Claiming Love, Not Just for Romance Readers

Hi Friends,

One of the things I want to accomplish as a writer is to create great stories that appeal to people in general, not just romance readers. Below is a review of Claiming Love by a typically non-romance reader. Here is what he thought:

Claiming Love, Sarah Kade’s first romantic novel, is an exotic tale of finding love and bringing forth one’s true nature amidst the constant struggle with time-worn conceptions of self.

Kades’ sensual story is set within an environment that allows her to draw from personal experience and insight resulting in a narrative grounded in truth and honesty. Her imagery is steeped in a life spent exploring nature – belying passion, humility and appreciation for beauty that exists in the world around us unbound by time. Claiming Love is thoughtfully layered in juxtaposed dynamics. The story balances long-standing mythic forms – those metaphysical divine energies– with the earthly surveyors of human history. Kades’ down-to-earth, protocol-bound, dirt-digging protagonist finds her world and self-image turned on its head by an ethereal hunk who materializes, seemingly, out of thin air as she heads skyward on assignment to dig dirt.

The ever-present union of heaven and Earth – mystic and human, is encapsulated in encounters of heated passion and longed-for embraces. Kades’ demonstrates her ability to fuse layers of reality, which at first glance appear disparate, into a plot that not only gains momentum from beginning to end but also twists and turns, in the throes of lusting embrace, as the characters come to more fully realize the way of the world, the nature of their self. Supporting characters provide light-hearted humour countering the inner-tensions bound within Kades’ hero and heroine. Kades wastes no time venturing into the erotic realm as her characters grow and evolve – blooming through release, dissolving long-fought inner struggles. Kades’ tale concludes through a universal demonstration that, regardless of origin and past, the acceptance of another and of one’s own potential for love, whether dripping from fingertips or buried deep within, can lead to finding true love – the Divine within ourselves and our beloved counterpart.

Ian Adam Smith MacNairn

Claiming Love is available at Amazon.

Claiming Love

This was my first novella and I still have butterflies sending it back out. I love this story and these characters. Sometimes a story lodges into our hearts and stays forever. This is definitely the case for me with Claiming Love. It is set in the Oil Sands/ Tar Sands of northern Alberta, Canada, a place just as complex and beautiful as this story. I hope you love it as much as I do. It is available here.

As an archaeologist, Elle loves her job. She just does not love all the airplanes she has to take. Before her latest flight, she says a quick prayer and as an afterthought throws in a request to meet her Mr. Perfect.

The Goddess, Gaia, assigns Bodin. He is a human angel-in-training who just happens to not believe in love. Grumpy and usually a divine pain, Bodin has met his match with the beautiful archaeologist. The two explore their budding attraction working in the wild northern forests, but will love come too late or just in time for forever?

A napkin dispenser made the cover? Oh yeah!!!

Here is a sneak peak at the cover for my short story Duke Out at the Diner. I frickin' love it! Why is a napkin dispenser on the cover you ask? Great question! Stay tuned for the release of Duke Out at the Diner!

So You Think You Can Write

A friend of mine has entered Harlequin's So You Think You Can Write contest!

A cowboy with a painful past and a woman with a secret: Can they learn to trust and love? SECRETS AND SECOND CHANCES 


Go here to read more and cast your vote today!

Time to go read a book

Don't Mess with Texas by Christie Craig
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book came at the perfect time. You know when life starts amping up and everything is revving too high and you say to yourself for the love of god woman, STOP, and that sane voice in your head says just go read a book? And ta-da, a Christie Craig book is on your to-read pile and all is well. I love her characters, stories and punch lines, and this one delivered. Thank you Christie Craig!


View all my reviews

Born To Run

Running. My new writer's guide. Movement lets go of what we no longer need and unlocks what we do. Happy running, reading and writing.

Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen by Christopher McDougall
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book gently, but effectively, takes your hand and leads you down a whole new way of life; trusting your body, trusting yourself, and invites you to move.


View all my reviews

Writing Humor in Fiction

Last month at When Words Collide in Calgary, Canada, one of the panels I was on was Humor in Fiction. It is a great topic. Here are a few of my thoughts on it.

I love to smile, chuckle or laugh out loud when I am reading a story or writing it. When done well, humor in fiction is perfection. It is an incredible writing tool and essential to me as a reader and writer. 

Most people in the world respond positively to laughter. It is fun to laugh, it feels good. It brings joy and release. Humor also lightens us up. That’s a good thing. We do too good a job of winding ourselves up to the point of snapping, breaking or erupting. Booo. Humor diffuses our self-sabotage and grounds us. Humor has a way of putting life in perspective and laughter is called the best medicine for a reason. Next time you feel like crap, laugh. Find something that makes you laugh in that happy, silly, SO FUNNY way. And then stop and take the time to enjoy it. 

Now let’s talk about how to use humor in your writing, how to use humor as a writing tool. I like to entertain readers not only with my story, but with my characters, too. It is important to me that my characters are fun, interesting, someone I would want to have a beer or coffee with or be stuck in an elevator with, like what Sarah Duncan wrote about in her blog*. Writing humor into your characters can give them depth and make them more real, more believable. Who do you like to hang out with? People who are fun and make you laugh? Write characters like that. Even if they are tasked with saving the world with a toothpick or have had so much trauma you can’t imagine what they would laugh about, find something. Give your characters a sense of humor. Your reader will be attracted to them just like we are to people with a sense of humor in real life.

I include humor in emotionally- or action-charged scenes. This works for me as a writer and my readers in a few ways. It changes emotional gears for the reader, which is entertaining, but also creates an dynamic emotional roller coaster for when the other shoe falls. It gives readers a temporary respite from the adrenaline of the scene, so the action or conflict can jack them again later. The reader has a place to go emotionally, there is a change. For me, static emotion in a story does not hold my interest. I want the roller coaster. I want an emotionally dynamic story. Humor heightens the highs that enhance the lows, making them feel even lower. I want my readers to be emotionally exhausted and satisfied after reading my books because they have felt what my characters went through. 

Humor should enhance your story, not run roughshod over it. Following are a few flags to note:

Be aware of what is considered appropriate and good taste for your story and the humor you include. This will be relative to genre, author and your audience, but just be mindful of the type of humor you include and how you use it. It is a good thing to have humor that grosses out your audience and they love it and want more, but not so good if it inspires your readers to run screaming, appalled, never to buy your work again. Do you use humor to push the line a bit? That can be very cool or leave some readers queasy. Who is your audience? Who do you want your audience to be?

There is such a thing as too much of a good thing. There is a saturation point, a threshold of too many zingers where they start to detract from the story and/or they loose there punch. Remember that there is always that perfect word? Same goes for humor. Having beta readers can help identify when you have too much, or not enough. 

Readers are smart. Write authentically. What do you think is funny? Write that. It will come out sounding real and authentic because it is. Yes, people have different senses of humor, but don’t get stuck on that. If you think it is funny there will be others who do, too. 

Remember, stay light. Laugh. And go write.

*The Lift Test, May 27, 2010, Sarah Duncan’s Blog 

http://sarahduncansblog.blogspot.ca/2010/05/lift-test.html

http://www.sarahkades.com

http://sarah.kades.blogspot.com