SINS Excerpt #2: A REAL CLIFF HANGER!

“Blazes!” Edenstorm gaped at the black storm that rolled in like dense smoke, flashing lightning and driving a waist high wave straight at them.

God, what had he done? How was he going to get her out of here? She was right; the cave would trap them and drown them. But the cliffs around the cave were unscalable. They could climb a few feet, but no more. The only route to the top was across sand that had already been flooded.

But the water would recede with the wave.

“Up the cliff,” he said. He grabbed her waist and shoved her up the rock face.

“We can’t climb that,” she protested.

He hauled himself after her, seconds before the next wave slammed against the rock, dousing them with the spray.

“When it recedes, jump down and run for that rockfall.”

“They’re not stable. We can’t get up there, either.”

“It’s the only place we’ve got. Maybe we can get up high enough for now.” He waited as the wave lost power and receded until it was shallow enough to jump into it.

“Go!”

He leaped down, but she hesitated. He grabbed her waist and lifted her down. “Come on! There’s no time to waste!”

She ran through the shallow water near the base of the scarp. He ran behind her, his eyes on the next wave coming in like a cliff of water. They had to reach the rocks before it hit or the sand would disappear beneath their feet, and they’d be helpless against the undertow.

“Run!” he shouted, as if his voice could make her run faster.

They splashed their way, each step slowed more as the water deepened, pushed inland by the oncoming giant wave. Only a few more feet to the rock slope. To seaward, the wall of water rolled toward them. He hoisted her into the air and thrust her up onto the rockfall. She climbed like a spider and wedged herself between two boulders. Behind her, he gripped crevices in the rock and started climbing.

The wave smashed against him, tall as his face, washing him away and banging him against the rock like a mere twig in a wind storm. One hand clung to a precarious hold, but the other was torn free of the rock and dangled uselessly. His footing vanished, tossing his legs with the surge. The rucksack hung like a boulder on his back, pulling him down toward the violent sea. He swung himself around as the wave receded and found a grip for his feet as he climbed higher, but a second surge rolled over him, submerging and whirling him, tossing him like jetsam in a storm. His last grip on solid rock washed free.

An odd calm descended on him as his doom rose up to meet him from beneath the waves. He’d always known his end would come to him in a fight, but he would not give in to it until his last chance was taken from him.

He’d done his best, she would make it… He would wash away to sea with the receding wave… It was the end and he had done his best…

Dangling by one arm, his legs driven in the force, first landward then seaward, he couldn’t breathe beneath the wave, but he had done his best… Had done his best, would be at peace with it… She would be safe…

Release Day! Sins of the Heart and Excerpt

SINS OF THE HEART
Award-winning Historical Adventure Romance
by
Delle Jacobs

5 Ribbons! Romance Junkies
Samhain Publishing ~~ ISBN: 978-1-60504-035-6
Available in electronic and trade paperback editions

Find out more about this and other Delle Jacobs books at
http://dellejacobs.com

FABULOUS CONTEST!
The Most Beautiful Place on Earth!
Share your most beautiful place with photos or comments and win a fantastic prize basket of goodies from my most beautiful place on earth- Hawaii
http://dellejacobs.blogspot.com

*****

The Cornish Coast at sunrise: Two ladies, one spyglass- Two naked men dashing into the surf. One, icy-eyed Lord Edenstorm, is the man Lady Juliette hoped would never find her.

She has what he wants- the names of the gold-smuggling traitors. He doesn't know if she tells him, she dies. If she doesn't tell, she dies. If she pretends to give him what he wants, she just might stay alive.

But what happens if deception gives way to love? Is it possible to forgive the Sins of the Heart?

EXCERPT 1
The sea was yellow gold as the sun dropped toward the horizon, a quiet plane of precious metal that melted into silvered sand, and as far as the eye could see, changed from gilded sea to brilliant amber sky. All the world was silver and gold.
The horses paced across the wet sand, their steps muffled, disturbing the metallic sheen that settled back to serenity in the little rounded puddles they left behind. Only the quiet huffing of the horses’ breath and the faint screech of gulls far out from the shore broke the silence.
She had long ago loosened her bonnet and let it fall behind her, to feel the delicate breeze in her hair as they rode. Beside her rode the man with silver eyes and golden hair, his face dark in the shadow, as silent as the quiet water. It had been his idea to ride along the shore, taking advantage of the long beach created when the tide ebbed. But low tide was a curious thing that made one believe in the forever of an instant. She had come along, appeasing him because…Was it because she must keep him occupied, to keep him from making discoveries about the people she loved?
Oddly, though. She had come to expect, almost to want his companionship. Never knowing when he would turn the quiet of the moment into some strange demand that ruined all that was beautiful. Or if he would not. Perhaps today was one of those times when he would remain silent, or trade the silence for small, beautiful words.
He was, in so many ways, a strange man. He did not court her. But he shared beautiful things with her, often in silence, as if he accepted or believed they saw them the same way. She wondered if they did. Did he see and feel the colors with the sort of passion that invaded her?
They reached the headland that separated this beach from the next, and he pulled ahead. Here, their ride must come to an end.
“Don’t go there,” she said, and reached for the bridle on his bay.
“Is that a cave?” His head inclined in the direction of the sharply jagged cove tucked between two cliffs.
“It’s called Colliver’s Cove. They say it was used by Robert Colliver, but they also say Robert Colliver left Looe in his youth and never returned. Both could not be true. They also tell tales of men who drowned because a high sea came up and caught them inside. When the tide comes in, the cavern floods.”
Edenstorm leaned forward in his saddle. He planted a fist on his hip and narrowed his eyes as he studied the small, dark opening that marked the top of the cave.
“Don’t go in there,” she said again. “There are many ways to be killed on the Cornish Coast. That is one of them.”
His ghostly silver eyes studied her for a moment, then he dismounted. He held his hands up to her and she slid down, his hands catching around her waist. They turned back to the beach they had just left.
He stopped, scanning the distant horizon where the sun dropped lower in the sky and began to tinge the gold with pink.
“If you painted, how would you paint this?”
“Rapidly. Soon the sun will go down and we will never see it quite this way again.” She swept her hand in an arc along the horizon. “It is not simply golden, anywhere. It is only the way the many colors work together that makes it so.” She pointed to a distant promontory. “Look over there. Even the rock in the distance is bathed in gold, yet none of it is truly the color it seems.”
He stood there, his eyes intense and hazy, darkening to smoky pewter. She was aware of the scent that was his, so close and mingling with the salt of the sea and flesh of horse, with leather and brawn.
“I could never paint,” he said, his voice as soft as fine doeskin. “But I could never forget this. If I could paint, I'd paint you, bathed in gold, just as you are right now. The color of your hair gleams like tiny strands of golden light.”
He took one of her curls into his fingers, then slipped a hand into her hair. A tangle of longing twisted and turned in his eyes. “I’d want to capture the light shining in your hair and playing across your face, the softness of your lips.”
“How do you know they’re soft?” she whispered.
“I just do.” The pad of his thumb crossed over her lower lip. “Yes, soft.”
She gasped as his lips touched hers, but not from fear or outrage, but because she had not known her own longing. Had not known the feel of his arms circling her and pulling her close to his body where she could feel all his firmness as if she flowed into it, his kiss deepening and stroking in ways that set her afire inside. Her heart raced with the pounding of an unexplainable wildness within her, the heat she had not understood that had been building from the moment she had first seen him on the beach.

THE MOST BEAUTIFUL PLACE ON EARTH (Contest & Fun)

"There was no place on earth like the Cornish Coast at sunrise."
When I wrote this first line of SINS OF THE HEART, I wasn't thinking of Earth Day, nor that the release would come at a time when the whole world was becoming conscious of the rapidly growing damage and danger to our planet. But here we are.

Release Day for SINS is next Tuesday, April 28. It seems appropriate for Earth Day, so I thought I'd do a contest to increase awareness and promote the cause of our beautiful planet. Let's begin by sharing our love for it.

We'll take it over several weeks, showing up to six photos you send me every Tuesday. Today, to begin, I'm showing you a few of the places on earth that are most beautiful in my heart. Most I've visited myself, but some, like the Coast of Cornwall I've seen only in pictures and my imagination.

I thought about having everyone vote for the favorite place, but instead I think I'd like for you to show us your photo, tell us why the place is so special for you in a sentence or two, and then maybe give us a sentence or two to tell how you think this beautiful place would be affected by global warming, pollution, over-population or other negative events in the future. I know sometimes photos don't come out nearly as wonderful as the sight we remember, but that's okay. Or you may have something that only very narrowly shows the place- perhaps like one I have of an orchid blooming at the edge of a very dim volcanic crater on a very overcast day. No one else would have the memories I have of the vastness of the Halema'uma'u Crater, but I can tell you about it. Just show us your favorite and I promise we'll understand.

Beach on North Kaua'i

Another thing you can do is to go sign this petition sent to me by Al Gore:
http://www.repoweramerica.org/earthday
If it doesn't suit your politics, I understand. But if you make a comment and mention that you signed it, I'll give you extra points toward the drawing. Also submitting photos will give you points. And general comments will too.

Dorothy Vernon's Bridge, Haddon Hall, near Bakewell, England

But what will be the prize? Well, that's why I'm late posting today- I'm trying to figure that out. You see, in June I'm going to my most beautiful place on earth, Hawaii, and I thought it would be cool to bring back something from there. But I can't figure out what it would be.

That's where you come in. What do you think would be a cool prize? Not a string of Tahitian black pearls, please. I'm either a cheap traveler or a no-traveler. There's nothing in between. But there are lots of wonderful things to be had that are a bit better than a day-glo Hawaii key chain.

Some thoughts:
1. A pound of the most wonderful Kona coffee anywhere- and contrary to malicious rumors, it is not bitter, but wonderfully smooth. It comes from a little restaurant over a famous coffee plantation on the cliffs above Kealakekua Bay on the Big Island. I will not set foot on the Big Island without going there.

2. A hand printed pareo. There are hundreds of these all over every island, and they are magnificent, and although most probably are not made in Hawaii, they are truly beautiful. I have one in a deep green and black print, which I bought on the shores of Kealakekua Bay years ago. They come in many colors, and all kinds of prints.

3. A palm frond hat, or woven bowl or basket. I'd get this in the street market in Hilo, I'd think. Or maybe a child's Hawaiian dress.

4. A small tiki.

5. A beautiful, semi-rare sea shell (perhaps a trident or conch or giant cowrie)

Caribbean Sea from Tulum, Mexico

6. A grow-it-yourself orchid or plumeria, or wild ginger. These come in packages all ready for you to start and grow yourself.

Is there something else you'd like to see as a prize? Tell me and I'll add it to the list. Maybe the winner will have a chance to pick one from the list. And then when we go to the Islands of Hawaii and Oahu June 4th through 13th, I'll have a lot of fun shopping for the prize.

I'll tell you more on Tuesday- I've got a lot more thinking to do about this. But for now, you can tell me what you'd like. And you can start sending me photos right away.

MERRILLEE WHREN'S INSPIRATIONAL HEROES

(SO SORRY FOR THIS DELAYED POST, EVERYONE. I THINK THE EMAIL SNAIL DROPPED IT IN A HOLE. AND YOU KNOW HOW WELL I SEE INTO HOLES. --Delle)


MERRILLEE SAYS:

Inspiring Inspirational Heroes

Heroes inspire us all to be better. The heroes in inspirational romance are very much like the heroes of all romances. They want to get the girl, but sometimes, in the beginning of the story, they don’t know it. The one thing that makes them different is a renewed or strengthened spiritual life that causes them to realize what is important and makes them step up to be heroes.

My favorite type of hero is the reluctant hero. They don’t set out to be heroes and seldom know they are. I love the lyrics to the song “Hero” sung by Mariah Carey. I think this song describes the reluctant hero perfectly. One line talks about casting fear aside. That’s what a hero has to do.

My current book from Steeple Hill, HOMECOMING BLESSINGS, is the third book in a series I wrote about three brothers, Wade, Matt and Peter Dalton. These men have chosen very different paths to follow but are all reluctant heroes in their own way.

Wade Dalton, the hero of FOUR LITTLE BLESSINGS, finds himself living next door to a young woman and her four noisy and exuberant charges—her two nieces and two nephews. All he wants is peace and quiet, but he is drawn into their lives and becomes the hero he never expected to be when he falls in love with all of them and has to cast aside his fear of being too old and too unhealthy to make them a family.

Matt Dalton, the hero of MOMMY’S HOMETOWN HERO, has been a hero on the battlefield in Afghanistan, but he never expects to be hero material when he returns home a wounded veteran. He especially can’t see himself as a hero in the eyes of the young woman that he has known since they were kids, especially since she is now a famous television star. He not only becomes a hero to her but to her little girl, as well, as he overcomes his fear of not measuring up.

Peter Dalton, the hero of HOMECOMING BLESSINGS, learns how to be a hero when he is thrust into an unfamiliar situation as he oversees a mission project where he has to work with his boss’s missionary daughter. He is sure his spiritual life can’t begin to measure up to hers. But he slowly and reluctantly falls in love with her and finds a way to overcome his fear of rejection.

I love to read stories about people who step up to a challenge despite their fears. Tell us about the reluctant heroes you love—fictional or real.

A NEW WAY OF EVADING TAXES

A body's got to have some relief from finishing up taxes while deadlines screech down in all directions. Right? I hope you don't think I've gone too far over the line, but I promise the below drivel is not a sign of dementia. It's only the desperate attempt of an inherently lazy person to escape responsibility.

Ever wonder about the Google Captcha words? They're supposed to be random, but are they? If you're like me, you've noticed how often they resemble traditional English words. You know- real letters, arranged in the kinds of combinations that are found in real English words, and yet they aren't?

What if they are real words? My son insists they are, and every time we type one of them out, it's returned to Google and somehow or other helps with word recognition.

Ooookay. That made a lot of sense, didn't it? But I couldn't find them in any dictionary so I wrote my own definitions. (Pictures? You expected pictures for a topic like this? Oh, all right, but don't blame me if they don't have much to do with the subject.)


droglike: In the manner of a drunken dog. Originally used to express politically incorrect gaffes and television appearances of the 2009 presidential and vice-presidential candidates.

deprow: (1) to remove the prow of a boat. (2) to turn the prow of a boat into a Home Depot. First used in Ypsofacto, Michigan in the Recession of 2008-9 when building trades suppliers were forced out of their big boxes into alternative business sites.

dretul: (1) Text-speak for a Dremel Moto Tool. (2) A contraction for "dreadful".

varizeza: The explanation for the amazing variation and diversity of the Gabor sisters' vocabulary.


prosc: What happens in the courtroom when the prosecutor runs with scissors.

mitioddl: In the middle of a diddle. An important term for expressing confusion, particularly to describe an inability to form a cohesive political action. First observed in the Regency period and later resurrected in the American elections of 2009 to express what no term currently in use could quite express.

aninguro: A hairless Angora goat bred for tropical climates. Used to produce a substance for knitting yarnless sweaters.

exedacho: A minor traffic violation, exceeding the speed of a choo choo in a race down the tracks to the nearest railroad crossing sign.

herist: The opposite of therist.

How about it? Any Captchas of your own to add?

I'M SO THIRSTY... A Weird and Wacky Midnight Tale

So, I went to bed a bit late last night. I'd had a really exhausting day trying to catch up with just about everything, and read a few chapters of a favorite new book, which put on my new ebook reader, and I kept reading much too long. But that's okay. I enjoy those moments of reverie before falling asleep when I can fantasize about my hero and heroine, and watch them fall in love as I'm falling asleep.

I put my usual glass of ice water on my night stand, crawled in bed and pulled up the quilt, and prepared to doze off, this time thinking about my Cornish smuggler Davy and the enigmatic Frenchwoman, Valerie, he rescued in the middle of the night from the wild West Coast of France. I really had not had enough water during the day and the bedroom felt stuffy. So I woke up thirsty, reached for the glass, and turned on my other side as I often do, drinking while barely propped up on my elbow. Man, was I tired, but that water was so icy and sweet...

Then all of a sudden, the slick, smooth blue glass, which was almost slimy from condensation, slipped from my hand. Faster than I could comprehend, the glass almost spit forward, tumbling over Jeff and onto the floor beyond his side of the bed. Oh, man, was I in for it now! It was so darn dark, I couldn't see where anything was, but I didn't have to see to know the carpet would be thoroughly soaked in icy cold water, with slippery ice cubes lurking in dark spots, just waiting to cause disaster.

I was so tired! Way too tired for this debacle. But I had no choice. Just a minute more, I thought. A minute to get my bearings, just close my eyes a second or two. Then I'd get up and and get some towels to soak it up. I could just picture Jeff, who gets up a lot in the night, stepping down on an icy, sopping carpet, maybe landing on the glass or an ice cube. I could hear the screams in my head. Nope. I had to get it up.

Groaning, I fumbled around the master bathroom in the dark not wanting to turn on lights and make the debacle even worse, and started spreading them out on the carpet by Jeff's side of the bed. I stomped on the towels like the Little Old Winemaker, sopping up the frigid water that soaked up through them into my socks, sending shivers warping through me as if I had dared to walk out barefoot into the snow. I couldn't see anything, it was so dark, so I had to feel my way around with my feet, trying to find the glass, but I couldn't figure out where it had gone. Neither were the ice cubes.

Feeling around, I slowly began to realize nothing was quite right. I was still in my bed. Darn, I must have gone back to sleep instead of getting up. All that water was still there, just waiting for poor Jeff to land his bare feet into its icy, sopping puddle. I had just dreamed the bit about getting the towels. But I still had time. If I got up now, and hurried to get the towels, I could spread them out and stomp them to absorb the cold water. I did that. And I got down on my knees, feeling around with my hands, trying to find those ice cubes and that blasted blue glass that had already eluded me, or no, wait, that was a dream, and I'm just now doing that. Fumbling around in the dark on my knees with my toes pressing into the soggy, freezing cold carpet, soaking my socks even more, if that was possible.

No, wait, that had been a dream too. And I wasn't wearing socks anyway, so I'd just imagined getting my feet clammy cold. Which meant they couldn't be sopping up icy water now. What the heck, had I dropped off to sleep again and just repeated the dream instead of getting up?

What the heck was the matter with me? I knew I had to get it all cleaned up before Jeff woke up and got the shock of his life. So I started to get up again. Come on, quit falling back to sleep. Get up.

Speaking of Jeff, I couldn't figure out why he wasn't already awake because usually this sort of commotion would wake him up. But then, he'd have his hearing aids out, and gunshots in the hallway wouldn't be enough to wake him up. Although it was odd-- there was really no way the glass could have vaulted over him without some of it dousing him as well as the bed, and I could feel there was no water on the sheet. That brought up the next question: Why wasn't he sitting up in bed screaming like he'd just been bitten by a snake?

Pat, pat, pat. My hands probed around the sheet, almost to touch him but not quite, because for sure that would wake him, and even more than before, I did not want hm stirring. It was dry. Very gingerly I felt over the quilt. Dry, too.

I put out my hand to my night stand and reached for the glass, where it would be if it had not spilled. There it was. Not the smooth blue glass one I thought I'd spilled, but one of the ruby red cut-glass patterned ones, still full of water, lukewarm because all the ice had long since melted.

And the green glow from Jeff's alarm clock illuminated the room quite well, the way it always does. So did the bright full moon shining through the window.

Hell. Plotting in my sleep again.

Phantom of the Opera vs Hero of The Unlacing of Miss Leigh by Diane Gaston

Dark and disturbed as he was, The Phantom of the Opera, as played by Gerard Butler, captivated our hearts and fantasies. Romantic, yes, but terrifyingly disturbed, and not a hero for a romance. But read how multi-award-winning author Diane Gaston performed a fantastic transformation to create a hero we could never forget:

DIANE SAYS:

When I first caught the movie Phantom of the Opera on cable, I was struck with the power of this dark, tortured character. I was not alone; about a brazillion members of GerardButler.net joined me. I even blogged about it. I always wanted to write a hero based on Gerard Butler's Phantom and when I was offered a Harlequin Historical Undone, I had my chance.

The result is The Unlacing of Miss Leigh, available as of April 1 on eHarlequin and other eBook venues. Harlequin Historical Undone is a short story offered in ebook format at a low price. It is Harlequin Historical at its most sensual, for when you are pining to read a sexy historical but don't have time for a whole book.

Whenever you are basing a character on another fictional character or a real person, you must make that character your own. The trick is to use the essence of the original character but not to make a copy.

There were certain qualities that I wanted to keep for my character:

1. A Regency setting. The Phantom of the Opera took place in the late 1800s. I write Regency Historical Romance and needed a Regency setting that evoked the same sort of mystery as the Paris Opera Theatre. Vauxhall Gardens fit the bill, mimicking the darkness and mystery of the Phantom's lair.

2. A disfigured face and a need for a mask
My hero, however, had not grown up disfigured, like the Phantom; his face was scarred during a battle with the French, but he had a similar shame of his true appearance, the same need to hide. I was tempted to make the mask white leather, like the Phantom's, but my explanation of the mask (he had it made by a Venetian mask maker; it was molded to his face) seemed too complex. I opted instead for a black silk mask.

3. A tortured, lonely hero
The damage to his face and his resulting depression make my hero feel he is not fit to be seen in public. He's withdrawn from everyone, but he is intensely lonely, especially for the company of a woman. His tortured loneliness is similar to the Phantom and both lead to a desire for a woman in their lives. This desire drives both men to go to outrageous lengths to have the company of a woman.

The Phantom, no matter how enticingly depicted by Gerard Butler, was still a disturbed individual, a murderer. You can't have a disturbed murderer the hero of your romance. There were ways I had to make my hero different than the Phantom.

1. The Phantom is mad. His obsession reaches extreme proportions and his traumatic past has made him psychiatrically disturbed, so disturbed he kills for no good reason. These are not the traits of a romantic hero. A romantic hero may be tortured, but he cannot be crazy.

2. The Phantom desires Christine and in the end forces her to be with him. A hero does not use force, so I had to find a way for my hero to coerce the heroine to be with him. My hero bribes her, but feels guilty about it.

3. The Phantom lets Christine go, but a romance doesn't end with the hero alone and the heroine with another man. I had to find a way for my tortured, disfigured hero to have his happy ending with the heroine!

What if anything drew you to Gerard Butler's Phantom of the Opera? What do you like about a Dark Hero?