I’m excited to announce the release of my latest contemporary romance, Kinsale Kisses!
This year, I took a little detour away from contemporary romance in my contracted books and tiptoed into women’s fiction to write a series that I’d never intended to write. But the story kept hounding me, so I finally had a chat with my editor, thinking (hoping! praying!) that she’d say, “Oh, no. Just stick with romance.” But she didn’t. She was thrilled with the idea. And so I dove into a series about married twin sisters and their struggles with infertility. But by June, I was shriveling up inside. I missed romance. And I needed a break from the emotion of that series. So, even though I was on deadline for book three, I took July off to write a contemporary romance novella. That novella became Kinsale Kisses.
I originally wrote it for the Passport to Romance line at Pelican Book Group. In June, when I started writing, County Cork was available as an option. By the last week of July when I was finishing up my final edits, they’d already contracted another novella for that slot.
I toyed around with tossing it–after all, when you write something specifically for a particular line, it’s tough to know what to do with it when you’ve missed the window on even submitting it. But…I’d fallen in love with Rachel and Colin and felt they deserved to see the light of day. And really, there can never be too many books set in Ireland. So I chatted with my editor at the company I usually publish with, and she was interested but just swamped. She said to me, “Why don’t you self-publish it?”
Being an indie-even one who still does traditional publishing as well-wasn’t really on my radar. But…I figured why not? It kept coming back to the fact that I wanted people to have a chance to hang out with Rachel and Colin – and get a little tour of the southern coast of Ireland to boot. And that, as they say, was that.
You might be asking, “Well, Elizabeth, what’s it about?” And if you are, I’ll answer that with the blurb:
She wants stability. He wants spontaneity. What they need is each other.
Colin O’Bryan cashed out of the software company he founded and started a new life in Ireland. Content to wander from town to town as a traveling musician, he had no goals beyond healing from the betrayals that led to his career change, and finding his next gig.
After the death of her parents, Rachel Sullivan hoped her aunt’s B&B on the Southern coast of Ireland would be a place for her to settle and start a new life. Though she can’t deny the sparks in Colin’s touch, his lack of concern for hearth and home leave her torn. Can this free-spirited minstrel win her heart or will Rachel choose roots and stability over love?
I hope you’ll consider spending some time with Rachel and Colin in the charming town of Kinsale and its surrounds.
Have you been to Ireland? Want to go? Leave a comment and tell me your favorite place (or what you most want to see) and I’ll choose one commenter to get a free Kindle copy of Kinsale Kisses.
Elizabeth Maddrey is a semi-reformed computer geek and homeschooling mother of two who lives in the suburbs of Washington D.C. When she isn’t writing, Elizabeth is a voracious consumer of books. She loves to write about Christians who struggle through their lives, dealing with sin and receiving God’s grace on their way to their own romantic happily ever after.
I enjoyed this post and I would love to go to Ireland. I don’t have any specific place I want to see, I just want to experience the country.
I love that Ireland is so much safer than it was for many years, and that many people have had the opportunity to visit in recent years. I’d love to go, myself!
JUST came back from Ireland and WOW. Sooo beautiful and the people are proud of their heritage and extremely cognizant of their hard-won piece. I’d go back in a second!
Although I haven’t yet made it to Ireland, my dream visit is to make a loop starting in Dublin & over to Clare Co. (Where my ancestors lived) down to Limerick, Killarney Nat’l. Park to Cork, Waterford & back up to Dublin — seeing as much of the local color as I can fit into a week before hopping a ferry back over to see more of the English coutryside (we loved our visit to the north countryside in York this past June!!)
The whole country is gorgeous – you really can’t go wrong. :) Thanks for dropping by!
I am hoping we get a chance to go to Northern Ireland at some point. We’d planned to go in 2005 when we took our second trip there, but there was a little outbreak of conflict just as we were getting ready to go, so we put that part off. You don’t really run into any feelings of insecurity in the Republic of Ireland anymore (well, we never did.) It’s such a lovely place!
I’m jealous, Deb! We haven’t been since 2005 and it’s definitely time for a return. :)
That’s a great loop – though, if you don’t mind a tiny bit of advice, I’d flip it around and fly into Shannon Airport instead of Dublin if you can swing it (and do the loop that way around.) Getting out of the airport and used to driving on the left and so forth is much easier in the countryside than Dublin. :) I suspect if you only give yourself a week, you’ll be planning a return trip as soon as you get home.