialogue. Like this:

Jealousy.
Brad stared out across the lawn, suddenly seeming to have forgotten her presence. “I’ve never seen Sophia without make-up on. Do you think she’s just as pretty without it as she is with it?”

I’m looking forward to your lines!

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You can vote in the contest at the link below.

http://yougottareadvideos.blogspot.com/

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Romance is all about the Hunky Hero…

Nothing frustrates me more, as a romance reader, than to pick up a book where the hero is a whiney wimp. Give those heroes some morals and admirable qualities and I will stick with the book all the way to the end. But I’ve put down more than one book because I didn’t like the hero.

The heroes in your romance books need to be people others can look up to. That is, after all, the definition of a hero.

he⋅ro   /ˈhɪəroʊ/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [heer-oh] Show IPA

- noun, plural -roes; for 5 also -ros.

My Hunky Hero crawled out of bed this morning 30 minutes before his normal time so that he could run to the store and buy me some Sprite before waking up the kids. He then got all 4 kids up, breakfasted, and out the door on time. PLUS he did a load of dishes. All while leaving the bedroom door shut so that I wouldn’t be disturbed.

Make your heroes like that and you will have readers swooning over your books! I know I am.

Thanks, Honey! Love you!

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I just love secondary characters! You can do so much with secondaries that you just can’t do with your main characters.

• Give them a funny accent
• Give them a silly quirk
• Make them really annoying and adorable
• Give them traits that are too over-the-top for your main characters - pushy, loud, arrogant, talkative, etc.
• Give them unique gestures that might be too annoying for a main character, but really add lovability for a secondary character.

I’ll stop my list there. I’m sure there are more options for secondaries, but my words of advice are to simply have fun with them. Don’t be afraid to make them a little out-there - strange, crazy, flamboyant, sanguine, or so shy they can hardly speak.

Secondary characters make a great foil to prod your main characters into doing what you want them to do. Cause the death of your hero’s favorite secondary character and watch what will happen with your story!

They are also great for comic relief in a tense situation - think of Merry and Pippen in The Lord of the Rings.

Secondary characters can be used to lengthen out tension. Leave your main characters in a cliff-hanger situation and switch to a scene or two involving your secondary characters.

However you use them, just make sure your story has them. Readers need the release that comes with secondary characters.

What are some of your favorite secondary characters? If you are a writer what are some of your favorite ways to write secondaries?

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Readers Favorite Book Reviews gave Rocky Mountain Oasis 5 stars.

“It is delightful to watch the tension and budding relationship blossom between Jordan and Brook. This is the first book I’ve read by Lynnette Bonner but it won’t be the last. She has a talent for transporting readers back in time. I felt as though I was an eye witness to the Wild West. While this is an inspirational love story it is much more. Bonner weaves the threads of intrigue, romance, mystery and suspense into a tapestry on which readers see the life of a mail order bride.”

To read the whole review you can go here: http://readersfavorite.com/cat-71.htm?review=2661 

And if you would like, you can add your own comments about the book below their review.

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Just a quick post to give you a link to an interview I did for Romance Writers on the Journey.

http://romancewritersonthejourney.wordpress.com/2009/11/18/meet-debut-author-lynnette-bonner/

Blessings on your day!

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