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Showing posts with label Aurelia B. Rowl. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Aurelia B. Rowl. Show all posts

Thursday, March 7, 2013

Catching Up with Allie A. Burrow


 
Morning, folks! Today I’m bringing sassy Allie A Burrow from across the pond for a chat. For those of you who don’t know, Allie is the raunchier alter ego of Aurelia B Rowl, who also happens to be my fabulous critique partner. We’ll be talking about writing across genres and her erotic romance debut as Allie, For One Night Only, part of the Serviced anthology from Breathless Press. Phew. Got all that?

 
v  Your debut romance, Christmas is Cancelled, has a much lower heat level than For One Night Only. You’re also writing a YA book. How hard is it to write across different genres?

 
To be honest, they really not so different – I still write a nice, almost ‘sweet’ romance, but can change up or down the language to suit. I’d like to think my voice remains the same across the range, so you still have a good idea of what you’re going to get.

 
v  I’ve noticed that you have a strong online presence for both your pen names. Both Allie and Aurelia have their own websites, blogs and Facebook pages. Being a stay-at-home mom of two, how do you find time for all that promoting?

 
Well, I admit, something has to give. Usually the housework. Plus I tend to shelve trying to write anything when a book releases, giving myself a week or two to give it the best possible start, before returning to my works in progress.

 
v  What’s the best thing about being a published author? The worst thing?

 
The best thing about being a published author is knowing that people are out there, reading my stories, with many of them taking the time to review my work. That is also the worst thing, however, as it’s a bit like being in a permanent state of paranoia, hoping that readers like you.

 
v  Can you describe For One Night Only à la Twitter style, with 140 characters or fewer?

 
140 characters? Ouch! Umm...
Corporal Mark Butler is back in the country for one night only, and Kate isn't about to let the opportunity pass her by...


 
v  What’s next for you?

 
Who knows!?

I have so many projects on the go, but external influences (including the UK government!) keep changing the order in which I can do them. My current project is a Young Adult romance that I really hope to get finished in the first half of this year, so that I can send it off to a publisher. After that, I’ll see which characters shout the loudest, and there are certainly plenty of projects for me to return to.

 
Thanks for stopping by, Allie! And good luck! J

Thanks Carmen, and thank you for having me, it’s lovely to be here.

Oh, and there's more...


About Allie…

 

Short version

 

Allie A Burrow is the raunchier alter-ego of contemporary romance author, Aurelia B Rowl.

 

She lives on the edge of the Peak District in the UK with her very understanding husband and their two fantastic children aged 6 and 4, along with their mad rescue mutt who doesn’t mind being used as a sounding post and source of inspiration. They are all used to her getting too caught up with her latest writing project... or five!... and she is guiltily counting down the months until she has both kids at school full-time.  

 

To find out more about Allie, or to check out what projects she's working on right now, you can visit her website www.allieaburrow.com

 

You can also find her hanging out on:

 








YouTube (as Aurelia)

 

 

 

About Serviced…

 

Erotic romance anthology
Release date: 1 March 2013
Publisher: Breathless Press
ISBN: 978-1-77101-022-1
Heat level: 5
Word count: 65,000+

 

Short blurb

 

All's fair in love and war, they say. Come find out if it's true in these ten stories where soldiers prove that their skills in the field are only rivaled by their skills in the bedroom.


Links…

 


 


Buy links:

 





Barnes & Noble – coming soon

iTunes – coming soon

 

 

For One Night Only by Allie A Burrow

 

Kate Powell only went and fell for the soldier she’d met just once before he had to jet off on a year-long posting overseas.

 

Seven months in, and Kate is hornier than a blue wildebeest in mating season with only her battery-powered friend for relief. Her skills as a pen-pal scale new heights, but then a text message arrives out of the blue.

 

Corporal Mark Butler is back in the country for one night only, and Kate isn’t about to let the opportunity pass her by. After all, who needs a vibrator when the real thing comes calling?

 

Excerpt

 

Safely enveloped in the darkness of the alcove, the bass pounded through the soles of Kate's boots and echoed inside her ribs. She lunged and caught Mark’s face in her hands, pulling him down to kiss him, her tongue forcing a route past his surprised lips and delving into the wetness of his mouth. "Take me," she breathed. Her hand stole over the carved ridges of his stomach, following the arrow-shaped path down to where it disappeared inside his jeans. "Please..."

 

His mouth opened and closed and he glanced over his shoulder at the heaving dance floor. "But—"

 

"No buts." She reached for his fly, undoing it quickly, but instead of finding another layer of clothing, his dick sprang free and elicited a gasp from her throat. "I need this"—she fisted her hand around it, stroking him, and his eyes squeezed shut, his jaw jutting out as his head tipped back—"I need you...inside me"—she swirled her hand over the engorged head and his entire body jerked—"now."

 

Mark's eyes flew open and even in the dim lighting, she saw his pupils dilate, the naked desire on his face almost frightening. His fingers skipped over the back of her neck and lost themselves in her hair, getting tangled in the shoulder-length tresses she had loosely pinned up. The gentle touch was at odds with the fierce hunger in his gaze. Electric shocks surged through the many nerve endings, connected directly to her core, and she had to lean into his hand, let him support the weight of her head, suddenly too heavy to keep upright under her own steam.

 

He tilted it back and locked his gaze onto hers, issuing her with a challenge. "If we're going to do this"—he leaned into her, his lips rasping her ear—"right here, right now"—his gravelly voice resonated within her, hungry, powerful—"we're doing it my way."

 

Staggered by the transformation from man to soldier, her need for him ramped up another notch and it was all she could do to move her head the tiniest fraction. His eyes searched hers for an answer, the wait agonizing, until finally, he dipped his head. Achingly tender, his lips flitted over the top of hers, like rose petals blowing in the wind. Her eyelids fluttered closed, cracking under the strain of keeping them open.

 

Sweet, yet maddening, Kate yearned to take control and deepen the kiss, but he broke off every time she tried before catching her lower lip between his teeth as if to punish her. Their sharp edges sank into her swollen flesh without breaking the surface, his tongue immediately soothing any pain. The all-conquering, take-no-prisoners warrior had arrived.

 

 

Over A Dead Body by Leona Bushman

 

Riker thought he'd be meeting a friend and instead found him dead. When NCIS is called in, Riker's ex is there, looking as hot as ever. Even though the sight of her forced him to realize how much he missed her and wanted her, meeting her over a dead body with blood on his hands made it unlikely he'd get what he wanted—Edie.

 

Edie loved her job as a lead NCIS investigator, but why did it have to be Riker who found this murdered person? Riker had left her a few weeks before marriage, spouting logic and distance. Her heart remained cold, but her body steamed when he touched her.



Could she clear his name and forgive him or would the killers get to him first?

 

 

Reds, Whites, and Blues by Mickey J. Corrigan

 

He was stationed in Key West during the Vietnam War when he met the arty girl who didn't capitalize her name. She was cute, but strange, the kind of a hippie chick who usually shunned soldiers like himself. But sometimes opposites attract. Sometimes they have sex on the beach. And sometimes you can't forget them.
 

 

Leave Taking by Angelica Dawson

 

Will has a surprise for his wife for the tenth anniversary.

 

He's coming home.

 

 


First Date – The Italian Colonel by Jesabelle Jones

 

There are fireworks when horny English nanny, Leonie, meets squadron commander, Colonel Luca Giordano - the sex is hot, and it's only the first date.

 

 

Major’s Minah by Raven McAllan

 

Oliver knew his duty, he needed a wife and heir. Minah knew what she wanted—him. Could his ideals and her dreams be the same? There was only one way to find out...

 

 

Knock Out by Natalia Petrovskii

 

Warrant Officer Ryan Wilson is handsome and arrogant and Corporal Nicole Muchmore enjoys taking out her frustration against him on the sparring mat. One day the tables turn and before she knows what is happening he is exacting a punishment of another kind-this time totally pleasurable.

 

 

A Chance At Love by Shelli Rosewarne

 

Corporal Aidan Hamilton has the unenviable job of telling his best friend’s sister that her brother isn’t coming back. This is slightly complicated by the fact that from the moment he meets Suzanne Kelsey he knows she’s everything he’s ever wanted. While Suzanne might need someone to lean on at the moment, can he convince her that what they have is more than a short term fling?

 

Suzanne had always told her big brother that being a soldier was too dangerous, so when she sees the uniformed officer in front of her house she knows exactly what he’s here to tell her. While Aidan may set her blood on fire, Suzanne has already lost one soldier she loved and she’s not prepared to trust her heart to another one.

 

 

Taking Command by Zara Stoneley

 

Mike Sands knows that loving a soldier can lead to heartache, so when he falls hard for his best mates little sister he knows he has to walk away.

 

But can Jade let him, when one taste has left her desperate for more? Or dare she take command of the situation and prove to both of them that maybe what they have is worth taking a risk over?

 

Sometimes one night of passion is not enough, sometimes you just have to stop thinking about the future and live in the present.

 

 


Riding Out The Storm by Natalia Petrovskii

 

Corporal Anna Jordan keeps her secret fantasies about her superior officer, Lieutenant Kyle Campbell, well hidden. When the two must take shelter from a winter storm during a training exercise she has no idea her wildest dreams are about to come true!

 

 

Friday, December 21, 2012

Aurelia B. Rowl dishes on Americanizing -- her vocabulary, that is!

Season's Greetings, folks!

Today the talented Aurelia B. Rowl is here with us.  

Aurelia, take it away...



The sun was blazing down, and the crystal blue water in the swimming pool glistened and sparkled as the sound of my children’s laughter rang out. Yes, I wrote a large chunk of Christmas Is Cancelled whilst on a family holiday, staying in a gorgeous villa in Majorca along with my husband’s family.

It was great.

But not exactly conducive to writing a winter story, complete with snowy hills and Christmas carols. I then finished the story during the Summer – if you can call what we had here in the UK “Summer”, it was more of a damp squib – but nevertheless, the story turned out fine.

Editing was positively painless; just a few run-on sentences, repeated words/phrases, some simultaneous actions and, the one I had to look up (hooray for the internet)… the occasional misplaced modifier. The actual content wasn’t touched and I took a great deal of pride from the fact my first ever completed manuscript wasn’t ripped to shreds.

But can you guess what I did stumble over during the edits? Especially the pre-edits stage?

I’ll give you a clue… I am British. My publisher is Canadian. My editor is American.

You think writing a book in English would be easy, wouldn’t you, what with being English and living in England? Think again…

My first task was the change the default dictionary in MS Word from UK English to US English. That took care of changing a lot of my ‘s’ to ‘z’, for example: recognising became recognizing, psychoanalyse became psychoanalyze. Okay, cool. Got that. It also removed some extraneous double ‘l’ words, for example: travelled became traveled, revelled became reveled… And, of course, my ‘re’ endings became ‘er’, for example: centre became center.

Then came the trickier ones: manoeuvre became maneuver, prised became pried, kerb became curb, grey became gray, and hob had to be removed altogether to be replaced by stove. I even lost some of my ‘st’ endings, like whilst, and amongst. At least there weren’t any bonnets to convert to hoods, or boots to convert to trunks. Yet a surprising number of words were simply lost in translation, very strange, and I found myself wondering when English to English had become so tricky?

Does that mean I now write in US English all the time, like several British authors have taken to doing? Heck no, I’d never get anything finished. It would be akin to peeling my fingernails off to consciously spell words ‘incorrectly’, and I doubt I could train myself, even if I wanted to. And how bad would I feel when my young son brought his spellings home from school, and I made him get some wrong because I was still in US mode?

Uh-uh! No, thank you. Did you feel the tremor when I shuddered? I shall continue to write in my home language. If a manuscript gets picked up by another US/Canadian publisher, I’ll worry about translating it – ha!! – then, and not before. I may even get a British publisher next time and would only have to change it all back again, after taking twice the length of time to write it in American to begin with. And you can be sure my self-published titles will be published in UK English, even if I have to include a glossary at the back.

I know I can’t be the only one, and it would be interesting to see how other British authors get around the writing in US English conundrum. Do you write in ‘American’ as you go, or do you translate after? And if you’re an American (or Canadian) reader, what UK English words trip you up and make you scratch your head, or fire up trusty Google?


About Christmas is Cancelled…

 
Matilda 'Tilly' Carter didn't think her day could get any worse, but even Christmas had just been cancelled.

The one girl Dean Watson has sworn never to have—never even expected to see again—just flared back into his life and into his home—his sanctuary—like she belonged there. Christmas would certainly be more bearable with Tilly around though…

As the chinks in Dean's armor appear, Tilly seizes the chance to win her knight once and for all. She's not about to take no for answer—not this time—but Dean must resist, even as his heart rebels and temptation threatens to undermine his resolve.

Win or lose? Love or honor? Which will Dean choose? Assuming he gets a choice…

 
Excerpt

 

Tears welled in her eyes, clouding her vision. She turned and wandered blindly toward the exit as the first tear escaped, forging a track down her cheek for the rest to follow. Tilly took in a lungful of air and then another. Having made a spectacle of herself once already, she really didn't want to be the cause of yet another scene.

 

The crowds swarmed around her, with students and family members heading home for the holidays only adding to the usual rush-hour melee of commuters. They jostled past, threatening to swallow her whole, as they rushed en mass in the opposite direction, using their briefcases and suitcases as a battering ram.

 

It was suffocating. She had to get out of there. Breaking into a run, broken heel or not, she raced through the doors and out into the biting December chill. Her waterlogged eyes struggled to adjust to the dark, dreary sky after the bright station lights, but she didn't dare slow down, desperate to escape the throng of festivities and merriment.

 

Carol singers assembled outside burst into a jovial rendition of "We Wish You a Merry Christmas," full of joy and happiness. Didn't they know Christmas had just been cancelled?

 

"Ooof!" Tilly smacked her shin against the edge of a low bench, too dark to see as she tried to dodge the growing audience. She ended up sprawled across the bench, dropping the handle of her suitcase with a loud clatter.

 

At least the pain shooting down her leg gave her an excuse to be crying. Unfortunately, it meant she had to stop running too. Not good. Whenever things got too tough, too intimate, or too confrontational, you could rely on her to make a run for it. Running away was what she did best...

 

A tall figure loomed in the edge of her vision, something vaguely familiar about the man's loping gait. In an effort to see him more clearly, she wiped her eyes with the back of her hands, then cringed inwardly at the black streaks now etched all over them. Great. She could add impersonating a panda to her day from hell as well then.

 

The mascara stung her eyes, rendering her unable to focus properly. She blinked furiously as the man strode past her, talking into a mobile phone in a deep voice that resonated throughout her body and made the fine hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. A surge of adrenaline rushed to her legs, numbing the pain as her subconscious told her to run. Now!

 

The cloaked figure stopped mid-stride as if he'd heard her gasp. "Mike, I've gotta go," he barked into the phone, hanging up instantly. He backtracked until he was standing right in front of her, his tone changing from a growl to one of surprise. "Basmati?"

 

Great. She hadn't heard the nickname for years—nine years, four months and...sixteen days, to be exact—and even then, only one person had ever actually used it. She screwed her eyes tightly shut, shaking her head from side to side. No. No way. There was absolutely no way this could be happening to her. Not now. Not today of all days... Talk about kicking a girl when she was down.

 
Buy links:
 
Breathless Press
Amazon
Amazon UK
All Romance Books
Bookstrand



Barnes & Noble – coming soon

iTunes – coming soon



About Aurelia…

 
Aurelia B Rowl is a contemporary romance author but you can also find her masquerading as Allie A Burrow, her raunchier alter-ego.

 
She lives on the edge of the Peak District in the UK with her very understanding husband and their two fantastic children aged 5 and 3, along with their mad rescue mutt who doesn’t mind being used as a sounding post and source of inspiration. They are all used to her getting too caught up with her latest writing project... or five!... and she is guiltily counting down the months until she has both kids at school full-time.  

 
To find out more about Aurelia, or to check out what projects she's working on right now, you can visit her website www.aureliabrowl.com

 

You can also find her hanging out on:

 









Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Happy Thanksgiving, folks!


 
This is the time to say thanks. Some of you might totally backlash the people on Facebook who have been giving thanks every day for a different thing. You might say they should be thankful every day and not just during the month of November. People, wake up – this is like saying we should give each other gifts every day and not just during Christmas. Or give little romantic surprises to our loved ones every month and not only during February. Oh, hey, wait a moment… I see the trend here.

Well, because I’m too lazy to post on Facebook every day, I’m just compiling everything here and honestly hope this won’t make you throw up. If you do, blame it on Aunt Bertha’s sketchy cranberry sauce.

I’m super thankful for my readers who keep buying my book.

Thanks to my support system: my extraordinary critique partners: Cara Carnes, my fabulous Austin-based writing buddy whom I love to stalk; Aurelia B. Rowl, a force of nature in so many ways – thanks for helping me when I really needed it; and the talented Michele de Winton, I can't wait to start spamming your inbox, LOL.  And also Annie Seaton and Hayson Manning, two amazing writers who have turned into lifelong friends, I’m sure.

Thanks to my hubby, for always making sure I have time to write. He says when I don’t write I get moody. As if! :)

Thanks to my daughter, Scarlett, for always showing me what my priorities are, even when I try to fool myself.

And of course, thanks to my family and best friends, particularly my good friend Dina, who’s kindly invited us over for Thanksgiving dinner! Which means I can get away with bringing wine and flowers – if that’s not a great reason to be thankful, I don’t know what is. :)

Okay. There it is!

Now go get that cranberry sauce stain off your blouse before it’s too late… and Happy Thanksgiving! :)
Until later,
Carmen