I Heart Novellas

I first started my love affair with novellas while I was pregnant with my second child. I didn’t have time to sink into a novel, but I didn’t want to give up reading. I also didn’t want to stop writing as I'd just discovered how much I loved it. (I’d also reached the conclusion that trying to learn how to craft a story in 80k was going to take me forever). So novellas ticked several boxes.

• Quick romance fix
• Quicker to write=faster learning curve on things like black moments and HEAs
• I could experiment with different genres in both my reading and writing

Since then I’ve read scads of them. Sometimes I was reading to see what a publisher was buying, other times because I was looking for something different to read (I mean who knew contemporary cowboys could be so hot? I’d dismissed them for so long after the historical ones didn’t work for me).

 

Sometimes I just wanted to try a new author. When I buy something that’s only 20k long I know it’s not going to be a big story. I know it’s going to be short and intense and that I’ll be leaving the characters after just an hour or two…but I don’t care. I’m reading for that bite of pleasure.

 

Do you love novellas?

 

 ~~~

Brightwater Blood, 31 January, avilable for preorder now:

Samhain Publishing and Amazon

 

To survive, they’ll have to think outside the circle.

   

Were-lion Lachlan Garvey is closing in on the Brightwater women, the last of a Shamanic line that the Council wants eradicated for their murderous use of magic. One minute he’s in his animal form, examining a dead body in a patch of charred grass. The next, he wakes up human—naked, shot and lying in a circle of his own blood.

 

Dayna Brightwater is sure the man she’s bound with a blood spell is the one who just murdered her twin sister. Yet even if she did have the stomach for revenge killing, she doesn’t have the power. But what to do with him now? If she lets him go, he’ll kill her, too.

 

Trapped in the path of a deadly magical fire, Lachlan has to think fast—and talk faster—to convince the beautiful Shaman he’s innocent. As the roaring flames creep closer, Dayna must choose. Trust Lachlan and use magic to save them both…or flee. And live with the knowledge she caused his death, proving that no Brightwater is capable of love.

 

Warning: Contains a naked hero who’ll do anything to save his life...including saving hers.