Saturday, 18 February 2017

1st Review for 'The Perfect Duchess'

Reviews are so important to an author but I have great difficulty soliciting them. But when they just appear on my book's page on Amazon, I am very happy.
When they're 5 star reviews, I'm ecstatic! I can't begin to explain the joy I feel when readers love my characters as much as I do! Sharing it here - and a big thank you to the reviewer. You know who you are. So I'd better get back to the wicked Bax and give him something he doesn't think he's looking for! I love Regency Heroes!

on February 18, 2017
Format: Kindle Edition

Tuesday, 14 February 2017

The Perfect Duchess



'The Perfect Duchess' the second book in my 'Lords of the Matrix Club' series is almost here! It has been available on pre-order for two weeks and goes live on 15th Feb - today in NZ but probably tomorrow in Amazon-Land! So technically it won't go live until tomorrow or tonight sometime, I guess!
I like to have model visuals for my hero and heroine when I start a new story. I guess it helps to make them more real for me. So I go trawling on the internet for images with the required characteristics. Lady Sherida Dearing - who becomes the perfect duchess - is a silver blonde with brown eyes. Katherine Heigl was the obvious choice.
I've wavered a bit with the Duke of Wolverton, however. I have a clear vision of him in my mind and both Clark Gable and David Gandy come close. In the end, I settled for a combination of Gable's class act with the edgy masculinity of Gandy.
Am very excited that my characters are making their debut in the real world (of fiction!) beyond my imagination.
You can find 'The Perfect Duchess' on Amazon -  www.amazon.com/dp/B01MSBW42C

To join my email list, receive a free copy of the short story, 'The Townville Legacy - A Darkness in the Blood' and  notification whenever a new book is published, email me at:- jenyatesnz@mail.com

Saturday, 4 February 2017

*** FREE until 5th Feb.
Get Bk.1. 'The Earl of Windermere Takes a Wife' FREE until 5th Feb.amazon.com/dp/B01ENSMA2A
***Bk.2. 'The Perfect Duchess' available for pre-order now. Goes live on 15th Feb. amazon.com/dp/B01MSBW42C

Friday, 27 January 2017

   Book 2. in The Lords of the Matrix Club' series.
Romance set in Regency era - sexy to the point of erotica - at times.
AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER NOW! Goes Live on Feb. 15th.
'The Perfect Duchess' Bk.2. in the 'Lords of the Matrix Club' series is ready for pre-order now.

'As a third son Dominic Beresford should not have been the next Duke of Wolverton, but like it or not, he’s inherited the titles and the estates, and the pressing obligations to find a wife and provide a ducal heir. His first choice of Duchess recently married his best friend so now he seeks marriage with the next most suitable candidate, longtime family friend, Lady Sherida Dearing. He has also been commissioned to locate a missing heiress as a favor to his erstwhile commander, a woman with a birthmark one cannot ask to see in polite circles.
Lady Sherida Dearing would make the perfect Duchess. She is exquisitely fair, icily regal and with an unfashionable tendency to wear high-necked gowns, she’s been dubbed the ‘Heavenly Iceberg’. Only Sheri’s maid knows the depth of her sinful imperfections and although Sheri has loved Dom since her first ball, can she marry him and keep her heart intact—and her secrets?
What the Duke of Wolverton hasn’t envisioned is exposing his own secret life as the Master of Virgins at the Matrix Club. Or that beneath the icy façade of his wife he will discover that one who will cause him to forsake all others; that one who is indelibly marked for the Duke of Wolverton—that one he’s been searching for.'



AND TO CELEBRATE!


Here is Bk.1. 'The Earl of Windermere Takes a Wife' FREE for 5 days only - from 1st Feb - 5th Feb.

'A damaged Earl and the woman who will risk scandal for love of him.'

Sunday, 1 January 2017

Special Price for 2 Weeks.



Happy New Beginnings Everyone.

In simple numerology terms (simple cos I’m no numerologist) 2016 was a 9 year—2+0+1+6=9—therefore a year of endings and completions. This was certainly borne out by the number of doyens of the entertainment world who chose 2016 as the last year of this physical incarnation.

And yet, because of who they were and what they achieved in this lifetime, they left us a rich legacy, a huge part of themselves we can continue to enjoy and appreciate. In music, video, films, and books their energy, their presence, is still very real.

As I read the heartfelt rants on FB at each new passing (right up to the last one, Debbie Reynolds, who I will always remember in ‘Tammy’) I wanted to say, ‘Don’t begrudge them their right to move on to the next phase of their soul’s journey, just like ordinary people who have less fame and even less recorded art by which they will be remembered.’

Instead, let us give thanks they devoted their lives to creating wonderful classics of music and film that will continue to enrich humanity for generations to come. Because of today’s technology, their art need never be lost. Because of today’s technology, they continue to live among us.

2017 is a 1 year—2+0+1+7+10 and 1+0=1—a year of new beginnings.

I give thanks for all that transpired in my life through the last nine year cycle—including the births of 9 great grandchildren; the last on December 28th—and I embrace the next phase with joy, excitement and gratitude.

That last 9 year cycle was a time of defining myself as an author; finally discovering who I am and what I really love writing. Looking at my writing in 9 year episodes is quite enlightening. In the previous cycle, 1999 – 2007 I planned out 6 historical stories based on a belief in reincarnation and the effect of our past lives on our present, and completed 2 of them.

This morning I listened to a webinar by Andrrea Hess in which she talked of accessing our past lives through the Akashic Records, to look for actions/decisions/vows we made in those other lifetimes which are subconsciously affecting the decisions and choices we make in this one. It’s as if, way back then, we clicked a box in ‘Settings’ on our soul’s Facebook page, and our Soul continues to respond in the same way in similar situations until we go back into ‘Settings’ and un-click that box!

(If you want to know more about that I suggest you go to http://www.soulrealignment.com/ )

This webinar reminded me of those two books I wrote between 1999 and 2007.



In Crystal Warrior, Book.1. of the ‘Crystal Series’ ( http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0197OZPW2 ) Torr and Jenna’s previous life many millennia before during the last days of Atlantis left him with a burning question and a deep distrust. Trouble was Torr had no idea why he distrusted Jenna; he just knew she was his; they were meant to be together.

‘What did you do with Ugo? That’s what’s been gnawing at my soul for millennia! You were not only leaving me to die on my own, you only had Electra with you. Where—was—my son?’

Not until he was able to articulate that question and understand her last actions in that ancient lifetime could they fully express who they were in this lifetime and what that meant to them now. It opened the doors to healing.

Book.2. Crystal Dancer, ( http://www.amazon.com/dp/B019A86LHS ) is Ugo’s story. He survived the destruction of Atlantis by being transported 6000 years forward in time, to Egypt just before the Great Flood. In their 21st century life, Hugo and Riki fall in love, but even though their relationship is long distance and the sex, when they do meet up, is hot and steamy but never penetrative, neither of them can break away from the need for one another. It’s not until Riki uncovers the vow she made at the end of that ancient lifetime, and reverses it, that they realize her problem was way deeper seated than the brutal rape she experienced as a 12-year-old girl in her current lifetime.

These 2 stories are big books, sexy books. They may test your belief systems and stretch your imagination. They were all-consuming to write and I think they just may have been accessed through my Akashic Records. It certainly felt like I’d been there, in those very distant, mythical times.

To mark the passing of another whole 9-year cycle, I’m dropping the price of these two books to 99 cents each for a couple of weeks – from $3.99. Click on the links above.

I now write sexy romances set in the regency era of England. I don’t call them ‘regencies’ because they have a bit more of a sexy edge than one expects in a ‘regency romance’. Nor do I call them historicals as I’m not a historian, but a writer of romantic fiction. So I'll occasionally take ‘historical license’, or liberties with historical fact, and use an element not strictly historically correct—all in the interests of telling an engaging story.

Book 1 in the ‘Lords of the Matrix Club’ series, ‘The Earl of Windermere Takes a Wife’ (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01ENSMA2A) is available at this link.
Book 2, ‘The Perfect Duchess’ will be published very shortly.
Book.3. ‘The Virgin Widow’, is well under way also.

After posting this blog my next task is to finish a short ‘epilogue’ to the series that will be entitled something like ‘What Was the Matrix Club, Grandfather?’. (At least, that’s what I’m calling it at the moment.) It has been difficult to write, only because it has been rather emotional!

A writer spends so much time with their characters they become real people. Almost 50 years on from the original stories the four Lords are now all in their 80s, in varied states of decrepitude and all widowed—and have something like 80 descendants between them.

This short novella I will send as a free pdf to anyone who signs up for my newsletter.
Don’t panic! If my newsletters are anything like my blog you might get a couple a year! I will only contact you to let you know when I have a new book out, or I am doing any sort of a promotion.

Thank you so much if you have hung in there and read to here! If you want to be on my email list just send an email to : jenyatesnz@mail.com



Sunday, 25 December 2016

Time to Spare; A Birthday; the Love of my Life; and a Chair!

Time to Spare; A Birthday; the Love of my Life; and a Chair!
I love chairs – generally of the antique kind. Our conversations about chairs generally go like this’
Me: ‘Look at that gorgeous chair!’
Usually, I’m not allowed to say much more than that!
TLomLife: ‘We have nowhere to put it. You have to get rid of one before you can get another.’
Over a year ago we got rid of the two lazyboys that went with the lounge suite. They were over 30 years old and had been sat in until they were no longer comfortable and would no longer do the ‘lazyboy’ thing without a lot of cajoling and a fair amount of physicality to restore them to ‘just a chair’ status.
And they were brown. Not my favourite colour. Not sure why we bought brown in the first place – but it was 30-plus-some years ago and we were newly-weds, so who knows what we were thinking then!
Even before we got rid of them we’d been haphazardly looking at the modern type of leather-look recliners that have a footstool to match. I always maintained I wanted a red one and we never found one that was a reasonable price (according to us!) We don’t do elaborate Xmas presents, or even birthday presents, these days. If we need/want something we will get it regardless of when it is – instead of just thinking up something to buy because it’s our birthday.
Four days before my birthday – which falls on Xmas eve and is often swallowed up in the mad rush of preparation for the next ‘Much More Important Day’, we were in Te Awamutu with time to kill between haircut appointments and going to a Xmas party at a friend’s. So we wandered in aimless fashion in and out of shops, no goal in mind.
Our wanderings took us into a furniture shop to look at the bedroom furniture because, like the lounge suite, our current bedroom suite is older than our marriage and we’d been discussing that maybe it’s about time we upgraded!
Bedroom furniture was upstairs so we browsed about the dining and lounge furniture downstairs – cos me and my knee have to think quite hard about climbing stairs.
And there was a leather-look recliner with matching footstool.
With a look of smug comfort from his seat in this chair, TLomLife said, ‘I’d buy you this for your birthday if it was red.’
‘Would you?’ I said. ‘Awww, that’s nice!’
We wandered on towards the back of the shop and there it was – in all it’s red glory. Goodness knows why we didn’t see it straight away, cos it doesn’t get much more red!
It did a happy dance, said quite loudly that it was coming home with us – and who were we to argue?

Thank you. I love my new chair. I now have a new favourite reading place!

Saturday, 2 July 2016

That!

How sneaky is 'THAT'!
I was feeling quite smug at having completed the first draft and first edit of my next book, 'The Perfect Duchess', Bk,2, in the 'Lords of the Matrix Club' series - and thinking it might not need much more editing before I sent it off to a couple of beta readers for their thoughts!
Sitting in my In Box was  'Heart To Heart', the May-June newsletter from Romance Writers of NZ, and the craft article by Daphne Clair de Jong entitled 'I Couldn't Put It Down' caught my attention. It was all about things to look for in the last edit. Very timely, I thought.
Among other excellent tips was a list of words we tend to pepper through our writing and which are quite unnecessary. (I was going to write 'totally superfluous' here and changed my mind! Guess which of those words is superfluous! And yes, I do realise that 'quite unnecessary' is not much better!)
Anyhoo! I typed 'that' into the 'Find' box of my 223 page ms and there were over 1500! It took me all afternoon but I deleted over 400 of them and the ms was then 221 pages!
THAT is when I realised THAT 'THAT' is sneaky and THAT it likes to be heard and THAT it likes to be seen, and THAT is THAT.
Thanks Daphne Clair de Jong.
(Who writes romance as Daphne Clair and Laurey Bright).