~ SUCCESS IS WRITTEN IN THE STARS FOR SHERRILL BODINE & PATRICIA ROSEMOOR! ~

I've got something very special for you today! A guest post from one half of a writing team, with a guest post from the other half coming Wednesday! Sherrill Bodine and Patricia Rosemoor have teamed up to write what looks like one incredible book.

Love vs. Like

I was recently asked in an interview who was my favorite heroine/hero in a novel.

I replied that I LOVED all the characters I had brought to life!

Then I started thinking – but did I LIKE them? Were they truly likeable?

We all love our mates – or we wouldn’t still be together. The reasons we love are endless. The facts that MY hero is still hot, romantic, and chases me around the bedroom even after decades together are only tiny pieces of my puzzle of love for him. But there are those days when for a few hours I may not LIKE him – usually because we are disagreeing over money, children, his career or mine – you all know the drill.

This got me thinking about my fictional heroine/hero and how I make them likeable. I came up with a few tried and true rules I want to share:

1. All characters are the sum of what has been done to them in the past and what they have chosen to do in return- I always know my heroine/hero back-story in great detail.

2. Deep character is revealed by the choices my characters make – mine are always noble or at least relatable.

3. Right at the beginning of the novel my heroine performs a kind or self-less act toward another character.

4. My “wounded” hero never wallows in his pain. His strength makes him irresistible to the heroine because she knows only SHE can heal him.

To determine if I had done my job – successfully followed my own rules - I decided to re-read my new novel, WRITTEN IN THE STARS, the reincarnation epic love story I co-wrote with friend and author, Patricia Rosemoor ( I wrote the historical portion/ Patricia the contemporary)

Here is a tiny piece of a scene from Chapter One.

_______

Agony stark on her pale face, Laurel nodded before a spasm of coughing doubled her over. Alarmed, knowing from what Cybil had taught her that such a cough could cause sickness unto death, Elizabeth pulled free from Carlyle. Honed instinct urged

her to help Laurel back into her chair. Will Grey was there before her, and both of them took Laurel’s slight weight into their arms to ease her down upon her cushioned throne. Elizabeth’s breasts brushed against Will’s arm and again the hot, tingling connection blistered between them, impossible to ignore or forget.

They both glanced away, yet she saw her confusion mirrored in his eyes.


Trembling, she knew this is what her nurse had foreseen. Will is my choice, and it cannot be.



Do YOU like Elizabeth and Will Grey? Please let me know!

About Written in the Stars

“A passionate tale of destiny, danger and dark magic—and a love so powerful that it conquers time.” Mary Jo Putney, New York Times Bestselling Author.

‘A love so deep that it can last through centuries?

In 1601, Lady Elizabeth York’s star-shaped birthmark proclaims her a child of magic. When she arrives at Dunham Castle to marry Carlyle, heir to the Duke of Lennox, but finds enchantment in the eyes and touch of Will Grey, the Duke’s bastard son. Bewitched by Elizabeth, Will defies all for their love, and his jilted half-brother places a curse on them both.

Searching for a treasure ship sunk long ago, present-day marine archeologist Cordelia Ward is pursued romantically by both salvager Innis Foley and treasure hunter Morgan Murphy. She is haunted by a murderous nightmare where one man is the killer and the other the victim, but which man is her enemy, which her soul’s mate? Can a journal that belonged to her ancestress, Lady Elizabeth York show her the answers…in time to save her true love?

Chased by evil, two women discover their own magic to fight the villain’s curse on the Posey rings that draw them to the men they are destined to love.

The Excerpt 

{Sherrill’s – Historical} 

There was little Will had not seen in court, the battlefield, or the bedroom, yet watching Elizabeth walk to the warm, spring-fed pool at the edge of the woods behind his grandfather’s cottage filled him with wonder.

He slipped his arm around her waist and her head rested on his shoulder. Freed of her ribbons, her ebony hair blown by the evening winds flowed across his throat and chest, filling the air he breathed with the scent of lavender.

At the far side of the pool they came to the limestone rim, festooned with vines and heavy purple blossoms.

Laughing, she slipped off her kid boots, slowly uncoiled her celestial girdle and placed it carefully on the ground. Wearing only her loose gown with hanging sleeves, she walked into the shallows.

Turning back to him, her thick, wavy hair cascading over her breasts, her huge eyes lit by the setting sun, she beckoned to him.

“Come, Will. Join me in paradise.”

Leaving most of his clothes in a pile next to hers, Will waded toward her. He felt the warm spring water rush over his feet and calves.

To him, Elizabeth was a creature of magic, of desire, of love he would follow through eternity.

About Sherrill Bodine

I’m sure growing up in my grandmother’s house, taking care of my developmentally disabled mother, forged who I am, but I don’t believe any one thing defines me. My philosophy of life is that we are all in this together—and we need to embrace one another with as much grace, humor and compassion as we can muster. I see life as big, bigger, biggest, and I want to take everyone along with me on the journey. I not only attend black-tie affairs and work on charity board projects, but I am also just as likely to be taking a grandchild to lunch and a movie. I’m happily married to John, with whom I eloped when I was an 18-year-old freshman in college. It was quite the scandal. We have four beautiful children and 11 grandchildren.

I won my first writing award in the seventh grade in a statewide essay contest about a television broadcast of Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates. Instead of Silver Skates, they sent real skates, which I enjoyed immensely. I’m only sorry I don’t still have them so they could hang in my office.

While moving 22 times across the country and rearing our children, I sold stories to Fate Magazine, Home Life Magazine and True Confessions. In 1988, I sold my first novel and a week later received a two-book contract from Fawcett. Sixteen novels later, I’ve seen The Other Amanda win the Wisconsin Romance Writers of America Write Touch Readers’ Award and Talk of the Town chosen by Cosmopolitan magazine as its “Red Hot Read” for February 2009.

Sherrill is also known as Lynn Leslie and Leslie Lynn

You can find the authors at:

Sherrill’s Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads

Patricia’s Website | Facebook | Goodreads

You can find WRITTEN IN THE STARS at:

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo Books

Win jewelry! Sherrill and Patricia have been kind enough to offer this prize to one lucky reader!

US Entries Only