kate rothwell

The end of a glom is always sad. I gulped down every last book in the My Immortals series as if my life depended on reading those things. Now I have to wait and wait for Carolyn Jewel to write another. Life is not fair.

The new Kindle fan fiction thing ? No, no, no. I say this not because I have any personal problem with fan fiction. Kind of the opposite. I don't write it and I don't read it (much) but I do know this:  fan fic is a thing done with love. Make it commercial and it loses the one thing that makes it mildly admirable. It turns from a tribute into a money-grubbing effort. I know the original authors might be on board with it--heck, I would be if anyone wanted to do it with my stuff. But the spirit of the effort changes. Too airy-fairy a reason to object in a world of sales. Hey, people are already saying they do not pay for something labeled fan-fiction. I don't see how the project can succeed, but then again, I said that about vampires about five years ago. Prescient, I am not. 

My reader letter responses:  LETTER #1 Dear Reader, Thank you so much for taking the time to write. I'm very glad you liked my book and I would be extremely grateful if you'd post a review featuring the many paragraphs of praise you give it. Writers love it when readers hit Amazon with their reviews. It is like getting a birthday gift and christmas gift rolled into just a few precious paragraphs. It's better than chocolate cake, a bunch of flowers and a singing telegram performed by [name of famous singer here]. It feels as miraculous and marvelous as finding a open parking space in Manhattan. A letter like yours makes our day brighter. A review saying those same things makes our month brighter. Proclaiming your affection for my book in public is a declaration that echoes the happiest moments of my life, such as when my husband sank to his knee in the Kansas City Airport to ask for my hand in marriage, or the first time my kids called me Mom, or the time I...

And it has two great reviews. Here's my favorite (by my new favorite person, CMP)  OMG! What a book! I loved this story! Florrie is wonderful and I simply adore Nathaniel. The author did a really good job with the writing and her characters are well developed. The plot is also pretty unique. The book summary provided in the product description is pretty dead on..... the attraction between the two of them is combustible! I highly recommend this book! I can't believe I got it for free! What a treasure! This is a book I will read again and again. In about 15 hours two things will occur: 1. My novel will stop being free (get it while you can!) 2. I will stop doing promo for it. . My promotional efforts will probably go into pushing our soon-to-be new recording of The Gentleman and the Rogue. Naw I'll probably rest my promotional self -- for at least a few days. The other review says, "I wish I knew who'd done it." I feel like ch...

It's free over at Amazon.  Look! Get this book free! Load it onto your kindle. Why not? I do that all the time! I have (virtual) shelves and shelves of free books. This used to be called The Mad Baron and now it's Her Mad Baron and it's FREE for the next four days. Go on, click the link. Nathaniel, the new Baron Felston, awakes from a fever to discover he’s a prisoner on his own estate. At first, certain he’s gone insane, Nathaniel learns potent opiates are the cause of his strange vision. But, barricaded in a small room, he can’t outwit his mysterious jailer. Determined to steal back one of her father’s swords, Florrie Cadero gets more than she bargained for when she breaks into the baron’s mansion. The dashing, drugged man in the locked room soon sweeps her into his story—and his bed. When she discovers they’re trapped together, she devises a clever escape. Addicted to his captor’s drugs and bent on revenge, Nathaniel seeks out the feisty t...

I gave a presentation** today at CAPA-U and ran out of handouts. I promised to put them up here. Click on this link to see what I've written about synops es . The first few entries that come up are basically different versions of the handout I had today. I've given the workshop a few times in the last couple of years and revised the sheet. I didn't talk to any new editors or agents this time out, but I think things haven't changed since the last time I talked to them in 2011. I hope we helped you!! I still say Toni's system--both of her sheets--provide amazing exercises for developing a longer synopsis or for exploring issues with your manuscript. That sheet she developed for turning plot turning points helped me rescue more than one book from the soggy depths. But how about a quick 1-2 page synopsis you might as a selling tool?? I use Arianna Hart's advice: write a review of your book and add spoilers. _______________ ** when I say "I gave a...

I'm listening to the audio version of The Gentleman and the Rogue and, wow, there is a lot of sex in that book. I think most of it is in the first few chapters (I'm checking the first half, Bonnie gets the second). There is a "don't listen to this if you're a kid" disclaimer--and added to that is a "don't try anything in this book" disclaimer. Heh. I don't think we have another book with that much boinking, frigging or sucking in it. Maybe that's why it's our most popular story?

My way of mourning is to be violently ill. Other people weep, I get sick and get dizzy and panic-stricken. So now every time I get sick, it feels as if I'm mourning. Sort of chicken egg thing, right? Like sometimes when you cry, you aren't sad until you think wait, I'm crying I must be sad and the world of reasons crash in after the fact. The bad is always there anyway and it can be easy to let it in. So okay. The day I had the greatest illness was when my father died. It wasn't even the largest death in our lives, it just coincided with that violent illness factor. The severe mourning lasted about 12 hours and I was stuck at my bro's house because I was too sick to drive. At about 6 am I finally thought I could do the hour's drive home. I did. I found my family asleep in our bed. We had a king sized bed then and all three of my guys (we didn't have the baby yet)  were in it.  The moment I could climb onto that bed and join my family, that was one of ...