Free For All Friday - Meet Author Taryn Kincaid!

Welcome everyone! Today I'm thrilled to have the talented Taryn Kincaid visiting! Especially since we're both celebrating our releases!
Thanks so much for being here, Taryn. I LOVE your cover for HEALING HEARTS. It's gorgeous:)

All of Taryn's books are listed on her website/blog http://dreamvoyagers.blogspot.com/

but come on back and get to know Taryn a little better:)

Hi, everyone!  I'm so thrilled to be here this week to help Jennifer celebrate the release of RAFE'S REDEMPTION! 

As for me, my Regency novella, HEALING HEARTS, releases Monday from Carina Press!  Almost to excited about that to answer Jennifer's Q&A.

Q. Where is your favorite place to write?

A. I think that depends on time, place and season and where am I in the story. Often, bits of dialogue come to me in the shower (although it is pretty impossible to jot anything down then).  When I was working on one of my paranormals, and couldn't quite work out where it was going, I started taking loooooong walks in a park near my house...with a little notepad tucked into my back pocket. Sure enough, I'd stop dead in my tracks to scribble. The joggers and bikers were not to happy about that!

Q. What is most difficult for you to write: Characters, conflict, emotions?

A. For me this has to be conflict, conflict, conflict. I generally start with the characters, falling in love with the hero, of course. As I write, their emotions begin to take hold. Often it is the internal conflict that rips me apart, far more than the hero and heroine! Sometimes, even in my favorite reads, the internal conflict seems contrived to me. Yes, we get it. The heroine has trust issues. The hero can't commit. I worry about coming up with issues that go beyond that. Always a struggle.

Q. If you were going to cast the hero of your book, what actor would you get?

A. Hmm. This is a puzzler. I want him gorgeous, with a great British accent, and tall, dark and handsome. All the actors I can think of who are springing to mind -- Colin Firth, Clive Owen, Rupert Everett, are already a little too old to play Adam, I think! Perhaps Christian Bale! 

Q. Do you believe in love at first sight? 

A. Oh, most definitely. Doesn't everyone? No, seriously, I think very often that is the stuff of romance novels and why we love them. That first sizzle of awareness between the hero and the heroine...when everything else fades away. Ah. Swoon.

Q. Why did you pick your genre to write -- OR did it pick you?

A. Oh, the genres pick me. My release from The Wild Rose Press, SLEEPY HOLLOW DREAMS, was an erotica paranormal. HEALING HEARTS is a sweeter (though still hot!) Regency. I'm currently working on a romantic suspense. I go where the characters take me!

HEALING HEARTS is available for pre-order now at Carina Press and Amazon.

Blurb:

As a girl, Emma Whiteside asked Adam Caldwell, Viscount Riverton, to wait for her to be of marriageable age. Now, twelve years later, Emma hates Adam as much as she once loved him, holding the former army major responsible for the death of her brother on the battlefield.
Adam already blames himself for the loss of the men under his command. But the fiery young woman Emma's become sparks his arousal, as well as emotions Adam thought long dead. The passion between them makes him want to reclaim the man he was before the war.
Though she tries to hold on to her hatred, Emma's longing for Adam is undeniable, especially after the two share a smoldering kiss. Still, Adam is certain no woman would want a man so damaged. Can Emma prove him wrong?
Excerpt:

The wind blew off the sea, moaning and wild, buffeting the man pacing the cliffs.
Hidden by a wall of rock, Emma Whiteside shielded her eyes against the bite of salt spray and continued to watch him, as she did every dawn.
Today, she thought. Today she would approach him at last. Confront him. Give him the royal tongue-lashing he deserved. She had nothing left to lose, after all. And she might not have the opportunity tomorrow. Or ever again.
The things I will say to you, Riverton, will peel the skin from your bones and lay you lower than anything Napoleon's Grande Armée had to offer.
A small voice nagged Emma from within, the advice reasonable considering her current dire circumstances. Better to seek the man's aid than chide him. But she snapped her mind closed against the unwanted counsel. The viscount was the last man on earth she'd ever ask for help.
Grief chilled her, numbed her heart, deadened the tender feelings she'd once had for him. Only her need for vengeance broke through her frozen emotions now. She longed to set Riverton in his place, however little effect her words might have on a man so impervious to remorse.
But once again Emma could neither confront him nor beseech him. The evidence of his stiff-necked pride—and her own—continued to hold her back with as much force as if an unseen hand pressed down upon her shoulder. She glared in the man's direction, as if it were his hand oppressing her.
Fierce gusts punished him, impeding his tortured progress. Pain twisted his handsome features but he confronted the gale without flinching. A tiny chip splintered off from the ice sheath encasing Emma's heart.
Damn him.
How do you bear it, Riverton? Are you made of stone?
She knew he was not. She saw the agony against which he fought, the stalwart way he pushed himself onward, despite the uneven gait that hampered his progress.
A cold blast of wind whistled past, ripping the hood of Emma's cloak aside, whipping her hair against her neck. The frigid current stung her eyes, wringing reluctant tears. She blinked the moisture away and rubbed the damp trail from her cheeks.
No tears, she instructed herself. Not for him. Never for him.
Riverton wore no coat or cravat. His linen flapped about him, white shirttails torn from his trousers—an unlikely flag of surrender when he refused to give quarter.
Did you stand so against the French?
Emma could think of no oath dark enough to curse a man so remarkably stoic. She envisioned him in her mind's eye, saber raised, hastening up and down the lines, shouting at his men to hold: Major Adam Caldwell, Viscount Riverton, at his most courageous.
She shuddered, conjuring the brutal attack that haunted her grimmest moments, the scene clouded by smoke and thunder, blurred by the limits of her grief and imagination. The battle where her twin had fallen, belly pierced by an enemy bayonet.
Michael admired you so, Riverton. I will never stop blaming you. 'Tis time you knew it.
Anger burned within her breast, bright as her love for the viscount once had.
And yet...her gaze swept him again, lingering on the trousers that molded his muscular thighs, the loose shirt that emphasized the breadth of his shoulders. 'Twas but the vicious wind that stole her breath, she told herself. 
***
Taryn Kincaid
Healing Hearts, Carina Press, February 28, 2011
Available for pre-order at CarinaPress.com and Amazon.com
Sleepy Hollow Dreams,  The Wild Rose Press
http://www.dreamvoyagers.blogspot.com