Book Releases

Holding On (Colorado High Country #6) —
The Colorado High Country series returns with Conrad and Kenzie's story.

A hero barely holding on…

Harrison Conrad returned to Scarlet Springs from Nepal, the sole survivor of a freak accident on Mt. Everest. Shattered and grieving for his friends, he vows never to climb again and retreats into a bottle of whiskey—until Kenzie Morgan shows up at his door with a tiny puppy asking for his help. He’s the last person in the world she should ask to foster this little furball. He’s barely capable of managing his own life right now, let alone caring for a helpless, adorable, fluffy puppy. But Conrad has always had a thing for Kenzie with her bright smile and sweet curves. One look into her pleading blue eyes, and he can’t say no.

The woman who won’t let him fall…

Kenzie Morgan’s life went to the dogs years ago. A successful search dog trainer and kennel owner, she gets her fill of adventure volunteering for the Rocky Mountain Search & Rescue Team. The only thing missing from her busy life is love. It’s not easy finding Mr. Right in a small mountain town, especially when she’s unwilling to date climbers. She long ago swore never again to fall for a guy who might one day leave her for a rock. When Conrad returns from a climbing trip haunted by the catastrophe that killed his best friend, Kenzie can see he’s hurting and wants to help. She just might have the perfect way to bring him back to the world of the living. But friendship quickly turns into something more—and now she’s risking her heart to heal his.

In ebook and soon in print!


About Me

My photo
I grew up in Colorado at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, then lived in Denmark and traveled throughout Europe before coming back to Colorado. I have two adult sons, whom I cherish. I started my writing career as a columnist and investigative reporter and eventually became the first woman editor of two different papers. Along the way, my team and I won numerous state and several national awards, including the National Journalism Award for Public Service. In 2011, I was awarded the Keeper of the Flame Lifetime Achievement Award for Journalism. Now I write historical romance and contemporary romantic suspense.

Members

Seductive Musings

Friday, June 03, 2011

Meanwhile, back in 1758...




As many of you have already seen on Facebook, I now have the final cover to the re-release of Surrender. I was elated to see the first images of the cover — posted here a while back — because they demonstrated the care my editor at Berkley has put into getting historically accurate images on the cover.

Compare this to the original cover with its entire village of tipis — I had sent an email telling my first publisher to make sure there were no tipis — and its “chastity plaid” that made an absolute waste of Nathan Kamp’s excellent chesticles — a request made by a shall-not-be-named distributor that is now defunct. Yes, I wept when I saw this cover, and not in a good way.


But by now, most of you have seen the little gold medallion on the front that says, “Includes new material.” I thought I would explain what’s going on.

Basically, we’ve gone back to square one with the original manuscript. So the novel is getting a new edit — I am making small changes to the text, but not to the plot — and my editor has edited it in a slightly different way. The manuscript was never altered very much from the original, and these changes are subtle.

For example, my previous editor felt that using “ken” and “kent” in the story made it hard to read and irritating for people who don’t like the Scottish burr, so all of those were changed to “know” and “known.” But my editor at Berkley has left them the way I originally wrote them.

(Those of you who wonder where I got my way of denoting the Scots accent and such might be interested to hear that I got it from Scottish music. The way I spell things and much of the vocabulary comes not from my imagination, but from old Scottish folk songs.)

What won’t be subtle are new scenes or extended scenes that will be included in the final version.

When I wrote Surrender, I was not too far away from the experience of having 100 pages cut from Carnal Gift. It wasn’t that the book sucked and needed to be cut. It’s that the original publisher just would not print anything beyond a certain number of pages, and I had overshot that by a significant number. It ruined the story, in my opinion.

So, when I wrote Ride the Fire, I was very conscious of this page limit and was simultaneously trying to write and not write too much. That’s a hard thing to do as a writer. It was the same experience in writing Surrender. I never, ever wanted to go through the pain of having pages I’d worked so hard to craft cut just to please some bean counter somewhere. (It costs more to ship books if fewer fit in a box.)

Now with this new edit, I can loosen things up a bit. How much new material will be in the story? I can’t say. But there will be some.

This same process will occur with Untamed in about a month. The difference with Untamed is that the original manuscript had 25 pages cut out to make the book fit the original publisher’s even smaller maximum page count. (I was not pleased.) Those 25 pages will be restored, and the book will get a new, fresh edit.

The same thing will occur with Ride the Fire later this year, only my focus there will be to get in the epilogue I didn’t have the stamina to write when I originally wrote the book. A deeply personal story for me, Ride the Fire stripped me to the bone. I had nothing left and couldn’t function for about six weeks after I finished writing it. So, the epilogue just never happened. It still isn’t written.

A lot of things will be happening in a short period of time as we move deeper into 2011. Here’s a list:

Later this summerSweet Release and Carnal Gift will be available in the original print versions as I sell off the limited stock I have of those books. I bought a case of each, and I’ll autograph them and sell them online or through email.

Early autumnSweet Release and the original version of Carnal Gift will be available as ebooks for Kindle, Nook and in other formats. I’m going to be self-publishing them, and that means those 100 pages will be included in the ebook version of Carnal Gift. You can judge whether what I wrote is better than what was originally published.

December Surrender will be re-released in print and as an ebook by Berkley with the cover you see at top, the new edit and the new material.

January Untamed will be re-released in print and as an ebook by Berkley with the cover you see at top, the new edit and the new material.

February (or later)Defiant, Connor’s story, which you have all (im)patiently been awaiting, will be released. This is a new book, not a re-release.

So those of you who’ve been waiting for more historicals from me will be getting what you asked for, and the entire series, which went out of print after the original publisher hit hard financial times, will be available in one format or another, part of it self-pubbed.

I’ll keep you up to date as a I go along. As we get closer, we’ll do a MacKinnon’s Rangers reading challenge so that everyone can remember who these guys are and what the heck three Scottish brothers from the Highlands are doing in Colonial New York.

This weekend, I’m hanging with Iain and Annie, re-editing Surrender and making notes for ideas for new and extended scenes. It’s something I’ve never done before, and I’m finding it kind of fun.

Have a great weekend!

9 comments:

Karen C said...

I became a fan when I started reading your romantic suspense I-Team novels. I'm glad that I am now going to have the opportunity to come to know you through your historical books as well - looks like perfect timing!

Thanks for sharing all this information with us.

Thank you, Pamela, for giving us the scoop about what's happening with you and your books. I'm looking forward to reading these stories the way you intended them to be read. I'll be sending good thoughts and hugs your way during your editing and writing process!

landin said...

Oh! I am SO excited for these re-releases,I'm almost jumping up and down! I especially love knowing that Ride the fire will finally get the epilogue it deserves,oh this is all such wonderful news!

Joanne said...

Fantastic news! Thank you for keeping us updated -- Surrender is one of my all time favs, and I'm currently reading Untamed now.

KayH. said...

What good news for all of us ! You will be a very busy woman ( just for a change, LOL ) with everything going on with your stories.
Iain was my "first", so I am sooo thrilled to have ALL the historical books back, in they're original form too! WOW.

Thank you for all your hard work. : )

KayH. said...

What good news for all of us ! You will be a very busy woman ( just for a change, LOL ) with everything going on with your stories.
Iain was my "first", so I am sooo thrilled to have ALL the historical books back, in they're original form too! WOW.

Thank you for all your hard work. : )

KayH. said...

P.S. Sorry for the double print. My computer said the 1st. one didn't go through. : (

Hey Pamela !
Thanks for the heads up - as you know, I have ALL your historicals which I read in order by last July. I fell in love with them as they were, but now doing a 'happy dance' as am soooo excited knowing that you will re-release them as you intended - with your original scenes & dialogue intact!!
'Och!' Your original editor must have been an 'eedjit' - am surprised you didn't 'skelp' them upside their head with a 'spurtle' !!
As soon as you publish them, they'll be hitting my Kindle - woo hoo cannot wait! xx

MANDY said...

I SO loved your Makinnon books....can't wait to re-read them with some new stuff!!! Very exciting. I loved your historicals too. Ride the fire blew me away and I was emotionally distraught reading it....I can't imagine how you felt writing it. Well done.

Post a Comment

Follow Me

Search

Seduction Game

Blog Archive

Labels

Favorite Writing Quotes


"I am an artist. I am here to live out loud."
—Emile Zola

"I am tomorrow, or some future day, what I establish today. I am today what I established yesterday or some previous day."
—James Joyce

"Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery."
—Jane Austen

"Writers are those for whom writing is more difficult that it is for others."
—Ernest Hemingway

"When I write, I feel like an armless, legless man with a crayon in his mouth."
—Kurt Vonnegut

"The ability of writers to imagine what is not the self, to familiarize the strange and mystify the familiar is the test of their power."
—Toni Morrison

"No tears in the author, no tears in the reader."
—Robert Frost.

"I'm a writer. I give the truth scope."
—the character of Chaucer in
A Knight's Tale