Welcome to Our Guest Blogger, Cindy Davies!

Hello everyone, I'm Cindy Davies, romantic suspense author. Thank you for joining me today! You can read more about me on my website.  The novels I'm talking about today are The Afghan Wife and The Revolutionary's Cousin.

The Afghan Wife is set in Iran during the volatile times of the Iranian Revolution. Zahra, mother and widow, is coerced by her cousin Firzun to travel from Afghanistan to Iran, posing as his wife. When she's reacquainted with wealthy, handsome Karim, sparks fly. It's a strict society - she's off limits because she's 'married'. Then a dramatic turn of events means Karim can declare his forbidden love and offer Zahra and her son a new life in America.

In the sequel, The Revolutionary's Cousin, Zahra's cousin forces her and her son to travel to Australia with him, then abandons them at the airport. Unable to contact Karim, frightened and alone in a foreign country, Zahra tries to overcome her ordeals and make a new life. Although desperate to get in touch with her, Karim's destiny takes a different path in the USA. Will Karim's persistence and love for Zahra be enough to succeed in his quest to find her?

In both novels my heroine is often in danger. In Iran, she's threatened in the street. In Australia she's suspected of drug smuggling, approached by an assassin, has to identify a body... In the USA, Karim is investigated by the FBI. He meets another woman. Will he stay true to Zahra?

In the strict society of Iran it's 'immodest' to look into a man's eyes, but Zahra dreams about Karim's honey-coloured eyes! He forgets he's not in the States and embraces Zahra when she's upset. Shocked, she pulls away, secretly longing to stay in his arms and inhale the scent of him...

The Afghan Wife  was placed third in the RWAmerica NY Chapter Competition 2018, and I've recently been awarded a ten-week writer's residency in Devon UK to work on novel #3, Unaccompanied Baggage. (Editor's note: congratulations, Cindy!)

I hope I can show my readers that love can flourish whatever the cultural setting.

Have you ever been really attracted to someone when you were teenagers, then met again after ten years? Was the attraction still there?

Please share your experiences of being stuck and alone either overseas or in a strange town in Australia... How did you feel?

Cindy

Love to Love:

Happy endings... like my daughter's wedding in March 2020!

Love to Laugh:

About things which seemed important in the past and are now irrelevant.

Love to Learn:

About people from different cultures. 

Bush Landscapes and Settings

BITB welcomes romantic suspense author Bronwyn Parry!

I've always loved the blog title 'Breathless in the Bush' - I sometimes wish I'd thought of it first as a tag line for my books!

Where is 'The Bush'? When politicians (and some city people) refer to it, they generally mean anything beyond 'the suburbs'. But the Australian landscape is varied and amazing - I often think of it in terms of the various regions beyond the cities - the coast, the country (within an hour or so of a city), the mountains, the bush, the outback, the desert, the tropics.

I've been fortunate to have travelled extensively through Australia's stunning landscapes, and I'm lucky to live on 100 acres of regrowth bushland on the Great Dividing Range in northern NSW. I set my books a little further west though, where the western slopes and the Brigalow forest belt meet the dry plains on the edge of the outback. This area fits my idea of 'the bush' - the dry forests of eucalypts and native cypress, the mulga scrub further north, and the kilometres of cleared paddocks for grazing and crops. The towns are few and far between, the small ones dusty and dying, employment and services evaporating or shifting to larger centres, often hours away.

The landscape can shape both character and story. The isolation of the bush makes a great setting for my romantic thrillers, intensifying the drama and emotion by placing the characters beyond help, so that they have to rely on their own skills and strengths to survive.

For writers, my main suggestion for creating an evocative landscape setting is to describe the surroundings through your characters' points of view, as they are experiencing it at that point in the story. What will a particular character notice at this moment? What will they feel? How can you weave those things through your story so that the reader is there with your character, in both the physical and the emotional place?

In my latest book, Sunset Shadows, some of the early dramatic events take place around a waterfall in wild country. Here's Tess, a police officer, visiting the scene of the crimes again, when she's been through an emotional day herself:

     Standing here on the top of the falls, with all the beauty of the wild country around - the rugged hills behind her, the gorge opening in front of her - and the fresh breeze in her face and the soporific burbling of the water, it could be so easy, so easy, to simply step into it, to take that one step and fly into the mesmerising beauty. Just one little step...
     'Are you okay, Tess?'
     Steve's voice, even and gentle. He stood there on the rocks, only a couple of metres away, his face so drawn she realised how she must look. She stepped backwards, away from the edge.



Rather than simply a backdrop, making the landscape an essential element in your plot that your characters must interact with adds depth and emotional intensity to your characterisations and your story. Whether it's the bright sparkling blues of a beach in summer or the wind crackling dry leaves in the Pilliga Scrub, our characters' actions, thoughts, emotions, and choices will be affected by the environment they're in. And out there, in the bush, there are many things to make a character breathless - the beauty, the rugged country, the heat, the passion of being alone with a loved one - or the fear when being pursued by a killer!


Are there books that you love for the landscapes they are set in? As a reader, has a book's setting made you breathless?

Bronwyn's latest book is Sunset Shadows, published by Hachette Australia. For police officers Steve Fraser and Tess Ballard, a split-second decision saves the lives of fifty members of a cult, but in the aftermath of the rescue nothing is simple. As the violence escalates out of control, Tess's past comes back to haunt her - and Steve - with tragic consequences. Isolated in rugged country, they're both faced with the impossible choice: who do you protect when there is more than one innocent life at risk?

Also coming Dec13th - a special 2-in-1 print edition of Dead Heat and Storm Clouds.

Buy links for Bronwyn Parry's books: Booktopia Amazon US  Amazon AUS   Kobo  B&N iBooks



Love to love: the amazing support and friendship of the romance writing community.

Love to laugh: with my husband, especially when I'm stuck on a scene and he helpfully suggests that my characters can go out for a pizza. Not that there are many pizza shops in the bush!

Love to learn: New things about the environment around me - matching bird calls to birds, observing the behaviour and interactions of the wildlife, seeing where water runs and pools in the landscape when it rains.

Finding Your Genre

with Enisa Haines

I was nine and reading Harlequin Mills & Boon novels, devouring them really. Young? Maybe. I blame Cinderella. She introduced me at age three, in the guise of a fairy tale, to romantic fiction.

When I began to write, my first attempt was a contemporary category romance. No surprise there. I knew the genre well. With my imagination working best in the midnight hours, night after night I wrote until finally those last two magical words--The End--appeared.

Did I yell out 'Yes!' or grin at the computer screen? No. I sat silent, unmoving. My plot and conflict may have been typical of the Sexy line I loved but the tone wasn't an exact fit and my hero and setting bore no resemblance to the rich alpha male or an exotic, lively city so prevalent in the novels.

Hmm. What to do? Fix the story or start another? In the midst of my dilemma the Silhouette Intimate Moments line arrived in Australia (as Silhouette Jasmine). The Harlequin Intrigue line arrived soon after. Romance mixed with danger.

I love cop shows. A movie-length thriller screens late in the night and I'm wide awake watching. Add a romance into the mix and I'm enthralled. The romantic suspense genre grabbed hold of me from the first moment of encounter.

My mind brimming with romances entwined with danger, I completed one manuscript, then a second, third and fourth. Enthused, I showed the work to critique partners, entered writing competitions, sent query letters to Silhouette Books in New York. Positive feedback. Competition placings and wins. Requests from the editor for partial and full manuscripts. Yes! Romantic suspense was the genre for me.

And yet I felt anxious. Doubt and uncertainty crept in. Why?

Image: www.computertutorsf.com

It's funny the way things that are meant to be happen. After a long battle with illness my father died. In my grief I wondered about the place that was now his home and how he was. In my wondering my imagination came alive.

A new world, a paranormal world, appeared. Characters I'd never thought to write about pushed forward seeking attention. How could that be? I wrote romantic suspense. Searching for answers, I came across an article. To discover my real voice and unlock my true writing potential I have to know my core story (who I am psychologically).

Who am I? I'm serious, my funny gene latent most times. I'm honest, maybe too honest, trust being a big issue for me. My tastes are black and white with no shades of grey in between. Examples: I love rock music and soulful ballads. Pretty Woman and The Terminator (all 4 parts) are my favourite movies. My view on justice is the same. Good battles evil and evil is vanquished. I'm obsessed with all things extrasensory and unknown. 'Is there anybody out there?' is a question I've been asking since I was a child. I haven't had an answer yet but it's a given that the cabinet beside my TV bulges with DVD collections of The Twilight Zone, The X-Files and Supernatural and a bookshelf is filled with paranormal novels.

Light-bulb moment! There it is revealed. My core story. I now know the writer I am.

I write stories set in a harsh world where good battles against evil and characters must fight to survive and embrace love. Stories about truth and trust and justice. That's my author theme. My brand. As long as I am consistent there and write the books I want to write, whether the genre is romantic suspense or paranormal doesn't matter.

Have you, in your writing journey, travelled along one path, or have you changed direction? Was finding your genre an easy trek or one with tangents that confused? Do you utilise your core story in your writing?

Love to love -

The bush. I'm blessed to be able to enjoy it daily where I live.

Love to laugh -

Small example of my bag fetish.

Love to learn - the myths and legends of times past are a great resource when creating new characters and worlds.

Image: courtesy of slideshare.net