"I loved the concept in this book with the different kinds of beings in it, i have read a lot of shifter books and this one has a definate unique perspective that i found makes the book an extremely addictive read! The story is extremely heartwarming in my opinion. [...] This book is an amazing adventure that is written so well that you reaally are drawn into the world that the author has written about. A serious must read!!! Loved it!!!!" - about book #1 Lyn, Goodreads
Published: January 10th, 2017
You can never go home again…
Viviane Veracruz is on her way home from university with a degree in one hand…and a baby in her belly. Desperate to escape the judgement of her family, she accepts a sexy stranger’s offer to pose as the father for a few days. The plan is for him to run off leaving her family none the wiser. But the longer Pierce Alcede stays, the more she can’t let him go.
Home is where the heart is…
Pierce Alcede has finally come to terms with the fact that he is a lone wolf, prone to roam the wilderness alone and never settle down with a family of his own. When he meets a pregnant woman in need, he thinks nothing of stepping in to take the brunt of her family’s ire. But somewhere between working on the Veracruz Ranch by day and climbing into Viviane’s bed at night, Pierce forgets to run away.
Can a woman searching for a place to belong find a home with a man who lives to roam?
GUEST POST
A Faithful Adaptation
My favorite rule about adaptations is that: you owe nothing to the original work. This is the first rule of adaptations as told by Richard Krevolin, author of How to Adapt Anything Into a Screenplay. In adaptations, some fans will argu that the movie was too faithful; others that it left too much of the original work out. To investigate Krevolin’s advice on satisfying as many viewers and readers as possible I want to focus on one of my favorite adaptations, Clueless based on the book Emma by Jane Austen.
The story of Emma is virtually unrecognizable in this telling. Screenwriter, Amy Heckerling, was nearly faithless in her rendition of this classic, oft told tale.
Jane Austen's story of a privileged 20-year-old in Regency England is transplanted into the persona of a 16-year old, teenaged girl in modern day California. Along with the setting and time period, the title character's name is also updated. Cher is naïve and caught up in a superficial lifestyle revolving around expensive clothes and the social hierarchy of her high school. Her father is no longer an aging hypochondriac, but a high-powered, ruthless lawyer. There's no knightly, next-door neighbor with an eye on our heroine. Instead it's an ex-brother-in-law, who's a liberal arts, college freshman with dreams of saving the world.
Krevolin's next guideline is to "seek out the scenes that can be removed without having a domino effect on the rest of the story." If you've read the book Emma or you've seen the Gwyneth Paltrow redub, you might remember the whole subplot of Jane Fairfax and Frank Churchill. In these versions, while taking a break from setting everyone up, Emma flirts with Frank who leads her on but he's actually madly in love with Jane.
It was 20th century brilliance that Amy Heckerling made Frank Churchill's character into a gay rendition of James Dean who just wanted to be BFF's with Cher. Gone was the Jane Fairfax character and love triangle with Mr. Churchill. Cher's attempt at seduction while the meatloaf burns during Spartacus certainly has the opposite of a domino effect on the rest of the story. It ratcheted up the unpredictability of this updated tale of unrequited love.
Krevolin's next rule is that you don't remove the key things that made the book amazing. In my opinion, it's the love mishaps and love connections that happen because of Emma/Cher's busybody-ness that makes the book and all network and theatrical releases a winner. In Austen's book, it begins with the wedding of Emma's governess with a gentleman Emma matched her with. With this one success under her belt, Emma begins an assault on the poor hearts of her village to disastrous and hilarious effect. In California, Cher starts her matchmaking in response to a bad grade. Although her heart wasn't in the right place at the time, the match works out for everyone involved. With this one success under her belt, Cher begins her assault on the new girl, Tai, to disastrous and hilarious effect.
Krevolin's last edict is that no matter how a story is changed during the course of adaptation, the arc of the characters almost always remains the same.
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| Spring 2017 |
Cher’s proud of her machinations in the love lives' of others. She's irked when her ex-step-brother, Josh, thinks all her work is for selfish ends. In truth, they are. It takes everything blowing up in her face for Cher to realize that Josh was right. It's all gone wrong because it's what she wanted and not what everyone else wanted for themselves. Christian doesn't want to be her boyfriend. Tai doesn't want to date anyone Cher sets her up with. Even Josh, who Cher continually pushes away, only wants to be close to her. Once Cher's stripped bare of everything she realizes she's behaved badly and more importantly that she’s in love with Josh. Once Cher starts selflessly working towards everyone's, including her own, heart's' desire, things turn out as they should.
Faith is a tricky subject when it comes to taking someone else's work and making it your own. Following Krevolin's rules of originality, seeking without destroying, keeping the key things, while maintaining the character arc can get you through adapting a work as short as a newspaper headline or as long as a 500-plus page novel.
You can check out my latest romance series where I take timeless romantic comedies and place them in a world of shifters, witches and fairies. Watch a witch rescue her crush and then fall for his wolfish brother in Moonrise an adaptation of While You Were Sleeping. In Moonlight, a pregnant college grad takes a lone wolf up on his offer of temporarily pretending to be her baby daddy in an adaption of A Walk In the Clouds. And coming this spring, you’ll go over the moon when a rash wolf will stop at nothing to win the heart of a plain Jane in Moonfall my adaptation of the film Moonstruck.
book #1 is only.99 for limited time
About the author:
Ines writes books for strong women who suck at love. If you
rocked out to the twisted triangle of Jem, Jericha, and Rio as a girl; if you
were slayed by vampires with souls alongside Buffy; if you need your scandalous
fix from Olivia Pope each week, then you’ll love her books!
Aside from being a writer, professional reader, and teacher,
Ines is a very bad Buddhist. She sits in sangha each week, and while others are
meditating and getting their zen on, she’s contemplating how to use the
teachings to strengthen her plots and character motivations.
Ines lives outside Washington, DC with her two little
sidekicks who are growing up way too fast.
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