New Books

This month brings several new books from our authors. We'll highlight one today.

Last Chance Beauty Queen by Hope Ramsay continues the adventures of the townsfolk of Last Chance where the Cut n' Curl remains the place for the best gossip in town. This time British royalty has come to town, looking for an investment and perhaps a wife. Caroline's job depends upon making him feel welcome, but when he wants something she has no intention of giving him, sparks really are ignited. But this former Watermelon Queen will learn a lot about what's really important in life and community.


And if you happened to miss the first book in this series, Welcome to Last Chance, you can get it in digital form this week for a discounted price. Here's the link .

Guest Blog - Perseverance by Hope Ramsay

Today, we're delighted to have Hope Ramsay as our guest. Sharing her story should bring both wisdom and encouragement to all authors. (We also thank her for the nice things she says about our agency!) Here's Hope . . .

This September, a dream came true for me with the publication of Home at Last Chance.

No, this book was not my first published work. And the book didn't win the Golden Heart in 2010, when it finaled in that contest. Nor was it the full manuscript that sold the Last Chance series.

But it was the book I believed in. Even when no one else did.

See, the original first chapter for this book was finished on April 4, 2001. I can pinpoint the date because that first draft still sits on my hard drive.

The first version of this book, originally entitled Rules of the Road was finished in 2004, and garnered me an agent, who worked diligently throughout 2005 and part of 2006 to sell this book. While she pitched editors I wrote another story featuring Tulane's older brother, Clay, that came to be known as Welcome to Last Chance.

Alas, Rules of the Road was rejected by just about every editor under the sun. The lack of enthusiasm for this book even carried over to the sequel. My agent explained, gently, that in 2006 editors weren't looking for romantic comedy, NASCAR set stories, or any kind of contemporary romance set in a small Southern town. Urban fantasy was in. If you didn't have a vampire you were not cool.

So, for three years, Rules of the Road, Welcome to Last Chance, and a third, earlier book entitled For Love or Money, languished on my hard drive while I wrote a couple of very long classic fantasies. Then, in 2009, in an act of utter desperation, I did two things: 1) I entered Rules of the Road in the Amazon Breakthrough Contest, and 2) I entered For Love or Money in the Golden Heart. To my utter astonishment Tulane's story made it into the final 100 entries of the Amazon contest. And then For Love or Money finaled in the Golden Heart.

Those contest results didn't directly lead to immediate success, but they convinced me to dust off those Rhodes Family manuscripts and seriously pitch them. So one day in April 2009 I sat down across a table from Elaine English and pitched Last Chance for the first time in years.

I was pretty sure that no agent would want this series, which had been so soundly rejected over the years. But Elaine surprised and reassured me. She asked to see them all.

And to my utter astonishment, she agreed to represent me. Then she turned her crew of readers lose on my manuscripts, and she and her readers gave me a road map for some serious edits that turned two of these books into part of the four book proposal that she shopped around in late 2009.

And then, in early 2010, nine years after I wrote the first draft of the first chapter of Tulane' s story, Forever Romance bought the book. And just a few weeks ago, I walked into Barnes and Noble and saw the book sitting right out front.

That was, without question, the most gratifying moment of my very short writing career.

Thank you Elaine. Thank you Forever Romance. This story of a good ol' boy in a pink car has always been near and dear to my heart. It took a long, long time to write and to sell. I had to rewrite it at least a dozen times. And yet, the first chapter, featuring Sarah and Tulane on an airplane, has changed almost not at all since it was first written down ten years ago.

This, I think, is a classic example of perseverance. If you have story that you believe in, never, never, never give up on it. One day you might sit down across a small table from someone and talk about that book, and suddenly, you'll find an ally who believes in it as much as you do.

And the rest will be history.

New Release: Home at Last Chance by Hope Ramsay

The agency is excited to announce that Home at Last Chance, the sequel to the bestselling romance novel Welcome to Last Chance, is now available. Author Hope Ramsay brings the small southern town of Last Chance to life with her wonderful cast of characters once again:

Dear Reader,

You won't believe what's happened. My son Tulane has come back home! You remember Tulane? He'd set out to find fame and fortune in the big, wide world outside of Last Chance, and I'm mighty proud. But that's not the half of it-Tulane isn't only back, he's brought a young lady with him.

Now Sarah-she does PR for Tulane's stock-car team-she's from Boston, but she's just about the sweetest girl you could meet. I think she's meant to keep Tulane out of trouble after that story in the papers, but he doesn't want to talk about it. Anyhow, the Ladies Auxiliary can't wait to start matchmaking and introduce Sarah to our Reverend Ellis. But mark my words, Sarah is tired of being a good girl. And no one is better at breaking the rules and raising Cain than my son . . .

Listen to me going on and keeping customeres waiting. I best get back to work, but you come round again. The Cut 'n' Curl's got hot rollers, free coffee, and the best gossip in town.

See you real soon,

Ruby Rhodes

Be sure to pick up your copy today!

Guest Blog: Finding an Emotional Touchstone

We welcome Hope Ramsay to the keyboard today as we continue to celebrate the release of Welcome to Last Chance, Hope's debut from Grand Central Publishing/Forever Romance. Without further ado:

I try to write emotional stories. It's something I work on diligently. Writing emotional stories doesn't come as easily as finding plot twists or complications for my characters. And I know that I can get pretty caught up in the plot of a story, and lose the emotional aspects of it that are so important when writing romance.

For this reason, I won't even start a story without an overarching emotional touchstone for the novel, as well as emotional touchstones for the hero and heroine.

What's a touchstone? It's something tangible that can put me right into the correct emotional frame of mind. It's a way of borrowing an emotion from something, because it's hard to write a sad scene when you're feeling happy, or to write about a character who needs to take chances, when you are naturally a risk taker.

I need short cuts, and that's what a touchstone is.

Because nothing moves me emotionally the way music does, my touchstones are always songs. And a group of them in a play list on my iPod are almost like a soundtrack for the novel I might be working on. I'll put that play list on while I'm writing and I'm never very far from where the story lives emotionally. When I get lost, or I need to rethink something, I dial up a particular song and listen to it repeatedly. It always works.

So, to celebrate the release day for WELCOME TO LAST CHANCE, I thought I would share a portion of the book's soundtrack.

• God Bless the Broken Road by Rascal Flatts is the song that moved me to write this story. I first heard this song on my way to an RWA chapter meeting, and I knew, right then I had found the theme for the next book. WELCOME TO LAST CHANCE is all about how the hero and heroine have to overcome their broken pasts. In fact, the troubles my lovers have suffered in the past are precisely what makes them ready for each other.
• Ask for More by David Wilcox is a song whose title I shamelessly use in a scene that takes place in the local beauty shop, where Miz Miriam, my town matchmaker, tells my heroine, Jane, that she should "ask for more." The song is about listening to the signs from on high that whisper in your ear and tell you that you are selling yourself short. Jane needs to learn how to love herself, and asking for more is the first step on that journey.
• When the Sand Runs Out also by Rascal Flatts is a song about living one's life to the fullest. This song is the emotional touchstone for my hero, Clay. He's in the middle of a life crisis where he's spending way too much time worrying about what happened in the past and trying to be safe. The song is all about taking a chance -- something that Clay really needs to do.
  

I have a dozen other songs in this sound track. Some of them apply to minor characters, and some apply to specific scenes and turning points. I can't share them here without spoiling the story for you.

But don't know how I would write anything worth reading without finding inspiration and emotion in music.

New Release

Today we're celebrating the release of Welcome to Last Chance, the first in a series by debut author Hope Ramsay set in Last Chance, South Carolina, where the Cut ‘n Curl is gossip central, the Kountry Kitchen serves up biscuits that melt in your mouth, and the local good ol boys are good looking and mostly single. When Wanda Jane Coblentz blows into Last Chance with five bucks to her name, she meets local fiddler Clay Rhodes at a bar and spends a hot first night at the local no-tell motel. She expects to move on soon, but it seems like she and Clay may be more of a match than she ever dreamed. Clay's mother, Ruby Rhodes, is going to do everything she can to make sure Clay and Jane figure out they're singing the same tune. Publishers Weekly gave the book a starred review, saying "Ramsay strikes an excellent balance between tension and humor as she spins a fine yarn." Hope is celebrating her release today over at the Ruby Slipped Sisterhood. Check it out and pick up a copy of Welcome to Last Chance today!