• RLF Gems

    RLF Gem Award: Top Bloggers March 2014 Romance Lives Forever #RLFblog #blogging

    RLF Gem 
    Last month, Romance Lives Forever had 31 posts in a 31 day month.
    There was a tie for fourth place, and if we had six spots, there would have
    three names listed. I’ve noted them as an honorable mention.

    Top Five Bloggers for the Month

    (judged by page views). Congratulations to each author!
    1. Vicki Batman
    2. EM Lynley
    3. Keira Andrews
    4. Carly Carson
    4. MQ Barber
    5. Jessica E Subject
    Honorable mention: Mary Marvella, Katheryn Lane, and I tied for what would
    be sixth place.
    Romance Lives Forever features authors and new books. It has a
    blogger’s FAQ page with a downloadable guide and optional interviews. Readers
    can follow via Google Friend Connect, Networked Blogs, Bloglovin’, Linky
    Followers, email, an RSS feed, and there’s a blog button readers and authors
    can grab. RLF takes up to three images per article, so authors can share
    previous books. The blog uses author or publisher names as SEO tags on posts,
    and author Twitter handles in the titles. The site is broadcast over Triberr
    with a potential reach of over a million readers via its Twitter-linked
    network. Twitter mentions are also gathered in several Paper.li ezines, giving
    the author additional opportunities for promotion. The Romance Lives Forever
    Paper.li ezine
    features guest authors on its front page every day.

    Share your book cover on Romance Lives Forever

    Limited spots to share book covers are available. Cost is $3
    per month, with discounts for covers posted for one quarter and up to one year.
    Covers can be changed monthly.

    Sign Up for a Future Post

    Guest calendar http://is.gd/rlfdates
    My thanks to all who took part this month. You made Romance Lives
    Forever a great place to discover new books and authors.
    Other participants this month in alphabetical order by first
    name are:
    Angela Smith, Beth Barany, Elysa Hendricks, JJ DiBenedetto, JoAnne
    Myers, Kathy Kulig, Lauren Linwood, Lisa Carlisle, Liza O’Connor, Naomi Bellina,
    Nicky Penttila, Rachel Firasek, Romy Gemmell, Susan Mac Nicol, Tina Donahue, Ute
    Carbone, Virginia Kelly, VS Nelson
  • Modern Western

    Interview: Katheryn Lane Author of The Texas Cowboy @KatherynLane #RLFblog #western

    The Texas Cowboy 

    About the Book

    Title: The Texas
    Cowboy
    Genre: contemporary cowboy romance, modern western
    Book heat level (based on movie ratings): PG13
    Everything’s bigger in Texas, including the problems.
    When Vicky flies into Texas,
    she immediately falls for the charms of local cowboy, Jack Cassidy. However,
    her wealthy Dallas
    cousin, Laura, has other ideas and will do everything she can to steer Vicky
    away from Jack and into the arms of a rich oilman.
    Jack is resigned to living the life of a lonely cowboy whose
    only female company is his horses–that is, until he meets Vicky. However,
    Vicky isn’t the only person with a claim on his heart. Jack wasn’t always alone
    and his ex is about to make a dramatic comeback.
    Every cowboy has a past and this cowboy’s past is about to destroy
    his future.

    Buy This Book

    Amazon USA:
    http://amzn.to/1bLPep4

    Interview with Katheryn Lane

    Why did you write this
    book?
    I love Texas
    and I’ve been lucky enough to visit it several times. The Texas Cowboy begins with
    Vicky seeing the cowboy, Jack, for the first time while she’s out shopping with
    her cousin and this opening scene was inspired by something I saw one afternoon
    in Dallas. I was
    in Highland Park Village and across the road I saw a cowboy
    standing outside Hermes, holding one of their trademark boxes. Unlike Vicky, I didn’t
    have the nerve to take a picture of him (I wish I had), and he didn’t wink at me,
    but I did begin to wonder about who he was and who the orange box was for.
    What is your favorite
    genre to read?
    I love to read a wide range of books, but my favorite has to
    be romance. I love classic authors, such as Jane Austen and Shakespeare – Romeo
    and Juliet must be one of the greatest love stories of all time – but I also enjoy
    reading books by more modern romance writers, such as Nora Roberts and Jackie Collins.
    In addition, ever since I was a little girl I’ve loved reading fairy tales. I guess
    my love of romance started with stories like Sleeping Beauty and I have ‘borrowed’
    several ideas from fairy tales for my own books. For example, the first part of
    my latest sheikh romance, A Bride For The Sheikh, is loosely based on Cinderella.
    What is your favorite
    character from fiction (not including your own characters)?
    That’s a difficult question! There are so many wonderful characters
    in literature that it’s like asking me to pick a favorite from a box of chocolates!
    However, a couple of people do stand out. I love Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the
    Wind and Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice. Although they are from different
    eras and places, they are both witty, willful, beautiful women who are willing to
    stand up for themselves in a male dominated world. At the beginning of each book,
    they make the wrong choices and decisions, but in the end they discover who they
    are and what they really want in life.
    Do you enjoy films and/or
    TV shows? Which are your favorites?
    I’m afraid I don’t have much free time to watch TV as most of
    my time is taken up with work (I’m a high school teacher), looking after my children
    and writing. However, when I get the chance I do like to go to the cinema and see
    a good movie. I live in the Middle East, so the
    cinemas here only show a limited range of films and they’re often heavily censored
    which can sometimes make it hard to follow the plot! However, we get cable and occasionally
    I’ll find the time to watch a great movie on TV. I’m not sure if I have a favorite,
    but I always love watching anything with Antonio Banderas in it. He was a great
    sheikh in Day of the Falcon and gorgeous in Zorro. I also love Johnny Depp – so
    sexy!
    What are you working on
    at the moment, and what are we likely to see from you in the coming months?
    I have several things in the pipeline, including another possible
    sheikh romance, but the main thing I’m working on at the moment is a potential sequel
    to The Texas Cowboy. Although I originally wrote The Texas Cowboy as a stand-alone
    novel, several readers have started to ask me about the hero and heroine’s future.
    I don’t think I’d be giving too much away if I said that The Texas Cowboy ends,
    like all good fairy tales and romance novels, with the hero, Jack, and heroine,
    Vicky, overcoming the many obstacles that have confronted them and telling each
    other how much they love each other. As with many romance novels, it’s implied that
    they will get married and live happily ever after. However, readers have been asking
    about their wedding and if Vicky’s rich Dallas
    cousin will take over their wedding plans. Therefore, I might write a sequel and
    perhaps call it The Texas Bride.
    Please tell us about your
    latest book.
    The Texas Cowboy is my first cowboy romance; most of my other
    romances have been sheikh romances inspired by what I see and hear where I live
    in the Middle East. However, like my other novels,
    The Texas Cowboy has lots of action, unexpected twists and turns, and plenty of
    heartache, before the hero and heroine end up in each others arms, happily ever
    after.
    Everything’s bigger in Texas, including the problems.
    When Vicky flies into Texas,
    she immediately falls for the charms of local cowboy, Jack Cassidy. However,
    her wealthy Dallas
    cousin, Laura, has other ideas and will do everything she can to steer Vicky
    away from Jack and into the arms of a rich oilman.
    Jack is resigned to living the life of a lonely cowboy whose
    only female company is his horses–that is, until he meets Vicky. However,
    Vicky isn’t the only person with a claim on his heart. Jack wasn’t always alone
    and his ex is about to make a dramatic comeback.
    Every cowboy has a past and this cowboy’s past is about to destroy
    his future.

    Author Bio

    I’m a wife, teacher, author and mother of two boisterous boys,
    so most of my days are taken up with finding lost school shoes, getting stuck in
    traffic and wondering why I always join the queue that doesn’t move in the supermarket.
    However, I try to forget these daily problems (and the fact that I burnt the toast
    again this morning) by losing myself in a good book and writing novels that give
    readers a break from everyday life.
    Open one of my books and escape on a romantic adventure, because
    it’s easier to buy a book than it is to book an air ticket.
    Have a break, read a book!

    Author Social Media

    Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/Katheryn-Lane/e/B0056NJRZ0/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1389103864&sr=8-2-ent