Wild Rose to Carina - Welcome Taryn Kincaid!

Hi, Taryn!

Great to have you visit with me again today. Since we last spoke you have signed a contract with Carina Press so huge congrats! They look a brilliant publisher and I am thinking about submitting something to them in the future.

I wish you loads of luck with sales and look forward to hearing more about the release in the interview, so let's get started!

1) When and why did you decide you wanted to be a published author?

Hmm. I want to say “always.” As an undergraduate English major, immersed in all things F. Scott Fitzgerald for a semester, I kind of thought that drinking in Paris and dancing in fountains in New York seemed very fine, an awesome goal, something I might want to do. Until I learned that the Fitzgeralds, especially Zelda, were more or less loony-tunes, and that I am neither much of a drinker nor the sort of exhibitionist comfortable dancing in fountains. But still…it’s more fun than being an unpublished author!

2) What is the best and worse thing you have learned from an editor/agent?

I want to give a shout out to Trish Owens of The Wild Rose Press’ Scarlet Rose line, my first editor. Trish edited Sleepy Hollow Dreams. One of her pet peeves is the word “move.” I’ve also come to think it’s not all that. There’s always a better word, a more right word. I’m sort of partial to “sidle.” Also learning to stamp out (as opposed to “move”) “filter” words like “felt” and “heard” when I find them.

3) Favourite author/s?

Depends on the day. I often go in spurts. A Regency-reading jag. A paranormal jag. Lately I love Nalini Singh and Larissa Ione. I’m just starting Zoe Archer’s Blade of the Rose series, which was highly recommended to me. If I like the first book in a series, I’ve got to get them all!

4) What is your typical day?

Eh. I’m a lawyer. You really don’t want to know about my typical day. Trust me.

5) Share your blurb or short excerpt from your latest release with us.

Here is the blurb from HEALING HEARTS:

As a girl, Emma Whiteside asked Adam Caldwell, Viscount Riverton, to wait for her to be of marriageable age. Now, twelve years later, Emma hates Adam as much as she once loved him, holding the former army major responsible for the death of her brother on the battlefield.

Adam already blames himself for the loss of the men under his command. But the fiery young woman Emma's become sparks his arousal, as well as emotions Adam thought long dead. The passion between them makes him want to reclaim the man he was before the war.

Though she tries to hold on to her hatred, Emma's longing for Adam is undeniable, especially after the two share a smoldering kiss. Still, Adam is certain no woman would want a man so damaged. Can Emma prove him wrong?

And here is an excerpt:

The wind blew off the sea, moaning and wild, buffeting the man pacing the cliffs.

Hidden by a wall of rock, Emma Whiteside shielded her eyes against the bite of salt spray and continued to watch him, as she did every dawn.

Today, she thought. Today she would approach him at last. Confront him. Give him the royal tongue-lashing he deserved.
She had nothing left to lose, after all. And she might not have the opportunity tomorrow. Or ever again.

The things I will say to you, Riverton, will peel the skin from your bones and lay you lower than anything Napoleon's Grande Armée had to offer.

A small voice nagged Emma from within, the advice reasonable considering her current dire circumstances. Better to seek the man's aid than chide him. But she snapped her mind closed against the unwanted counsel. The viscount was the last man on earth she'd ever ask for help.

Grief chilled her, numbed her heart, deadened the tender feelings she'd once had for him. Only her need for vengeance broke through her frozen emotions now. She longed to set Riverton in his place, however little effect her words might have on a man so impervious to remorse.

But once again Emma could neither confront him nor beseech him. The evidence of his stiff-necked pride—and her own—continued to hold her back with as much force as if an unseen hand pressed down upon her shoulder. She glared in the man's direction, as if it were his hand oppressing her.

Fierce gusts punished him, impeding his tortured progress. Pain twisted his handsome features but he confronted the gale without flinching. A tiny chip splintered off from the ice sheath encasing Emma's heart.

Damn him.

How do you bear it, Riverton? Are you made of stone?

She knew he was not. She saw the agony against which he fought, the stalwart way he pushed himself onward, despite the uneven gait that hampered his progress.

A cold blast of wind whistled past, ripping the hood of Emma's cloak aside, whipping her hair against her neck. The frigid current stung her eyes, wringing reluctant tears. She blinked the moisture away and rubbed the damp trail from her cheeks.

No tears, she instructed herself. Not for him. Never for him.

Riverton wore no coat or cravat. His linen flapped about him, white shirttails torn from his trousers—an unlikely flag of surrender when he refused to give quarter.

Did you stand so against the French?

Emma could think of no oath dark enough to curse a man so remarkably stoic. She envisioned him in her mind's eye, saber raised, hastening up and down the lines, shouting at his men to hold: Major Adam Caldwell, Viscount Riverton, at his most courageous.

She shuddered, conjuring the brutal attack that haunted her grimmest moments, the scene clouded by smoke and thunder, blurred by the limits of her grief and imagination. The battle where her twin had fallen, belly pierced by an enemy bayonet.

Michael admired you so, Riverton. I will never stop blaming you. 'Tis time you knew it.

Anger burned within her breast, bright as her love for the viscount once had.

And yet...her gaze swept him again, lingering on the trousers that molded his muscular thighs, the loose shirt that emphasized the breadth of his shoulders. 'Twas but the vicious wind that stole her breath, she told herself.

You can find more excerpts and reviews on the Healing Hearts page of my blog, http://dreamvoyagers.blogspot.com

6) Who would you cast to play your hero & heroine in a movie?

I never really know how to answer this. Adam and Emma are so clear in my head, I can’t picture actors! Angela Waters captured them perfectly on the cover of Healing Hearts. Especially Adam. His scars. His five o’clock shadow. I drool. He has beautiful eyelashes, don’t you think?

7) Did you plan this book? Or write it as it came?

Adam has lived in my head for a while. He is based on a character I wrote some years ago, whose story never really went anywhere because the heroine was kind of ridiculous and the plot was kind of non-existent! But then Emma introduced herself to me and from the first scene, in which she spies on Adam from afar, she had me wanting to tell her tale. Really got me going. Not sure where we were all going, but we were going. Definitely wrote it as it came.

8) What surprised you the most when you became a published?

That people you don’t know actually read your books! And often comment on them, even have discussions about them. And, also, the amount of work and time involved in promoting and selling. I don’t think most aspiring authors realize how much of a business publishing is until they get that first contract.

9) Do you have a dedicated writing space? What does it look like?

I have a den that’s between my kitchen and living room. Usually, it is piled high with books, papers, boxes, junk, clothes, hangers (it’s got a pretty roomy closet that’s still not big enough for the overflow!) I have hoarder tendencies, it seems. I work better when it is clean. It is almost never clean!

10) What’s next for you?

Lots of super sekrit stuff in the works, including a romantic suspense, which is a real departure for me. And I’d like to revisit Sleepy Hollow one of these days. Paranormals and historicals. Love ‘em.

Come visit me on my blog at http://dreamvoyagers.blogspot.com

I’m on Twitter at http://twitter.com/TarynKincaid

And on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/#!/taryn.kincaid1

Healing Hearts is available now at CarinaPress.com, Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other on-line booksellers.

Taryn & I are looking forward to your questions and comments!