Memories of 9/11

Where were you?
The last generation asked each other "Where were you when Kennedy was shot?"
For mine, it is, "Where were you on 9/11?"
I was here in the UK, sitting at the one computer in the house, talking to a friend in Florida via MSN messenger.
I had the radio on, and my program was interrupted by the news, so I switched on the TV. There it was, live from New York. I said to her, "Turn your TV on."
She said, "They won't have the same program on here as the one you have there."
"Yes they will," I said.
We watched the same pictures together, relayed from one of the big American news networks, NBC I think. At first it looked like an accident. People had been talking about the possibility for years, but they were thinking small private place like a Cessna. Nothing like this.
When the second plane hit, it was obvious it was anything but an accident. We watched the day together, Kathy and I, because we were alone, and scared. It was terrifying to watch the events unfold. When the first tower collapsed, I screamed, and I heard other people in our quiet street yelling as well.
Then a writer friend broke into our conversation. He gave us a phone number and asked us to call his great-aunt, who he was living with at the time. He was working in the Pentagon, and another plane had hit it.
The pictures started coming through on the TV. He wasn't hurt, he told us, but the plane had taken out the phone network. The computer network was cabled way underground, so it was intact. His great-aunt didn't have a computer.
So we called. Bizarre, that people so far away could call her and tell her he was fine.
Like the rest of the world, we were numb with shock. I'm just glad I wasn't alone that day.
So where were you that day? How did you hear the news?

News for September, 2015 - exciting news and four new releases!

News
Well, here we are, three quarters of the way through the year!
Big news - I have all my rights back from Ellora's Cave! I won't go into the details here, but it became clear that EC and I were no longer a good fit, and finally, I have the books back. That's nineteen of them. I plan to reissue them under the LM Connolly name, and one of the series is ready to go now.
I've had Pure Wildfire re-edited, and Ginny Glass of Wordsugar Designs did some amazing new covers for me. If you have these books already, then you probably don't want to buy them all over again, but this series means a lot to me. It was the start of a whole new career for me, my foray into paranormals, which started with the Department 57 series. These books are about - well, see below. I've put a short introduction, the new covers and a brief introduction.
Swanwick
I went to the Swanwick Writer's School in August. What a great time I had there! I met a bunch of people, including the writer of the Charles Paris series, Simon Brett, and the writer of the TV Detective series, Simon Hall. I went on some courses, and had a lot of fun, talking about writing for a week. A real treat.

New Releases and Excerpt

So, releases. I have to concentrate on Pure Wildfire this month, although there are more exciting releases ahead. I just keep writing!
Pure Wildfire is a four book series about a rock band with a difference. They are all shape-shifting firebirds, except for the guitarist, Aidan. He is the phoenix, the one and only.
I wrote "Sunfire" as a one-off, but the book proved so popular, that I wrote more. Aidan, the epitome of the rock guitarist, meets Corinne, a classical guitarist. She is under the control of her father, the manager of the band. I did have certain media types in mind when I wrote this!
The series is about each member of the band finds love, sometimes in very unexpected places. The series takes place during a long world tour, and each book is named after a Pure Wildfire album. But it's not all music-centric!
The books are coming out every week in September, one every week, and after that, a box set. The books have lovely new cover art, and they've been lightly edited, so although there is still lashing of action between the sheets, the language is a tad less graphic and the emphasis is back on the story.


You can see them here - http://lmconnolly.com/genre/coming-soon
They're up for preorder at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Apple iBooks, and all the other major outlets.

I've put the first part of Sunfire here for you, as a taster. You can read the whole of the first chapter on my website.

Aidan went over the upcoming meeting in his mind. He’d only promised to play on their manager’s pet project, a charity album, because of the news he had for John Westfall. Once Westfall knew Pure Wildfire’s second guitarist had walked out, there’d be fireworks for sure.

But then, who better to face fireworks than the phoenix? Aidan grinned and headed out the grove in the direction of the manor house.

Before John Westfall converted it into a business center, the house was a modest, but handsome, eighteenth-century gentleman’s residence. Now offices occupied half the house, together with the heavily soundproofed studios, the acoustics in them honed to perfection. People came from all over the world to use them. Nobody liked Westfall, but he was a good manager and the studios were a dream.

Buttery cream stucco covered the house, giving an impression of continuity through the ages, which Aidan knew was entirely false.

As he got closer, the coarse grass changed to fine lawn, barbered as short as velvet pile. Aidan tilted his head back and took a lungful of the clean, fresh air. Nowhere in the world had the same crisp newness as England in the spring, the fresh, clean air he loved spiced with a bite of the chill of winter just passed. Just back from a visit to the States, Aidan savored the pleasure of being on home ground again. He loved America, but whoever said there was no place like home was right. Come to think of it, an American said that. Aidan grinned. To each his own. No doubt Chris and Jake Keys, the bass section of the band, felt the same about their native Texas.

Very few places heralded a visitor’s arrival with a burst of Bach, especially played on the guitar. Drawn by the music, as always, Aidan changed direction and strolled toward the west wing, business forgotten for now.

The French windows lay open to the air, invalidating all the careful soundproofing in the studio behind it. Aidan reflected wryly that the staff always closed the windows when Pure Wildfire used the studios.

This was magical, a moment out of time. He stood outside, watching and listening.

A girl bent over a fine Spanish guitar, picking out a melody, spinning the counterpoint on the strings with agile fingers. Her long, straight dark hair fell over the polished wood and even her clothes seemed magical, the fine white embroidered lawn top and gathered skirt marking her as special, untouchable.

Unless Aidan was greatly mistaken, this was Corinne Westfall, the eldest of the three girls known in some circles as the Westfall Gold Mine. Since the age of sixteen, when the music press acclaimed her the latest wonder to hit the classical world running, Corinne Westfall dominated the classical music charts. Corinne’s and Aidan’s worlds crossed only through her father and the few times he’d seen her onstage, but now he wished he’d met her before. He’d never felt drawn to a human like this before, the music, her slender form, calling out to him to touch, to explore.

Aidan watched her fingering with a connoisseur’s eye. Her hands were large enough to form unusual bridges on the fret. He hadn’t considered her level of skill before, distracted by Corinne’s ingénue appearance. Onstage she wore skimpy clothes, which gave him uncomfortable feelings of underage sex the one time he’d seen her, curious to know what drew people to her performances. He’d turned away from the pictures on her many album sleeves. Looking at her now, mentally calculating her current age, he was pretty sure this was the effect Westfall wanted and he mentally labeled any man a slimeball who turned his daughter into an underage sex symbol just to sell a few albums.

But this girl was now a twenty-eight-year-old woman—no ingénue. But the memory of his distaste stayed in the back of Aidan’s mind, however much he tried to dispel it.

Today, Corinne Westfall was a purely lovely woman, lost in a world of her making. Hers and Bach’s.

There you go! It is so good to see the books back on the virtual shelves again!

Laird of Her Heart by Sabrina York - danger, hot highlander alert!

Laird of her Heart: Book One in the Dundragon Trilogy by Sabrina York

When Maggie Spencer is mysteriously transported to the Scotland of her ancestors, she is stunned to come face to face with him. Dominic Dundragon, the man she’s been half in love with her whole life. A man who’s been dead for 700 years.

They both have enemies aplenty. Will she have a chance to win his love, or will this adventure end in disaster?

Read an excerpt

Maggie yelped as, without warning, the burly warrior named Declan whipped her up into his arms and tossed her over his shoulder. To her horror, she lost the hold on her locket.

“Wait,” she cried. She wriggled to get free, but his grip was too hard. When she pummeled his back with her fists as he strode from the circle of stones, he chuckled. The beast. But to be fair, he was so large, it would have felt like a kitten batting him. “Put me down.”

“I willna,” he said. “The Mackintosh will decide how you die.”

All right. That shut her up. For a minute. “Die? Why do I need to die?” What the hell had she done to him?

The man following, an enormous blond with a scar tracking his cheek bent down to peer at her. “The Mackintosh’s doona tolerate spies.”

“I’m not a spy.” Seriously. She wriggled more and Declan smacked her ass.

Smacked her ass.

She’d kill him when she got free. Just kill him.

“Yer wearing the Cameron colors,” the blond said. “And the Mackintosh’s doona—”

“Right. I know. The Mackintosh’s doona tolerate spies.” Her head was starting to spin from being upside down and jounced around with each step. Her temper was on a short leash. “But honestly, if I were a spy, would I wear the Cameron colors? It seems a little counterproductive in my opinion. I mean, if I’m spying and all. I might as wear a sign that says, oh, I dunno, honk if you love spies.”

His brow rumpled but he didn’t respond. At least, not to her. “She speaks strangely,” he complained to Declan.

Her captor snorted a laugh. “She dresses strangely too.”

“Aye. She does at that. I’ve heard the Cameron lasses are a wild lot, but I had no idea—”

“I’m. Not. A. Cameron.” She reached out and smacked the blond, but only because he came close enough. He reared back and gaped at her—as though he’d never been smacked before—and then he quickly moved out of range.

It hardly mattered, because, apparently, they had reached their destination, a camp on the edge of the woods. The sounds of nickering horses and clanks of pots gave her her first clue—she was facing the other way, after all.

Her second clue was that Declan dropped her on the ground. She landed with an oof. She glared at him. He didn’t seem to mind in the slightest. “Go get my brother, Ewan,” he barked, and the blond trotted off to one of the larger tents.

When she stood and brushed off her jeans, Declan bristled and she shot him a sardonic glare. Did he think she was stupid enough to run away? For one thing, these enormous men had her surrounded. For another, she never ran. Not if she could help it.

Instead, she made a quick survey of her surroundings. The camp was little more than a huddle of tents with the forest on one side and a sweeping plain on the other. A small herd of horses were hobbled to one side and a deer roasted over a pit fire. An entire deer. Before she could silence the thought—she often had that problem—she said, “You killed Bambi.”

Declan’s brow rumpled. “I dinna kill anyone.” And then he asked, “Who is Bambi?”

“Never mind.” She crossed her arms and turned away pretending to ignore them. But she wasn’t. She was aware they were all staring at her like she was a curiosity in a zoo, but she was taking in tiny details as well. Like the fact that their clothes were all handmade and simple. Their hair appeared to have been cut with a chainsaw and their beards were scraggly and long. Their weapons were what made her mind really start to spin though.

One held a crossbow that dated from the thirteenth century. Another had a Mackintosh dirk that resembled one she’d seen in a museum once. Declan had a simple calfskin sporran tied to his belt.

Odd. Could she have wandered into some renaissance faire? But no. It had been evening when she stepped into the woods and now it was daytime. Early afternoon. And the acres of woods around the house belonged to the family. It couldn’t be—

“So.” She flinched as a deep, melodious voice wafted to her on a hint of humor. Shivers danced through her, along with a prickling sense of premonition. “You’ve captured a Cameron spy?”

She turned slowly and froze as her gaze landed on him. On that so-familiar face. Broad, handsome, savage. Much more captivating than the sketch had been. Much more captivating by far.

She must be hallucinating. She had to be.

He was the hero of her dreams come to life.

Dominic Dundragon, Laird of the Mackintosh clan.

Large, looming and in the flesh.

Her head went woozy. Her vision blurred. And then, for the first time in her life, she fainted.

GET IT NOW!

http://www.amazon.com/Laird-Heart-Dundragon-Travel-Trilogy-ebook/dp/B012EP0NT6/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1437759426&sr=1-1&keywords=laird+of+her+heart

ABOUT SABRINA YORK

Her Royal Hotness, Sabrina York, is the New York Times and USA Today Bestselling author of hot, humorous stories for smart and sexy readers. Her titles range from sweet & sexy to scorching romance. Visit her webpage at www.sabrinayork.com to check out her books, excerpts and contests.

For more information, or to connect with Sabrina, visit SabrinaYork.Com

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If you love hot highlanders, be sure to read Sabrina York’s Untamed Highlanders from St. Martin’s Press!

Hannah and the Highlander

Susana and the Scot

Lana and the Laird—Coming in 2016

Danger Wears White is out!

Danger Wears White

You can read an excerpt and order this book now!
Amazon
iTunes
Kensington website
Barnes and Noble
“Full of political intrigue, steamy romance and plenty of twists and turns…a well crafted story that kept me on the edge of my seat until the very last page. If Lynne Connolly isn’t on your auto-buy list, she should be.”~Sharon Cullen, author of Sebastian’s Lady Spy
Hoping to live down her family’s connections to the traitorous Jacobite cause, Imogen wants nothing more than a quiet life in the country. When she stumbles upon a wounded man, the white cockade in his coat tells her he’s a Jacobite, and a danger to the crown. Yet there’s something about him she can’t resist . . .
In search of a document on behalf of his powerful family, Tony is shot and left for dead. Secreted away to a hidden chamber, he finds himself both a guest and prisoner of a beautiful but mysterious woman. What she wants and who she serves, he cannot know. But what he does understand is the desire burning strongly between them. And that neither of them will be spared until their lust is sated.
When the action moves to London, suddenly it’s Tony who has to act to save Imogen. Forced to become a lady in waiting to Princess Amelia, she is in peril from the Jacobites, who are convinced she is their salvation. Only the strength of Tony and Imogen’s love can save them now.

News for July, 2015

So, I’ve had a month since I got back from the US, and I’m not caught up yet! I’m thrilled with the success of the Waterloo books, too. “The Incomparables” went top 5 on Amazon Regency!

Basically this month I’ve been sitting at my desk, writing, writing, writing, trying to catch up. I now have two books on the way, and ready for their final run-through. I’ve written Julius’s story for the “Emperors of London” series, and another instalment in the Even Gods Fall In Love series.

I’ve done my first Facebook parties, too. One for “The Incomparables” and another to help my friend Monica Burns launch “Mirage,” and so I can launch “Danger Wears White.”

It’s hot here. Really hot, like in the mid 30’s. at Wimbledon yesterday, the thermometer topped 40, so we’re talking hotter than Hades. But we have fresh strawberries to cool us! I finally got to see the new Mad Max movie, which I enjoyed. Tightly constructed, nice pacing.

And I’m still writing, writing, writing!

This month Kensington is releasing “Danger Wears White,” which has an absolutely beautiful cover, IMO. It features one of my favourite places, although I’ve retitled it and resituated it a few miles north. But basically, Imogen lives in Little Moreton Hall in Cheshire. It’s an amazing place, built in the 16^th century with additions put on later. It’s a timber-framed building, with spectacular patterns.

The Hall was built with “green” timber, so it warped and bent under stress, but it held. Now there’s hardly a straight line in the place now. When one of the owners wanted to emulate his neighbours and have a Long Gallery, he built one on top of the existing building, thus blocking off a few rooms, which became “secret” rooms. Not built to be secret, but not much use for anything.

Little Moreton Hall is like something out of a fairy tale, so of course I had to base a book there! Imogen’s family have seen better days, and took the wrong side in the struggle with the Jacobites, so she’s been working, keeping out of trouble. That ends when she finds a wounded man on her property. She thinks he’s a Jacobite, but she can’t just give him up. He’ll die. So she takes care of him. She hasn’t found a Jacobite, she found an Emperor, Antoninus.

So then Tony has to keep Imogen out of trouble!

Danger Wears White

You can read an excerpt and preorder this book by clicking the following links
Amazon
iTunes
Kensington website
Barnes and Noble
“Full of political intrigue, steamy romance and plenty of twists and turns…a well crafted story that kept me on the edge of my seat until the very last page. If Lynne Connolly isn’t on your auto-buy list, she should be.”~Sharon Cullen, author of Sebastian’s Lady Spy
Hoping to live down her family’s connections to the traitorous Jacobite cause, Imogen wants nothing more than a quiet life in the country. When she stumbles upon a wounded man, the white cockade in his coat tells her he’s a Jacobite, and a danger to the crown. Yet there’s something about him she can’t resist . . .
In search of a document on behalf of his powerful family, Tony is shot and left for dead. Secreted away to a hidden chamber, he finds himself both a guest and prisoner of a beautiful but mysterious woman. What she wants and who she serves, he cannot know. But what he does understand is the desire burning strongly between them. And that neither of them will be spared until their lust is sated.
When the action moves to London, suddenly it’s Tony who has to act to save Imogen. Forced to become a lady in waiting to Princess Amelia, she is in peril from the Jacobites, who are convinced she is their salvation. Only the strength of Tony and Imogen’s love can save them now.

Read an Excerpt!

Imogen turned to Tony, anxious to see how he was.

Only for him to roughly haul her close and kiss her. It was brief, but it spoke of a hunger she found hard to believe but easy to reciprocate. Hooking her arm around his neck, she opened for him, and when his tongue entered her mouth she knew this was right. Once again, the world seeped away. Only this was real.

A slow burn crept through her as he tasted her thoroughly. He explored her, touching the roof of her mouth and sending shivers through her. He caressed her tongue with his, so carefully and tenderly that a lump came to her throat.

She’d nearly missed this. Missed him. He could have died. Losing someone to an infection happened so fast and had devastated not a few families she knew.

He spread his big hands over her back, encompassing her body, and she strained up toward him, pressing her breasts against his chest, loving his body heat. If he surrounded her with that heat and never let go she could stand anything. She just needed to keep it there.

When he finished the kiss and gazed down at her, she whimpered and tried to pull him down for more. With a groan, he obliged, and she lost herself in him. He moved her, swinging her to the side to lie next to him, and then he rolled to lean over her, all the time with their mouths locked together, drinking each other in.

A jerk disturbed her, a tiny wince, but that served to bring her back down to earth. About to grip his biceps in an unthinking action she stopped. Shame swept through her and she pulled away. “I’m sorry.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for.” His voice was rough. “I’m the one who should be sorry. I didn’t mean to pounce on you like that. I don’t know what came over me.”

“I do.” With an instinct as old as time she cupped his cheek, melting when he turned his head and pressed a kiss into her palm.

“I’m sorry about the whiskers. There’s little I can do about that at present.”

When she rubbed her palm against his jaw, the bristles set up an abrasion that half-tickled, half aroused. These new sensations gave her new responses, but something deep inside her stirred and awoke. She could even put a name to it. Desire.

Imogen wanted this man with a desperation she couldn’t have imagined before she met him. If she didn’t have him, she’d regret it forever. She knew it. It was worth any price. Five minutes, ten, half an hour—she didn’t care.

Spinsterhood stretched ahead like an empty wasteland. But she could have this, once, this one time. Nobody would know. Unless the unthinkable happened, but she could even cope with that.

“I like it.” She smiled, letting her need show in her face, daring to open to him. He could reject her. She wouldn’t blame him if he did. Or—her cheeks heated. She was forgetting far too much here, taking too much for granted. “Are you too tired to stay awake? Too weak?”

When he moved, something brushed her hip. His erection, hard and needy. Heat flooded her groin, and she shifted to ameliorate the desire to be touched.

“Does that feel weak? But you’re my savior. I’d be a poor man if I thanked you in this way. I can’t take advantage of you like that.”

She took umbrage at that remark. As if she had no choice in the matter. “Take advantage? I should strike you for that. But you’ve suffered too much hurt already. I can’t. How are you feeling?”

He tried to move away but she refused to release him. She pulled him back. His smile was rueful. “Sweetheart, if I don’t let you go now, I don’t think I will be doing it for some time.”

“I don’t want you to.” She bit her lip. “But you should rest.”

“I am resting. Here, with you. Don’t tempt me, please.”

The plea pushed her the rest of the way. She had to persuade him somehow or spend the rest of her life regretting it. “I want you.”

This close she saw the way his pupils widened. “I want you too. Never doubt that. But I cannot. How can I despoil what isn’t my right to take?”

“It’s your right if I give it to you.” She needed to tell him the truth. Well, not all of it. “I’m not married, nor am I likely to. I’m a maid, but I want you to take it as a gift. My virginity.”

His shock was evident in the way he froze, every part of his body stilling. “You can’t do that.”

“It’s mine. If I want to give it away, I will.”

He swallowed. “Are you sure?”

“Are you up to the task?”

Her inadvertent double entendre gave him a smile, and his body relaxed against her when he laughed. All but one part. “Yes, I’d say so. I’ve suffered much worse in my time, and seen worse, too. Your prompt action saved me from harm, and Young George worked like a Trojan to reinforce what you started.”

“What did he do?”

“Washed out the wound every hour. Every trace of infection is gone. He fetched some brandy last night that you’re not supposed to know about, so don’t go telling him that I told you.”

Now he made her laugh, and on the heels of her laughter, he kissed her.

Mirth stopped, and passion took its place. At his taste, every part of her body strained up to him. Her yearning became undeniable.

Especially when he spread one hand over her waist and slid it up her body to touch that part of her breast that swelled above her stays. It felt so good, his warmth and the way he was stroking her, that she wanted more. She unfastened the first hook. He groaned. She kept going.

After brushing her hand away, he took over, rapidly unhooking her stays, and then broke their kiss at last. When he opened his eyes, the pupil was nearly all black. “Why don’t all women have their stays made that way?”

“They do.” He couldn’t have seen many women in their everyday wear. For some reason that made her happy. With a wicked smile, she wriggled, and the stays fell away.

He touched her as if she were sacred, feathering his fingers down her breast to the edge of her shift. When he pulled the bow undone, nothing stopped him pushing it out of the way. He made careful work of it, his fingers shaking against her flesh.

Anticipation made her center dampen. She bit her lip, trying to push some control back into her wayward body, but he smiled and dropped a kiss on her mouth.

“Take off your shirt,” she said.

“It’s all I have on.”