Welcome Carolyn Jewel!

Must be getting close to Valentine's Day. Romance is in the air. Here is Girlfriend Cyber Circuit's Carolyn Jewel and her smoking hot new historical romance Scandal.




....there's a richness and a poignancy that elevates the entire book to a whole other level of "good." It's impossible to sum up this book in mere tropes. It's a story of two people who had to grow up to appreciate each other, and it's a story of survival and strength, trust and renewal. The characters are older than the standard hero and heroine you encounter in romance. It's difficult to read at times, and bleak in others, but throughout, both in the past and the present of the story, Jewel weaves a furious sexual tension between Banallt and Sophie that reaches and maintains scorching levels. . . . This book took my breath away. -- Smart Bitches Who Love Trashy Books

If that's not enough to convince romance readers you want to check this out, here's a Q&A with Carolyn (including the best. writing. advice. ever!):

Q: Since becoming a writer, what's the most glamorous thing you've ever done?

A: HAHAHAHAHA! The dishes?

Q: What's the main thing you hope people take away from your book?

A: A burning and insatiable desire to buy my backlist and everything else I ever write for the rest of my life. And to tell everyone they know to do the same thing. OK, seriously, I just hope they enjoy the heck out of the story.

Q: If you could only own and read 5 books for the rest of your life, (excluding your own) what five books would you choose?

A: Villette by Charlotte Bronte, Lover Awakened by J.R. Ward, Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, Some edition of O'Henry Best Short Stories, A Summer to Remember by Mary Balogh.

Q: What's your Writer Fantasy--i.e., to see your book make into a feature film, to be on the New York Times bestseller list for 40 consecutive weeks, etc.?

A: Hmm. My fantasies typically involve Adrian Paul or Jet Li. But I could live with 40 weeks on the NYT bestseller list. If I had to.

Q: What's one piece of writing advice you've found valuable on your journey to publication?

A: Dorothea Brande's section of Tapping the Unconscious in Becoming A Writer which included this warning "If you fail repeatedly at this exercise, give up writing. Your resistance is actually greater than your desire to write and you may as well find some other outlet for your energy early as late." Alas, I failed miserably and repeatedly at her freewriting exercise. It seems I am a no-talent amateur with delusions of grandeur. I can't explain my ten (counting through the end of 2009) published novels, given this failure. I think I must be a freak of some sort.

Brande's book taught me that writing advice can, and possibly should, be ignored. Writers follow different paths to success and one path is never more valid than another. What works for me may not work for you and there's nothing wrong with that. The point is to actually go out and find what works for you.

Thanks Carolyn! Aspiring writers tattoo that advice on your brain.