COTT Features "The Sound of Diamonds" by Rachelle Rea

Readers of Jody Hedlund’s new medieval YA series and Melanie Dickerson’s fairytale-based YA novels will love Rachelle Rea’s The Sound of Diamonds. 

—Dawn Crandall, award-winning author of The Hesitant Heiress

 

PURCHASE

Amazon

B & N

Books a Million

About the book: 

Her only chance of getting home is trusting the man she hates.

With the protestant Elizabeth on the throne of England and her family in shambles, Catholic maiden Gwyneth seeks refuge in the Low Countries of Holland, hoping to soothe her aching soul. But when the Iconoclastic Fury descends and bloodshed overtakes her haven, she has no choice but to trust the rogue who arrives, promising to see her safely home to her uncle's castle. She doesn't dare to trust him...and yet doesn't dare to refuse her one chance to preserve her own life and those of the nuns she rescues from the burning convent.

Dirk Godfrey is determined to restore his honor at whatever cost. Running from a tortured past, Dirk

knows he has only one chance at redemption, and it lies with the lovely Gwyneth, who hates him for the crimes she thinks he committed. He must see her to safety, prove to the world that he is innocent, prove that her poor eyesight is not the only thing that has blinded her but what is he to do when those goals clash?

The home Gwyneth knew is not what she once thought. When a dark secret and a twisted plot for power collide in a castle masquerading as a haven, the saint and the sinner must either dare to hold to hope...or be overcome.

With a lovely style that is mature and seasoned, at an enviable professional level, readers are in for a real treat with Rachelle Rea’s debut. Beautifully written, The Sound of Diamonds is a gem. An unusual heroine, a unique setting, and a heart-stopping hero make this a must-read for historical fiction fans. Encore, Rachelle Rea!

—Laura Frantz, author of The Mistress of Tall Acre

Get to know the author:

Rachelle Rea plots her novels while driving around the little town she's lived in all her life in her dream car, a pick-up truck. An Oreo addict, she is also a homeschool graduate and retired gymnast. She wrote the Sound of Diamonds the summer after her sophomore year of college.

When and where did you first get the idea for the Steadfast Love Series?

A song I was listening to on the radio inspired the title of the first book. So I wrote Diamonds, but when I finished it, I realized to my great frustration that the characters weren’t done with their story, even though I had been quite adamant that I would write a stand-alone novel. But the story wasn’t finished, so I kept writing.

2015 has been a busy year for you with your first two releases! :) Can you tell us one of the moments you'll remember most from this special year?

Holding my book for the first time was a big deal! I remember the boxes coming in, then sitting on the couch with a copy in my lap, just staring and realizing I was beaming a bit…

Rachelle Rea’s debut novel transports readers back to the danger and mystique of Europe during the 1500s. Rich in church history and woven together with romantic suspense, The Sounds of Diamonds is a fascinating story and stellar debut. I look forward to reading more from Rachelle Rea!

—Melanie Dobson, award-winning author of Chateau of Secrets

I saw on your website that you also write reviews, articles and offer editing services. What's one of your favorite things beyond writing novels that you enjoy?

Editing is such fun! I daresay I enjoy editing a page full of my own (or others’!) words just as much as I enjoy splashing words onto a blank page.

Is there anything else you'd like to add? Any upcoming projects you can share with us? 

I’m really excited about all that 2016 may hold! My third book, the last in the Steadfast Love series, releases the day after Valentine’s Day! Beyond that, time will tell ;)

 

What on earth are Repeat Police?

I’m tickled to kick off the first Writing Talk Tuesday of the New Year with another great post from Jeanne Marie Leach, and, from the title, this one might be fun. So sit back and find out what this is all about.



REPEAT POLICE, By: Jeanne Marie Leach

One of my pet peeves as an editor is repetition. I once mentored another Colorado writer who had trouble in this area. Every other page had a repetition infraction, and since she was a friend, I soon simply gave her this comment, “Repeat police! Repeat police.”

There are many ways repetition can find its way into a book.

One is by using the same noun repeatedly in the same sentence or paragraph.

• · George jumped into his red sports car and turned on the engine. He backed the car out of the driveway and then sped down the street in the car. He enjoyed the many stares he got from guys who envied him for his car, and from the chicks who dug guys with cool cars.

You saw the word, didn’t you? And it became glaringly annoying.

Another form of repetition is when the writer wants to drive home a certain point and says the same thing, only using different words. In the following example, only one of the sentences is necessary and the other can be eliminated.

• · Jane had never in her life met a man she admired as much as Tim. For the first time ever, she’d found a man whom she could look up to in Tim.

The next repeat offense that bothers me is when authors repeat words for effect. It’s especially maddening when I find more than one of these on the same page. It even irked me to have to write this example for you.

• · Jane crept down the long hallway—the hallway her mother had stepped into just moments before. Where had she gone? Perhaps she’d gone into her room—the room where a century ago a woman had been murdered—murdered by her own step-father.

This really does nothing to heighten the tension and is unnecessary to the story. The author would achieve the same effect with shorter sentences that get to the point. Here’s the same paragraph rewritten to create more tension.

• · Jane crept down the long hallway. Where had mother gone? To her room? Until then the fact that someone had been murdered by their own step-father a century ago in her mother’s room meant nothing to her.

The only time repetition is useful is when used for a special effect. I’ll never forget the scene in the movie 310 to Yuma when Ben Wade and his band of outlaws were in the bar after committing a big stage robbery in which a couple of their men had died. Ben lifts his glass and gives this “eulogy” about one of his men who’d made a huge mistake that caused other good men to die.

• · “Tommy was weak. Tommy was stupid. Tommy is dead.”

This type of repetition drives home a point much better than if he’d said, “Tommy was weak and stupid, and now he’s dead because of it.

Remember to cut repetition whenever possible, but leave it alone if it enhances the scene.

I hope you get what I’m saying here in this blog. Do you get the point of this blog—the blog that I hope gives you something to think about? My main goal of writing this blog is to help you recognize repetition in your own writing. Be on the lookout for repetition and you’ll stave off the Repeat Police.

 I get it, Jeanne, I get it!

 



Jeanne Marie Leach is a multi-published author and freelance editor specializing in fiction and teaches courses on editing fiction. She is coordinator of The Christian PEN, a member of the Christian Editor Network, and member #46 of The American Christian Fiction Writers, where she received the 2012 Member Service Award. She teaches 32 weeks per year to editors on how to edit fiction and continually keeps abreast of current market trends and hones her knowledge of fiction writing and editing through classes and conferences.

 

What about you, writers…Are you guilty of alerting the Repeat Police?

And you readers…have you found mistakes like these in books you’ve read?

Do join this conversation…

*PERSEVERE* God’s Word for the Year

GREETINGS, and Welcome to the New Year! As someone on a writing loop I belong to said,

“New year, new hope, same Jesus to walk with us every step of the way.”

And that’s the truth, right?

How many of you actively seek a ‘word’ from God for each new year? Or does God somehow give you a word or phrase to encourage you in whatever it is you wish to accomplish through the next 365 days? Many do. Last year, I did neither: no word whispered in my ear, nor did I specifically seek one.

But this year, on Saturday, one word kept niggling at the back of my mind: PERSEVERE

It’s a good word, especially for me at this time in my life. I didn’t come to writing until after I reached the half-century mark, and didn’t see my first book published for almost 20 years after that. Now, having passed the three-quarter-century mark, I’m feeling the crunch of time closing in on me.

Through all the intervening years, there were…and still are…so many times I felt like giving up, telling myself:

• I’m wasting my time


• Nobody will want to read this


• I’ll never be able to compete with other writers


• I can’t write like [fill in the blank] so why bother?


• There are so many great books out there, who’ll read something from an unknown?


• Writing is too hard…too much work.


• Where will I find new ideas.

And so on—all the lies and self-doubt the enemy throws at us, and not only writers. Anyone who wants to find purpose in their lives, their career, other responsibilities…that old wolf keeps prowling, seeking whom he may devour.

I’ll bet you can add to the list above.

Yet, because I didn't give up, in the last four years since my first book debuted, I’ve had one more novel published, five short-stories in several compilations, and am currently writing a series of my own…the first two published, the third in edits, and am one-third of the way through the fourth.

So, take that, you big, bad wolf. Your lies won’t stop me nor deter me from doing God’s work with the stories He gives me.

Here’s a closing scripture to think about:

“And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.” 2 Corinthians 9:8

Yes, God is good…all the time!

Blessings to you and yours in this Year of Our Lord, 2016

Don’t forget to leave your comments. I love reading them. If you wish to contact me privately, use the Contact Me button above.

TWEETABLES:

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Sensory Science-Final-Part 4: SENSE OF TIME, w/Jeanne Marie Leach-Writing Talk Tuesday

USING SENSORY SCIENCE FOR DEEPER DESCRIPTIONS

© 2015 By Jeanne Marie Leach

The dictionary defines the “senses” as any of the faculties involving sight, hearing, smell, taste, or touch, by which humans perceive stimuli originating from outside or inside the body. These five senses are the ones everyone learns about in school, and writer’s groups remind you to be sure to utilize them all.

However, in the scientific world there is no solid consensus among neurologists regarding the actual number of senses because of differing definitions of what actually composes a sense. Humans are considered to have at least six additional senses that include:

• · Balance and acceleration


• · Temperature differences


• · Muscle and joint motion


• · Pain


• · Sense of time


• · Direction

After researching these further, I’ve come to the conclusion that these extra “senses” are a valuable part of descriptions used in fiction stories, so as a fiction author, keep these in mind. Most of them are usually mentioned naturally as the need arises in a story, but a couple of them could easily be overlooked. Using these senses will definitely enhance the word pictures you create and will deepen the characters.

This week, I am focusing on the sense of time.

Sense of Time

One field of study within psychology and neuroscience is time perception, which relates to the sense of time. The sense of time differs from the other senses in that time cannot be exactly apparent. Humans can perceive short periods of time, as well as durations that are a significant portion of their lifetime. Many experiments have noted the relationship between perceived and measured time.

Although psychologists often agree that time appears to go faster with age. One day to an eleven-year-old would be approximately 1/4,000 of their life, while one day to a 55-year-old would be approximately 1/20,000 of their life. This is perhaps why a day would appear much longer to a young child than to an adult.

It is important to note this in our writing. Most of us have written about a moment in time that felt like hours had passed, when it was only a minute. Keep in mind that this particular sense occurs more and for longer periods of time the older the character becomes. Younger people would tend to experience these moments in real time. These people think it is unnecessary to make plans.

Another illusion of time can best be illustrated by two people each taking a journey that takes an equal amount of time. The person who covers more distance will appear to take longer than the journey covering less distance, even though they took an equal amount of time.

Some researchers attempt to categorize people by how they differ in their perception of time.

People with a present perspective of time have a tendency to believe that the actions in the present do not significantly affect the future. They don’t think an action taking place in the present will affect the probability of a future outcome.

People with a future perspective tend to believe that an action taken place in the present increases the probability of a future outcome. These people are very goal-oriented, with a high capacity to make conclusions about future results. They usually prepare task lists, use a calendar, and tend to wear a watch.

Time urgency refers to the need for a swift response or action to reach a particular goal. It can be described on an axis with a scale from high to low.

These two dimensions generate four types of personalities.

1. Organizers -- high time importance and future time perspective. High awareness of time. Illustrated by scheduling tasks and activities and striving for higher-than-average achievement.


2. Crammers -- high time urgency and present time perspective. Characterized by high awareness of time. Must wield control over deadlines. Very competitive, determined to achieve. Impatient.


3. Relators – Low time urgency and present time perspective. Not given to care about deadlines or passage of time or taking risks. Acts impulsively, focuses on present tasks and on relationships.


4. Visioners – Everything the same as relators, except they don’t focus on present tasks or relationships, but concentrate on future goals.

Writing application

I’ve already mentioned many ways you can apply the sense of time more effectively to your writing. When fleshing out our characters, be sure to include their time perspective. There will no doubt be a moment or many moments when their perception of time will be important to the story. Keeping the character true to themselves will create solid, three-dimensional characters.

Final note: This concludes the series that takes us beyond the five senses when writing our stories. By paying closer attention to these six “deep” senses, you’ll infuse better action and closer attention to details into your book.

 Thank you for this opportunity to unveil my latest discovery in the world of writing fiction.   Jeanne

 And we thank you, Jeanne, for sharing all this fascinating information with us.

Readers, if you missed the first three parts of this series, click on the links below:

• 
  
  Part 1: BALANCE and ACCELLERATION


• 
  
  Part 2: MUSCLE and JOINT MOVEMENT


• 
  
  Part 3: PAIN

About Jeanne:

Jeanne Marie Leach is a multi-published author and freelance editor specializing in fiction and teaches courses on editing fiction. She is coordinator of The Christian PEN, a member of the Christian Editor Network, and member #46 of The American Christian Fiction Writers, where she received the 2012 Member Service Award. She teaches 32 weeks per year to editors on how to edit fiction and continually keeps abreast of current market trends and hones her knowledge of fiction writing and editing through classes and conferences.

-->>> For a special treat, please come back again next Tuesday for a discussion about REPEAT POLICE. I, for one, can’t wait to see what that’s all about.

Don't forget to join the conversation!

TWEETABLE:

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MERRY CHRISTMAS!