RIP My Beloved Kindle!

 

Before I went on holiday I spent a considerable amount of time choosing and downloading to my Kindle all the books I might want to read while away. Dozens and dozens of them! After all, one of the best things about an ereader is that it holds so many books, and after once being charged a fortune in excess baggage due to the weight of my holiday reading, I’m now a total Kindling enthusiast and won’t travel anywhere without it.

 

Actually, I have two Kindles. I have a two and a half year old 3G (the one with the keyboard) and I also have the new Kindle Fire (my prezzy from last Christmas) and, as I planned to do most of my reading on the beach, I decided taking the older one with its non-glare screen was the sensible option.

But woe is me! On day two, after reading just one book (Security by Mandy Baggot – which is, by the way, a fabulous and highly recommended read) my Kindle died and could not be resuscitated. (Even on getting home and ordering up a replacment battery, it was still as dead as dead could be).

I did ask our holiday rep if there was any books I could borrow, there was but they were all printed in Russian and German, which I neither read nor speak. So for those of you about to embark on your summer travels with your full stocked ereader, I might suggest you sneak a paperback or two into your luggage, just as a back up!

If you fancy reading my Kindle bestselling and award winning humorous novel Bagpipes & Bullshot this summer, you can win a copy between now and the end of June by answering this simple question (if you don’t know the answer you could always Google for it!)

What exactly is Bullshot…?

Answers in the comment box below, my email to me at janice@jancehortonwriter.co.uk or you can post to my Facebook Author Page (which I’d love you to Like while you are there!)

Haste ye back here next Friday!

Hot News...!

HOT NEWS..! I’m back from holiday to discover that while I was away my novel ‘Bagpipes & Bullshot’ won The People's Book Award for Kindle (May 2013)! Previous winners include JK Rowling’s ‘The Casual Vacancy’, Hilary Mantel’s ‘Wolf Hall’, David Nicholl’s ‘One Day’ and E L James’ ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’.

The People's Book Awards are the only international awards open to all titles distributed in Kindle or Printed formats by Amazon sites around the world. Established in 2008, the awards site (www.thebookawards.com) attracts large numbers of visitors and in that time thousands of voters around the world has shown their appreciation by supporting and nominating books in the competition. The competition is strong, with several international best sellers, in addition to talented emerging authors making up the field.

Managing Director, Peter Lihou sent me a personal message of congratulations and this is what he said!

"Over the years, we've seen a great many popular titles gain the tangible applause of their fans by their votes and comments, but Bagpipes & Bullshot enjoys particularly warm support. It really is quite an accomplishment for an author to inspire their customers so much that they get online and vote in such numbers and leave extremely flattering comments. Janice Horton is a very worthy winner!"

Thank you to everyone who voted for Bagpipes & Bullshot!

COMPETITION

Win a Kindle copy of Bagpipes & Bullshot - just answer this question.

What exactly is bullshot...?

Leave your answer in a blog comment below
or
email your entry to janice@janicehortonwriter.co.uk
or
leave your answer on my Author Facebook Page
 
(competition to run to 30th June)
 

Thank you also for the lovely comments on my last post. You are all correct in that the Pearl Anniversary is for 30 years married and Georgina Troy is the winner of an ecopy of Voodoo Wedding!

Haste ye back on Friday for my usual weekly posting

Taking time out for a pearl…

 

I’m taking time out for a couple of weeks. It’s a special ‘pearl’ wedding anniversary for Mr JH and I this month, so we are off somewhere romantic to celebrate. Although we have organised housesitting cover for the hens and the dogs while we are away, I won’t be blogging or tweeting or FB’ing  as usual (I’ve promised Mr JH that I won’t!!) but I’m sure I’ll return with renewed online networking vigour and lots to share – so until then - lovely peeps, have fun answering this question.

 

How many years have Mr & Mrs JH been married if it’s their ‘pearl’ anniversary..?

 There's a free ebook copy of Voodoo Wedding in a prize draw for all those who comment below while I'm away - or tweet the answer using @JaniceHorton so I see it - when I get back!

 

Haste ye Back in a couple of weeks...

 

 

 

High Maintenance…?

This week, I took a trip to my favourite city; Edinburgh. I must have visited ‘Auld Reekie’ over a hundred times, but I still get a thrill of anticipation as I travel towards the city centre. With Edinburgh Castle as a backdrop, I head straight for Princes Street and make my way from one end to the other, taking in all the high street ‘names’ as I go. Then, if I can dash into Harvey Nichols by St Andrew’s Square before making my way back down George Street, stopping to window shop in Hobbs, Whistles and LK Bennet, all the better!



Edinburgh Castle overlooking Princes Street Edinburgh. Photos: commons.wikimedia.org



 

My ultimate destination is to my hairdresser on Fredrick Street. I’ve been going to Angus Gordon for almost twenty years. I love to catch up on gossip with my lovely stylist, spend time relaxing, reading magazines and sipping champagne, as well as getting my hair expertly coiffured.

Eeek - that makes me sound terribly high maintenance, doesn’t it?!



A glass of champagne at the hairdresser

 

But in my own defence, unlike some of my very stylish friends, who go to their hairdresser every six weeks, I go no more than four times a year. Of course, by the time I need to go - I mean I really need to go - and practically have to sneak in with a paper bag over my limp, split, drab coloured hair, professing my apologies for looking such an absolute mess.

 





On my way to looking coiffured...!

 

But a glass of chilled champagne and my colour fix usually makes me feel much better. Then a special conditioning treatment followed by a head and neck massage quickly banishes any writerly muscle stresses and makes me feel fabulous even before I’ve had a cut and style!

So that’s my ultimate treat. My no-longer-secret indulgence.  Something I save up for and look forward to lots. What’s your indulgence…? Is it a hair appointment, a shoe shopping session, an occasional luxury spa retreat?

 

Does it make you terribly high maintenance or are you ‘worth it’?

Do tell..!!



A bit of sunshine and out comes the bikini..!

 

 

 

This week, while Horton HQ was encapsulated in a mist so thick there was no sky never mind any sunshine, it seemed entirely unfair to me that everyone south of the Scottish border was basking in a summer heat wave. On Facebook there were wall to wall photos of blue skies, sunny gardens, and friends having their breakfast al-fresco. Envious, me? You bet!

So I did a shout out to my lovely English friends – it was a plea actually – to send the sunshine north. And guess what? It worked!

The very next day (yesterday) miraculously, we had warm glorious and mood enhancing sunshine that had me casting off the layers of winter woollies I have lived in for months and hauling summer clothes out of my wardrobe.

In no time at all, in a sunshine infused frenzy, I was trying on strappy tops and white cotton dresses – and erm, bikinis.

All ready for my summer holiday then…?

 

 

Mmm, not quite.  I have now hauled my trusty torso-track gadget from the back of the cupboard and I’m frantically doing the necessary workout. It seems that winter woollies can hide an awful lot more than a bikini ever could. Now, do you think if I did a shout out my clever English friends to send me a stomach as flat as my ironing board, that it might work too…?

Haste Ye Back (that’s both you and the sunshine…!)



NEW FEATURE – Interesting Plots and Themes - Revenge

To kick off my new blogging feature on interesting plots and themes – I have invited back to the blog Harriet Schultz, American author of the Amazon bestseller Legacy of the Highlands and its just-published sequel, A Legacy of Revenge, to talk to us about her contemporary romantic suspense novels which each have a central theme of revenge, which Harriet cleverly combines with passion, hot men (of course), a love story, intrigue and settings as varied as Scotland, Buenos Aires, Miami and Boston.

Recently, Harriet was invited to write a guest column for USA Today on the theme of revenge in romance novels, for which she interview Jayne Ann Krentz (aka Amanda Quick) for the story. I found this to be fascinating reading. So, in case you missed it, I’ve asked Harriet to pop over to the UK and tell us all about her theme of revenge.

“…if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?”

The Merchant of Venice, William Shakespeare

When wronged, who hasn’t craved the satisfaction that revenge can bring? The target could be a boyfriend whose betrayal broke your heart, those mean girls who made your life miserable, or the villain who stole something you value — a material object, something more abstract such as honor, or even the life of a loved one. The list of triggers that might set off the need for vengeance is endless.

Revenge is a very human emotion, a dark and powerful one, yet one that’s hard to resist. It’s the rare person who hasn’t yearned to retaliate for a wrong at some point. In real life, however, getting back at someone isn’t always wise or do-able, so as readers and writers we derive vicarious pleasure when fictional characters do the deed for us.

Vengeance is a popular theme in romance novels and crosses all subgenres from historicals to the paranormal, contemporary chick lit and, of course, suspense. A quick Amazon search for “romance” and “revenge” results in more than one thousand titles. (I was happy to find my newest, A Legacy of Revenge, among the first fifteen on this list).  Delve further and Google comes up with more than two million hits for “revenge in romance novels.”

The titles of romance novels with a revenge theme show that payback can take many forms and may be delivered by a disparate group of characters — billionaires, banshees, jocks, vampires, homecoming queens, rock chicks and even one middle-aged woman.  The plots and people who inhabit the pages of these books are as wide-ranging and original as writers’ imaginations can make them, but all feature at least one protagonist with an overwhelming desire to retaliate for a real or perceived wrong.

What is it that makes revenge such a satisfying plot device? It’s certainly not a new one. The Bible is filled with “an eye for and eye” tales of revenge, it was a favorite of Shakespeare’s and there would have been no Count of Monte Cristo without it. Country music’s queen of revenge songs, Miranda Lambert, says people connect with her lyrics because  “these songs make you feel emotion. They are just so passionate.” And we all know that a romance novel without passion is a book that will not be read.

Revenge snakes its way through both of my romantic suspense novels, but it doesn’t pit the hero and heroine against each other. Instead they’re united in a quest to discover why the heroine’s husband — the hero’s best friend — was murdered and to avenge the killing. The smoking hot (of course) former womanizer’s feelings for the heroine run deep and our hero is equally determined to win her heart. They believe that the vendetta is over at the end of book one, but it comes back to haunt them in the sequel. As Daniel Craig (aka James Bond) says, “revenge doesn’t stop.”

Bestselling author Jayne Ann Krentz knows something about the appeal of revenge in romance novels. "When I use revenge as a motive for a hero or a heroine it is always all about family and responsibility to others - never personal.  There is nothing noble, heroic or romantic about seeking revenge for yourself.  But to avenge a deep wrong done to someone in your family or to someone you love?  Ah, that is another story - one I can write."

The uncertainty about if, how, and when the revenge will take place, whether it will be successful, and the ultimate happiness of our hero and heroine are what make these romances so deliciously engaging and keep us turning the pages late into the night.

A Legacy of Revenge

When a fourteenth-century Scottish oath leads to murder in present-day Boston, the victim's devastated widow seeks revenge. Determined to find and punish the person who killed her husband Will, Alexandra Cameron joins forces with his best friend, the handsome, wealthy and powerful, Argentine Diego Navarro. A Legacy of Revenge is the sequel to the Amazon bestseller, Legacy of the Highlands.

 

To celebrate the sequel’s publication, the first book in the series, Legacy of the Highlands, is priced at just 73p from May 2^nd -5th. It’s available from most e-booksellers including Amazon Apple, Smashwords, Barnes & Noble and Kobo.

 

About the Author: Harriet Schultz is an award-winning journalist whose career began at TIME magazine. She loves to travel and is happy that something she enjoys adds realism to the locations of her books.

Twitter: @HarrietSchultz

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Talking Chickens – chick-lit…?

I’ve got my first of three ‘Scottish Country Lifestyle’ features going out with Loveahappyending Lifestyle magazine today – an innovative new online mag that covers some fabulous aspects of life and living.

 

In this feature I’m talking about keeping chickens and there are some photos of my ‘girls’ including this ‘free range’ photo of Kylie on the hill behind our cottage. This is the link if you’d like to pop over and take a peek!

Loveahappyending Lifestyle magazine

Haste Ye Over There…!