Stephanie Cage - Writer

This week I'm taking a break from blogging my novel to chat with friend and crime writer Angela Wren.  Angela, you’re a member of both the Romantic Novelists’ Association and the Crime Writers’ Association, and your books have elements of both crime and romance to them. What drew you to these two very different genres, and how do you balance them in your stories? Accident times 2 drew me to these genres! Once I’d made up my mind that I could write a full novel it just so happened that my idea for that story was built around a romance. Being a member of the RNA gave me access to the New Writers’ Scheme and Le Cerisier – the name of that particular work – was submitted twice. My second story also involved a romance but intrigue too. That was submitted to the NWS twice and came back the second time with some comments about balancing the story across the two different genres. I started my third novel, Messandrierre, which I had always known was a dark tale, but I could no...

I'm excited that my romance Perfect Partners has been selected to appear in an ebook bundle along with some of my favourite Crimson Romance authors including J Arlene Culiner, who I interviewed on my blog way back in 2015.   The collection features a selection of romances set around the large and small screens, and although I can't help thinking that the inclusion of Perfect Partners  in a Hollywood themed collection may be cheating a little - it's actually based around a UK dance show filmed in London and Blackpool - I'm delighted my book will be in such good company. It's up for preorder now on Amazon UK , and at £1.99 for six full-length stories, it's cheaper than a box of popcorn, never mind a cinema ticket!

I wonder how often those words have been uttered over the course of the 13 years that Strictly Come Dancing has been aired? The celebrities who speak them are usually referring to the intense roller-coaster ride of a single series, but those of us who have been fans from the start have travelled a much longer and more rambling route. When the show started in May 2004 I was an English graduate, ballroom dance lover and aspiring writer in my late twenties, living near London and working in market research.  Over the years, my Strictly journey and my writing journey have become intricately entwined, thanks to an idea I had as soon as I heard that there was going to be a competitive dancing show on TV again for the first time since Come Dancing hung up its dancing shoes.   I’d noticed at university that the dancing world was something of a hotbed of gossip and romance, and thought it would be fun to combine a dancing show with something more relationship-focused – think ‘Str...

Last week I was lucky enough to attend the launch party of local author Lynda Stacey's debut novel, House of Secrets.  It was a lovely night (with an incredible book-cover cake - I definitely want one of those one day!) and a few days later I had time, while travelling, to start reading House of Secrets. Naturally, once I'd started, I raced through the book in no time, but it's taken me a bit longer to get around to working out how to explain its charm.  Here's my attempt... House of Secrets by Lynda Stacey My rating: 5 of 5 stars I love Choc Lit books, and House of Secrets is a great example of what Choc Lit do best: love stories with an added dimension. At one level, House of Secrets is a classic love triangle: Maddie is fleeing Liam, whose love for her has tipped over into a frightening obsession, when she meets Christopher Lawless, nicknamed Bandit. Maddie is a clever, capable woman whose confidence has temporarily been damaged by an abusive relationship - ...

Celebrate the Audiobook Edition of The Cavanaugh House with this Giveaway GIVEAWAY ALERT: Enter to win a $25 Amazon Gift Card below! Welcome, Elizabeth!  When and how did you first become interested in writing? I was smitten with writing from the time I could hold a pencil and scrawl nonsense scribbles on paper. Mrs. McGrath, my third grade teacher, told me I was a very good writer and that affirmation launched my love of words. My first poem was published when I was a high school sophomore, and I wrote for our high school newspaper. I majored in English and minored in Journalism in college, and I wrote for my college paper. On a dare, I wrote a romance novel. Eventually, it became my first published book. 'The Cavanaugh House' isn't a traditional romance - what makes it different? One convention of a traditional romance is scenes that alternate between the heroine’s and hero’s point of view. The Cavanaugh House is told in limited omniscient point...

A huge thank you to all the people who've helped Djinn and Tonic get off the ground over the last week! My lovely fellow authors at Wild Rose Press helped create quite a twitter storm over the first few days, and I've done some very enjoyable interviews - if you've missed any of them, here are the links: http://blogspot.nancycweeks.com/2016/02/welcome-back-stephanie-cage.html   Nancy C Weeks finds out about the inspiration for Djinn and Tonic, and challenges me to write an 8 word love story. https://joyceholmes.wordpress.com/2016/02/22/interview-with-author-stephanie-cage/   Joyce M Holmes asks about my writing habits and my tastes in reading.   http://marymorganromancewriter.com/blog/2016/02/24/spotlight-author-interview-stephanie-cage/   Mary Morgan finds out about my writing inspirations, and asks some entertaining personal questions.  

Welcome, Iris!  A few weeks ago I posted your cover for Echoes of the Past.  Thanks for coming back to tell us more about the book.  What gave you the idea for Echoes of the Past? The funny part is, I started the first paragraph as a post for “Tuesday Tales” where authors write to a different prompt each week. Coming back from a holiday in South Australia, I picked it up again, wondering what it’d be like to return to such a beautiful place after so many years. Family and friendship has always been an important theme in my books, so the story developed around these three issues. Is Echoes of the Past a single title, or part of a series? Echoes of the Past is the first book in the Fermosa Bay series. The story is set in Australia.  How important is the setting to the story? Very important. I write while visualising the scene and I have to like what I see. It’s like placing yourself into the story looking around and be the little spy in the corner...

It's been a fun release weekend.  I've made a book trailer for Djinn and Tonic... Djinn and Tonic ... and visited the blog of the lovely Angela Scavone to talk about my dream date http://angelascavone.com/2016/02/19/romance-month-stephanie-cage/ I've got a few more interviews and visits lined up over the forthcoming week, so watch this space!

It's all happening this month!  Once again I get to wish a friend happy publication day, and this time it's Katey Lovell's turn, with the fourth of her meet-cute stories with Harper Impulse.  The meet-cutes are an adorable series of short stories detailing those all important first encounters, and this time it's the turn of The Boy under the Mistletoe - perfectly timed for Christmas!  You can order the Boy Under the Mistletoe here  and if you missed the earlier meet cute stories, they are The Boy at the Bakery , The Boy in the Bookshop and The Boy at the Beach .  It's not just 'The Boy at the Bakery' that's sweet as sugar - they're all delicious and a steal at 49p each!

Modern Magic hit the stores today and I couldn't be prouder to be part of this collection alongside three other amazing romance authors.  In case you need a reminder to help you decide whether it's for you, here's the blurb: What if Cinderella ditched the prince's ball and sent her fairy godmother to find love in her place? Suppose a streetwise hero hired to steal an all-powerful Genie (stuck in a flash drive rather than a brass lamp) for a tech company ended up running for his life with the CEO's gorgeous, intelligent daughter? Or what if the bed that a certain golden-tressed girl accidentally napped in belonged to the hot and famous middle brother of a notorious boy band? Can you envision the sparks that might fly if a bitter and downright beastly wheelchair-bound woman propositioned a handsome bookseller to stay with her in exchange for her rare book collection? This spellbinding anthology features modern and sexy spins on four classic fairy tales ...

A Conspiracy of Alchemists by Liesel Schwarz My rating: 5 of 5 stars I think I bought this at the Romantic Novelists' Association conference in Sheffield, which means it's been sitting on my shelf an embarrassing eighteen months.  What finally prompted me to read it was my sudden fascination with steampunk, which resulted from being introduced to Lindsay Buroker's excellent 'Emperor's Edge' series.  Like the 'Emperor's Edge' series, 'Conspiracy of Alchemists' combines charming whimsy with darkly gritty realism. Pilot Elle Chance wants nothing more than to fly her airship in peace, but when she agrees to ship a mysterious box back from Paris to London, she finds herself dragged into a dangerous quest to thwart the Alchemists’ plans for world domination. Throw in a mysterious stranger, a pocket absinthe fairy and a trip aboard the Orient Express, and you have the recipe for the ultimate magical mystery tour. The historically realistic ...

In this week's snippet, a casual conversation over doughnuts (or donuts, for the benefit of the US market), leads Sal to get a taste of a new experience.  She wishes she knew what it felt like to be beautiful (at least, beautiful in a conventional, model-like way, since to Wulf she's already beautiful). And, of course, her own personal genie is happy to oblige.   They walked and ate in silence as they approached the narrow door alongside the shop entrance.  Sal was surprised to see someone coming out of the building, also licking donut sugar off her fingers, despite being far too skinny and lovely to seem the type to go for junk food.  And beside her was... the most beautiful man Sal had ever seen.  With familiar violet eyes and dark flowing hair. She looked down at her fingers.  So did the woman in the doorway.  

Six sentences from Djinn and Tonic in which Sal is more than a little confused.  She asks Wulf what's going on and he responds in typically cryptic fashion... “We go to beach.  You wish it.  We here.” “How come? I've wished a lot of things before. I wished to be a millionaire, and I'm still skint.  I wished that blond bitch on my course would fail and come out in boils, and she graduated with honours and just made the cover of Vogue.  And I wished for a perfect model...” Oh!  That was the first wish to come true, when Wulf walked through the door.  So had some kind of a personal genie appeared overnight, and forgotten to mention it was granting her three wishes? Things like that didn't happen.  Especially to invisible photographers surrounded by beautiful people.  If things were going to happen, they happened to people like Christina and Harriet and Simon, not to her.  

Last week I started revising a paranormal story called 'Djinn and Tonic' and introduced you to the heroine, Sally, a photographer, and the hero, Wulf, a djinn, or genie.  This week, Sally makes a casual wish to get away from it all, and gets a bit more than she bargained for.   Wulf took a step towards the door, and then another, and she found herself hurrying forward, feeling pulled faster than the movement of her feet suggested.  At the threshold, she stumbled, and she let go of his hand to catch herself against the door frame.  It wasn't there. “What the...?” This was too weird for any normal swearword to do it justice.  Instead of bruising herself against the door frame, she'd tumbled forward, through where the wall should have been, and landed sprawling in warm sand.  She looked around for the studio that should have been behind her, and thought she caught a glimpse of black spinning off into the distance, but now there was nothing to see but...

I've been looking through some stories I wrote a while ago and I found this. Originally titled 'What You Wish For', then changed to 'Djinn and Tonic', it's my first attempt at a paranormal, and I'm thoroughly enjoying rewriting it based on the feedback given to me by a few kind friends at the time, so I may bring you a few tasters from the story over the next few weeks. Today, here's the moment when the heroine Sally, a goth fashion photographer, meets the hero, Wulf, a model who also happens to be a djinn, or genie, and therefore able to grant her wishes. Not that she knows that... yet. Sal had always been a sucker for goths, and she saw a lot of them around town as well as in the course of her work, but this model was something else. Lean legs encased in smooth black gleamed under the lights, and the tight trousers gave her a good idea what else there was worth drooling over.  “You don’t fall for models,” she scolded herself mentally. The mid...

The Next Always by Nora Roberts My rating: 5 of 5 stars I've been a Nora Roberts fan for a while and this is one of my favourites (although come to think of it, I often say that about the last one I read!) Clare and Beckett are old friends and there's no manufactured conflict between them, just a gentle journey towards making room for each other in their lives and hearts. Clare is cautious after losing her husband, a soldier, while pregnant with their third child, and Beckett is busy renovating the Inn of the title, so neither of them is looking for love, but of course, that's when love is most likely to come looking for you... With a little help from the honeysuckle-scented haunter of the Inn, they find plenty of things they're not looking for, and a thoroughly satisfying ending. View all my reviews

Christmas at the Cove by Rachel Brimble My rating: 4 of 5 stars I always enjoy a visit to Templeton Cove, Rachel Brimble's imaginary - but oh-so-real - seaside town. This visit had me on tenterhooks as sensible Carrie returned to the scene of her totally out-of-character one night stand on a mission to track down the father of her child. Bring on Scott, the sexy garage owner with a massive (but entirely understandable) case of commitment phobia, and the scene is set for a hugely emotional trip. The Christmas setting adds another emotional dimension, as does Scott's endearing attempt to rescue his entire household of female relatives, including his mother, whose reunion with Scott's absent father looks set to end in trouble. All in all, Christmas at the Cove is a tear-jerker with just the right amount of humour, some hot romance to warm the cold winter nights, and some important life lessons, all wrapped up in a pretty, seasonal package. View all my reviews

Looking ahead to 2015, I've just spotted that Mills and Boon novelist extraordinaire, Kate Walker, has posted links to some courses she's involved with next year.  So now there's a new item on my Christmas wish list - the Relax and Write weekend at Weetwood Hall in March - handy for us northerners, just outside Leeds.  She's also teaching a workshop at the Fishguard Writing Weekend in February... but as a real-life romantic I have other ideas about Valentine's weekend, so I'll be giving that one a miss!!!!! If you're curious about these or her other courses, the full post is here: http://kate-walker.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/courses-for-2015.html If you want to learn more about writing romance and don't feel like traveling or the budget doesn't permit, I thoroughly recommend Kate's invaluable Twelve Point Guide to Writing Romance.

Falling Apart by Jane Lovering My rating: 5 of 5 stars Like several other reviewers, I couldn't quite imagine how Falling Apart would live up to the promise of Vampire State of Mind. So Jess and Sil are fabulous characters, but hey, once you've saved the world from demons the first time, then anything else starts to look a bit tame in comparison. Shoes and paperclips are all very well, but they just don't set the heart beating in quite the same way as magic and mayhem. However, Falling Apart has all the magic and mayhem a girl could wish for. From the start, it's obvious to the reader that there's a good reason for Sil's bad behaviour (and I don't just mean the flirting with anything in skirts variety, more the dangerous blood-letting sort), but it's equally clear why Jess assumes the worst of him. There's high drama both in the relationship stakes and on the streets of York, and Jane even manages to sneak in the odd political point (I think, ...

Persuade Me by Juliet Archer My rating: 5 of 5 stars I absolutely loved 'Persuade Me'. Having enjoyed 'The Importance of Being Emma', I was slightly afraid that the novelty of modern Austen adaptations might have worn off, but if anything, I enjoyed this second book even more, though the reasons for that were largely personal. Being a great fan of all things Antipodean, I relished the fact that Rick Wentworth had spent time as a marine biologist in Australia. Back in the UK, he reconnects with old flame Anna, now a lecturer in Russian Literature at... wait for it... Bath, where I studied for my MA in Creative Writing. Since Bath is also the home of all things Austen, there were plenty of opportunities for nods to the town's literary heritage as well as its unique style. Even leaving aside the many personal connections, though, I would still have loved this fresh, modern take on a classic romance. Like Austen herself, Archer delivers a witty take on issue...