SARA News - The 'Whoa, is it August already?!" Edition

Dear SARA readers, 

Welcome to the latest edition of the well-overdue news!  Grab a glass of your favourite winter beverage and maybe a tim tam or two, and dive into the latest SARA happenings!


ROBBY DENNIS has released her first book in the last few days.  Love in Speranza is available now from Amazon AU.

When passion and culture collide, secrets from long ago are revealed, forever changing lives in the sleepy town of Speranza.

Australian author Gabby Craven travels to Speranza, Sicily, immersing herself in its culture. Enchanted by its beauty and friendly people, she quickly becomes entangled in their colourful lives. Especially that of the town’s sexy doctor Nic Ravisi. He’s the complete package, sending her temperature soaring. If only he didn’t keep retreating from her…

Dr Nic Ravisi is driven by his duty to care for the people of his home town. Turning his back on a promising career as a surgeon in the city, he chooses to live a humble life, costing him his first love. Despite the underlying pressure to marry from the well-meaning community and his mother, it’s the last thing on his mind. 

When his path intersects with Gabby’s, he finds it hard to concentrate on his priorities. She’s too hard to ignore. What good can come of a short-term fling?

After a chance meeting with a mysterious older woman, Gabby uncovers a tale of lost love and a secret that could turn lives upside down. Can Gabby help her to reveal the truth and set into motion the destiny that awaits, before she returns home?

Love in Speranza takes you on a journey of love in its many forms. Love, hope and second chances. 

SARAH GATES talks about her 'dream run' and everything you need to know to win a grant at The Writers Bloc.   This is the story behind her 2016 release, Love Elimination, and her winning the Carclew Colin Thiele Scholarship.  

Sarah is also excited to tell us that her Writing for Publication and Peace of Mind Workshop Series  at the Cove Civic Centre is SOLD OUT!  

LIANA SKRZYPCZAK has just had a short story accepted in the spring edition of Meanjin, entitled "Leaden Heart".  We look forward to checking it out!


AISLINN KEARNS' Station Alpha is just 99c now at Amazon AU.

A single phone call shatters her life…

Christine Ramirez’s phone rings in the dead of night. A man’s voice – unfamiliar and urgent – tells her to run.

She flees, but deadly, unknown assailants pursue her through the night. Her only saviour is the gruff stranger on the other end of the line.

Paul has a secret. He’s been watching her – maybe a little more than the assignment strictly requires. He shouldn’t reveal himself, but he can’t let anything happen to Christine. Even if it costs him the job that means the world to him.

With the mysterious villains still pursuing Christine, Paul whisks her away to a Soldiering On safe house. There, passion flares between them, hot and undeniable. And they are powerless to resist its lure, even as the villains get ever closer to finding them…

Check our VICTORIA PURMAN'S latest Tule Publishing novel, Long Hot Summer (Hot Aussie Knights Book 3).

It's going to be a long, hot summer in Reynolds Ridge… 

Hannie Reynolds has returned to the town she grew up in because no other place feels quite like home. But living in the stunning Adelaide Hills comes with risks--from the threat of bushfires that destroy everything in their path to the heart-stopping return of her high school crush. 

Firefighter Dylan Knight has come home too, and old memories flare when he sees Hannie again. Have they waited too long to rekindle their love? 

When they discover they were driven apart by a lie, they’re more determined than ever to fight for their second chance… until a bushfire threatens to destroy all they might share together and the very foundations of Hannie’s life in the hills. 

Has she lost everything … and has Dylan lost her forever?



Speaking of Knights, take a look at TRISH MOREY'S latest, Burning Love (Hot Aussie Knights Book 4) from Tule Publishing!

Caleb Knight’s ex accused him of being married to his firefighter job, and maybe she was right. He’s given up looking for happy ever after and finds what he needs between Ava’s scorching sheets. But lately, he’s wondering whether this thing with Ava might become more permanent…

Artist Ava Mattiske's ability to trust was shattered long ago. Her steamy fling with Caleb is perfect until he starts talking long-term. She puts on the brakes, but when a bushfire threatens her studio and Caleb is on the scene, Ava realizes that there is one man she can count on... But will it be too late?






CARLA CARUSO has welcomed a new book baby in recent times. Run For The Hills comes to us from Escape Publishing.

The Belshaw brothers are back in Balkissoch...

Bridie Porter is wearing her Vera Wang gown and veil in the back of her wedding limo when she receives a compromising text about her hotelier groom. Panicked, she tells the driver to keep going and she flees from Melbourne to the small town of Balkissoch in the Adelaide Hills.

It’s the perfect pit-stop to hide from her ex and the press and to earn enough cash to stay out of sight. Unfortunately, the admin job she gets is for a wedding photography business and she’s had her fill of weddings lately. But it’s slim pickings on the work front in a town so teeny. And her new boss is strangely compelling...

After the rush and adrenaline of his job as an LA paparazzo, the last place Cody Belshaw wants to be is back in the small town where he grew up. But thanks to a clause in his father’s will that amounts to blackmail, Cody and his two brothers are stuck running a wedding business for at least a month. If there’s one thing that he’s learned in LA, however, it's to keep business and pleasure very, very separate. Which makes his new admin employee the definition of temptation.

Bridie is desperate to stay anonymous. Cody seeks out secrets for a living. As they delve into the world of brides, boutonnières and dogs-as-best-men, both Cody and Bridie will have to decide if this is a fling...or forever.

Happy reading,
Emmeline.  x

SARA News - The Day of the Debutantes!

It's okay.  You may leave the frothy white dress with matching gloves in the back of your wardrobe, and stay in your seat with your coffee and your chocky bicky.

Allow us here at SARA to parade a few of our debutantes before you.  You can't see it, but I'm wearing a very nice tux right now.  


VICTORIA PURMAN is cordially inviting you to the launch of her debut book from Harlequin, Nobody But Him.  We can't be certain Victoria will be wearing a frothy white confection, but good times are guaranteed!

It's out on October 1st.  Need a closer look at that gorgeous cover?

She didn’t expect to run into her first love… or to fall back in love with him!

At eighteen, Julia Jones left for the city with a head full of grand plans for an exciting life that certainly didn’t include her home town of Middle Point – a main street with a pub – or Ryan Blackburn.

But fifteen years – and a lifetime later – she’s forced to put her big city life on hold when she heads home to finalise her mother’s estate. Which is where she runs smack bang into the town’s new champion… the same Ryan Blackburn.

The sensible thing to do? Stay the hell away from him and head back to Melbourne as fast as her stilettos can carry her. But Julia finds his offer of a helping hand and a hot body too delicious to refuse and dives into a reckless, one-time fling.

What she doesn’t realise is that tomorrow has a way of sneaking up, and that saying goodbye to her home town – and to Ryan – is much harder the second time around.

You can find Victoria at her website, on Twitter and Facebook.  See you at the launch!

In other cover news, K E OSBORN has a smashing new cover for her debut book, Trust Me? (Book 1 of the Trust Me? Trilogy), which is due for release in September.  Again, not a voluminous white dress in sight, but we're very 2013 here.... 

When Jenifer Taylor (a young woman from the big city of Mornington Vale, California) gets up her day turns from bad to worse when on her way to work she is in a chain collision.

Little does she know this accident will set off a chain of events transforming her dull life and fill it with love and heartache - more than she has ever known before.

Her trust issues spark as she meets a new man (Aiden O'Connell) and she will be asked the ultimate question.

"Do you trust me?"

You can find K E at her website, or on Twitter and Facebook.  

In our final news tidbit, for the first time SUZIE HINDMARSH-KNIGHTS has been featured as Author of the Week at Alfiedog.com.  Yes, I know.  No white dress there either.  There is a very cute puppy, though.  

Until next time, happy reading.

Emmeline.

UP CLOSE with SARA member Claire Baxter

When were you first published, and how long (and how many manuscripts) did it take you to get there?

I started writing in 2003 when I left my job as a corporate communications manager to write a book – just to see if I could do it. I quickly became hooked on writing and knew I had to try for publication. I didn’t know I was going to write romance, but every one of my early stories contained a central love story, so I did some research and – aha! – discovered that I was a romance writer.

I wrote three romances and a mystery, joining Romance Writers of Australia along the way, then pitched my fourth romance at the 2005 conference in Melbourne to a Harlequin Mills and Boon editor who requested the partial. When I returned home from the conference I learned that I’d won a US contest and had received a request for the full manuscript from the same editor. So I sent it off to London and in February 2006 received The Call!

Fast forward seven years (where did that time go?) and I’ve had several romance novels published, as well as numerous short stories. My current release is a romantic comedy from Random Romance (Random House Australia’s new digital imprint), and I have a fun category romance coming out from Entangled Bliss in September. I’ve also ventured into indie publishing with a series of short romantic novellas.


From Mills and Boon to Random Romance, Entangled Publishing and self-publishing eBooks – what’s made you now go the digital route? 

Well, my own reading habits have changed, so I can easily believe that my readers’ habits have changed too. I still read some print books, but I read most of my romances as ebooks now. As for self-publishing, I thought it would be an interesting experience to have control over all aspects of the publishing process, and it has been very interesting.


Tell us about your latest books with Random Romance and Entangled, and what sparked each title. 

Anybody But Him from Random Romance is an enemies-to-lovers story with some laughs along the way. Nicola, a corporate accountant, returns to her home town to look after her increasingly eccentric parents. There, she's thrown into regular contact with Blair, her high-school crush and the last person she wants to see because she can’t forget how he humiliated her. Now that he’s grown up, he’s not such a ‘bad boy', and whenever she needs help, he’s there – although she’d prefer it to be anybody but him.

My story from Entangled’s Bliss imprint is about two fire-fighters who work on the same shift crew. They’re friends – Aaron even shares his dating stories with Jasmine – and she knows better than anyone that he’s incapable of commitment, so when they kiss at a wedding reception, she’s well aware that it can’t lead anywhere. Besides, neither of them wants to risk their working relationship, the respect of their colleagues or their friendship.


Why do you prefer sweet romances and beta heroes?

Sweet doesn’t mean unsatisfying, and for every reader who wants a steamy read, there’s one who prefers sexual tension without the physical act described in detail. I do read sexy romance occasionally, but for me sex in fiction is like hot chilli sauce. It’s okay to spice things up once in a while, but I don’t want a steady diet of it.

Sweet stories generally focus on the feelings behind the desire, and yes, the characters might sleep together, but if they do, the word count isn’t used up on describing the deed. Instead the story highlights the emotional journey the characters go on to find their Happily Ever After.

As for beta heroes, well, I love a charming, easy-going beta hero who can make me laugh, and a beta hero fits so well into romantic comedy. Of course, he still has to have the core ideals of a hero and be a strong, smart man who will do anything for the woman he loves.


Where and when do you write?

I write in my home office. It’s a room I share with a snooker table (which is currently covered in books and papers and folders and...well, anything but snooker balls), but in one corner I have a desk and in another I have a comfortable chair with a footstool. The comfortable chair is where I write (or edit) on my laptop four days a week (in theory).


When you’re not writing, what occupies your time?

I spend one full day a week with my grandson, and the remaining time is divided between all the activities associated with writing, gardening, reading, cooking, and now that it’s winter, I’ll also be searching out my knitting needles. I rediscovered knitting last winter after a long time. 


You’re also known for having short stories published in magazines worldwide. What do you love about the ‘short form’? 

I love writing short stories. I love the change of pace between longer works. I feel free to experiment more in a short story than in a novel, and I’ll try out different genres. Many of my short stories are romantic, but I also write stories without romance. They usually contain humour, or are twist-in-the-tale or feel-good stories.


Did you always want to be an author? And, what would be your absolute book-writing career dream? 

As a child I adored Arthur Ransome’s ‘Swallows and Amazons’ series and devoured all twelve books. Around that time I had to write a story at primary school and I wrote an adventure in the same vein as ‘Swallows and Amazons’. I was hooked, and the teacher let me continue after the lesson was over. It ended up 30 pages long and I received a gold star for each page! I told everyone I was going to be a writer when I grew up, but it was about 40 years before I made good on that promise.

My absolute book-writing career dream? I don’t really have one. I just want to write books, sell them, and hear that readers have enjoyed them. :)


Favourite writers you like to slip beneath the doona with (figuratively speaking!)? 

My favourite author is Jill Mansell, British author of romantic comedy, and then there’s Marian Keyes, Carole Matthews, Cathy Kelly. But those names are just a few of the authors I love, and I’m discovering more all the time. I always return to Georgette Heyer when I need a comfort read, and I recently found a YA series by Bridget Kemmerer that kept me riveted. Oh, I could go on and on. Stop me now!

The second in Claire's self-published series, More Than Just Pretend, will be out at the end of July.

Check out Claire's website at clairebaxter.com