Claire Hadleigh

Yes, it's that time again - National Novel Writing Month - and it's an exciting time for writers of all levels of experience.  So my congratulations to all who are participating this year!  However, this can be a somewhat grueling time as well.  To write 50,000 words within 30 days is no easy feat.  There'll be pitfalls and backtracking, the gnashing of teeth and the aching cramps in fingers and back, the eyes that feel like they're on fire. So join me for weekly survival tips which I'll be posting on Tuesdays here on the main page of the blog; older posts will be compiled on my NanoWriMo page (see tab above). Good Luck & Happy Writing! Claire H.

 In Hold You in My Heart , Nate Russell starts his quiet campaign to entice Amanda Gallagher during a scene where his daughter, Maddie, is present.  So his tactic needs to be subtle -- and there's something about this woman that just seems to bring out the beast in him.  Something that hasn't happened in years.   And luck is with him because the local ice cream shop owner is a bit, shall we say "off the radar" and periodically hosts "adult only" evenings at his shop, giving special names to his concoctions.  Need I say more?   Slutty Brownie or Slutty Sundae came up several times when I was trying to get a handle on this scene and did my search via Google.  Here are some examples I came across -- but beware!  If you're hungry or have a real sweet tooth, this could be dangerous! This is an example of a Slutty Brownie taken from KevenandAmanda.com -- looks soooo good, doesn't it? Can you just picture Nate tempting Amanda with this? A...

An indie author wears so many hats -- writer, marketing and publicity guru (hopefully!), sometimes her own graphic designer, webmaster and more. And naturally, things fall through the cracks just as in other parts of our lives. So now that summer is little more than a memory and here in New England, we're hitting the height of 'leaf peeping season' and Halloween is only ten days away, I thought I'd mention that "Hold You in My Heart" offers a lovely summer setting with steady doses of funny, steamy scenes! So here's Nate Russell -- 6'4" of lean muscle, turquoise blue eyes and dark, wavy hair that's a bit too long. He builds racing craft, is a single dad and has a ten-year-old daughter who he loves dearly. His only real hang-up is that he doesn't trust women, especially beautiful women as his wife up and ran off nine years ago. Trust issues, for real. But along comes Amanda Gallagher and he feels the ground under his feet slipping an...

  Okay . . . summer's almost just a memory at this point, while autumn in New England is underway -- chilly mornings, early sunsets.  Time to break out the logs and start those fires going.  And favorite fall recipes are being pulled out of the bookcase or recipe boxes -- does anyone keep a recipe box anymore, I wonder?  I tend to dog-ear my cookbooks or shove a post-it note on favorite pages.   Anyway, as I write this, I've got a butternut squash soup going in the crock pot and hope to get several lunches for work and when home and working on my next novel. What's the next one?  "Romancing a Rogue", which will be the #3 Regency romance in my "School for Sophistication" series, featuring Marcus Burton, a reformed rogue who's just returned to England after a 2-year exile in India for his disruptive rogue-ish ways that offended family and friends.  But he finds himself attracted to his business partner's younger sister, Lady Catherine Wesley.  ...