A special treat to MamaWriters today – Silver James – who many of us know and love. Please, read and comment, as Silver is offering a lucky winner with a free book! Thanks, and take it away, Silver!

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There is one, you know, for all of you with little ones clamoring around the house. There comes a time when there are no more grubby little hands mauling just-printed pages meant for submissions. There is life after nap times and play dates. Writing time is more plentiful once sporting events, driving lessons, and shopping for prom dresses are no more. I know this because my “little one” isn’t any more. She’s a young woman, pursuing her dreams of an advanced degree in Museum Studies. She’s also planning her wedding for next year. Will it be romantic? Of course! But not because I’m planning it. I’m just the checkbook. <wink> Just because I write romances and guarantee my characters their Happy Ever After doesn’t mean she believes I’m a wedding planner. Trust me, I’m not!

Even though The Only…yes, that’s what we call her, and it’s usually meant to be a compliment. “D’huh?” you ask. Depending on the events of the day, there are two schools of explanation on why we only had one child. On a good day, I’ve been known to tell people with pride, “When you get perfection the first time out, you quit while you’re ahead.” Then there are the days the answer was far different. “Yes, we only have one…Why?…Have you ever talked to a family with a passel of kids and they invariably say of the last one, had this one been born first, s/he would be an only child? Well, she’s an only child!” FYI, I’m a firm believer in giving The Only something to talk about when she goes into therapy. It’s in the parental contract. As a mom, my duty is to drive my daughter nuts. Just sayin’! (Don’t even get me started on the things her father pulled when she was young. Can you say gullible?) Despite my best efforts, she’s grown into a lovely young woman, full of confidence, abilities, and compassion. Though we gave her a hard time, she still covered for me. I remember an incident from grade school when she had friends over to play. My characters weren’t cooperating at all and I was berating them rather soundly. Out loud.

“Uhm…who’s your mom talking to?” one friend asked.

The Only rolled her eyes. “The people who live in her head.” I stopped writing, listening to the nervous titters echoing in the next room.  “It’s okay, though. She’s not crazy. Those are the characters in her book. Dad and I don’t panic unless they talk back.”

For some strange reason, those girls never came back to our house to play….hrmmmm…

Now that I’m published and my debut novel, FAERIE FATE, is out, The Only is one of my biggest supporters and PR people. She’s handed out postcards all over her college campus, lining up friends and professors who want to read (and buy!) my book. I remember a time when she ignored the “icky” parts of my manuscripts. Then I introduced her to Sherrilyn Kenyon’s Darkhunters. All the sudden, my TBR shelf was empty. Barren. Bereft. Every book I wanted to read had suddenly disappeared into the Black Hole (aka her room). I’m STILL finding some of those paperbacks in there all these years later. Why is it she’ll read the sexy bits written by someone else but not me? She just blushes, ahems, and changes the subject. I guess it all goes back to that whole “My parents don’t do that!” syndrome. I had that particular blinder on where my parents were concerned, too. Isn’t it funny that in our role as parent or child, we never want to contemplate the sexuality of the other? As The Only would say, “Ewwwwww!”

Oh dear! I veered a bit off topic there. Sorry ’bout that. Suffice it to say the little ones eventually grow up, you will have “that” conversation with them, despite the “ewww’s” on both sides, and then life returns to normal. And so does writing. Time becomes your own once again. The house no longer echoes with joyous or angry shouts—see there is an advantage to only one child: no sibling rivalry (unless you count the dogs ;) ). The light at the end of the tunnel comes when you let your child go, knowing s/he’s ready to take on the world. Enjoy them while they’re small, but look forward to them when they make it to adulthood. I’ve discovered The Only is pretty darn cool. And a heckava PR agent. :D

If you could go back, do it over again, would you take a chance to find true love? What if you had no choice?

On her fiftieth birthday, the faerie catapult Rebecca Miller a thousand years into the past to find her happily ever after with Ciaran MacDermot, Chief of Clann MacDermot and the last Fenian warrior in his line. In the twenty-first century, Becca is old enough to be Ciaran’s mother. In the tenth, she’s young enough to be his bride.

The fae forgot to mention one slight stipulation. The lovers must be bound before the Festival of Light, or Becca will forever disappear into Tir Nan Óg, the faerie Land of the Ever Young. Will they discover the binding words before time runs out and they’re torn apart forever? Or will their eternal love defeat their Faerie Fate?

Without the words, history is doomed to repeat itself.

Excerpt from FAERIE FATE:

The little clock she’d received as a present on her twenty-fifth birthday whirred and chimed the time. One small, tinkling chime. Two. Finally, twelve in all. Midnight between March twentieth and March twenty-first. The vernal equinox. The day when light and dark, good and evil, love and hate all balanced on the finely tuned axis of mother earth.

Voices, strange with lilting accents, whispered somewhere in the darkness of Becca’s dream.
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“She sleeps,” said a soft voice, feminine, one Becca didn’t recognize.
“Aye.” The second voice was deep, male, arrogant.
“Will she remember?”
“Nay, she’ll not.”
“How then will she know what to do?”
“She’ll know.” He sounded confident.
“What of him?”
“Aye, he’ll definitely know now. He should have known the last time, but she was too afraid, and he was too full of himself.”
“What is so different this time?” She was skeptical.
“She was young then, not matched well to him. Now, she’s no young soul. She’s had all those lives without him, the lonely nights, and the ache in her heart for all time. This time, she has courage born in the fires of suffering. She’ll know not to run from him, but to him.”
“You’re sure with the knowing of it this time?”
“Aye.”
“And, if it doesn’t work?”
“Ciaran dies. Again.”
A sharp intake of breath came from the woman. “That cannot happen. Too much went wrong the first time.”

FAERIE FATE, available in print and ebook from THE WILD ROSE PRESS, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble.

I want to thank Ashley and all the Mama Writers for having me here today. Inquiring minds (mine!) want to know if your kids have ever explained your writing to a friend, and what they said. Or if you have a question, just ask! One random commenter will receive their choice of the print or ebook edition of FAERIE FATE.

BIO: My imagination has always run rampant. As a published author, I get to share the stories created there in the vast cosmic void of my brain. Over the course of my lifetime, I’ve been a mother, military officer’s wife, state appellate court marshal, airport rescue firefighter and forensic fire photographer, crime analyst, and technical crime scene investigator. Retired from the “real world” now, I live in Oklahoma and spend my days at the computer with my two Newfoundland dogs, the “lolcat” who rules us all, and myriad characters all clamoring for attention. Eventually, I’ll tell each of their stories.

For more information visit me at www.silverjames.com