Guest Post and Giveaway with Linda Weaver Clarke, author of Desert Intrigue

Hi, everyone!

Welcome to another edition of Spotlight Saturday at Darlene's Book Nook, where we feature authors and their books!

We will be joined today by Linda Weaver Clarke.

About Linda:

Linda Weaver Clarke travels throughout the United States, teaching a Family Legacy Workshop, encouraging people to write their family history and autobiography. She is the author of nine novels and two non-fiction e-books. The historical sweet romance series, “A Family Saga in Bear Lake, Idaho,” includes: Melinda and the Wild West - an awarding winning novel. She also has a mystery/adventure series, “The Adventures of John and Julia Evans.” Her non-fiction e-books are Writing Your Family Legacy and Reflections of the Heart.

CONNECT ONLINE WITH LINDA:

Website | Blog | Another Blog | Goodreads

Welcome to Darlene's Book Nook, Linda!

Linda has written a guest post, so I will now turn the floor over to her!

Romance VS Mystery!

I have written five historical romance novels but have changed to mystery. Why? Because of the challenge! The writing process between romance and mystery is quite a change with a completely different mind set. It’s so different from telling a love story. With romance, you plan out the plot around the meeting of a couple. As you write, you develop some sort of charisma between the characters, making the reader feel excited that one day they're going to hit it off and fall in love. You, as the reader, know what the outcome will be. But with a mystery, the reader is in the dark. The author has to come up with a plot that no one knows about until towards the end of the story and hope they haven’t figured it out. In a mystery, you may or may not allow your reader to know who the bad guys are, according to whether it’s just a mystery or mystery suspense. In a mystery, when a knock is heard at the door, the reader doesn't know who's behind it. With mystery suspense, the reader knows who's behind the door and yells to the heroine, "Don't open the door!" This was a fun genre to write.

My mystery adventure series is called “The Adventures of John and Julia Evans.” This series was inspired by one of my favorite TV shows long ago called Hart to Hart, which featured a married couple investigating and solving crimes staring Robert Wagner and Stefanie Powers. The couple was madly in love. You laughed at the humor and sighed at the romance. I wanted to create something similar with a little suspense and adventure. In this series Julia is a reporter for a daily newspaper and John is a professional knife maker. Just like Hart to Hart, because of her curiosity, Julia gets herself into a bunch of trouble. Before long, she finds herself and her husband up to their necks in danger and running for their lives. There is one difference. John and Julia Evans have three college age daughters. I feel this makes the couple have more appeal to a larger audience.

This series includes Anasazi Intrigue, Mayan Intrigue, Montezuma Intrigue, and Desert Intrigue. My interest in the ancient American Indians is what got me started with this series. In this series I’m teaching people a little about the ancient American Indians, archaeological thievery, the Mayans, Montezuma’s treasure and the Aztecs. This new book, Desert Intrigue, surrounds the legends of Superstition Mountain, the lost Dutchman’s goldmine, and the Great Thunder God. Second, I’m teaching people that we can still have romance in our lives, even after 20 years of marriage. We must keep our marriage alive with a bit of teasing, playfulness, forgiveness, and romance. In this series, The Adventures of John and Julia Evans, we find out what a marriage can be like if we give and take a little. In fact, I patterned John and Julia’s marriage after my own. I even add a few true experiences in my book that happened to us, just to bring a bit of humor into my story. To read an excerpt from each of my books, you can visit my website called Make Believe.

Why am I having an ebook giveaway? Because I would like to introduce my books to more people. And hopefully, they will spread the word to their friends and write a review about it. Good luck, Everyone!

Thanks so much for joining us today, Linda!

One lucky winner will win a digital copy of Linda's latest mystery adventure, Desert Intrigue. 

When Julia’s brother announces that his dude ranch is haunted, she believes that someone is trying to sabotage his place and force him to sell. The mysterious happenings have to do with Superstition Mountain, the lost Dutchman’s goldmine, and the great Thunder God. Is it possible that the legend of the Thunder God is actually true? After a terrible thunderstorm, everyone begins to wonder. John and Julia quickly head to Mesa, Arizona and discover a few mysterious events. Will they find out who is behind these disasters before Uncle Kelly’s dude ranch is ruined? While Julia’s daughters, Sharlene and Faith, are busy helping their uncle save the ranch, April and Matthew are planning their wedding but everything seems to go wrong.

Buy Links: Amazon Paperback | Amazon Kindle

To enter the giveaway, you must complete the Rafflecopter entry form below.

This giveaway is open worldwide until 12:01 AM EST on June 2, 2012.

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