Sarah Stuart – Romantic Suspense

Have you ever wondered what happened after the sizzling end of Sweet Temptation: the Agony and the Ecstasy of Passion?

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Book Description

When the celebrity lifestyle goes horribly wrong, who will stand by the Diamond Superstar, and who will seek to profit from his downfall?

Michael, a poor wannabe actor, puts hopes of a career above romance, until he meets and marries Elspeth, only daughter of a wealthy Scottish laird. She persuades Clement, a musical impresario, into offering Michael a starring role and, later, the pair have an adulterous affair.

Lisette, Michael and Elspeth’s eldest daughter, influenced by a literary heirloom, indulges in a taboo practise by seducing her charismatic father and bearing his child. Determined to keep her family out of jail, Elspeth contrives to give birth secretly to Clement’s son, Kit, and the babies are registered as her twins.

A rejected boyfriend guesses the truth and blackmails Lisette. Michael involves the whole family, risking everything, to rescue her, but the seeds of a newsworthy scandal are planted, and they flourish to result in dangerous rebellions, illicit relationships, and murder. Does The Spy, a journalist who will stop at nothing to get a story, reveal the truth to the world?

The answer to that question must be a qualified yes. Given the opportunity, every human being can learn to communicate. From stories passed from generation to generation in words to cave art, to writing, printing presses, and computers, men and women have always told stories. Those tales have changed from history, or magical explanations of the, at the time, inexplicable, to deliberately make-believe novels intended to entertain. It is to those novels that I refer when I ask, “who writes fiction and can it be taught”, and I don’t mean correct spelling, grammar, and punctuation – school – evening classes – proof-readers –

I told stories before I could hold a pencil, and a collection of dolls and teddy bears acted them, or did they? I had my favourites – the good guys who had families they cared about– and the ones I wished one of my aunts had never spotted pre-Sarah’s birthday. One doll is definitely reincarnated in a character an Amazon reviewer said made Cruella de Vil look like Mother Theresa.

I made plans – nowadays, they are called taglines and plots – and those dolls and teddies did exactly as they liked. Days out at the seaside –paper painted blue with a yellow strip for sand – didn’t end with my happy family piling into their car – sorry, doll’s pram. Oh no! One of the villains would have pushed a small bear into the sea, so he/she was now wet and upset. If I’d known about drowning back then, a funeral would have followed.

It still happens. Like most authors I know, my first few chapters rarely survive intact, or even at all, to publication. Take the Richard and Maria trilogy. I placed Richard carefully in County Durham, where I live, for “local appeal”. What does he do? Make it impossible for him to stay there, so he moves to London. Yes, I know and love London, but it meant mountains of research to see what might have changed since my last visit.

Maria, the “waif”, is no better, but why would she be? Adoption is one thing: a teenager heartlessly dumped on a stranger’s doorstep quite another. She doesn’t know who to trust, or if anybody will ever love her, so she feels a burden to the man landed with her.

As for the dog! I chose a Jack Russell terrier because readers were likely to recognise the breed, and he was conveniently small. Too late, I discovered Ben had all the characteristics of my current rescue dog and being terrified of being left alone anywhere but in my car was the least of them. She… SHE… is a massive Weimaraner, but she and Ben coexist in an imaginary body.

So, who writes the books? If a character is psychologically sound, he or she will behave accordingly, and the plot plan changes so much I’ve given up writing them.

Can creative writing be taught? Many Internet sites claim that it can and charge vast sums to the gullible who haven’t investigated almost free sources – writing groups. Further Education classes may or may not be free but are rarely expensive. Universities charge, but they provide a degree if you pass at a reasonable standard.

Personally, and you know this is my opinion or you wouldn’t be reading the article on my website, I don’t believe teachers can tell students how to write. After all, if their methods worked, they wouldn’t waste their time; they’d be too busy writing their next New York Times best-seller. Writers are born. Fame and fortune are down to publicity, and that can be taught. If you want to write, do it, and spend your money on learning how to tell the world.

One tip! Awards do help. My sales took off with a Readers’ Favorite Medal, and the 2019 contest closes on June 1st.

Click a cover  below to help yourself to freebies and finish off your treat with books reduced to 99 cents!

Richard loses his job, so his gold-digging fiancée ditches him, leaving him alone but for Ben, a stray dog he adopted. But the day isn’t over! His ex-wife dumps a daughter he didn’t know he had on his doorstep. Rejected by her mother, Maria believes she’s an unwanted burden. Can a single dad, an anxious teenager, and an ill-treated animal find in one another the love, and the family, they crave? Richard is determined that they will; he’ll find a woman who will love him no matter what and accept Maria as her stepdaughter. Unfortunately, Richard tends to date the wrong women…

Richard and Maria’s wedding is dreamily romantic, but both of them are still haunted by past rejections. Sinister letters and unwanted gifts arrive, and the more each tries to protect the other by keeping them secret, the heavier the burden of guilt and anxiety. However, when vicious attacks on lives and property begin, Richard and Maria are determined to uncover the identity of their enemy, but they have no idea who might have a motive. Will their love hold fast or the old saying “marry in haste, repent at leisure” prove true?

A young poacher is found guilty of killing Lord Northampton’s gamekeeper and is transported to Van Diemen’s Land for life, leaving behind the common-law wife he loves. Pregnant and penniless, she faces the appalling lack of rights for women in Victorian England and is forced to make hard choices. While he suffers the deprivations of a brutal life in chains, she is determined her child will know its father; she embarks on a dangerous endeavour to follow her lover across the globe. Will the cost of her actions prove too high, for her and for all those she loves?

Continuing the story of Jem and Ella. Jem, a young poacher is transported to Van Diemen’s Land, for life, for killing one of Lord Northampton’s gamekeepers, leaving behind, Ella, the girl he loves. As Jem and his cousins plan a mutiny aboard the convict ship, HMS Tortoise, in an attempt to return home to his lover, Ella is using the only currency she has, her body, to earn the fare to follow him across the globe. The mutiny fails, and Jem faces a life in exile, but his determination to escape is not quelled. Will he escape and find his way home, or will he be forced to accept his fate and learn to love again? Can Ella raise the money to escape her loveless marriage, or will her new midsummer baby tie her to England forever?

Concluding the tale of Jem and Ella’s ill-fated love: both have been transported as convicts to Van Diemen’s Land. Ella and Jem’s baby son, William, is dying from malnutrition in the nursery of the female factory at Launceston, where she is imprisoned. In order to save his life, she has put herself forward for marriage, despite already having a legal husband, Harry, and a son, Matthew, in England. Her new ‘husband’ has gold fever and is taking her and William over Australia’s Bue Mountains in search of his fortune. Harry, in England, doubts Matthew is his son, and, desperate for a legal, blood heir, determines to hear the truth of the matter from Ella’s own lips and sets out to find her. Jem, meanwhile, still a prisoner in Impression Bay, on Van Diemen’s Land’s convict peninsula, believes Ella and William are in England. Letters from home suggest she’s with Harry, and is happy, but can Jem believe that after what Harry has put her through in the past? Unable to rest until he knows she’s safe and happy, Jem determines on a further escape attempt to reach England and Ella. Will their paths ever cross again, or is their love not meant to be?