Guest Post : Robyn DeHart, author of Desire Me

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Robyn DeHart

I'd like to thank Robyn for stopping by to tell us about her favorite legends.  Here she is!

For today’s blog I was asked a great, but difficult question – what is my favorite myth/legend and whether or not it inspired me to write the Legend Hunters series. I don’t know if I can pick just one, there are so many mysteries out there that I find intriguing and there is something so fascinating about legends that have caused enduring curiosity. The older the legend, it seems the more intriguing it is. 

Take Excalibur and King Arthur, who doesn’t love the Arthurian legends? The romance of Camelot and the Knights of the Round Table, the love triangle between Guinevere, Arthur, and Lancelot–what’s a girl to do? But then there’s Robin Hood, another fascinating tale and it’s so like mankind to cheer for the underdog. But what about all those fabled treasures? Rumors and stories of hidden caves and chests and whatnot filled with gold, gems, and other lovely sparkly things. It doesn’t matter if you’re talking about Solomon’s mines or the El Dorado, people love stories of treasure hunts.

In short I’d say that yes, my love of these myths is what inspired me to write the series. I’ve always been fascinated with archaeology and I know I’m not alone. I mean hello, Indiana Jones….need I say more? 

My love of so many legends and myths made it quite challenging to select those I would write about. I’ve always been interested in Greek Mythology so Pandora’s Box seemed a must and though it wasn’t the first legend I thought of, it did inspire the first book in the series. It seemed the perfect storyline for an adventure romance. Atlantis actually was the first myth I thought of in relation to the series so I knew I would have to write a book about that lost continent. Who isn’t fascinated by tales of lands and cities that are no more? It pulls on most of us, I think. Perhaps that’s why researchers are still looking for the land, still trying to prove the Atlantis story was real.
In my Atlantis myth, I introduce descendents who escaped the island before its untimely demise, people who settled on the first land mass they found, which happened to be Great Britain. There’s also an ancient prophecy, a secret weapon and a scavenger hunt that gets Max and Sabine (the hero and heroine) into all sorts of trouble. Add in a maniacal villain and things get dangerous very quickly. 

I hope you’ll all enjoy my take on the Atlantis myth. So pick up a copy of Desire Me and let me know what you think.

Thanks so much for having me today and for participating in my blog tour!   

Featured Book, Guest Post & Contest : Spoon by Robert Greer

Spoon by Robert Greer
Release Date : October 1, 2009

Description from Amazon :

“An enormously engaging novel with characters who feel like old friends and a spirit as big as the West. From the opening paragraphs, you are in the hands of a master with the ability to evoke the grandeur of the still untamed western landscape and the folks whose lives are shaped by it. What a gifted storyteller Robert Greer is! Spoon is the kind of story you will remember.”—Margaret Coel, author of The Silent Spirit.

His hat was a snow white Tom Mix block, and he wore it tipped forward just enough to shade his eyes. When I asked him what had happened to his shoes, he said, "Shoes can be excess baggage when a man's in a hurry."

A novel of the contemporary American West, Spoon tells the story of Arcus Witherspoon, a mysterious half-black, half-Indian, oddly clairvoyant man searching the West for his roots. Hitchhiking near Hardin, Montana, Spoon falls in with a ranching family struggling to keep their ranch afloat amidst the pressures of hard economic times and an encroaching coal company. Proving himself a gifted ranch hand and mentor, Spoon charges himself with rescuing the Darleys and guiding the family's teenage son TJ on his path to manhood. While Spoon's checkered past includes a prison stint and a navy tour of Vietnam, it is his tenacity, wisdom, and charm that end up defining this quintessential Western man.

About the Author

Robert Greer is author of the popular CJ Floyd mystery series: The Devil’s Hatband, The Devil’s Red Nickel, The Devil’s Backbone, Resurrecting Langston Blue, The Fourth Perspective, The Mongoose Deception, and Blackbird, Farewell, as well as two medical thrillers and a short-story collection entitled Isolation and Other Stories. He is a practicing pathologist and professor of medicine at the University of Colorado, and he owns a cattle ranch in Wyoming. Please visit his author website, http://www.robertgreerbooks.com/.

Guest Post

I’m typically a writer of suspense novels and mystery fiction. My latest novel, Spoon, therefore, proved to be a unique and very different writing challenge since it is largely a piece of literary fiction with a dominant western setting.

The novel’s plot revolves around a mysterious, oddly clairvoyant half-black, half-Indian cowboy named Arcus Witherspoon, aka Spoon, who is searching for his family roots out West. All he knows about his family is that his great-grandfather was a buffalo soldier who once fought alongside Kit Carson. As Spoon wanders the state of Montana he stumbles across a ranching family down on their luck. That family, the Darleys, are embroiled in a battle with a coal company intent on usurping their land. Spoon uses his tenacity, wit, and future-seeing powers to help the family deal with the coal company’s encroachment. At the same time, he helps their nineteen-year-old son, TJ, become a man.

The novel’s contemporary Montana backdrop essentially serves as a character itself as I explore the role of ranching in rapidly changing modern times.

Spoon, the novel, arose from a similarly titled short story I wrote when I was in my Boston University graduate creative writing program twenty-odd years ago. That story, published in a literary magazine, had characters and a plot that stuck with me over the years. There was something about the loner-drifter character of Spoon and his on-again, off-again attachment to larger society that I could never quite get out of my head. I suspect that’s because Spoon’s character shares some of the elements of the loner-gun fighter depicted in the classic Western novel Shane, a book I’ve always admired.

Spoon also gave me the opportunity to portray the hard-nosed western female character I am fond of: the bright–spirited, resilient woman of the high western plains. In Marva Darley, I got that chance.

All in all, Spoon was a refreshing break from the mysteries and thrillers that I normally write, and I suspect there’s another literary novel out there to be written soon.

Contest & Privacy Policy

Thanks to Erin @ Fulcrum Publishing, I am able to give away 5 copies of the title Spoon by Robert Greer.

To enter please fill out the form below, answering all required questions.

By entering your information below you are giving me permission to contact you by email if you win. This product is shipped directly from the publisher, so in the event that you win your address will be forwarded to them for distribution purposes. Address will not be sold, or given out for any other purpose

If by chance you are under the age of 18, please have your parent or guardian email me at FallingOTShelf@aol.com to give acceptance of prize permission.

For extra entry - Post a comment below!

Deadline November 10, 2009 @ end of the day everywhere.
U.S. & Canada Residents Only. No PO Boxes.

As soon as this contest is considered over, I will remove the following entrant form.

Guest Post : Michelle Moran, author of Cleopatra's Daughter

About the Author

Michelle Moran was born in the San Fernando Valley, CA. She took an interest in writing from an early age, purchasing Writer's Market and submitting her stories and novellas to publishers from the time she was twelve. When she was accepted into Pomona College she took as many classes as possible in British Literature, particularly Milton, Chaucer, and the Bard. Not surprisingly, she majored in English while she was there. Following a summer in Israel where she worked as a volunteer archaeologist, she earned an MA from the Claremont Graduate University.
Michelle has traveled around the world, from Zimbabwe to India, and her experiences at archaeological sites were what inspired her to write historical fiction. A public high school teacher for six years, Michelle Moran is currently a full-time writer living in California with her husband. She is agented by Anna Ghosh of Scovil Chichak Galen Literary Agency.

Guest Posts

Why Cleopatra's Daughter?

It began with a dive. Not the kind of dive that people take into swimming pools, but the kind where you squeeze yourself into a wetsuit and wonder just how tasty your rump must appear to passing sharks now that it looks exactly like an elephant seal. My husband and I had taken a trip to Egypt, and at the suggestion of a friend, we decided to go to Alexandria and do a dive to see the remains of Cleopatra’s underwater city. Let it be known that I had never done an underwater dive before, so after four days with an instructor (and countless questions: Will there be sharks? How about jellyfish? If there is an earthquake, what happens underwater?) we were ready for the real thing.

We drove to the Eastern Harbor in Alexandria. Dozens of other divers were already there, waiting to see what sort of magic lay beneath the waves. I wondered if the real thing could possibly live up to all of the guides and brochures selling this underwater city, lost for thousands of years until now. Then we did the dive, and it was every bit as magical as everyone had promised. You can see the rocks which once formed Marc Antony’s summer palace, come face to face with Cleopatra’s towering sphinx, and take your time floating above ten thousand ancient artifacts, including obelisks, statues, and countless amphorae. By the time we had surfaced, I was Cleopatra-obsessed. I wanted to know what had happened to her city once she and Marc Antony had committed suicide. Where did all of its people go? Were they allowed to remain or were they killed by the Romans? What about her four children?

It was this last question which surprised me the most. I had always believed that all of Cleopatra’s children had been murdered. But the Roman conqueror Octavian had actually spared the three she bore to Marc Antony: her six-year-old son, Ptolemy, and her ten-year-old twins, Alexander and Selene. As soon as I learned that Octavian had taken the three of them for his Triumph in Rome, I knew at once I had my next book. This is how all of my novels seem to begin – with a journey, then an adventure, and finally, enormous amounts of research for what I hope is an exciting story.

Life and Libraries in the Classical Age

Aside from the fact that the female characters manage to spend much of their time onscreen parading around in the buff, HBO’s Rome series actually comes quite close to what life would have been like two thousand years ago, when Julius Caesar walked the corridors of the Senate house . Certainly, some personalities were changed for television: quiet, charitable women like Octavia were turned into sex-crazed teenagers more concerned about men than doing good in the world (as the historical Octavia was.) Yet the scenery and day-to-day life which were depicted were remarkably accurate.

Life in ancient Rome had many of the little luxuries that we associate with the modern world. Baths were to be found in every city, and public toilets were viewed as a necessity. The toilets depicted in Rome are copies of those discovered in Pompeii, where those caught short could find a long stretch of latrines (much like a long bench with different sized holes) and relieve themselves next to their neighbor. Shops sold a variety of wigs, and women could buy irons to put long curls their hair. For the rain, there were umbrellas, and for the sun, parasols. Houses for the wealthy were equipped with running water and were often decorated quite lavishly, with elaborate mosaics, painted ceilings, and plush carpets.

In the markets, the eager shopper could find a rich array of silks, along with linen and wool. You could also find slaves, and in this, Roman times certainly differ from our own society. While some men like Cicero decried it, one in three people were enslaved. Most of these slaves came from Greece, or Gaul (an area roughly comprising modern France). Physical and sexual abuse were rampant (of both males and females), and the misery caused by this led desperate men like Spartacus to risk death for freedom.

For those few who were free and wealthy, however, life in Rome provided nearly endless entertainments. As a child, there were dolls and board games to be played with, and as an adult, there was every kind of amusement to be had, from the theatre to the chariot races. Even the poor could afford “bread and circuses,” which, according to Juvenal, was all the Romans were really interested in.

For those more academic minded, however, there were libraries. Although I don’t portray this in Cleopatra’s Daughter, libraries were incredibly noisy places. The male scholars and patrons read aloud to themselves and each other, for nothing was ever read silently - the Romans believed it was impossible! Other cities were renowned for their learning, too: Pergamum (or Pergamon) was the largest and grandest library in the world. Built by the Greeks, Pergamum became Roman property when Greece was captured and many of its people enslaved. The library was said to be home to more than 200,000 volumes, and it is was in Pergamum that the history of writing was forever changed.

Built by Eumenes II, Pergamum inspired great jealousy in the Egyptian Ptolemies, who believed that their Library of Alexandria was superior. In order to cripple this Greek rival (and also because of crop shortages), Egypt ceased exporting its coveted papyrus, on which all manuscripts were written. Looking for an alternative solution, the Library of Pergamum began using parchment, or charta pergamena. For the first time, manuscripts were now being written on thin sheets of calf, sheep or goat’s skin. The result of this change from papyrus to parchment was significant. Now, knowledge could be saved by anyone with access to animal hide, which was ubiquitous. Manuscripts (although still quite rare) were now available to more people. Alas, so impressive was this vast Pergamese library of parchment that Cleopatra asked Marc Antony to ship its entire contents to her as a wedding gift. This transfer marked the end of Pergamum’s scholarly dominance, and is the reason why, today, we remember Alexandria as possessing the ancient world’s greatest library.

Blog Tour & Guest Post : Lucan by Susan Kearney

Lucan by Susan Kearney

Blog Tour

Read My Review

Description from Hatchette :

Healer and high priestess of her people, Lady Cael is fated to life without a mate. But a mysterious explorer named Lucan Rourke doesn't know her secrets, and his touch makes her crave a future that her extraordinary birthright has forbidden her. . .

Lucan has just one mission on Pendragon: to find the mythical Holy Grail, Earth's only hope for survival. His powerful attraction to Cael is a distraction he can't afford, unless he convinces her to join forces with him. Yet working so closely together only heightens their passion . . . even when the terrifying truth of Cael's heritage threatens to shatter Lucan's every belief-and the galaxy itself.

About the Author & Guest Post

Kearney is known for her sexy Rystani warrior books, The Challenge, The Dare, The Ultimatum and The Quest, a series of paranormal romances set in the future. In September 2009 Kearney begins the Pendragon Legacy series with LUCAN, a futuristic romance. She follows up with RION in December and JORDAN in March 2010.

Kearney, a native of New Jersey, writes full time and has sold books to the industries' top publishing houses — Grand Central, Tor, Simon & Schuster, Harlequin, Berkley, Leisure, Red Sage and Kensington. As an award winning author, Kearney earned a Business Degree from the University of Michigan. Kearney's knowledge and experience spans throughout the romance genre, and her fifty plus books include contemporary, romantic suspense, historical, futuristic, science fiction and paranormal novels. She resides in a suburb of Tampa—with her husband, kids and Boston terrier. Currently she's plotting her way through her 54th work of fiction. You can reach her through her web site at E-mail Susan.

Process of Writing a Fantasy Novel by Susan Kearney

Please bear in mind that I don’t think of myself as a writer but a story teller. And my process for creating a story always seems to start with a “What if.” For example, when I read the headline in my newspaper, Male Fertility Down 30% Worldwide, I started playing What if? What if the sterility rate went to hundred percent?

What if humanity was about to die?

But what could save us? Now I’ve always had a thing for legends. So I thought what if we could find the Holy Grail? According to legend, King Arthur left the Holy Grail in Avalon before he died. But legends tell us that Avalon receded into the mists and no archeologist has ever found Avalon or the Grail.

What if we couldn’t find Avalon because it wasn’t on Earth? That would mean my archeologist Lucan would have to find a star map in Arthur’s ancient castle in Cadbury, then take a spaceship to the Planet Pendragon to search for the Holy Grail.

Now since Pendragon means Master of Dragons, I figured we needed a dragon on Pendragon.

That’s kind of how my mind works; one clue leads to another. However, common things in my daily life also stimulate the fantasy in my books.

I’ll give you another example. While on vacation in the Far East, I took lots of pictures of dragons. I’ve included a few that I hope will make it into this blog. Because Dragons are found in many cultures across our world, it shouldn’t seem that far-fetched to find them on another planet. Right?

Okay, so now I have built a world from playing What If. But now I need my love story. Conflict is good. Without it life is boring. So why not have my hero and heroine both going after the Grail. But while they’re competitors, they have a common enemy—just to complicate their lives. And what if they fall in love? Only one of them can have the Grail. And then what if my hero can either save Earth or the woman he loves?

So my process to write a story is to play What if? I don’t censor my thoughts. I don’t say -–oh that’s too strange—I leave that to reviewers. :)

In the end, The Pendragon Legacy trilogy, LUCAN, RION, and JORDAN are unique and so are my characters. But the stories are about how my characters react to all the problems I throw at them. What if she saves his life? What if he finds the Grail, but must trade it to save her?
All right. You get the idea. It would be even better if you get the book.

You can see a cool video and read an excerpt at http://www.susankearney.com/

Make sure to visit all the other stops on this tour!

Just Another New Blog - September 9th, Giveaway
Book Soulmates - September 9th, Review/Giveaway/Q&A
Starting Fresh - September 9th, Review/Guest Post
Falling Off The Shelf - September 10th, Review/Giveaway/Guest Post
Maria's Space - September 10th, Review/Giveaway
Seductive Musings - Q&A
A Journey of Books - September 11th, Review/Giveaway/Q&A
My Guilty Pleasures - September 12th, Review
Yankee Romance Reviewers - September 14th, Review/Giveaway/Q&A
Found Not Lost - September 14th, Review/Giveaway
Book Wormy Girl - September 15th, Giveaway
Libby's Library News - September 16th, Guest Post/Giveaway
Bookin' With Bingo - September 17th, Review/Giveaway/Q&A
My Book Addiction and More - September 17th, Review/Giveaway/Q&A
Cheryl's Book Nook - September 17th, Review/Giveaway
Carol's Notebook - September 18th, Review/Giveaway/Guest Post
Books and Needlepoint - September 18th, Review/Giveaway
Drey's Library - September 19th, Review/Guest Post
Anna's Book Blog - September 20th, Review/Giveaway
Bibliophiles R' Us - September 2oth, Review/Givaway
Patricia's Vampire Notes - September 21st, Giveaway
A Park Avenue Princess - September 21st, Giveaway
Book Nerd Extraordinaire - September 22st, Giveaway/Guest Post
Readaholic - Review/Giveway/Q&A