We here at Sinfully Tasty Reads are glad to welcome back AMAZING romance/erotica (she actually wears many hats....lol) author Brita Addams. Today she is gifting us with a guest post and a phenomenal giveaway. Without further ado we give to you Britta Addams....^_^.
Thank you Raquel, for having me at Sinfully Tasty Reads today. I always love stopping by and
telling you my latest book. Today, I thought I'd talk a bit about our real stories, for we are
nothing if not for our stories.
The Stories We Tell
As an author, I create stories with characters that speak to me, sometimes in my dreams but
always in the very early morning hours! Muses have little respect for a writer's sleep.
When we are young, we think the world begins and ends with us. As we get older, we discover
there was indeed a world long before any of us and it will most certainly go on without us. For
me, that was a revelation of massive proportions. I was the kid who thought TV shows stopped
when we turned the set off, but I could never figure out why that didn't happen. Somehow, there
has to be the germ of the DVR invention there, no?
Anyway, I digress. I've been a non-professional genealogist for over twenty years. During that
time, I've uncovered some very interesting stories about my ancestors, some of which involved
some rather unsavory creatures. Ultimately, they are great fodder for the stories I write, changing
the names to protect the not so innocent, of course.
My grandmother died when I was seventeen. I adored her and miss her all these years later. My
greatest regret is that I didn't know her better. Yes, I saw her nearly every day, I talked to her, but
never asked a single question about who she really was, other than my Gram, I mean. After her
death, I began asking my mother the questions, and found she didn't know much more than she
would as someone who had grown up with her mother.
Of course, that only made me more curious, for my grandmother was an interesting woman, if
only in her simplicity. She was wholly uneducated, though she could read and write. I began to
dig, and oddly, the more questions I asked, the more answers I easily discovered. I grilled my
mother's siblings, all five of them, and slowly a glorious picture emerged.
Doris Moon was motherless at fourteen, an orphan at sixteen. Four days after her father died, she
married my grandfather. My aunt said they'd planned on marriage but it was sped up by events
beyond their control. Being poor, several of her siblings went to an orphanage, the two youngest
were adopted out, the rest were taken in by families in town. My grandmother was the third
oldest.
By the time Gram was thirty-one years old, she and my grandfather were the parents of six
children. They never lost any in childbirth, something quite common at the time. Their children
grew to adulthood, four still living today, my mother and her brother Jim being the ones lost.
I visit my former home every couple of years, during which time, I sit with my aunts and uncle
and they tell me stories. One of my favorites was the one about the time my Uncle Pete and his
classmates tied their schoolmaster to the bench on which he slept. He loves to tell that story and I
really don't believe he remembers he's told it to me dozens of times. I'd listen to it a dozen more
just to hear his laugh as he remembers that day.
In my research, I discovered my Gram's brother Roy was a hero, died during a flood while trying
to save a family's possessions. He died at thirty-five, leaving four small children and a lovely
young widow. I met her, fifty-two years after Roy's death, when she was aged and frail. She told
me of that rainy day, the creek overflowing its banks. Dorothy begged her husband not to go, but
he felt compelled to go and offer his help. It wasn't an hour later that a neighbor came banging
on her door and she knew. She told me she ran from the house, leaving her children with the
bearer of the bad news. She was there when they found Roy's body, which had been washed
down the creek and wrapped around a tree. Though she'd remarried many years later and bore
two more children, she never recovered from Roy's death. She followed him in 2007, sixty-two
years later. She maintained to her dying day, according to her children, that Roy was the love of
her life.
I wrote
An Evening at the Starlight, which is loosely based on Roy and Dorothy's story. It's a
story about timeless love and the appreciation of that love.
Then there was my great-great-grandmother, who bore my mother's paternal grandfather and
gave him up. He was then 'adopted' by the family I grew up thinking were related my blood. It
appears that great-great granny was complicit in a murder. She was also rather loose with her
favors, acquiring several "husbands" and uncles for her passel of children, thirteen in all.
From old newspaper reports, I found out she and husband number two conspired to commit the
murder of her first husband, Samuel. It would seem she enticed her first husband to sign over his
life savings to her and their two children. She rode with him to the big city, where he assigned
the vast sum of $200 to her and that night, her second husband, William, lured Samuel into a
barn and murdered him. Of course, he was caught, as was most of his family, and they were all
jailed, including my charming great-great-grandma.
From the transcripts of the trials, I gleaned an exact picture of her, red hair, 'not a very handsome
woman', stutter and all. It was many years later, after a couple of years in prison, that my greatgrandfather
was born. My mother adored him and his red hair.
Stories, real or fictional, are wonderful. I have many real stories, some charming, and some not
so much. However, they are all part of my history. I have doctors, lawyers, even the first fire
chief in Boston in my family tree. All with great, interesting stories attached to their names.
Writers are constantly creating stories, some with unlikely characters, others quite predictable.
However, I dare guess, even the most unusual characters could never equal those characters
found hanging in my or anyone else's family tree.
I will continue to use my ancestry to provide me with bits and pieces of personalities for my
characters. The stories I write will always have a germ of reality, taken from those who came
before.
Now, if you've read my books, you know some of my characters have rather kinky propensities.
They, my friends, are strictly from my imagination. At least I haven't discovered any lurking
about my ancestry.
The point I'd like to make is, ask questions of your family, dig into the history of your family. I
can't guarantee you will find characters as colorful as some of mine, but if you do find any with
some interesting, ahh, practices, please contact me and maybe your ancestor will appear in a
future book! *wink, smile, and raised eyebrow*
Link to my review of Demands Of The Heart
Here.
Here's the blurb from my newest release, Demands of the Heart.
In 1807, idealistic Richard Fanshaw and Victoria Bramhill are consumed with each other,
their young love blooming amidst a series of carefree soirees and stolen moments.
But jealousy and greed turn what they have into something ugly and twisted. They're
wrenched apart amid vile lies and deceit when Victoria's freedom is bought to pay her
father's debts.
Six years later, Victoria is widowed and a cynical Richard has just returned to England
after years in India. Having been given the impression that Victoria's marriage was a
happy one, a chance meeting renews Richard's anger over Victoria's betrayal and sets in
motion a plan for revenge.
One must answer the demands of the heart.
To read an excerpt and purchase, click here:
Demands of the Heart
I'd love to hear from you. You can find me at any of these places:
Email address:
britaaddams@gmail.com
Website
Blog
Twitter: @britaaddams
Facebook
Goodreads Page
20% off To celebrate the release of Demand's of the Heart, Noble Romance Publishing is
offering my entire backlist at 20% off. This is for sales on the Noble Romance Publishing site
only and only my titles.
There's no limit. Buy one book, or all seven, you'll get 20% off your purchase. The eligible titles
are:
Serenity's Dream;
Lord Decadent's Obsession;
Chocolate, Tea, and the Duchess;
The
Rogue's Salvation;
A Minute After Midnight;
An Evening at the Starlight, and the book I wrote
under the name Tina Ordone,
Her Timeless Obsession.
The price you'll see is the reduced price.
The sale will run from midnight, Pacific time, February 20 to 11:59 pm Pacific time, March 2.
This is a backlist sale, so it doesn't include
Demands of the Heart.
I have several contests running during the book tour, ending at midnight, March 2.
Contest #1:
I'll choose a daily winner from the commenters. I'll will be giving
away an ebook from my backlist at each stop. The only exclusion is Demands of the Heart. One
book per commenter, please.
Contest #2:
Demands of the Heart T-Shirt Contest:
If you answer the three questions correctly, you could be one of four
winners. The prize will be a T-Shirt with the cover of the book on
it. The shirt also says that the cover is model, Jimmy Thomas's
1500th cover. There will be four winners, each winning a T-Shirt
and other swag.
All answers are found on
Brita's website.
Please do NOT put the answers in the comments section of this blog or on Brita's site. Email
them to Brita, with
T-Shirt Answers in the subject line.
1. What book did I write under another name?
2. Who is the character, Lucien Damrill, patterned after?
3. Describe the signature brandy snifter at the Sapphire Club.
Contest #3: GRAND PRIZE
This contest is about
Demands of the Heart. Of course, you're under no obligation to buy or
read the book, but if you choose to, this contest is for you.
I've put three questions up on
my website, all relating to my book, Demands of the Heart.
Answer the questions and
EMAIL me, with the answers, at
britaaddams@gmail.com Be sure to
put
GRAND PRIZE in the subject line.
You must have all three questions answered correctly to be entered into the drawing.
The
Grand Prize is the entire Sapphire Club series in print, signed by the author. I'll also include
some other signed swag.
Good luck and I hope to hear from you soon.
Next stop on the Virtual Blog Tour is over at: Dawn's Reading Nook Blog
