Summary Sunday

Are you all winding down--or is that more like winding up?--for Thanksgiving? I am, which means The Lady and the Minstrel and Summary Sunday will be mostly going on hiatus for a week. Here's a sampling of new sentences to tide you over in the meantime.

Monday: “The minstrel is a mere irritant it will give me pleasure to snuff like a candle’s flame.”

Tuesday: If she lost him, her very foundation would crumble and the only thing waiting to catch her would be the soul-blasting coldness of Strode’s embrace.

Wednesday: Her father had called such comfort “coddling” and rebuked her mother from holding her during the long, grieving days that had followed her grandfather’s death.

Thursday: “I believe Robert an honest man, and he certainly has beauty and charm enough to set any woman to swooning—don’t stare, child, I told you I was not blind.

Friday: “Lord Christopher has laid testimony? Before what court?”

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Staying Warm or Keeping Cool giveaway hop: winner!

Congratulations to Miki, who won the Staying Warm or Keeping Cool Giveaway Hop here on JDP NEWS! Miki won an e-book combo of my sweet medieval romances, A Candlelight Courting and Loyalty's Web.

Thank you to everyone who entered. I have another giveaway still going on for Thanksgiving, so if you didn't win and would like another chance at a prize, click here.

Summary Sunday

Rob's in trouble and on the run! Here are some new sentences from The Lady and the Minstrel this week.

Monday: Now Robert stood at her door, hair disheveled, face flushed and chest heaving like he had just come from a battle.

Tuesday: Marguerite nudged his hands away from his head to feel for some lump or knot that might be causing him pain.

Wednesday: But the Earl of Gunthar was absent today, his place taken by the Lady Helen who endured with dignified composure the king’s neglect while he leered at various women seated at the tables below them.

Thursday: “You think Rob would hide behind me? Fah! It takes a coward’s mind to suspect anther man of skulking behind a woman.”

Friday: Strode caught her wrist as her hand flew up to strike him. He murmured against her lips, “How fond are you of your cousin Richard? I have him locked up in a tower that only you can deliver him from.”

Saturday: Marguerite felt heartsick. So cruel and vicious a plot, just to eliminate a man she had dared to fall in love with?

Gratitude Giveaway Hop

Welcome to the Gratitude Giveaway Hop, sponsored by I Am a Reader, Not a Writer! Here on JDP NEWS, I'm giving away a copy of my sweet medieval Christmas novella, A Candlelight Courting: A Short Christmas Romance (2012 RONE Award 1st Runner-Up by InD'Tale Magazine)

Since this is a short story, I am also throwing in a $10 gift card. The prize therefore will be as follows:

A Candlelight Courting: A Short Christmas Romance

~ Winner's choice: e-book (via Kindle, Nook, Smashwords, or PDF from the author) OR print copy as long as it's available on your country's Amazon.com website

AND

~ Winner's choice: $10 gift card to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or for international, any book up to $10 on the Book Depository

The winner will be selected on December 1, 2013. International entries are welcome, as per the terms above.

Enter via the Rafflecopter form below, then keep hopping for some more great giveaway!

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Keeping Warm or Staying Cold Giveaway Hop

Welcome to the Keeping Warm or Staying Cold Giveaway Hop, sponsored by Reading in Twilight and I Am a Reader! The purpose of this giveaway hop is to help you find some fun reading material to help keep you warm this winter, or if you live in warm winter climate like me, help keep you cool! I've decided to split the difference and offer you two of my titles, one set in winter and one set in the spring.

A Candlelight Courting: A Short Christmas Romance (e-book)

When Burthred comes courting on Christmas Eve, Meg rejects his advances. She has her heart set on becoming a nun and insists that he call her Christina, the spiritual name she has chosen for herself. She tries to make him swear on her box of holy relics that he will not pursue her, but he carefully words his oath to allow him to stay in her candlelit chamber and try to change her mind.

What Meg does not confess is that her reliquary box holds a secret.

Burthred needs a wife, and no one will satisfy him except Meg. He swore on his father’s deathbed that he would marry her. But Burthred has a secret, too. When they come together before the Yule fire, their shared revelations will either join their hearts together or tear them apart.

Loyalty's Web (e-book - this is a full-length novel)

Heléne de Laurant has not forgotten how the Earl of Gunthar destroyed her father’s castle during Henry II’s war with his sons. Apparently neither have her family and friends, for when someone tries to murder Gunthar, every sign points in their direction. Heléne realizes the only way to prove her loved ones’ innocence is by exposing the true assassin.

As Heléne and Gunthar spar over the identity of the traitor, fierce determination gives way to mutual attraction. Heléne must race against time, and dark secrets of the past, to unmask the would-be killer before the kingdom plunges back into war and takes the life of the man she has unexpectedly learned to love.

This giveaway is open to international entries. The winner will be selected on November 20. Enter via the Rafflecopter form below, then hop along to the next giveaway!

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OFFICIAL RULES: NO PURCHASE NECESSSARY. Entrants must be 18 years or older. Winners will be selected on Nov 20, 2013 and have 48 hours to respond to an email notifying them of their win. VOID WHERE PROHIBITED BY LAW. 

Summary Sunday

It was a rough and tumble week for my hero, Rob, as he came face to face with an old adversary. Here is a sampling from this week's progress on The Lady and the Minstrel.

Monday: He closed his eyes and sank for one moment into the memory of how honey-sweet Marguerite’s lips had tasted at the fair. He was glad he had been allowed to kiss her one last time.

Tuesday: Kit swore and snarled and cursed as Robert wrenched at his wrist, smashed his hand against the floor again, wrenched and smashed and wrenched until Robert saw the betraying shift of the blade in Kit’s benumbed fingers.

Wednesday: Robert hoped Kit would awaken to as abominable a headache as Robert had when Kit had hit him in the woods with the rock.

Thursday: It was his only physical tie to his father, a tangible memory of his father’s love for his mother that had embraced Robert, too, and held him warm and secure as a boy in a world so bitterly uncertain and cold. What if when Robert let it go, the memory of his father’s face and voice and smile and love went with it?

Friday: The strap bounced down Richard’s arm, the case swaying wildly into the path of a descending sword thrust before Richard pivoted out of the way and cast the case off with a force that sent it and its precious contents banging against one of the walls.

Summary Sunday

This week, my writing of The Lady and the Minstrel enjoyed both advances and suffered setbacks. One day I wrote over 900 words, and the next day I ripped all 900 words back out and completely rewrote that section of the scene. That's part of the writing process. Somedays it works, somedays it doesn't. But in the end, I advanced more than I backtracked, and in the end, that's what counts.

Here is a sampling from my writing sessions of The Lady and the Minstrel this week.

Monday: At least he had slowed the devilry against Gunthar, though Robert knew he had not stopped it.

Tuesday:  It was fear, not doubt that smothered you, like it smothered your family and everyone else on he manor

Wednesday: Robert saw the gleam dim in those gloating eyes as it always did when Robert had the audacity to address his “master” by the familiar diminutive that should have been reserved only to Kit’s family and friends.

Thursday: The trap was springing shut and Robert had no way to stop it.

Friday: “Yet you told me most of the barber’s story as though you had heard it from his own lips.” Or invented it yourself.

Giveaway Hop winners!

Congratulations to Stacie McAdams, winner of the Spooktacular Giveaway Hop on JDP NEWS! Stacie has won a copy of my sweet medieval Christmas short story, A Candlelight Courting and a $10 gift card to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or the Book Depository!

And a belated congratulations to Tia, who won a copy of my sweet medieval romance, Illuminations of the Heart, in the LDS Authors Giveaway Hop earlier this month!