Rinda Elliott's Blog, page 5

In addition to the playlist, Jocelynn and I want to thank our readers for showing such enthusiasm for our upcoming release, TORCH! It broke three top fifty lists at Amazon in pre-orders. You guys are so awesome! Thank you so much for helping spread the word on our independent project. Reviews at Amazon–even one liners–help get us into more searches, etc.  SHIVER and SHATTER are creeping up on the hopeful 50 reviews mark.

Also, see that box to the right? Yes, we are going to be putting together a newsletter so those of you who love getting email reminders of news can keep up. We will not be spamming the addresses added there–we’ll only be sending out newsletters and only whenever there is release information, etc.

We also have a fun group on Facebook called Unbreakable Readers. We let our freak fly a bit in there and readers are very welcome!

So, I have playlist for TORCH that actually changes often. Rowe is an interesting character and the events of SHATTER changed him, so it’s been a trip delving into who he is now and if that rascally, tough man can be lured back out. So many emotions in this book! So here are the songs playing right this minute in my TORCH playlist. Okay, not all of them. The list is a lot longer.

This is from one of my favorite scenes in Shiver.

Did you see that Jocelynn and I had another book release this past week? It’s a compilation of short stories and a novelette set between Shiver and Shatter. We have trouble leaving our world, or couples actually, between books, so we write short stories to entertain ourselves and sometimes, we share. We decided to try something–see if our readers enjoyed the stories put together in a convenient bundle for Kindles. It contains the three free short stories from our website, but two of them were made quite a bit spicier. There is also a novelette called Thanksgiving as a gift to our Unbreakable Reader’s group and two more new short stories. All together, they show the deepening relationship between Lucas and Andrei from Shiver. Hope you enjoy! Here are a couple of review quotes from Goodreads so far.

“A fabulous set of six short stories showing the growth of something deeper between Lucas and Andrei. This was the perfect blend of sweet and sexy, with a dash of heartfelt emotion and a helping of the humor you’ve come to expect from this gang. As an added bonus, we’re introduced to Andrei’s parents….and damn are they just awesome!” Full 4.5 star review from Mirjana here. 

“Just all kinds of romantic!” Full 5 star review from Natalie here. 

 

Our interview with Divine Magazine, info about Unbreakable Stories: Lucas–which releases in FIVE DAYS!– and more! Click the image to go!

Affection, passion, a strong hand…and complete acceptance. That’s what Snow needed. He needed love.

Copied from the joint blog I write with author, Jocelynn Drake.

It wasn’t easy coming up with the right man for Snow, but when Jude came to life, we knew he was perfect.

I could not come up with a blog topic today. This isn’t new. I do this of

ten. I’ve blogged so many years, it feels like I’ve said it all so most of my word sharing comes through the stories I’d rather be writing.

Writing blog posts about the behind the scenes details in books is actually more difficult when you have a co-writer. Do you talk about the individual scenes you did? Who wrote which character? Or the struggles one faced getting a character just right when in the end all the characters belong to both?

In this past post , I talked about how we divvied up characters in the beginning.

This was the general plan. But we sometimes write the other’s characters in specific scenes. For instance, there’s a scene in SHATTER where some of our guys go into a dangerous situation and Snow and Lucas are stuck in a car. That scene was Jocelynn’s responsibility and I LOVE what she did with Snow and Hollis in it!. We actually plotted that over the phone and laughed our asses off over Hollis’s reaction when he climbs into Lucas’s car. She laid that scene out wonderfully! And though Lucas is her character, I’ve written him in several scenes. Hell, I threw in a love scene between Lucas and Andrei in SHIVER. Well…she actually wrote most of the scene—I just surprised her by throwing in a hand job. LOL. She kept it.

If you’re a member of our FB reader’s group, you know that we get a little “mine” action going on sometimes. For instance, Jocelynn, has claimed Andrei as hers, but she does let me put him in some sexy scenes occasionally. I wrote a couple for the upcoming short stories, though a lot of that wonderful sexiness between Lucas and Andrei came from her lovely brain. I wrote more of Snow and Jude’s love story in SHATTER, but she came in with a lot of fantastic scenes.

Because we both add scenes and because we both do full revisions, by the time we finish a book, it feels like it belongs to both of us.

We will pepper lines into the other’s work, flesh out settings, rearrange sentences, and more. We switch out scenes that the other had planned to write. You’d think two writers with the usual writer’s egos would have trouble with this. Sure, occasionally we do. I’m positive she wanted to brain me after I kept picking apart a specific scene in SHIVER.  And I nearly cut a couple of good scenes in SHATTER because I was too close to the story-had read it sooo many times by that point–and worried they were overkill and she was adamant they belonged. She was right.

It feels like—and I hope it seems this way for our readers—that the combination of our different strengths are coming together pretty nicely. That together, we push and pull and write and revise and argue and laugh…and out comes Unbreakable Bonds.

SHATTER has been out a month now and I’m still kind of stunned over the response. You guys will probably laugh, but I curled up in a ball of terror when that book went out to reviewers. I’m normally a bundle of nerves with every book release, but this book meant so much to me. I had followed online conversations about SHIVER and saw a few expectations where Snow was concerned and worried that readers wouldn’t get the real Snow.

But most did.

In fact you guys got him so much—loved him and Jude so much—that this has flat out been the best book release I’ve experienced. (I would say we, but I can’t speak for Jocelynn. LOL. She did happen to hit the NYT’s list with her work before and I can’t imagine how that feels.

The first free short story featuring Snow and Jude is live! It’s set after the events of SHATTER. Click on Anna’s unicorn to read.

Really fun post at Drake and Elliott that shares behind the scenes conversations between Jocelynn and me.  I am blogging a lot more there these days.

Also, the first free short story featuring Snow and Jude is posting there MONDAY!!!!

Mirroring this post from where I blog more often at http://www.drakeandelliott.com.

There’s so much that goes on behind the scenes during a book release. Lots of things to get done and to worry about. I am a worrier and nothing I do seems to alleviate that, so I just work on dealing with it. I’m also stubborn and kind of a control freak…and a big, big softie. Quite a mix, eh?

But there are blog posts to do, tons of busy work, and this time around, a lot of reader messages and responses and I have to say, this has been so incredibly wonderful. To have so many emotional responses to the work I’m doing with Jocelynn means so very much to me. To us both. We love what we’re writing.

When a book goes out, I tend to spend the first few days haunting places where readers hang so I can see if anyone is enjoying it. This is both a good and bad thing, so it’s done with more caution after that initial “must see” period I can’t seem to resist. (Remember that stubborn part?) ) So if I liked one review and not another, it’s probably because I haven’t seen it after backing off a bit. Jocelynn and I are hard at work on our other projects, so it’s better if I’m not tempted to read the harder reactions to my work. Yes, authors know that reviews are for readers, but we are infinitely curious people–one of the biggest reasons we write–so it can be a challenge to let that part of things go.

But we also know, the world is made up of so many different kinds of people, with different personal experiences, so everyone experiences a book in their own way. 

That’s good. Otherwise, this world would be pretty damn boring.

I have not been updating my website a lot lately, but I am fully entrenched in the writing world still. A little over a year ago, I decided to jump into a project with author, Jocelynn Drake. We decided to take off on our own for a time and write something we both really wanted to write. The series is called Unbreakable Bonds and it’s MM romantic suspense. The second book in the series, SHATTER, is coming out later this month and already, reviews are coming in. Nice ones! We’re absolutely thrilled that readers are enjoying our guys because we love them like crazy.

Now, these books are hotter than what you’re used to seeing from me. Unless you read my Dani Worth books–but still, maybe even a little hotter. (Though, I thought ORIGIN was pretty damn hot. LOL.) I am really writing something I love here.

So, if this blog seems to be a little stale, check in at http://drakeandelliott.com/. We keep that one pretty updated. We also spend a lot of time on Facebook. We have a page and we also have a private reader’s group just for fans of Unbreakable Bonds and any other series Jocelynn and I decide to work on together. It’s called Unbreakable Readers. It’s a drama free zone where we can feel free to talk about our books, other books and share sexy character inspirations.

Are you ready to see the cover for Shatter?

I will admit that we had a difficult time finding an image that we loved as much as the image we used for the cover of Shiver. That one really grasped Lucas’s arrogance and confidence perfectly. That being said… we are absolutely IN LOVE with the cover of Shatter. A big thank you to Stephen Drake at Design by Drake for yet another killer cover!

Drum roll, please……

So… what do you think?  Are Snow and Jude going to make you shatter?

I think so.

If you haven’t seen it yet, here is a description of Shatter:

Maverick trauma surgeon Ashton “Snow” Frost keeps the world at a distance, relying only on his three closest friends to keep him connected. But when a ghost from their past returns to Cincinnati, Snow stands to lose everyone he loves. Framed for murder and reeling from attacks on his friends, Snow is pushed to his breaking point.

Jude Torres won’t let the doc shatter. The paramedic has been attracted to the doctor since he first laid eyes on him at the hospital, even if the arrogant, solitary man doesn’t fit into any of his plans. One hot, reckless kiss shows that Snow isn’t who he appears to be. And one night together will never be enough. Jude will fight for the doc.

Fight to keep him whole. Fight to keep him safe. Fight to simply keep him.

Read a little glimpse of Shatter:

“The nurse said he’s hours past his shift,” a woman said. “He looks too tired to drive home. Maybe you could take him?”

The low voice and shuffling noises tugged at him, trying to pull him from sleep, but exhaustion rode him so hard, Jude just sort of floated under the words, hardly understanding. A twinge in his neck kept him from succumbing back to sleep completely.

“He sat with me the whole time,” she continued, her voice closer. “He’s wonderful. Pretty, too, huh doctor?”

Someone touched his shoulder. He blinked up into blue eyes that held a surprisingly warm look. He’d never seen that expression on the man before. His eyes dropped to the doctor’s lips as he spoke. Jude didn’t hear the words this time, but he did take in the deep groove in the center over his upper lip—one that gave his mouth the sexiest curve. The doctor’s lower lip was fuller. Bite-able. He had another groove in his chin and Jude wanted to put his tongue in it.

“Beautiful Doc Frost,” he murmured, liking this dream as his heartbeat picked up.

Blue eyes flared wide.

A woman chuckled behind the doctor leaning over him. A woman didn’t belong in his sex dreams and for a moment, Jude frowned in confusion. Then he reached up and slid his palm behind the doctor’s neck, pulling him down so it would only be the two of them. “Come on,” he said softly. “We should go to bed. Wanna feel you against me.” He pressed his lips to the doctor’s, opened his mouth and licked along that sexy divot over the doc’s lips. Heat shot through him and a groan rumbled from deep inside.

Doctor Frost snapped back, straightening, his hand going up to his mouth. He touched his lips and those eyes narrowed, filling with so much fire, Jude squirmed in his seat. Then Jude’s cocoon burst as realization came to him. He’d kissed the surgeon general.

Do you love the cover? Do you love the description? Do you just love Snow?  I get it.  I do too. If you haven’t already, be sure to pre-order your copy now!

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Kobo

Apple’s iBookstore

All Romance ebooks