Today I'm delighted to present a guest post by Evie Alexander, the author of HighlandGames, a new hilarious rom-com, set in...Scottish Highlands, of course!

My inspiration for the cabin in Highland Games

The cabin in Highland Games is as much a character as Zoe and Rory are. The story starts with Zoe arriving at the cabin she has inherited from her great-uncle in the dead of night, and discovering it is in a complete state. It’s just one room, and the only things left inside are a rickety table and chairs and a Rayburn stove. My inspiration for the cabin has come from many places, but most of all, from a one roomed wood and cob barn that my friend (also called Zoe) built. It is one of the most earthy and romantic places I have ever been, with dogs and chickens running around inside, and a very old Rayburn stove in the centre. I remember once going to visit, and Zoe washed her hands in a water butt outside that had frozen over. She smashed the ice and plunged her dirty hands in, and I thought ‘oh my god you are so badass!’ Her cabin is full of amazing smells and texture and cool light, and was the biggest inspiration for the cabin in Highland Games. Another inspiration came on a holiday with old friends from University. We were staying in a big old rectory, and one day, my friend came running upstairs to get me as the owner had shown her a secret wooden house in the grounds. It was the most amazing structure, built around a tree, with a wood burning stove, secret cubby holes, and stained glass. I remember my jaw dropping when I saw it, as it was like something out of a fairy tale.
 
There is something inside me that wants to live a very simple life in a wooden house in nature, and so the cabin in Highland Games is part of my fantasy blending with real places I have known. I knew that I wanted the cabin to be something that Zoe and Rory fought over, as both of them felt the same romantic tug towards it. In chapter one they meet for the first time at the cabin. It’s pitch black, and they argue about who owns the cabin and what Zoe is doing there.
 
‘Who the hell are you? And what are you doing sniffing around my house in the dead of night?’
 
The man-bear stopped laughing, and straightened up. ‘Okay. First up, it’s not the dead of night, it gets darker quicker up here than in the home counties. Second, I work on this land and saw a piddly little sports car abandoned on the track. I came to see what was going on and got attacked by a lunatic armed with a loaf of bread. And third, you can’t live here; it’s not fit for human habitation. I’ll show you the way to the village. There’s a pub with rooms you can stay in, and tomorrow you can go home.’
 
Zoe clenched her jaw and spat out her words like bullets. ‘Listen here, Mr Know-it-all, let me get one thing straight. This is my land and my home and I intend to live here. I don’t need an enormous, overgrown Yeti trespassing on my property and frightening the crap out of me. Now bugger off.’ She held up the loaf of bread. ‘I’m going to make myself some beans on toa—’ she remembered there was no electricity, ‘bread, and have a quiet night in.’
‘Maybe watch some telly?’ he replied. ‘Surf the web? Have a nice hot bubble bath? Good luck with that.’
 
He stepped off the porch and strode away, whistling for the dog to follow him. Zoe stalked into the cabin and slammed the door as hard as she could. It rewarded her by falling off its hinges and landing with an almighty crash on the front deck.
 
The man didn’t look back.

Highland Games-Summary:

A fiery heroine, a Scottish god, a cabin, a castle, and enough heat to warm the coldest Scottish winter…
Highland Games is an unputdownable, enemies-to-lovers, romantic comedy, with sparkle and sizzle and a guaranteed happy ending. This sexy, witty, debut from Evie Alexander will have you laughing, swooning, and staying up way past your bedtime...
Perfect for fans of Sally Thorne, Talia Hibbert, Sophie Kinsella, and Helen Hoang. If you’re looking for a riotous romantic comedy with plenty of heat, then Highland Games is for you!

♥♥♥ Welcome to Kinloch, and the hottest winter Scotland’s ever seen. ♥♥♥

Zoe’s always played it safe, just as her parents wanted. But when her great-uncle dies and leaves her a ramshackle cabin in the Scottish Highlands, she decides it’s time to change her life.
Upping sticks seems like a good idea in her cosy flat in London, but the reality is very different. There’s no electricity or running water, the roof leaks and there’s no front door. If that wasn’t bad enough, she’s moved up in the depths of winter and her scorching hot neighbour wants her out.
Rory’s got a fifty thousand tonne problem. If he can’t make Kinloch castle profitable, he’s out of a job. He needs a clear head, but there’s someone living in the cabin he saw as his own and she’s turned his world upside down.
Rory needs Zoe out of Scotland, and out of his life. The trouble is, she has no intention of leaving.
Let the games begin…

Purchase Link

Author Bio

Evie Alexander is the author of sexy romantic comedies with a very British sense of humour. She takes a method approach to her work, believing her capacity to repeatedly fail at life and love is what has given her such a rich supply of material for her writing.
Her interests include reading, eating, saving the world, and fantasising about people who only exist between the pages of her books. She lives in the West country with her family.

website  /  facebook / instagram / twitter / goodreads/ bookbub / pinterest

Giveaway to Win a signed copy of Highland Games, Shortbread and more… (Open to UK Only)
Prize is a signed copy of Highland Games, Exclusive postcard and bookmark, Personalised heart & Shortbread
 
*Terms and Conditions –UK entries welcome.  Please enter using the Rafflecopter box below.  The winner will be selected at random via Rafflecopter from all valid entries and will be notified by Twitter and/or email. If no response is received within 7 days then Rachel’s Random Resources reserves the right to select an alternative winner. Open to all entrants aged 18 or over.  Any personal data given as part of the competition entry is used for this purpose only and will not be shared with third parties, with the exception of the winners’ information. This will passed to the giveaway organiser and used only for fulfilment of the prize, after which time Rachel’s Random Resources will delete the data.  I am not responsible for despatch or delivery of the prize.

Thank you to Rachel for inviting me to participate in the blog tour for Coldharbour, written by London-.based author John Mead. I've always been fascinated by the process authors come up with their intriguing plots and they research they do to make their police procedurals both gripping and realistic. Today Jophn has kindly agreed to offer us a fascinating insight into his writing process.

Coldharbour

The Met Police’s Major Investigation Team East has its hands full: a rash of tit for tat gang related stabbings, a strangled housewife, the decomposed remains of a woman found in a ditch and more to come. Adding to their woes is their boss, Chief Inspector Matthew Merry, being distracted by his problems at home.

For Matthew’s wife, Kathy, her only concern is dealing with the aftermath of being drugged and raped by a co-worker. Will the trial of the man responsible be enough to give her the justice she demands. Or, as her therapist states, is it revenge she really desires. She doesn’t know. As her emotions see-saw from elation to depression, her only certainty is that her husband seems more concerned about his work than her.
 
And Matthew is only too aware of his failings both at home and work. But the police machine grinds on, seeking information and sifting evidence — justice is not their concern.

Purchase Links
UK / US

I have no doubt there are as many ways to obtain inspiration, the spark that will give life to a new book, as there are authors. There are those who will undertake meticulous research: into demographics and trends in book sales, then, having gleaned a topic from this, further research to develop a plot and characters that will, hopefully, bring about a best seller. And then there are those who just jump in and start typing, and hope for the best, inspiration coming piecemeal or having been fully formed from the outset. In practice either can work. However, for myself the process is much more mundane.
 
Inspiration for my fist book – The Fourth Victim – in the current crime series, came from walking down Lehman Street, in Whitechapel, London. I was on my way to Wilton’s Music Hall, the oldest theatre in London, now restored and thriving. At the bottom of the street, almost under the railway viaduct, is the Jack the Ripper museum. Inevitably I started to think how the area had changed over the years and what a modern day Ripper would be like – perhaps Jack would be a Jill. Given, at the time, I was head of a unit supporting the educational needs of children unable to attend school as the result of physical and mental health issues, it wasn’t surprising that my thoughts also turned to the killer’s mental state. From those twin themes the plot and characters evolved.
 
I also learned, having bogged myself down in one or two dead ends, that it is always worth drawing up a brief outline before starting and, most importantly, being prepared to deviate from said plan. Perhaps more accurately it would be better to say the plan should be flexible and allow for adjustments. I soon discovered, when writing, that I am one of those authors whose characters take on a life of their own, so I constantly tweak things. Inevitably, therefore, my initial plan is very sketchy, a sentence or two on the contents of each chapter, just enough to convince me I have enough for a book and a plot that works.
 
By the end of the first book I knew I wanted to create a series, to continue using the main characters, to develop these further and to add a couple of new ones. Unfortunately I didn’t have a theme. For me the theme is what gives rise to the crime or crimes that my police team will investigate, and this creates the plot. The characters then interact, their actions allow the plot to change and develop, so usually the ending is different from what I thought it would be at the start. For my second book I wanted a different sort of crime story, a theme not normally considered. Inspiration came from two sources: Twitter and the BBC. On Twitter I noticed a post featuring an old black and white clip about drag artists performing in East End pubs, it rang a bell, I’d seen the original TV documentary as a youth. How things had changed I thought, or had they? A day or so later I watched a short BBC drama about two men, one young and one old, trying to come to grips with the fact they were cross-dressers. Motivations, sexuality and gender were all touched upon. My interest peaked, further online research, and Geraldine was born.
 
I now had a process and style that allowed me to continue the series, but I still needed inspiration for a third book. As with the first it came from a location. It came whilst visiting a bird sanctuary in Rainham, down on the Thames Estuary. As a boy I had played in Rainham Marshes – a desolate, wind swept place – ideal for dumping a body. However, a quick look at Google maps showed me that the marshes had been tamed and now container depots dotted its cheap to buy land. Containers made me think of smuggling and trafficking and out of this Coldharbour was born.  Ironically, as the book was being published so a container full of dead Vietnamese migrants was discovered at a depot in Rainham. A terrible event that made the headlines but unfortunately, I knew from the research I’d undertaken, this was only one small part of a continuing global tragedy.
 
There is a fourth book in the pipeline, Skeletons, expected to be out later in the year. With three books preceding it, inspiration came from digging up Matthew Merry’s past.
 
 
John Mead
 

John Mead

John was born in the mid-fifties in Dagenham, London, on part of the largest council estate ever built, and was the first pupil from his local secondary modern school to attend university. He has now taken early retirement to write, having spent the first part of his life working in education and the public sector. He was the director of a college, a senior school inspector for a local authority, and was head of a unit for young people with physical and mental health needs. When he is not travelling, going to the theatre or the pub, he writes.
John is currently working on a seies of novels set in modern day London. These police procedurals examine the darker side of modern life in the East End of the city

Amazon author profile / Goodreads profile / Twitter

Thank you to John for his fascinating post! Have a wonderful Sunday and Happy Reading!

Today I'm delighted to participate in the blog tour for The Legacy by Alison Knight and host a guest post by the author of this novella.

About the book:

The Legacy

An unexpected inheritance. A web of deceit. A desperate escape. 

London, 1969.

James has his dreams of an easy life shattered when his aunt disinherits him, leaving her fortune to her god-daughter, Charlotte. He turns to his friend, Percy, to help him reclaim his inheritance – and to pay off his creditors. But when their plans backfire, James becomes the pawn of Percy and his criminal associates.

Charlotte is stunned when she is told of her windfall. After an attempt at cheating her out of her inheritance fails, James tries to intimidate her. But she is stronger than he thinks, having secrets of her own to guard, and sends him away with a bloody nose and no choice but to retreat for now.
Resigned, James and his spoilt, pampered girlfriend, Fliss, Percy’s sister, travel across France on a mission that promises to free James from the criminals for good. But James isn’t convinced he can trust Fliss, so he makes his own plans to start a new life.
Will James be able to get away, or will his past catch up with him? Will Charlotte’s secrets turn the legacy into a curse?

BUY LINK – The Legacy by Alison Knight is published by Darkstroke Books and is available from: https://mybook.to/legacy
 

Like most authors, I’m often asked where I get the inspiration for my books. I usually get my ideas from all sorts of sources – a snippet of conversation, a picture, a memory … but my inspiration for The Legacy came from an unusual source – my previous book!
It took me many, many years to write my last book, Mine, because it was based on events that happened in my family and was very hard for me to get down on paper. It was eventually published by Darkstroke Books in November 2020.
I was child at the time the events depicted in Mine took place, so there were huge gaps in my knowledge of what was going on around me then. In some cases, I could find out what actually happened from official documents or family memories, but there were some instances where, fifty years after the event, there was no way of finding this out. I needed to use my imagination, my knowledge of the people involved and the culture of the time to create fictional scenes to fill the gaps.
One such scene involved two of the main characters visiting an elderly spinster in a nursing home to witness her new will. She had decided, just days before her death, to leave her fortune to her god-daughter, with a relatively small gift to her nephew, who had previously been her main heir. She explains that she disapproves of his ‘profligate lifestyle’ and wants him to buck his ideas up.
After I’d finished writing Mine, I kept thinking about that scene. What sort of mischief had her nephew been getting up to? How would her god-daughter react to her new-found riches? Was it a simple case of the good, attentive god-daughter triumphing over the self-obsessed, lazy nephew? What secrets will the spinster reveal from beyond the grave? In the end, I had to write their story.
That spark of an idea which started in one book lead to a story of greed, intrigue and desperation. Hard lessons are learned by all the characters as they try to protect themselves from the fallout from the legacy.
After the emotional roller-coaster of writing the very personal story in Mine, writing The Legacy was an absolute delight. It starts with a prologue – the will-signing scene from Mine – and takes us on a journey with James and Charlotte as they deal with the repercussions of their unexpected legacies. There are some cameo appearances from some characters from Mine. The difference is that The Legacy is pure fiction and although it contains some nods to Mine, The Legacy is a standalone story.
Taking inspiration from my previous book seems to have set a precedent. My next book, due to be published in December 2021, follows the story of James’s girlfriend, Fliss. Three years after the end of story told in The Legacy, she is living in another country, using a different name and living a life that seems completely alien to the pampered, party-loving girl she is in The Legacy. I hope you enjoy reading The Legacy and that you’ll then want to find out what happens to Fliss.
 
 

 

 
ALISON KNIGHT, AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Alison has been a legal executive, a registered childminder, a professional fund-raiser and a teacher. She has travelled the world – from spending a year as an exchange student in the US in the 1970s and trekking the Great Wall of China to celebrate her fortieth year and lots of other interesting places in between.
In her mid-forties Alison went to university part-time and gained a first-class degree in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University and an MA in the same subject from Oxford Brookes University, both while still working full-time. She signed her first three-book publishing contract a year after she completed her master’s degree.
The Legacy is her fifth novel and the second book published by Darkstroke Books. It is a drama set in 1960s London and France, exploring how we don’t always get what we want, exploring themes of greed, intrigue and desperation. Her previous Darkstroke book, Mine, is a drama also set in 1960s London, based on real events in her family, exploring themes of class, ambition and sexual politics. Some of the characters from Mine also appear in The Legacy, although this is a standalone story.
Alison teaches creative and life-writing, runs workshops and retreats with Imagine Creative Writing Workshops (www.imaginecreativewriting.co.uk) as well as working as a freelance editor. She is a member of the Society of Authors and the Romantic Novelists’ Association.
She lives in Somerset, within sight of Glastonbury Tor.
 
 
SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS – ALISON KNIGHT
www.facebook.com/alison.knight.942
www.alisonroseknight.com
@Alison_Knight59 on Twitter
www.imaginecreativewriting.co.uk
www.darkstroke.com/dark-stroke/alison-knight/
 

Thank you to Alison Knight for her guest post giving us an insight into her inspiration for the book!

If you would like to find out what other bloggers thought of The Legacy or read some extracts from the book, here is the full blog tour schedule:

 Thank you to Rachel from Rachel's Random Resources for my spot on the book tour for Heart and the City written by Cecilia Fyre.
It is my honour and pleasure to introduce a guest post written this talented author:

Writing about New York City

Everyone who’s ever been to New York has their own version of the city. I’ve been to New York many times, and I fall in love with it more on every visit. So it was only a matter of time before the city would become an inspiration for my writing.
When I first started on the novella series, my favourite part of the city were Chinatown, the Bowery and the Lower East Side. I’d always go up to the theatre district, of course, and frequently to Central Park. But I got really familiar with the lower part of Manhattan. I love walking the streets there, it’s so diverse and never boring. And shopping is great on Broadway. 

For this guest post I want to do a little tour of the New York that inspired the setting of the novellas. I feel that New York deserves a tribute at this juncture in history and a little virtual tour might help tide us over until we’re able to travel again!
Where to stay?
 
Hotels in Manhattan can be really expensive, so when I first investigated accommodation I was delighted to discover the Bowery House . It’s a hostel and quite basic, but the history of the building is really interesting. The cabins were first set up to house homeless soldiers coming back from the war.

Home is…Chinatown
 
Ricco, the love interest in the novellas, lives in a penthouse in Chinatown, and when Lea first moves to the city that’s where she happens to end up as well.
 
Chinatown might seem an odd choice for a famous actor. When you walk the streets you’d never imagine that anyone with money would want to live there. But it’s quirky and different, and it’s Ricco’s kind of place. His penthouse is in a fairly nondescript street that’s otherwise home to Chinese restaurants and printing businesses.
 
A lot of famous cast-iron dwellings are dotted around the neighbourhood. Stop at a street corner and look up. You can see the penthouse terraces on the roofs of many of those buildings.
 
I tried to capture a little of the strange vibe of the area in the novellas. It’s popular with tourists who shop in the souvenir shops, take photos with the weird window displays, eat in the restaurants and sit outside cafés where Chinatown becomes Little Italy. But go down into one of the streets without garlands and lanterns strung across, where all the signs are in Chinese, and suddenly the atmosphere is residential and you can sense what it was like when the tenements were full of immigrant families, and garment sweatshops, laundries and butchers provided employment for the local community.

A little bit of real history
 
There’s one Lower East Side institution that didn’t make it into the novellas, even though I would’ve loved to mention it – the Tenement Museum. If you’re interested in the New York of the 19th and early 20th century, then this is where you have to go. The apartments in the building are made up to reflect different times. You learn about the actual families that lived there until the law changed and the tenement was closed in 1935. It is the place to go to learn about immigration to the United States. I really recommend taking part in the Tastings at the Tenement event, too. You find out what the various immigrant communities would eat and then you can try food sourced from shops and restaurants still operating in the neighbourhood.

What about Queens?
 
When you fly into JFK airport and travel to the Bowery, you take the sky train from the airport through Queens to Jamaica Station where it connects to the A and the F subway trains. I had the idea for Lea’s more permanent home from those journeys. I’ve never walked through Queens, but you get quite a nice bird’s eye view as the train rattles towards Manhattan. It’s a pretty long journey, and you see a much more residential and middle-class part of New York that way. I think that now the novellas are coming out, for my next trip to New York (which I honestly can’t wait for) I’ll make it a special mission to discover Queens!

Heart and the City (Book 1 in the Love Medicine series)

British doctor Lea Holm has come to New York to work in her chosen field of emergency medicine. She loves her new life in this exciting city and can’t wait to get started with her research project. The last thing she needs are distractions.
But then she meets famous actor Ricco Como in her building – a distraction if ever there was one. He’s gorgeous and sweet, and there’s an immediate connection between them. Lea tries to resist temptation, but when he comes to her for help dealing with his steadily worsening migraine she can’t turn away from his plight.
As Ricco’s health takes a turn for the worse, their lives become more and more entwined. But can their growing attraction withstand the strain of his ill health, and can he let Lea be more than just his doctor?

**This novella series contains detailed descriptions of long-term health conditions, cheating and a bereavement.**
 
The series is set in New York City and was written before COVID-19. It makes no reference to recent events.

Publication Date: 26th May

Purchase Link

About Cecilia Fyre

Cecilia Fyre is the pen name of a romance author trying out something new.
 
She likes sunny, crisp autumn days. Cups of hot cocoa with little marshmallows floating on top. The roaring of the sea. Laughing until your face hurts. The silence when you curl up with a good book. 

Her stories are about people. Some of them are strange, some think they're boring. They all have secrets, they're all scared sometimes. Cecilia writes about life, about love. About how hard it is to do it right. Usually, there's a happy ending, or at least there might be one, someday.

​But life's not all sunshine and roses, and that's why Cecilia tells her stories.
 
In the real world, Cecilia lives in England.

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Giveaway
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Win 2 x A Complete set of all 5 novellas in the Love Medicine series, in an ebook format (Open INT)
The five novellas are:
Book 1 – Heart and the City
Book 2 – Unexpected Truth
Book 3 – Been There Before
Book 4 – Wish The Pain Away
Book 5 – A Thousand Little Pieces

*Terms and Conditions –Worldwide entries welcome.  Please enter using the Rafflecopter box below.  The winner will be selected at random via Rafflecopter from all valid entries and will be notified by Twitter and/or email. If no response is received within 7 days then Rachel’s Random Resources reserves the right to select an alternative winner. Open to all entrants aged 18 or over.  Any personal data given as part of the competition entry is used for this purpose only and will not be shared with third parties, with the exception of the winners’ information. This will passed to the giveaway organiser and used only for fulfilment of the prize, after which time Rachel’s Random Resources will delete the data.  I am not responsible for despatch or delivery of the prize.