BLITZ - Lucy Gage's JUST REALIZED (Ward Sisters, #6)

Title: Just Realized

Series: Ward Sisters, #6
Author: Lucy Gage
Genre: Contemporary Romance/Romantic Fiction

Publication Date: January 11, 2016
Length: 416 pages
Publisher: Patricia Korbet 
Cover Designer: PK Designs Editing and Graphics

Goodreads

SYNOPSIS

She appears to be the irrepressibly happy girl. Nina Jacobs has had some rough patches in life, and men have always disappointed her. The day Owen Nichols drops into her world, the last thing she expects to happen is happily ever after.

He gravitates toward the role of knight in shining armor for damsels in distress. Sergeant Owen Nichols has a bad habit of being the rebound guy. When he meets Nina Jacobs, he recognizes the moment where preparation meets opportunity.

Some life lessons have to be earned the hard way. Owen is determined to prove worthy of Nina's trust, and they form an unshakable bond of friendship that she can't believe—and he dares not presume—is more. Can Owen find the courage to leap before she rediscovers her heart with someone else? Or will Nina realize that she already has everything she needs with the man who has become her best friend?

BUY LINKS

Amazon

REVIEW

[Christina]

Amazon/Goodreads Rating: 5/5
In Patti's Imagination Rating: 10/10

After waiting (mostly patiently) for the 6th installment of Lucy Gage's Ward Sisters series I was so excited to dive right in to Nina Jacobs and Owen Nichols' great love story. The thing I love most about this author's writing style is how she first shows you a couple's first meeting and then goes back in time to show how these people got to the fateful moment. I enjoyed learning all of Nina's secrets and dreams, and seeing into her past helped me to better understand why she has the insecurities about love that she does. Owen... What a man!!! The Sergeant has a history of being loyal, loving, caring and oh-so-protective over those he loves. Both Nina and Owen have been burned by love in the past and go into their relationship knowing it's just a fling. That fling soon deepens into stronger feelings, and they become best friends fighting against love. Owen is quicker to admit to his burgeoning adoration while Nina believes herself unworthy of a forever kind of love. At times you want to smack that girl but as I said Ms. Gage shows us the reasoning behind her fear.
 
If you haven't read the other books in this series I highly recommend you do, although it is not necessary before reading Just Realized. Each book is a standalone, but they are all interconnected so some parts of the book overlap with another character's POV. Plus, you are going to want to meet Captain Neil Murphy from Right Here Waiting. Trust me, he is SWOON WORTHY! I'm hard pressed to say he's better than this story's hero, Owen, but both men are wonderful. In all actuality ALL the men in this series are damn near perfect, and Lucy makes them so realistic.

All in all, this reader is a fan for life, and can't wait to see what Ms. Gage comes out with next. GO READ THIS SERIES!!! You won't be sorry you did, I promise!!!

EXCERPT

This time, he dove in with her still on his shoulder—instead of dumping her—and she was ready for it. When they surfaced, she was laughing and he was, too. He swooped her into an embrace, leaning his face inches from hers.

She tried to pull away and he said, “Don't. Not yet.”

“Why?”

“Because your ex is watching. I'm going to kiss you. Make him jealous.”

“What if I don't want to kiss you?”

“Do you want to make him jealous?” he asked, his lips a hair from hers.

“Yes,” she breathed.

“Then let me kiss you,” he whispered. “Wrap your arms around my neck and your legs around my waist.”

“Why?”

“Just do it.”

He shifted his hands to her butt and pulled her pelvis to his. Heat flooded her body as the hard ridge of him rubbed her aching clit with each passing wave. “Better?” Lust coated his voice.

“Uh huh,” she muttered as he pressed his lips to hers, warm, despite the cold water, and surprisingly soft. When she swiped her tongue over his lips, tasting the ocean salt, he opened them.

His tongue danced with hers as if meant to do so. No war, no fighting, just a sensual give and take. When he pulled away, he'd left her breathless.

“Why'd you stop?” I could kiss you for hours.

He panted. “Did you want to keep going?”

“Yes.” God, yes. I might fly apart, but I don't care.

“Okay.” He kissed her again, his luscious mouth turning her inside out. This time, he let her slide down his body, and a wave nearly toppled them.

“Did that work for you?”

To her delight, his brawny arms still held her. “Which part? Making Liam jealous or getting excited while kissing you?

Owen smiled. “I liked kissing you, too.”

TEASERS

PLAYLIST

Just Realized

AUTHOR BIO

Lucy Gage started her writing career under another name, but the same vivid imagination and love of books still fuels her daily life. When she's not writing, you can find her spending time with her family in her home state of Maine, experiencing a life that helps shape her writing.

She loves to hear from fans, and appreciates that they asked about her writing while she took this last year to focus on other parts of her life. Look for her website in 2016. Ward Sisters Series Book #7, Think of Me, will arrive in 2016. Steal Your Heart, Book 1 in the Vega Brothers Series—a Ward Sisters spinoff—launches later in the year.

AUTHOR FOLLOW LINKS

Facebook  Twitter  Google+  Goodreads  Pinterest 
Amazon Author Page

Final Covers for Ward Sisters Series!

That's right! You did read that correctly - this post will have all the official covers for all the books. I've been chatting with my friend and fellow author, Rene Folsom, who is also a very talented graphic designer. Check out her work at Phycel Designs. I asked her a design question one day, and that got us on a roll about little things I could do to tweak my covers and improve them. Well, I'm one of those people who likes to learn new things and loves to get better and better at them. Of course I had to go back and futz with the previous covers, as Rene had suggested, but I also felt a need to keep going. I have NINE books in the Ward Sisters Series, after all!

So, without further ado, here they are...you'll notice that Book 5, which used to be called Buying the Cow, is now called Time to Begin. I know. SO much better!

Hello, Google+ and Pinterest, but...

So, I was thinking I'd dump my blog and switch over to Google+ instead, but I'm not really ready for that yet. I'd have to move all the existing blog entries, and I don't want to take the time at the moment. I'll explore other options later. For now, the blog stays as is. However, I've officially joined the Google+ circles, so if you're on Google+ or gmail, you can probably find me - same name as Facebook, Patti Korbet.

Pinterest was a fun, new addition. Check out my new Pinterest page when you have a chance. I've set up 8 boards thus far, one for each of the full-length novels planned for the Ward Sisters Series and one for the first novella, Buying the Cow. Lots of yummy pics (for the guys, too; there are female leads in all my stories, after all!) and hopefully, it'll provide some visuals for all of you. If you'd rather imagine on your own, go for it. If not, and you want to see what I see in my head (or a close approximation thereof), the images are available for your enjoyment. All the boards are public, so you don't need a Pinterest account, or to follow me on Pinterest, to see them.

As for progress on Right Here Waiting, I'm getting there! I've tried, really hard this time, to send along work to Laurie that is a lot closer to the 3rd or 4th draft version - in other words, a lot more like a finished product - than I've ever sent before. Until I sent along the first 150 pages last night, she'd only seen it in bits and pieces, and even that was occasionally. But we're getting there! And I'm loving where it's going, so I hope you all do, too.

Between Pinterest and life stuff, today was a bit of a bust in the normal working hours segment, so we'll see what I get done tonight for edits. Wish me luck!

Writing Update

I'm still writing like a fiend. I've pretty much been doing that since last fall. No joke. I said to a fellow writer on Twitter earlier today that I think my word count since last fall is probably around 1,000,000. I'm not kidding. I wrote about 280k just with my Hunger Games fanfic. Then the original, first, complete draft of Back to December was 237k (or something) - the final version was 137k, I think, and that included some bits I wrote later that didn't appear in the first draft. Then there are some of the other side projects I've written here and there. Plus, the other stories in the Ward Sisters Series. I guess this is where I'll update you on those.

I've been editing Only One (Book 2), which has included some new additions as well as some restructuring and some tweaking/cleanup stuff. It's getting there. Even without editing the story to within an inch of its life, we're still close to the same word count as the final version of Back to December, which makes me happy. I'm sure it will get cut back, but at least it doesn't have nearly so far to go as Book 1 did.

For Book 3, Right Here Waiting, I've been writing some significant sections and also have restructured the story, based on what I found with Only One (and also what I learned from editing Back to December). We're at 82k with some big chunks to go. I've been picking the brain of an amazing source (who I happen to also call family) and I've got high hopes for this particular story. Honestly, I firmly expect that Only One will be a polarizing story for several reasons. But I would be shocked if people don't adore Neil and root for a HEA with Meg, across the board.

Book 3.5 is a novella and I hadn't written too much on it before this week. It's called Why Buy The Cow? Or maybe Buying the Cow, I haven't decided yet. It's funny that the metaphor has layers I hadn't realized until I delved into the meat of the story. A scene in Only One had me asking a question in my mind and I answered it by writing a huge chunk of this story, which is always very cool. And things just go from there. In some ways, I'll write a better story for Only One because I'll have thought about some things later in the series already. That one is barely started at 16k

Book 4 is Annie and Josh's story, This Year's Love. I've been ignoring that one lately for other parts of the series, but I need to get back to it soon. I know the direction it will take, but there is a lot left to write there. That one is further along than I thought, at 61k.

Book 5, Just Realized, has been mostly done for a while. I've got a few scenes left and then I think it's done. Although, I think I may end up adding some things that will set up a later story better, things I hadn't even contemplated until that other story was significantly written. We're at 82k there.

Book 6, Think of Me, is in my head but has a long, long way to go on paper. Once book 2 is published, this story will become one of my central foci. That's around 54k right now.

Book 6.5, Tell Me What It Takes, is another novella. I haven't done much with that lately. Like book 6, it will become more prominent as the next two books are published. That's also at 16k

Book 7, Better Be Home Soon, which was barely a thought when I started this blog 3 months ago, is now nearly 96k words. I wrote some big scenes for that today. It's not done, but I'm really astonished at how quickly it came together.

For the next 13 weeks, I'm taking a marketing class and that, of course, will cut into my writing time. Or probably it will cut into my domestic engineering duties. Yeah, that's more likely. Once I have a more firm idea when Only One will be ready for publication, I'll post it here, on Twitter and on Facebook. Have a great night everyone!

Print Version of Back to December, etc!

It's official! The print version of Back to December is available on Amazon. Now, just so you know, I don't make the big bucks on the list price. Really, that's mostly the printing costs. I'm just offering it because, well, it's cool to think I might be in print somewhere (and you know I'm buying one, right? Because I want to see ME on my bookshelf!) and there are still people out there who want to feel a book in their hands. Me, if I can save $ and a tree by purchasing the Kindle version of a book, then that's what I'll do.

Anyway, to celebrate the excitement of the print release, I'm offering the Kindle version for $0.99, a price that's now good through the end of Tuesday, September 3. I wasn't sure exactly when the print edition would be live, but since it made its debut sooner than I expected, you all benefit by getting an extension of the Labor Day weekend sale. Act now! The offer only lasts through tomorrow.

In related news, I'm working on several other parts of the series at once. I'm in-progress with edits for book 2, Only One. I've made a few changes that I think make the story flow better and that should improve other, less tangible things. I had an early reader indicate that they didn't much like Jenna, the heroine. Well, we can't have that. I'm not going to change her, just show a little more of her true character, which may not have been as evident before.

I'm also making some edits to book 3, Right Here Waiting. Some of what I'm doing is structural alterations that don't really affect the plot itself but transform how the plot unfolds for the reader. I can't wait for you to finally get a chance to read those stories! In due time.

As for writing, I've been a slave to the muse of Charlie Ward's story, Better Be Home Soon. For those of you who haven't already read Back to December (who are you people? Get on it! Just kidding. Sort of), Charlie is Emily's youngest sister. She gets married at the end of that story - not a spoiler, since, well it's not Charlie's journey. What, pray tell, could we have to learn about Charlie? She's married, right? She already had her epic romance off stage, already got her happy ending! I knew when I wrote Back to December that things would never be what they seemed. They aren't in real life, are they? But until I started writing her story, I had absolutely no clue what would really happen with Charlie and her husband Dan.

This story is the end of the series arc - if you're familiar with episodic TV, you know the concept. Each show has its own plot line and with serial programs, that story somehow fits inside a bigger concept for the season, then the season fits into the bigger story arc of the show itself. The Ward Sisters Series starts with Charlie's engagement, the moment that changed everything in Emily's life. Once I realized I had a series here, I knew that it would end with Charlie. Where it took me on the journey was an interesting surprise.

And I'm still learning new, unexpected things. I've said this before, I had an 'aha' moment when I read Stephen King's On Writing and he compared authoring a work of fiction to the role of an archaeologist. The writer chips away at the story, brushing the dust from their find, until eventually, the whole thing is exposed. Sometimes, you get what you expected. Other times, you make discoveries that you couldn't have imagined in a million years. Emily's story was pretty much exactly what I had expected it to be, aside from the fact that it spawned an entire series of stories in my mind. But so far, there have been some crazy (okay, maybe not crazy - unanticipated) plot threads exposed for the other characters. And when that happens, I'm often amazed and exceedingly pleased.

We've got a while before you'll get to hear Charlie's story. After all, there are currently 6 full-length novels and two novellas in progress (often nearly complete) in this series, plus Back to December. And Charlie's story is, as I said, the final chapter. I hope when all of this is said and done, you're all just as pleased with how it turns out as I am.

For now, here's an updated list of the stories, their order and the main characters in each:

Book 1, Back to December, Emily Ward and Rob Deacon (out now!)
Book 2, Only One, Liam Neely and Jenna Ackerman (coming this fall)
Book 3, Right Here Waiting, Meghan Miles and Neil Murphy (coming late 2013/early 2014)
Book 3.5 Why Buy the Cow? (or Buying the Cow), Eddie Besson, Reggie Reynolds and Jill Daigle
Book 4, This Year's Love, Annie Ward and Josh Ricker
Book 5, Just Realized, Nina Jacobs, Owen Nichols and Noah Adams
Book 6, Think of Me, Noah Adams and Catie Neely
Book 6.5, Tell Me What It Takes, Aaron Wallace and Ally Carmichael
Book 7, Better Be Home Soon, Charlie Ward, Dan Williams and Jack Armstrong

The Ward Sisters Series

I posted recently about the first book in a series I'm currently writing. The series, The Ward Sisters, centers around three sisters, Emily, Annie and Charlie, as well as their closest friends. I thought I'd give you an idea of the stories in the series and the characters in them. Nothing too revealing - you'll have to read the books to really know all these people who have been living in my head for a while, now - just a sense of what is to come. This post is long, so you might want to digest in chunks. Just sayin'. The blog is intended to give people insight into my writing, but it's also a place for me to er, talk to myself, so to speak. Enjoy.

So far the series is:

Back to December (Ward Sisters #1)
Only One (Ward Sisters #2)
Right Here Waiting (Ward Sisters #3)
This Year's Love (Ward Sisters #4)
Just Realized (Ward Sisters #5)
Think of Me (Ward Sisters #6)
Untitled (Ward Sisters #7)

Book one, Back to December, is done and is in edits right now. I posted an excerpt from that - the meet cute between our heroine and her hero. That story centers around oldest sister, Emily, a writer for an arts publication, and the life-altering experience she has in the year of her youngest sister's engagement. In Back to December, you'll meet movie star Deac Roberts - aka Rob Deacon. Rob has his own extensive network of people in his life, and the story of how he meets and falls for Emily will greatly impact not only the two of them, but many of the people in their lives. Rob, as I've said in a previous post, might as well be Henry Cavill, because, well, he basically is. *swoon* I haven't been a fangirl of anyone for a good long time. When you realize the pretend boyfriend you've been writing about for the last year or two could actually exist in the form of one extremely hot guy in a blue supersuit, you turn into a total fangirl of said guy in the hero costume. Or at least I do. Charlie and Meg would be proud (read Back to December when it's available and you'll get that joke). Emily isn't, so far, any one specific person in my head unless you take Kate Beckinsale in Pearl Harbor, give her Selene's blue contacts in Underworld and then give her Taylor Swift's former corkscrew curls (see Teardrops on My Guitar video for reference) and Lea Michele's nose. That comes close.

Book two, Only One, is complete and waiting to be edited. This story focuses on Rob's best friend, Liam Neely, who is also a bodyguard on Rob's team. Liam has a lot of baggage and it doesn't make him the ideal guy for a romance, as he'll tell you. When he takes on the task of being Emily's bodyguard shortly after she meets Rob, it changes his life both for the worst and for the better. Only One also lets us get to know Rob's assistant, Jenna Ackerman, who has a lot of secrets to keep. For those of you who like visuals, I see Liam as being like Dave Annable and Jenna a lot like Emily VanCamp. Anyone who was a fan of Brothers and Sisters will recall the two of them as a couple on that show, so if you Google them together, you'll find pictures of the two of them. And if you're a fan of Revenge, Jenna shares some similarities with Emily VanCamp's alter ego, Emily Thorne (and maybe a few with bff Nolan).

In book three, Right Here Waiting, you'll get to know Emily Ward's best friend, therapist Meghan Miles. We meet her briefly in Back to December. She's the snarky, sassy, fun counterpart to straight shooter Emily. Or is she? Meg's story challenges the way she has always seen both herself and her friendship with Emily. This story is my current writing focus and is actually one of my favorites to write so far. Mostly because I love the hero, Lieutenant Neil Murphy, a sniper in the US Army. I hadn't planned to write his POV, but he jumped in and had to be heard. Now I find I love hearing his sexy voice. Neil is best friends with Charlie Ward's husband, Dan. I didn't write Meg to be Katie Holmes, but Tom Cruise's former missus could probably do a kick ass job of playing Meghan Miles, both in looks and by virtue of roles she's played in the past. Neil could easily be the lovely Alan Ritchson, who will soon be known for his role as Gloss in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. Again, wasn't ever into him before, but now that I see him when I write for Neil (and holy cow, I realized he auditioned for American Idol and Neil has a gorgeous singing voice), suddenly, I'm a fangirl. Not like I am for Henry Cavill, but still. More swooning. Isn't this why romance writers write, to give voice to our fantasies? Or is that just me?

Book four, This Year's Love, goes back to the sisters and focuses on middle sister, oncology nurse Annie Ward. She has a big chip on her shoulder from a lifetime of playing second banana to her older sister and always feeling like the fifth wheel in the group that consists of Annie, her two sisters and their two best friends. In Back to December, she plays a role as one antagonist for her sister. This Year's Love will both tell her side of that story and will also take her on a journey of her own, which will help define her role in her family going forward. You'll also get to know Josh Ricker better. He's Emily's park ranger ex-boyfriend and as this story will illustrate, she didn't really know him that well. Annie looks a lot like Emily, though in her mind she's the less pretty version. Annie is maybe a more direct version of Kate Beckinsale with deeper blue eyes than Selene, more wave in her hair than curls. Josh always looks a lot like Chris Pratt to me, but a combination of his laid-back, blonder, surfer look in Everwood combined with his physique from his turn in Zero Dark Thirty. Josh is big and brawny but he's also big hearted and looks the way he does naturally. No sane woman would say he wasn't handsome, but he's no Henry Cavill, er, Deac Roberts. They are vanilla and chocolate - which do you prefer? Okay, I like both but if I had to choose, it's Henry, er, chocolate all the way.

Book five, Just Realized, starts two years after Emily's story and involves Realtor Nina Jacobs, best friend to youngest Ward sister, Charlie. Nina plays a key role in Liam's story and trust me when I say that you'll want to know what happens next for her once you read Only One. Nina meets Neil's other best friend, Sargent Owen Nichols and from the get go, she completely misjudges him. She also takes the time to get to know Rob's new bodyguard, a guy named Noah Adams you'll meet at the end of Only One. Nina is trying to take charge of her life and in the meantime, misses the boat on some pretty important things along the way. Nina is a classic, voluptuous pinup girl with auburn hair and a lot more brains than you'd guess if you judged a book by its cover. She's more Marilyn Monroe than Christina Hendricks. I've yet to find a red-haired actress out there who I think is perfectly Nina. Owen and Noah are two very different men vying for her affection - Owen is more like Michelangelo's David or say, Channing Tatum. Like Nina, he's a lot deeper than he looks. Noah is less alpha looking but he's more of a calculating, introspective alpha than he is a beta. Noah was on his way to being an Olympic caliber swimmer in college, and he's still got the body to prove it. Like Liam, he's handsome but not necessarily pretty. Find me a green-eyed guy on the US Men's Olympic Swim Team who looks similar to Dave Annable and you're close.

The last story that's already partially written (I mentioned that I write through my writer's block, didn't I?), book six, is Think of Me, where you'll get to know Noah better and you'll also get to know Liam's sister, socialite Catherine (aka Mary Cate) Donati. As Liam will tell you, his sister is gorgeous and therefore, barely looks like she's his sibling, let alone his twin. I guess everyone has their own idea of what a gorgeous woman is, but with her brown hair and brown eyes, Mary Cate is beautiful in the way that almost all men and even most women would agree is attractive. She's smart and sassy and holding on to a lot of regrets. Many of which are related to Noah Adams. In this story, Noah's past collides with his present in some very unexpected ways.

For now, plans for the final book in the series are vague at best. The story will be about Charlie Ward and her husband, Dan Williams. I know where it's going, and while there are hints in every story up until this one, not a word of their story has been directly written, yet. No title, no synopsis. I can tell you that Charlie, in my mind (since she's a part of Emily's story as well as the others), is physically a Kate Hudson kind of gal - petite, blond, small busted, thin. She's smart - like her husband, she's an engineer - and she's fun. She also has a closet obsession with celebrity culture and spent many years drooling over movie star Deac Roberts. Yes, the man her sister meets in Back to December. Dan's a matter-of-fact sort of guy, straightforward to the point of being blunt, especially with his friends. He's smart and sharp. He's been loyal to Neil Murphy since they were 3 and has been in love with Charlie since high school. He's handsome, but as Charlie likes to point out, he's nowhere near as sexy as Rob Deacon or even his best friend, Neil. He's an everyman sort of guy, like James Marsden or John Kraskinski - in the right role, he's the lead, but he's usually the second banana.

There is always the possibility that, in the process of writing any of the stories that are not yet complete, someone will jump off the canvas and demand their story be written. For now, I'm seeing the series ending with Charlie for several reasons. The first, and probably the most important, is that the story arc I envisioned for the series makes most sense if it ends with Charlie. Plus, it's silly, but I have always liked the number 7. Doesn't mean we can't go beyond that, but at the moment, I'm thinking we'll end with lucky #7 and wrap up the series at the end of Charlies's story.

At which point, I'll move either forward or back - meaning new stories or go back to ones that are partially or mostly complete - because there are many other irons already in the fire. I wasn't kidding when I said you'd be surprised at what (or who) lives inside my imagination. It's a big group.