Lancelot's Lady: World's Biggest Book Tour

Welcome to the world's largest virtual book tour in celebration of Cherish D'Angelo's debut romance "Lancelot's Lady."

I'm honoured to have Cherish visit Magic of the Muses as one of the115+ stops on her book tour.

After reading the following intriguing glimpse into the lives of Cherish's characters, remember to leave a comment and your email address. We will automatically enter you to win some fabulous prizes!

If you have never read an ebook--this would be a great one with which to start. If you don't have an e-reader, purchase Lancelot's Lady from Amazon and you can download a free Kindle ebook reader application for your computer. (hint: ebooks are generally much cheaper than print books).

Romance Author Cherish D'Angelo Talks About First Impressions
by Cherish D'Angelo

When we meet someone for the very first time, our brain processes first impression information about that person―about their appearance, their manners, their education, their friendliness, their financial status and their social standing. It isn't right or wrong; it's just the way humans are wired. Our minds process what we see and paint the most common sense picture to determine if we are going to like them.

A device in writing that I find always intriguing is "mistaken identity" or "mistaken first impression". Having one character mistake another for someone else or mistake something about them can lead to tension, confusion and even comic relief. In my contemporary romantic suspense Lancelot's Lady, my two lead characters are thrown together by what seems to be a huge mistake, and both of them make judgment calls when they first see each other. Take a peek...

“Hey, lady! What the hell are you doing on my island?”
Rhianna held her breath and clamped her eyes shut. She didn’t want to face the man whose voice simmered with fury. She was sure that he would look as ugly as he sounded.
Finally, she raised her head and forced herself to focus on the imposing man before her. She took in paint-splattered jeans that hugged well-formed thighs, a purple t-shirt covered in various spatter colors, muscular arms folded in front of an impressive chest, and thick black hair that curled at the nape of his neck.
The contours of his handsome face were chiseled as only an ethereal sculptor could, with strong lines enhanced by a dimple on his left side, the only side unmarked by streaks of paint. His nose was straight and proud, just bordering on arrogant. But it was his eyes that fascinated her. Framed by thick black lashes, they were the deepest sea-blue she had ever seen, and right at this moment, those eyes were trained on her with sniper precision.
She felt her throat constricting. Whether it was from fear or attraction, she didn’t know. But she did know one thing. He was the most gorgeous man she had ever met.
“I asked you a question!” the man demanded. “Who are you and what are you doing here?”
She glared back at him. “My name is Rhianna McLeod. Who are you?”
“I’m no one important.”
Rhianna couldn’t agree more. From the looks of him, he was probably the handyman.

Yeah, Rhianna and her first impressions. All I can say is that they get her into hot water. But she isn't the only one to have a strong first impression. Check out Jonathan's...

Approaching, he surreptitiously studied her. The woman’s creased cotton pants were slightly damp at the hem. The blouse she wore, while feminine, was primly buttoned to the top. And her unmarked suitcase screamed brand new, suggesting this woman either wasn’t well-traveled or worldly, or she was and she bought a new suitcase for every trip.
Rhianna, he recalled.
She had eyes the color of jade, and right now they were flinging daggers at him.
He chuckled. She’s feisty, I’ll give her that.
Now that she was standing, he could see that her head only came as high as his chest, but she was curved in all the right places. She had long, slender legs―the kind he’d like to wrap around him.
Now where the hell did that thought come from?
“Where are you from?” he demanded.
“Miami.”
He let out a huff. “City girl.”

Conflict and sexual tension, with a small dose of humor thrown in, is my recipe for a good romance story, and adding a mistaken identity and mistaken first impressions theme only heats things up more. You know what they say about assumptions.

Lancelot's Lady ~ A Bahamas holiday from dying billionaire JT Lance, a man with a dark secret, leads palliative nurse Rhianna McLeod to Jonathan, a man with his own troubled past, and Rhianna finds herself drawn to the handsome recluse, while unbeknownst to her, someone with a horrific plan is hunting her down.

Lancelot's Lady is available in ebook edition at KoboBooks, Amazon's Kindle Store, Smashwords and other ebook retailers. Help me celebrate by picking up a copy today and "Cherish the romance..."

You can learn more about Lancelot's Lady and Cherish D'Angelo (aka Cheryl Kaye Tardif) at http://www.cherishdangelo.com/ and http://www.cherylktardif.blogspot.com/

Prizes & Giveaways: Follow Cherish from September 27 to October 10 on her Cherish the Romance Virtual Book Tour and win prizes.

Leave a comment here, with email address, to be entered into the prize draws. You're guaranteed to receive at least 1 free ebook plus you'll be entered to win a Kobo ereader.

Winners will be announced after October
10th.

Eileen Schuh,Author
Schrödinger’s Cat
http://www.eileenschuh.com/

Top Tips for 1st Chapters

I was following up on some recent comments on my "Top Tips" for writing blogs, when I realized something dire. Way back when, I promised my readers "My next blog will be tips for writing a great opening chapter..."

Well, there are several blogs after that one, and none of them are about tips of any kind. I'd lied. Although I didn't feel really, really, really guilty about my misstep, I knew I ought to fess up and put the situation right.

Except...I quickly realized that the likely reason I'd never done a post on opening chapters was because...I don't know how to write great opening chapters. How does an author, with just a short chapter's-worth of mere words, introduce a novel's characters, set the scene in time and place, begin the action, foreshadow the future, explain the past...and draw the reader into the story?

Beats me...

But it doesn't beat my fine friend and bestselling author, Cheryl Kaye Tardif. She graciously agreed to do not one, but TWO guest blogs on how to write gripping first chapters.

Thanks, Cheryl. You're a doll.


Creating a Gripping First Chapter: Part 1 - The Four Firsts

©2007 Cheryl Kaye Tardif

In fiction, suspense and foreshadowing create mood, tension and the desire to read more. You want your readers to be gradually drawn in to your story, reeled in by conflict and the need to see resolution. To accomplish this, consider The Four Firsts.

The Four Firsts: First sentence, First paragraph, First page and First chapter

First sentence: Make your first sentence count for something. Don’t start off describing the sky or field unless you can include something that will truly grip a reader.

A million stars twinkled in the sky and the moon hung full and white amidst them.

Does this sentence really grab you, make you want to know more, or tell you anything about the story? No. It’s a weak first sentence…boring.

On the night that Mary-Jane hung herself from the oak tree in her back yard, a million stars twinkled in the sky and the moon hung full and white amidst them.

How about now? Do you want to know why she hung herself? Who is Mary-Jane? Why did she hang herself outside? Maybe she didn’t. Maybe she was murdered. See how many thoughts come from that one sentence? You must toss out the bait to readers, then reel them in.

Introduce a character in the first paragraph―your main character if possible. Show us something about him or her. Give us a clue as to where this story is going. A study done a few years ago showed that most successful classic novels began with an interesting sentence containing a pronoun such as ‘he’, ‘she’ or ‘they’.

On the night that she hung herself from the oak tree in her back yard, a million stars twinkled in the sky and the moon hung full and white amidst them.

Now we REALLY want to know who she is. And we want to know why she hung herself.

A first sentence needs to grip your reader like a pit bull and not let go.

First paragraph: The first paragraph needs to reveal something, a hint of the plot. It might only be revealed in that first sentence. Introduce a challenge or conflict. Use the setting or weather to create mood, if appropriate, but stay focused on the character. You want to keep the reader there, in that moment. Be careful you don’t switch them out of the mood.

On the night that she hung herself from the oak tree in her back yard, a million stars twinkled in the sky and the moon hung full and white amidst them. The fields glistened from the evening rain. A storm had raged through and left everything soaked. The barn doors flapped in the restless wind.

While the description above is engaging, it takes the reader away from Mary-Jane. What you want to do is find a way to bring her back into the story so that the reader will want to know more. To know more, they have to keep reading.

On the night that she hung herself from the oak tree in her back yard, a million stars twinkled in the sky and the moon hung full and white amidst them. The fields glistened from the evening rain, as if Mary-Jane had wept a river of tears before slipping the rope around her neck. To the left of her limp body, the barn doors flapped in the restless wind.

Again, the reader is drawn into Mary-Jane’s life and there is a hint of torment and a visual that is vivid and emotional. You can almost see her body hanging from the tree.

If your first sentence is dialogue, make it gripping. The first paragraph rule then defaults to that line of dialogue plus the next paragraph or lines of dialogue. Make them count!

A first paragraph will draw you into the story and make you want to know more.

First page: The first page is the page that the average reader will read in a bookstore and judge your work on. Some readers will read it to determine if this is the next book they’ll read or buy, or if they’ll grab another one from the pile.

In fiction, your first page must have enough action, characterization, dialogue, humor, mystery, adventure or suspense to make the reader turn the next page. That is your goal. You will need to find your balance between narrative and dialogue and introduce a character by giving us some insight into him, her or it, or give us a glimpse of the plot―by foreshadowing or exposing the murder, love interest, humorous incident, adventure to come, etc. Give us at least one conflict―internal or external.

Remember, this is the beginning of your story. You will be introducing characters and then as the story progresses, you’ll develop these characters―their physical descriptions, voice, moods, back stories, relationships to other characters and motives (good or bad) for all their actions. Don’t do a description dump (full body/clothing description) as soon as you introduce a character. Keep your narrative short! Tell us only what we need to know at that time.

First chapter: Make the first chapter count by having enough action and dialogue to keep readers engaged. By the end of this first chapter, a reader should know a few things about the main character and possibly some things about the antagonist or a secondary character. Show us your character's flaws and weaknesses, and their strengths. We should care about your main character in some way. We should know that something is going to happen. We should sense conflict of emotion or external conflicts. Foreshadowing grabs a reader's attention. Keep in mind, the first chapter is your prologue, if you have one.

If you haven't successfully baited the trap or planted enough suspense in this first chapter, a reader is more likely to put the book down and walk away. There is a key element to preventing this. It's called a Chapter Hook, which I'll be explaining in a future post here. Happy writing!


Cheryl Kaye Tardif is a bestselling author who lives in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Her novels feature varying elements of suspense, from light mystery in Whale Song to her gripping techno-thriller The River to her paranormal thriller Divine Intervention. Her latest releases are Skeletons in the Closet & Other Creepy Stories and her award winning novelette Remote Control. Cheryl has also branched out into romance, under the pen name Cherish D'Angelo, and Cherish's debut romantic suspense Lancelot's Lady will be releasing on September 27th, 2010. http://www.cherylktardif.com and http://www.cherishdangelo.com

My October PopSyndicate KidLit 101 column will be a review of Cheryl's popular "Whale Song." Watch for it!http://www.popsyndicate.com/member/5042

Eileen Schuh,Canadian writer http://www.eileenschuh.com/

Guest Blog by author Cheryl Kaye Tardif

I have a great guest blog this week--a followup article from best-selling Canadian author, Cheryl K Tardif, who last time discussed her pseudonym, Cherish D'Angelo. You can read the first Romance novel she's written under that name--for free, as she explains below.

If 'free', 'romance', 'suspense', and 'thriller' aren't enough enticement, she's recently revealed she's included some of her friends and supporters in the novel. Does that include me? You? We better check it out!

Eileen Schuh
Canadian Author
http://www.eileenschuh.com/

Romantic suspense: a scintillating combination of titillation and trepidation


When I first decided to write a romance novel, I polished off the first half of a contemporary romance, then got bored with it and filed it away in the bowels of my computer. You know, stuffed so far into a file that I easily forgot about it. The problem was that I had already established myself as an author of mystery and suspense. Sure there was some romance in my novels, but it didn’t “drive” the story, and there often wasn’t a “happily ever after”, which is the unshakable law of romance novels.

What bored me about my original romance novel—beside the title (Reflections)—was the journey of my characters (I forget the main character’s name). They met, there was chemistry, she had a disturbing past that stood in her way, they explored each other timidly, she fell in love, he didn’t at first, they eventually hooked up…blah, blah, blah…and they all lived happily ever after. Boring!

I knew that there were many problems with the work. I couldn’t get into my characters enough for even ME to feel for them, much less a poor reader. It’s my personal mantra to make readers feel what my characters feel. Then there was the setting. It originally took place in Bermuda, where I had lived as a teen. However, the laws there are strict regarding people who can live there or own land. And finally, there wasn’t enough tension or suspense, something I feel I’m good at creating when I write a thriller. I buried the manuscript, never sure if I’d ever look at it again. But I did.

In June, I heard about the Dorchester ‘Next Best Celler’ contest over at http://www.textnovel.com/. Dorchester Publishing is looking for the “New Voice in Romance”. As soon as I read that, I thought: I could BE that voice. Since the prize was a publishing contract with Dorchester, a company I’ve been interested in for a few years, I was instantly motivated.

First, I opened up Reflections and did lots of cringing and groaning. I wondered if I’d be better off starting a new novel from scratch, but the theme of the novel drew me in: A woman is stranded on a tropical island after her dying boss sends her there for reasons only known to him and said woman meets angry but handsome recluse. Sure beats meeting a guy in a bar.

As I read over the first few chapters of Reflections, I realized instantly what I could do to amp up this novel and make it worth publishing. I could make it a romantic suspense [insert flashing light bulb]. All I had to do was throw in an element of danger, which came in the form of a sleazy, sadistic private investigator. He was created when, partway through writing this novel, I held a special contest. My “Create a Corpse Contest” had been popular in the past and this time it resulted in the winning entry: “Winston Chambers”.

As soon as Winston was thrown into the mix, the plot thickened, grew darker and more intense, and I realized something. I had created one of my best characters in that scumbag Winston. I hated him! And if I hated him, I knew my readers would too. If you read some of the comments over at Textnovel.com, you’ll see the reaction people have had.
Winston Chambers allowed me to tiptoe over to the dark side, while pursuing the romance between my main characters, Rhianna and Jonathan.

Has the original Reflections changed? Darn rights it has! Only the premise and a few short scenes are from the original manuscript. I took the concept and created an entire 66,000 word manuscript in just under 5 months. You can read about ¾ of it online FREE.

My debut romantic suspense is called Lancelot’s Lady, and I think you’ll find it’s a scintillating combination of titillation and trepidation, the ingredients necessary in a novel of this genre. You’ll also find that I plan to use a pseudonym for my romance writing, so be sure to keep an eye out for Cherish D’Angelo’s debut. Cherish likes to stir her cauldron of steamy romance and lurking suspense, occasionally adding a dash of humor and a pinch of foreshadowing. She’s already considered her next romance novel…but if she tells you about it now, she’d have to kill you.

What started as a boring work has become an inspiring one that grew more visible to me with each added scene. This Dorchester contest, while often seeming long and exhausting, pushed me to deliver. And I hope I did. Please check out Lancelot’s Lady at Textnovel.com. Let me know what you think. How did I do? If you really enjoy it, please consider voting for me. If you click on the blue thumb circle and blue phone circle, I get 2 points, and that will help me get to the finals in mid-November. I sincerely value your support.

Read Lancelot’s Lady for FREE at:
http://www.textnovel.com/stories_list_detail.php?story_id=928

~Cherish D’Angelo (aka Cheryl Kaye Tardif)
http://www.cherishdangelo.com/

Guest Blog by author Cheryl Kaye Tardif

Thank you to Cheryl for not only offering us the following glimpse of her flirty, romantic, magical side, but also for sharing some of the darker moments in her life--tragedies that have made her the angel that she is. 
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THE TRAZ on sale for 99₵

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The birth of Cherish D'Angelo, pseudonym of author Cheryl Kaye Tardif

Throughout literary history, pseudonyms or pen names have been used by authors for various reasons. For authors like Nora Roberts, having a pseudonym allows them to explore new territory, maybe a new genre or a series. My idol Stephen King wrote books under the pen name of Richard Bachman because he didn’t want the market saturated with “Stephen King” books. It was also part experiment; he wanted to test whether luck or talent played a part in publishing.

For me, the choice of writing as “Cherish D’Angelo” made sense since one novel I’m writing doesn’t fall into my usual suspense genre. Lancelot’s Lady is a romantic suspense, heavy on the romance. “Cherish D'Angelo” is the pen name I’ve planned on using should I ever branch out into romance. This is a genre I've been drawn to since I was a teen and it was only inevitable that’s I’d write a romance novel.

As “Cheryl Kaye Tardif”, I write suspense set in various locations of Canada, something my fans love. As “Cherish D’Angelo”, I’m free to set my steamy romance novels anywhere and I can boldly go where I haven’t gone before—into my characters’ bedrooms, with the lights on. There’s something titillating about having a “secret identity”, even if it’s not so secret. But I don’t take naming myself lightly.

Most people assume that “Cheryl Kaye Tardif” is my legal name, with Kaye being my middle name. It isn’t. Kaye is my maiden name and the name that I saw first published in print when I was a teenage journalist with a paid reporting job. After I married, I struggled with my writing identity. Cheryl Kaye had always been the writer. I didn’t want to lose her. In a glimpse of absolute brilliance (lol), I combined my last names. My husband’s family always tells me I’m the famous “Tardif” now, and that I made their name famous. I don’t quite think I’m there…yet!

The name "Cherish D'Angelo" comes from two sources. "Cherish", the meaning of which is the same as my own first name "Cheryl", meaning 'beloved' or 'dear one', and "D'Angelo", meaning 'of the angel'. After the death of my first baby, I started collecting angels. In 2006, my baby brother Jason (28) was murdered in Edmonton and sent to the angels. Thus, "D'Angelo" seems to be a perfect choice for a surname that honors them both.

Combined, my pseudonym means: "Cherished one of the angel" but I like to say it means: "Cherish the angels". There is something flirty, romantic, magical―and so 'me'―about this name.

©2009 Cheryl Kaye Tardif

~Cheryl Kaye Tardif,
aka Cherish D’Angelo
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Eileen Schuh, Author
FATAL ERROR
Schrödinger's Cat
THE TRAZ