Round Robin Guest Michele Stegman

Please welcome my guest for the Breathless Press Round Robin, Michele Stegman. She has a new release coming soon that looks intriguing! Michele is blogging about something with which I am well familiar. Chaos. Thanks for stopping by, Michele! Take it away...

Is there chaos at your house? For someone who lives on 46 acres at the end of a dead end road, it seems there is often a lot going on here. We have a lot of company, especially this time of year. And there's so much going on with end of school year dinners, parties, etc. So how does one keep up a writing schedule? With great difficulty.

With a new book, Conquest of the Heart, coming out on June 14, there is so much more to do than "just" write. Blog posts, interviews, author profiles to fill out for Breathless Press, etc. So the writing has definitely taken a back seat lately.

But it is all fun and exciting, and I'm sure things will settle down again. Even if I have to wait until that next snowfall when our driveway, a steep 400 foot stretch down the north side of the hill, is iced over and there is nowhere to go and nothing to do but write.

In the meantime, I plan to enjoy the excitement of my new release.

Blurb:

Her people conquered his country. How can they overcome the distrust they feel to find love?

Madeline wants a big, brash, never-defeated-in-battle, Norman knight. What she gets, by order of the king, is a wiry Saxon who once studied for the priesthood instead of warfare. But is this gentle man she has fallen in love with entangled in the rebellion now sweeping the land?

Ranulf wants to marry the girl next door. What he gets, by order of the king , is a lush, strong Norman woman who just might be a spy reporting his every move. He wants her in every way a man can possibly want a woman. But can he trust his heart to a woman who might have been sent to root out the struggle for freedom his people are engaged in?

www.michelestegman.com

Twitter: Twitter.com/MicheleStegman

Facebook: facebook.com/MicheleStegmanAuthor

My BP Round Robin Guest

I am hosting the fabulous Faberge Nostromo whose debut, His Secret Dancer should be on everyone's to be read list. He has a passion for guitars that matches mine. Please give him a warm welcome. 

Hi Gayl, thanks for having me. May I introduce myself?

I grew up in the East End of London before escaping to East Anglia. I’ve been a civil servant, a tea boy, sound engineer, a librarian and an IT consultant but deep down, I always knew that I was a writer. I now live deep in the heart of Suffolk with my wife, son and too many guitars.

The gender agenda and echo chambers…ers…ers…ers…

OK – fact: The Rolling Stones are the greatest rock band in the world.

But The Who are definitely the second greatest, and one of my favourite lines is from a little known Who song from 1967 – Tattoo:-

Me and my brother were talking to each other
'Bout what makes a man a man
Was it brain or brawn, or the month you were born,
We just couldn't understand

So that's the question – what makes a man a man?

I can quite happily live without football, rugby, cricket and almost any sport and to some men that makes me more or less a woman.

And yet when a woman answers the question "what's wrong?" with "there's nothing wrong" and I believe her, that apparently makes me a typical thoughtless man.

Can't win… but whichever way, I think I'm a man.

The point is, gender – and I'm not talking genitalia – isn't 0 or 1, + or -, all or nothing. It's a vast confusing ocean of currents, eddies and tides from blokes who define themselves by sports, drinking statistics and breaking wind in public to women who can only giggle, file their nails and think that kittens are sweet, via a whole world of individuals in between those two stereotype extremes.

We all know blokey blokes and girly girls just as we all know men who are 'in touch with their feminine side' and 'ball breaker' women.

So my hero in His Secret Dancer is also my heroine. Dan/Danielle is on a journey of discovery. She, Danielle, is a very feminine and sexy girl and he, Dan, is a very attractive and sexy man. S/he is exploring gender and sexuality and I look forward to you reading about the journey s/he is on. I certainly enjoyed writing it.

Which brings me onto my sub-topic – echo chambers.

I'd always thought I was a writer really. But then I wrote a book and realized I wasn't – or, at least, hadn't been.

Writers write. All the time. And writers have readers. And publishers. And editors.

Writing in an echo chamber – tweeters tweeting to tweeters about tweeting, bloggers blogging about blogging to bloggers – isn't being a writer. It's avoiding writing.

Stop it now and write a book.

I did.

So can you.

And that book is - His Secret Dancer:

Dan's drab life is a world away from his secret life as Danielle, the burlesque star of Tomasz's transvestite nightclub, Trans-Action.

Having found 'her' inner T girl as a student, Danielle has discovered the power of her femininity and her talent to entice and excite - but she realizes that Dan's life is losing the passion it once had.

As Danielle's relationship with Tomasz takes her deeper into both her lover and his world, encountering passions neither thought they dare explore, demure Francine is too often left to her own devices and desires. Her only release is in the fantasies inspired by the customers who pass through her life and her patisserie.

Does she want a man in her life or a woman? Or both…

Seeing her man exploring her wardrobe she decides to embrace the power of her own sexuality. Then a sizzling encounter with Tomasz unlocks the vixen in her and sets their two worlds on a collision course.

Can Dan bring Dan's world and Danielle's together - especially when he discovers Danielle's secret lover secretly loving Francine?

Buy the book –

Breathless Press

Amazon

All Romance

GoodReads

Fabs on the web -

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/FabergeNostromo

Twitter - https://twitter.com/FabergeNostromo

Blog - http://fabergenostromo.blogspot.co.uk

State of the Art

I've been (not so) noticeably absent on my blog. Shameful, I know. I celebrated my one year debut release rather quietly. Not what I had planned but things don't go how I plan so I try not to. Plan that is.

Anyway, Breathless Press authors are having a round robin this month and next. What is a round robin you ask? Come on, I heard you ask, don't deny it. A round robin is similar to a blog hop without the giveaway. I'll be hosting and posting with two Breathless authors in the next few days.

First up and visiting my blog will be the Fabulous Faberge Nostromo, author of His Secret Dancer. Stay tuned for his post - coming June 7th - where he discusses...

Thought I was going to tell you, didn't you? Sorry, you'll have to come back for that. I'll be visiting Fabs on June 10th. Be sure to visit and get to know the other BP authors. I'll update this list as the round robin progresses. Really a great group of writers.

List of other Round Robin participants

Lee Brazil visits Raven McAllan

Raven McAllan visits Dianne Hartsock

Dianne Hartsock visits Lee Brazil

Sally Max visits Dianne Hartsock

Tea Cooper visits Sally Max

Leona Bushman visits Tea Cooper