Snippet Sunday: The General’s Wife: Sam

One thing I really like about Snippet Sunday* is that it forces me to look at my work and ask “do I really want people reading this?” I’m using it as a vehicle to introduce readers to characters in The General’s Wife, which I am revising. This week I’m introducing our hero Sam. I like Sam, so I want his introduction to be satisfying.

Your first thought is, “Wait–what? Who is this ‘Sam’? I thought Mr. Bridgers was our hero?” To which I reply, “This is erotica. We have one villain and multiple heroes.” Continue reading

Snippet Sunday: The General’s Wife: Annabella and Redmond

For today’s Snippet Sunday* I’m taking a slight detour from Clara’s storyline. I write multi-character historicals where everyone, including secondary and tertiary characters, have a bit of fun, and The General’s Wife is rich in such characters and their, uh, “fun.” Today we meet Lady Clara Strathmore’s American lady’s maid Annabella Rogers and her beloved Redmond Moncrief. Redmond, also an American, is the groom in the Strathmore stables. The two young lovers must keep their relationship secret from our villain, General Strathmore. Continue reading

Snippet Sunday: The General’s Wife: Mr. Bridgers

The General’s Wife is erotica in the sense that it is Clara’s sexual journey. It is also a romance (or historical erotic romance, really), but more on that in another post.

Trapped in a loveless marriage, our heroine Clara develops a crush on a man who works with her husband. Paul Bridgers is an unlikely hero. For today’s Snippet Sunday*, I’ve chosen a passage where Clara goes out of her way to meet “Mr. Bridgers” — as she calls him — in the village near where she lives. Continue reading

Snippet Sunday: The General’s Wife: Clara

In this installment of Snippet Sunday*, our heroine Clara meets our villain General Strathmore for the first time. This directly follows last week’s snippet, from The General’s Wife, which I am revising. Continue reading

Works in Progress: General’s Wife, with excerpt

Warning: long excerpt ahead…

As I stated in a previous blog post, I’m revising my first book, The General’s Wife. So far, I’m just over halfway through what I call a “first pass” revision, in which I seek to clean up the point-of-view errors and prettify the text. I’ll do several more revisions based on my editing checklist. (One literary fiction friend told me over coffee one day that every novel needs to go through at least nine revisions. Oh my. That’s a lot. But, um, okay.)

I thought I might post an excerpt so those (dozens!) of you who have actually read General’s Wife can see what I’m doing here. The ideas underpinning the plot are all still there, it’s just the wrapper that has changed, and in this excerpt, the sensuality has been heightened. Continue reading