Raine Balkera - Romance Author

  Welcome to Week Four of the MFRW Author Blog Challenge, 2018! This week's challenge question is: What I Would Do if I Couldn't be a Writer Easy... shoot myself. JUST KIDDING! If the question is geared toward those who are established Romance Authors making a decent income (enough to quit their 'other' job) then I don't qualify to respond. Which means my answer would have to be based on reality MINUS my aspirations of becoming a viable author, so this just means I'd have to go with An Office Worker --  closing in on retirement. I'm thinking if it hadn't been writing novels, it would have been photography since that is my close second passion and something I can't resist doing when the mood strikes or if something really cool, or pretty, or exciting, or interesting, or brightly colored is at hand. I actually LOVE being inside a Michael's or a Hobby Lobby, so maybe my parallel universe me would be into jewelry making or

MFRW Author Blog Challenge - Week 3 Hi, everyone, and welcome to Week Three of the MFRW Author Blog's 52-Week Blog Challenge for 2018. This week, our challenge is:  How Much of Myself is in My Writing? All of me, and none of me. Some of me? Bits and pieces of me. Well, this is sounding intelligent! Depending on the way you look at the challenge question, there are at least two ways you can answer, if not more. Firstly, I don't write in First-Person and struggle to enjoy First-Person, so if that is what is meant by ME, then no, I do not write as Myself in any of my works. Funny thing about First-Person narrative: whenever I 'do' read it, I auto-assume the author is doing just that... writing about herself, imagining herself in her head as the heroine she's creating for the story. If it is implied that ME means I write characters who are ME in real life, then the answer is no. It would never occur to me to do such a thin

2018, 1-16 Meteorite over SE Michigan Well, it's been an Up/Down start to my 2018, let me tell you. While I felt that 2017 was probably one of my better years, a lot of people claim otherwise. 2018, for me, is starting out on a pretty rocky road, and I'm not comfortable with it, either. For starters, my birthday falls on the 1st of January, so every year I get to celebrate the notion of getting older, which comes with its share of fear, dread, and "This can't be happening to me!" thoughts. I was alone on New Year's Eve and forgot to buy a bottle of champagne, so to have to believe that I'll be lonely and bored for the rest of the year is a bit daunting (if you or I believe in such nonsense, that is). But, then my eldest and his girlfriend announced their engagement just a week later, and it was happy time for a while. Selfishly, the joy ended when I realized it meant that when their wedding rolls around, I am going to be forced to have t

Today I'll be reviewing the First book in my 2018 Highlander Romance Novels reading challenge. Pages -  234  Published -  March 2, 2015 Sold by -  Amazon Digital Services LLC Series -  Scottish Strife Book 1 of 5 Sub Genre -  Historical Romance, Medieval Language -  1/5 Sexual Content -  3/5 Narrative -  3rd P With their father nearing death, Rory MacGregon and his brothers fear the inevitable. But their hopes are renewed when the ailing man names a renowned Scottish healer who defected to England years ago. Rory crosses dangerous territory to obtain her help, only to discover that the gifted healer would rather kill herself than save his dying father. Rory gauges that kidnapping the woman is his only option when the healer's beautiful daughter appears. The spirited lass declares that she is also a healer, and offers to go in her mother's stead. Darra Berchelaine has heard many stories about the bloodthirsty savages from the north. When sh

To help our authors blog consistently, thoughtfully, and with purpose, Marketing for Romance Writers announces the 2018 Blog Challenge . Each week, authors use our writing prompt to create a meaningful blog post. We'll be posting every Friday... join us as often as possible. All authors with blogs are welcome to participate. Hello, everyone! Welcome to Week 2 of the MFRW Author Blog 2018 Blog Challenge . This week, our Challenge Question is: My Earliest Memory I've always liked the idea of being able to keep a little part of me a secret from not just the world but even my loved ones. Since I do have quite a few of them, I guess it would be okay to share a bit of myself for this post. My memories really begin when I entered Kindergarten, but for this post, I'm going to share my absolute earliest memory (even if it is a bit choppy). I did the math, and I was 4½ at the time because it was early summer and my next door neighbor's little brother turned

http://mfrw52week.blogspot.com/ Hello, everyone, and welcome to the 2018 Edition of MFRW Author Blog 52-Week Challenge. Our First Challenge is: Favorite Thing I've Written, and Why And right off the bat, we have another tough challenge to deal with today. Personally, I choose ALL THE THINGS I write as my Favorite . 😁 Which is why I write. Because writing is my Favorite thing to do. All of my ideas, my characters, their personality issues, and the road I've paved ahead for them are Favorites . My very Favorite of all is that my stories involve ROMANCE and LOVE. But, to be fair, I'll narrow them all down (published and non) to one story for this post. My Favorite 'Thing' and WHY it is my Favorite: Awhile back I wrote a Blog Post about this story, but here is an abridged version for this Challenge. This is a Fantasy Romance I'm still working on (rough draft) that refuses to leave me alone even though I'm currently working on the

Well, I've decided to do something silly this year as far as Reading goes. While browsing my extensive Kindle library the other night, it occurred to me that a few patterns emerged both Title and Content-wise. A running theme that caught my eye had to do with HIGHLANDERS and SCOTTISH HIGHLANDER ROMANCES. And no, I've neither read nor watched the Outlander series. That doesn't mean a few of my Highlander-themed novels won't be about time-travel, but all will be about Love and/or Romance to some extent. Because that's what I read and write about... Romance. While 2017 started out promising for me, and I had worked hard on my 3rd Romance novel (of the Contemporary variety), about a 1/4 of the way through (say around April or May) I stopped writing and starting reading in earnest. 2018 has to be different, and I want to switch that around to read this year I will WRITE far more than I read... even if I do read every night before bed. I just need to

Pages -  181  Published -  May 18, 2015 Sold by -  Amazon Digital Services LLC Genre -   Medieval Historical Romance Language -  0/5 Sexual Content -  3/5 Narrative -  3rd P Furious at being used as a political pawn, the Lady Dariana defies King Henry VII by faking her own death to avoid marrying a man she has never met. Praying the king will not retaliate against her father, she seeks refuge in the forest and learns to fend for herself. When William, a warrior knight, is felled by an arrow, she saves his life and arranges his rescue before fleeing to avoid discovery. William awakes from his injury to be told he imagined the beautiful woman in the forest. Besotted and determined to make her his own, he hunts her down and tricks her into marrying him, intent on turning her defiance into love. But even as he begins to succeed, their enemies join forces to end the marriage—even if it means that Dariana must die. When Dariana is abducted, William must t