About Me

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Queensland, Australia
I'm an Australian author of Contemporary Romance, Romantic Action/Adventure, and Historical fiction. I live in Queensland, Australia. www.noelleclark.net

Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Love Least Expected - Rolf's Quest by Aubrey Wynne



Rolf's Quest is another of the stories I'm showcasing in 'Love Least Expected'  -  an anthology from award-winning authors:


Today we have the author of Rolf's Quest, Aubrey Wynne.




Love Least Expected is a collaboration with stories from various genres, including contemporary/erotic/paranormal romance, crime drama, science fiction/fantasy.





A quest for true love brings together two unlikely people, Rolf and Melissa. Everything seems against them and many times they doubt themselves. The clock is ticking.

Aubrey Wynne’s delightful and enchanting tale will tug on your heartstrings. Beautifully written, rich and lyrical, this story will have you reaching for the tissues, and leave you feeling warmly satisfied.

I can’t wait to read more from this author. Highly recommended, along with the other stories in this remarkably diverse anthology of love.

I gladly give Rolf's Quest five stars.

Rolf's Quest

Synopsis:

Baron Rolf Arbrec, the royal wizard for King Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, is burdened with a centuries– old quest to free his descendant , Merlin. To lift the enchantment, he must find true love without the use of magic or deceit, something that has eluded the male generations before him. Finding genuine love is no easy task, even for a wizard, If he cannot break the spell and fails his quest, future generations will be deprived of their chance for happiness. When Melissa steps from his dreams and into his arms, he realizes his need for her love runs deep and she is more than just a way to free Merlin. Lady Melissa Garrick travels to London to meet her betrothed. Along the way, she encounters a man who haunts her dreams and makes her reconsider her destiny. Torn between loyalty to her family and her intense attraction to Rolf, she struggles to remain an obedient daughter. Though she desires him, will she defy her family and turn her back on her betrothed? Or will time run out and Rolf be doomed to a life of discontent and bitterness like his ancestors before him?






Aubrey Wynne resides in the Midwest with her husband, dogs, horses, mule and barn cats. She is an elementary teacher by trade, champion of children and animals by conscience, and author by night. Obsessions include history, travel, trail riding and all things Christmas.

Her debut story, Merry Christmas, Henry, was published in November 2013 by Melange Books, LLC and received Best Short Romance in the Editors and Predators Reader’s Choice of 2013.

Her humorous shorts , Pete’s Mighty Purty Privies (Top 100 Laugh Out Loud List on Goodreads) and To Cast A Cliché are published with Alfie Dog Fiction. 

Social Media:

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/magnificentvalor
Twitter:  Aubreywynne51




Release date for the anthology is February 3rd but it's available now for pre-order! Just click here!

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Got the travel bug?

Friday, January 16, 2015

Keep Calm and Eat Chocolate! Best advice ever!



Keep Calm and Eat Chocolate is the second of the stories I'm showcasing in 'Love Least Expected'  -  an anthology from award-winning authors:




Today we have one of the talented authors from this anthology, Michaela Miles.




Love Least Expected is a collaboration with stories from various genres, including contemporary/erotic/paranormal romance, crime drama, science fiction/fantasy.


Love Least Expected anthology story - 'Keep Calm and Eat
Chocolate'

Synopsis:

Eleanor Carrara is angry. At the world, at the people who had her committed to the institution, and at the people holding her captive in it. When the sexy, but calm and stoic Chris becomes a fellow resident of the facility, things begin to change. He taunts her, challenges her, and even makes her cry. But her anger dissolves as she realises he’s the one person who may be able to break through the armour built around her heart.

Christopher Tailor feels nothing. Haunted by the memories of his awful past, he is institutionalised, and utterly alone in the world. Meeting Elle changes everything. She’s conceited, rude, and completely unaware that in some ways she’s just as broken as he is. But something about her gets under his skin. He takes a chance and shares his secret with her.

Falling in love was the last thing Chris and Elle expected. But for them to consider having a future together, they first have to let go of their past and trust the system imprisoning them both.


I found the setting of this story very intriguing. I can’t ever remember reading any story set in a mental institution – maybe One Flew Over the Cuckoo Nest – but Michaela Miles has imbued this sweet and moving story with a refreshing peek into the private world of a place most of us don’t understand.
Eleanor Carrara is far from being two sandwiches short of a picnic. Instead, I saw her as a victim of greed, bullying, and cruelty. Most would crumble under such circumstances, but Elle is made of stern stuff. She endures life by allowing her anger to simmer as she plots revenge on those who incarcerated her.
When she meets Chris, himself a victim of society’s darker side, she learns to forget about herself and think of others.
This is a heart-warming story of survival, of hope, and of the power of love. Many readers will resonate with the characters who, against all odds, find comfort and happiness in a most unlikely place.

A beautifully written, sometimes poignant, often entertaining story that left me wanting to read more from Michaela Miles. Worth five stars, for sure.




Keep calm and eat chocolate.
                It used to be my favourite motto, and the slogan of our family empire—an empire I was next in line to control until certain family members staged a coup. Now they’re sitting pretty in my house and my company. They spend my money and live it up, while I holiday in this amazing white palace where the lights never go out, and padded rooms is an exaggeration.
                I know everyone in here says this, but I’m not crazy.
                My family, if you could call them that, spent a long time trying to make it look like I am. It worked, or I wouldn’t have questioned myself and sought counselling, and they wouldn’t have put me in this place. I read the regulations once a few months ago: involuntary commitment order under section something of the blah-blah act of some year that’s not as archaic as I imagined.
                Translation: bullshit.
                How can it be legal to institutional someone for refusing medical treatment for a mental illness they don’t bloody well have?
                At least the place reflect the current century. State of the art facilities, comfortable rooms, decent food, and the ability to purchase luxuries if you have the means. Actual money isn’t allowed, of course. If you follow the logic that I’m crazy, then a credit card is a lethal weapon. Everything must been done by fingerprint: access to rooms, our private locker, meds, the lot.
                My day consists of set meal times, menus, exercise, recreation, activity times, therapy sessions, and medications. Not much of a change to my real life actually. Gym session, breakfast with my PA to review my calendar, meetings, correspondence, more meetings, often a function for dinner with a nice piece of man-candy on my arm, a run or a swim, sleep. Repeat.
                Now, though, I don’t have a choice to blow off a meeting or grab a takeaway on my way home from a late night event.
                The only upside to the place I now call home is the gardens. Not only do they obscure the fences, giving an illusion of freedom, but they are quiet and usually unoccupied. Most of the other residents have unnatural phobias involving open spaces, insects, or plants. In Henry’s case it’s the colour green. So I often have an hour or more to myself to focus on taking my real life back.
                I’ve considered everything. I could jump the fence, drug the night staff, cause a riot, start a fire, even hire a helicopter to fly in and pick me up. Anything except participate in the program. I won’t admit to being crazy, and prove the bastards who put me here right.
                That’s never going to happen.
                Instead, I watch and listen. The staff assumes the residents either can’t understand or don’t care, so they talk freely. I know who has money problems, husbands with a bit on the side, naggy ex-wives, and the ones I could bribe to get out— if I had access to my damn money.
                Arseholes. I still can’t believe the people I trusted had me snatched up in the middle of night and committed to this psychiatric facility, especially when they've seen what a vindictive bitch I can be. I bet they think I’m a problem solved. I also bet they haven’t planned on my use of the phone here to retain a new lawyer.
                It’s the only task I’ve spent my time on; the only one I’ve thought about.
Until the day Christopher Tailor arrived.


Bio:

Michaela Miles writes. By day she is a mild-mannered copywriter and web designer, but by night she is consumed by the characters in her head and writes to set them free.

In her spare time, she is primary carer and chief wrangler for a husband and three children, the big boss at her web design company and photography studio, and is completing a Bachelor of English Literature.

Social Media:

Michaela is very active on social media and has an eclectic posting style—humorous writing memes, hump day hunks, quotes, inspirations, interviews, book reviews, and anything that takes her fancy!

Follow her everywhere to keep up to date on publications, interviews, book reviews, social media tips, and more. So come and join the fun and enjoy the ride!




Release date for the anthology is February 3rd but it's available now for pre-order! Just click here!

Thursday, January 15, 2015

Winning the Heiress' Heart - new from Susanne Bellamy

WINNING THE HEIRESS’ HEART
(Book 3 The Emerald Quest)

by Susanne Bellamy



LUAU and LEIS – Online Launch Party


Eva Abbott sells her inheritance in England, Bellerose Manor, to provide for the care of her nephew.
She buys a pineapple plantation in Hawaii but discovers her neighbour, Luc Martineau, will do anything to take it from her.

When Eva discovers a diary, which may solve their financial problems, villains follow her to Hawaii and attempt to force her to reveal the whereabouts of the heirloom emerald necklace.

Is Luc an ally or an enemy? Is he after Eva or her land?
















Enter the GIVEAWAY - $20 Amazon Gift card plus a book pack

And join the online luau launch party on Saturday 17 January from 11am (Daylight Saving Time – east coast Australia) at:







Susanne Bellamy
Susanne is an Australian author of contemporary and suspense romances set in exciting and often exotic locations. Her heroes have to be pretty special to live up to the real life one she married. He saved her life then married her. They live on the edge of bush land on a mountain in beautiful sunny Queensland, Australia with two children and their dog.

Paris will always be one of her top spots, and she fell in love with Scotland when they visited
the west coast (nothing to do with fine single malts!), and recently had her first real trip to Italy--tick off one Bucket List item!  She has enjoyed New Year in Kathmandu and trekked in the Annapurnas, sailed in Ha Long Bay on a junk, and stayed on a floating hotel beside a tethered elephant in Thailand. The Peak in Hong Kong and Mt Faber cable car ride in Singapore are favourite spots. Susanne loves travelling to new places and exploring the culture and history, and meeting new people. These experiences are gradually being incorporated into her stories. Her as yet unrealised dream is a trip into Earth’s orbit.

Susanne is a member of RWA and enjoys mentoring new authors. She is published with Emerald Romance, Escape Publishing, and will be a 2015 release author with Entangled Publishing.

a.       Facebook         https://www.facebook.com/susanne.bellamy.7
b.      Twitter            https://twitter.com/SusanneBellamy 
c.       Website           http://www.susannebellamy.com/
d.      Pinterest          http://www.pinterest.com/susannebellamy/ 


Thursday, January 8, 2015

Love Least Expected - Under the Mango Tree by Meredith Bond



Under the Mango Tree is the first of the stories I'm showcasing in 'Love Least Expected'  -  an anthology from award-winning authors:




Today we have the author of Under the Mango Tree, Meredith Bond.




Love Least Expected is a collaboration with stories from various genres, including contemporary/erotic/paranormal romance, crime drama, science fiction/fantasy.





Under the Mango Tree



Here is my review of Under the Mango Tree.

It was the title of this story that first hooked me. Growing up in the sub-tropics, I know well the allure of summers spent in the branches of a mango tree, the intoxicating aroma of ripe fruit, and the taste of mangoes – still warm from the sun – as they are devoured in great numbers.

This delightful story – part of the Love Least Expected Valentine’s Day Anthology – is a refreshingly different, culturally exotic, and joyful read, right from the first word.

Lakshmi is a girl who stretches the boundaries of the social mores of her 18th Century life in Calcutta, India. The rules surrounding girls, so at odds with the relative freedom accorded male children, are unfair. She tells her brother that it is wrong that he should be allowed to study geography, mathematics, and English when he hates it, whereas she excels at those subjects and indeed, helps him pass his exams.

But as she reaches young womanhood, it’s the other rules that rile her. When she discovers that the rules in her world are not the same in England, she questions why this is so. If English girls can choose their own husbands, why can’t she?


This story left a smile in my heart. I highly recommend it.


Synopsis:

Lakshmi is a good 18th century Indian girl who should not be avoiding her chores and enjoying a mango while hidden amongst the high branches of the mango tree in her mother’s garden. She truly should not be seen by a man who is not a member of her family –– an Englishman, no less. And she absolutely should not even contemplate speaking with this man. But Lakshmi has never been one to follow the rules. This time, though, it could ruin–– or make––the rest of her life.





Bio:

Meredith Bond is an award– winning author of a series of traditionally published Regency romances and indie– published paranormal historical romances. Known for her characters “who slip readily into one’s heart,” Meredith’s heart belongs to her husband and two children, who have recently abandoned her to seek higher education.

While Meredith’s passion is writing, her second favorite pastime is teaching others to write. If you want a taste of her class in book form, Chapter One is available at your favorite e– retailer and you can always find articles on writing and self– publishing at her blog and always stay on top of what's happening with Meredith through her newsletter.









Social Media:

http://meredithbond.com/
https://www.facebook.com/meredithbondauthor





Release date for the anthology is February 3rd but it's available now for pre-order! Just click here!

Monday, January 5, 2015

Meet Angela Parson Myers

Today’s guest author is Angela Parson Myers from Illinois, USA.




Angela, who also writes as AH Myers, was born and reared in Southern Illinois and spent three years of a checkered educational history at the university where most of her first novel takes place. She worked several years as a staff writer for a regional newspaper before becoming a communications specialist for a Fortune 500 Corporation, where she spent fifteen years writing and editing press releases, newsletters, newspapers, and magazine articles. She and her high school sweetheart now live in a small town in Central Illinois, where they somewhat successfully masquerade as normal grandparents.


Angela, it’s wonderful to have you visit my blog today.
Your full-length novel, When the Moon is Gibbous and Waxing, has received wide acclaim from readers.  (Read full reviews here.)

“…This book has excellent character development and a plot that is based on self-realization which is unusual for a first book. The story moves quickly beginning with the first page and never lags. Natalie's secret is manifest under a full moon and a life-or-death situation. Being a research assistant in biological labs she must find out why this has happened to her and how it started. The plot emphasis is not on violence but on the frightening discovery of her secret and the discovery of her long-hidden family roots…”
“…This is a beautiful and sometimes gruesome story about a young woman scientist who unexpectedly finds her true identity...”     “…Well written and poetic at times, this book about family and friendship will keep you absorbed until the end. The characters are so well drawn and believable, you feel you have known them all your life. Highly recommended as a love story and a thriller…”

How long have you been writing?
I started reading voraciously as soon as I learned how, and I remember daydreaming stories from then on. But I don’t remember actually writing anything down until I was 10 or 11. I think I started writing poetry first. I still have a copy of one of the poems I wrote at that age, and I still like it.

Can you tell readers what inspired you to write Natalie’s story in ‘When the Moon was Gibbous and Waxing’?
The entire first scene in the novel is a close adaptation of a nightmare I had years ago. It was so vivid that when I (Natalie in the story) turned to attack my attackers, I growled out loud. It woke me up. And hubby, who can sleep through tornadoes, sat straight up in bed and said, “What was THAT? It sounded like some kind of animal!” I couldn’t get back to sleep for laughing. 

I thought about that nightmare for years. What would it be like to reach adulthood and suddenly discover you’re something you never thought even existed—and that others think is evil personified? Then one day while I was thinking about it, Natalie walked up to me (in my head, of course—I’m not THAT crazy) and said, “Hi, I’m Natalie, and I want you to write my story.”

Boy! That is amazing. Creepy, but amazing. Apart from being visited by nocturnal 'animals' and having nightmares, what research did you undertake to write this novel?
People give me odd looks when I say I did research to write a novel about a werewolf. But among other things, I interviewed a nurse to make sure Michael’s injury and treatment were correct, a veterinarian to find out about the differences between human and canine blood, and a graduate student in biology at the University of Illinois to make sure I was correct about Natalie’s responsibilities and classes. (At the U of I, unlike at other universities, master’s candidates do research and write dissertations,) I was already very familiar with the area where the story takes place, since I spent three years there as a student and helped both daughters when they took classes there. I did NOT read about werewolves. I already knew the popular stories, but I didn’t want to stick to the familiar myths. I wanted to create my own back story for the werewolves.

Can readers expect similar themed books in the future?
My new novelette is quite different—a romance—but it has a paranormal element. I have another series of novelettes started that are futuristic paranormals. Pretty much everything I write has some kind of paranormal connection. See below for more about Natalie and Michael.

You’ve written many short stories and novellas. Is there one you would pick as your favorite?
I like them all for different reasons, even the couple of “literary” ones, but if I had to pick an absolute favorite, it’d be All On a Summer’s Day, which is kind of dark humour. See the two kids on the cover? That’s my sister and I. I’m the one with the wild blond hair. And that’s a hint that the story is highly autobiographical. I wrote it as fiction only because I collapsed the timeline.

What are you working on right now?
I’m working on another novel with Natalie and Michael that takes place about five years later, when their lives take another big change of direction and they discover that werewolves aren’t the only creatures that roam the night. I see a possibility of four novels in this series.

When you’re not writing, what do you like to do?
I like to travel. Hubby and I have a daughter and two grandkids near Denver, so we visit there often. We’ve also been all over the US and to Scotland. To tell the truth, though, hubby doesn’t like to travel. So to satisfy my wanderlust between the journeys I can talk him into taking, I take frequent short trips without him, and I love to take photos wherever I go. I share them on Facebook, and the best ones hang on the walls of our house. I tell hubby we need to buy a bigger house so I can have more walls.

I've seen some of your photos on Facebook. They're lovely. Angela, thanks very much for allowing me to interview you today. I hope you enjoyed visiting as much as I've loved having you here. It's a long way from Illinois to Australia, but thanks to the internet, it's a short trip.

Blurb for ‘When the Moon is Gibbous and Waxing’

Unspeakable evil rises with the moon...

Graduate student Natalie Beres can't remember who attacked her that autumn night under the full moon. She can't remember anything between leaving her lab in a secluded building at the south end of campus and arriving at her apartment in the wee hours of the morning. Covered in blood. Not her own. Other than the loss of memory, she's completely unharmed.

She can't say the same for the men who attacked her. The grisly campus murders force Natalie to dig deeper into what happened that night, to force herself to remember. But what she learns about herself is horrifying. When the police officer investigating the murders tries to get close, Natalie is caught between her attraction to him and her fear of discovery. But worse, can she avoid being found by the young man with a similar problem who's on his way from the West coast to find her...leaving a trail of shredded corpses along the way...?

Buy links for When the Moon is Gibbous and Waxing
Amazon http://tinyurl.com/7qsbygt
All Romance eBooks http://tinyurl.com/75qqbwb
Barnes and Noble http://tinyurl.com/7zn72bz



Blurb for ‘The Will to Love’

A Cinderella story with a fairy godmother who is a dead billionaire Texas oilman, a handsome prince who is very much alive--and rattlesnakes.

At only 49 pages, a quick feel-good read for those times when you don't want to get involved in a full-sized book. Or just because...:

Buy links for The Will to Love
Amazon:  http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KRQ3EG4








Contact details:
Twitter https://twitter.com/angelaparson
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/AngelaParsonMyers.author?ref=br_tf
Web   http://angelaparsonmyers.blogspot.com.au/


Saturday, January 3, 2015

It's Aussie Month!

It's that time of year when we celebrate all things Australian.

This year, AusRom Today has a
massive cash giveaway. It's easy to be in the running for big prizes and at the same time, get to meet 93 of Australia's hottest Romance authors.

Click here for details.

It's Aussie Month here at AusRom Today!!!

Our $1000 CASH prize pool competition has now started—have you entered to win? There's three major cash prizes to be won:
1st: $700 CASH
2nd: $200 CASH
3rd: $100 CASH

Enter now!