If your a regular reader or frequent visitor of Jorie Loves A Story, you know I’ve been smitten with the novelists who publish their relationship-based Romances with ChocLitUK for a good two years now! I love being on the cusp of learning about a ‘new release’ whilst I remain patient to see if the Digital First new ChocLit novel will make it to a print release further down the road of it’s lifetime. I don’t mind the gaps between the ebooks and the print editions – as it’s always given me the pleasure of balancing my ‘next ChocLit reads’ to include both Front List and Back List offerings. Thus, I am enjoying being a member of the Reveal Team at ChocLit whilst it gives me a chance to introduce my readers to a variety of sub-genres within Romance I appreciate picking up to read!
On my new position as a ChocLit Star member: Whilst I am part of the ChocLit Reviewers having brought reviews & guest author features to Jorie Loves A Story for the past two years, I have recently become a part of the Cover Reveal Team, as disclosed when I hosted the first Reveal on behalf of Sheryl Browne’s ‘Learning to Love’. This new team works with ChocLit providing honest feedback on ‘projects’ such as title & book cover design choices as well projects in development on behalf of the publisher. I accepted being a ChocLit Star as I felt my love of the stories would be a good fit to give in-depth responses to the projects pitched to the Stars. Therefore, when I blogged about the cover for “Revenge is Sweet” it was the first reveal where my input as a ChocLit Star helped the reveal become possible!
Celebrating the Paranormal Romances of Christina Courtenay
& her “Shadows of the Past” series
Read the author’s thoughts on writing Time Slips via her Guest Post
(which focuses on this series)
The Silent Touch of Shadows began the series
The Soft Whisper of Dreams is the sequel to The Secret Kiss of Darkness
& today’s cover reveal is about the fourth story next in sequence!
I’ve been wanting to soak back inside this series for the past two years – time & tide kept keeping me away from the story’s heart, I must admit! It’s partially why I was inspired to spend 2016 focusing on the serial fiction by ChocLit authors, as I knew I had two series by Ms Courtenay I wanted to be reading next in queue in-between my next review choices – her Kinross series & Shadows from the Past are far too tempting to let time continue to slip through my fingers!
The interesting bit to note is that it was ‘The Silent Touch of Shadows’ which first introduced me to the collective works of Ms Courtenay, and what a blessing it was to disappear inside this world she created for us to wander around – as it was both alluring as it was cautionary! I was on the pins of my nerves for most of the novel as you simply had no way of knowing how it would pan out in the end & if the ending was one you could live with finding as the resolution!
I knew from that moment forward I would want to travel through her bibliography – seeing how she would tempt me into the historical past but also, how your Young Adult novels might be ones I could appreciate as much as her PNR stories. I look forward to spending more hours inside her novels, but today, it’s simply a wicked sweet joy of mine to be helping to ring in the next novel in sequence for a series that simply charmed me at first meeting!
On my Connection to Ms. Courtenay:
Two years ago, on the 26th of April, 2014, I created #ChocLitSaturday a weekly Rom chat to celebrate the novelists of ChocLitUK but also, to expand to include book bloggers, readers and writers of Romance who have a penchant for the genre as a whole. Ms. Courtenay started to become a regular fixture, and her encouraging conversations & ability to inspire others to converse freely throughout the chats put me at ease in my new role as a ‘Hostess’. She always seemed to know how to either start a topic or how to best suggest something to break the ice! I was always so very grateful to her and I am thinking I might have forgotten to tell her directly how much gratitude I had for her in those earlier chats! Over the weeks that have followed, I have found myself attached to each of my ‘regular’ chatters during the hour, and I consider Ms. Courtenay a bookish like-minded soul, as we tend to appreciate the same types of stories!
I am disclosing this, to assure you that I can formulate an honest opinion, even though I have interacted with Courtenay through our respective love & passion of reading inside the twitterverse whilst I host #ChocLitSaturday the chat and having previously read her time slip novels. I treat each book as a ‘new experience’, whether I personally know the author OR whether I am reading a book by them for the first time or continuing to read their releases as they are available.
The Golden Chain
The Legend of the Gypsy Hawk
