Hi all! Cassandra Dean here, ready to chat
about FOOL’S
GOLD!
Part of Decadent Publishing’s Western Escape,
FOOL’S GOLD
is the second in my Diamond
Series. Set in the fictional town of Freewill, Wyoming, The Diamond Series
centres around The Diamond Saloon and Theater, and the people who work and live
there.
In FOOL’S GOLD,
Christmas Eve has arrived and herald the beginning of a blizzard. Pearl la
Monte, singer and star of the Diamond Theater’s Burlesque and Variety
Spectacular, is by her lonesome, wanting nothing more than to rest and relax. A
knock at the door disabuses her of this notion, and when she finds Ethan
Garrett on the other side, her ire is raised…
Christmas
in Freewill
Christmas Eve, the Diamond
Saloon is empty of its people, and Pearl la Monte has a hankering to retire
early. A pounding at the Diamond’s door rids her of such a fool notion. Her
irritation rises when she sees the prissy, polite-like Garrett standing
outside.
Ethan Garrett has a powerful
need to gain succor. When the saloon’s voluptuous redheaded singer scowls at
him from the threshold of the Diamond, he doesn’t stop to think on how his ire
at her has disappeared. Or how he just wants to spend some time in her company.
When a blizzard storms in,
trapping them, will they spend their time arguing or find their irritation for
each other disguises something more?
The great thing about the second in a
series is all the preliminary work is done. The world has been created, the
historical references have been researched, the characters and their
relationships are mostly established. It made writing FOOL’S GOLD
not that painful, which is always nice! I could focus on other things, bits and
pieces that helped make up the world.
Of course, I still had to figure out who
Pearl and Ethan were, what drives them, what scares them, what drew them to
each other. This was definitely the hard part. In fact, I realised after
beginning that I had Ethan and Pearl’s personalities the wrong way round –
originally, Ethan was the flirty one and Pearl the quieter one. SO VERY WRONG.
Once I realised I was writing them wrong, swapped the dialogue around and had Pearl being all flirty and cheeky and
stuff, it worked much better. Golly, it’s amazing when you realise such things!
It’s like a lightbulb above your head, to be all clichéd about it ;p The story
worked better, the characters were finally sounding like themselves, and it all
just flowed.
So there you go! Not much research, and I
had a complete story done and dusted. Gotta love it when that happens :) I hope
you all check out The
Diamond Series, and the people who inhabit it.
Thanks for hanging with me, peeps!
Christmas
in Freewill
Christmas
Eve, the Diamond Saloon is empty of its people, and Pearl la Monte has a
hankering to retire early. A pounding at the Diamond’s door rids her of such a
fool notion. Her irritation rises when she sees the prissy, polite-like Garrett
standing outside.
Ethan
Garrett has a powerful need to gain succor. When the saloon’s voluptuous
redheaded singer scowls at him from the threshold of the Diamond, he doesn’t
stop to think on how his ire at her has disappeared. Or how he just wants to
spend some time in her company.
When
a blizzard storms in, trapping them, will they spend their time arguing or find
their irritation for each other disguises something more?
FOOL’S GOLD
is available at the following e-stores:
Excerpt:
Turning on her heel, Pearl marched off toward the stairs.
A weird kind of panic jolted through Ethan, one he’d never felt before in
all his days. It was…he didn’t…. She couldn’t leave him. “Where are you going?”
She whirled to face him, her irritation plain. “I was seeking my bed before
your arrival, and now I’m seeking it again. Help yourself to whiskey this one
time. I got better things to do.”
Shoving to his feet, he strode to her. “Don’t just walk away when we’re
discussing things.”
“We ain’t discussing nothing. You’ll be down here, waiting out the
blizzard. I’ll be in my bed, doing what I was gonna before you arrived. That’s
the end of it.”
Taking a step, she made to leave him. Again.
He grabbed her arm. “Don’t leave me.”
“Don’t tell me what to do.” Glaring at him, she stood before the bar, her
magnificent hair slipping from its pins, her breasts rising and falling.
Abruptly, his mouth went dry. Clearing his throat some, he said, “You’re
supposed to offer succor to those in need.”
“We’re closed, remember?” Paint-less lips pressed tight together, she
glared up at him.
They were so close he could see the faint marks of freckles on her skin.
Pearl La Monte had freckles.
A kind of haze came over him, tightening his skin and bringing with it
something all-fired powerful and completely unstoppable. All the years he’d
known her crashed through him, all the times she’d flirted with him and meant
something else, all the times he’d seen her perform on stage and wished he
could have held such fire.
Grabbing her upper arms, he hauled her against him and, ignoring her
shocked gasp, he covered her mouth with his.
Bio:
Cassandra grew up daydreaming, inventing fantastical worlds and marvelous
adventures. Once she learned to read (First phrase – To the Beach. True story),
she was never without a book, reading of other people’s fantastical worlds and
marvelous adventures.
Fairy tales, Famous Fives, fantasies and fancies; horror stories, gumshoe
detectives, science fiction; Cassandra read it all. Then she discovered Romance
and a true passion was born.
So, once upon a time, after making a slight detour into the world of finance,
Cassandra tried her hand at writing. After a brief foray into horror, she
couldn’t discount her true passion. She started to write Romance and fell head
over heels.
The love affair exists to this very day.
Cassandra lives in Adelaide, South Australia.
