Leigh Morgan interview + giveaway

Help me welcome Leigh Morgan to my blog today :) There will also be a giveaway at the bottom.

Welcome!

Thank you for this opportunity to engage with you and your friends again about writing and about my most recent release, Fighting Fate.

You asked about combining my writing life with my work life and how I do both. Since June of this year I've been able to spend more time writing and I'm loving it. I try to write somewhere between 1500 and 3500 words a day consistently. Some days I can do that in a few hours. Others I write and revise most of the day. Many writers also have other occupations and seem to manage their time more efficiently, but having these rough parameters seems to work for me.

My inspiration for Fighting Fate just kind of blossomed from a trip to the Glastonbury plain. I knew I wanted to write about Jesse, Reed's adopted son from Sparring Partners, and I thought it would be interesting to throw the daughter Reed gave up for adoption as a teenager into the mix and see what happened. Then when I visited Chalice Well in Glastonbury the spirituality and magic of the place hit me and I knew I had to weave those mythic elements into this story. Fighting Fate just developed from there. It's sent me on a path I'm loving and my current work in progress, Defending Destiny takes that mythical, magical theme and carries it into Scotland and the Kilmartin Glen area of Argyll. Reed's youngest child, Daisy, is the heroine in that book and we learn more about this secret society of Finders and Bringers of the Light in Defending Destiny. There's so much magic in these areas, you can almost taste it. They're like a writer's playground where anything can happen. I hope I answered your question, sometime I seem to ramble when I'm enthused about a topic.

I choose names for my characters I either love or hate depending on their personalities. When I see them in my mind's eye, I usually get a sense of who they are and I try to pick names that evoke that image for me. I pick names I would name my children or one of my pets; good strong, often Celtic, names. If I write a slime-ball character I choose the name of someone I don't particularly like, or has hurt someone I care about. It's cathartic (evil grin). I played around with Reed's name and shamelessly tried to influence people with that one: phonetically her name is Read More...here's hoping I can keep readers reading more!

Writing gives me the opportunity to explore why people do what they do and how different people react to stressful and sometimes life-threatening situations. I observe and I get to explore motivation, my own as well as the characters I write about. I get to create worlds I'd like to live in and that is really cool. I enjoy telling stories, especially ones where flawed, likeable people love deeply and live fully.

My plan for the Dojo series, which Pen & Sword publishing has re-titled the Warrior Chronicles, is to publish Defending Destiny, book three later this fall. Then I'm going to plot a Scottish historical that will take place in the time of Somerled, about 1000 A.D. where we'll learn how the spiritual artifacts Taryn and Daisy are searching for in Fighting Fate and Defending Destiny, came to be hidden. I'm going to tie the contemporary and the historicals together, but they will all stand on their own as well. I'm really looking forward to that. The Warrior/Dojo series doesn't really have an ending point. I'll keep adding books as long as the stories are solid and people enjoy reading them.

This weekend is the Wisconsin Scottish Highland Games. I'm doing a book signing later today in the MacDonald Clan tent there. My family and I also take our Scottish Deerhounds to the games, the eldest of which is named: Somerled after the founder of our Clan.  Next weekend we'll be in Colorado for the Highland Games in Estes Park. My husband and I have a Scottish food and gear business; we sell haggis and pasties as well as hand-carved leather sporrans and other Celtic leather goods under the name Macskis Highland Foods & Gear. To say that all things Scottish influence me and my writing is like saying humans require water to survive. It's an inescapable elemental truth that is so much a part of who I am and everything I do that I don't even think about it. I love that part of who I am and I bring it out to play whenever I can in my life and in my writing. (Huge smile).

I'm happy to talk Scotland, writing, food, gear and Deerhounds (the most perfect creatures under heaven) anytime! Thanks so much for having me. Look for Defending Destiny this fall!

Much love and happy reading,

Leigh

GIVEAWAY

3 winners of e-copies of Fighting fate 

1. Open to all around the world

2. Ends Sep 17th

3. Just enter :)

    Or comment, ask a question of Leigh, or tell me anything you want.

Review: Fighting Fate - Leigh Morgan

Fighting Fate

*Looks around corner* Hi guys! Remember me? I used to review her regularly and then went all gypsy and started travelling. Then there were ringers, beach bums, cowboys, knights and oh, I sorta, might have, you know, forgotten about reviewing for B. But I’m back now and I’m here to tell you all about Leigh Morgan’s Fighting Fate a story that is really underappreciated if I judge the lack of buzz out there. It has such a pretty cover too!

Fighting Fate is book two in the Dojo Chronicles. I reviewed Sparring Partners back in 2010 and was pleasantly surprised by how good the story was. Like with Sparring Partners, Fighting Fate was a breath of fresh air. That’s saying something because I can’t remember the last time I read a m/f romance book and liked it. That might actually have been a book reviewed for B. 

Back to the book. Fighting Fate focusses on Jesse Mohr, who is on a quest and Taryn Campbell who is the quest and not in the way you think. Though, the start of the book had me doubting that, because it starts out pretty creepy on Jesse’s part. Luckily that picks up soon! 

Jesse is on a quest to find the long lost child of his adoptive mother, a child given up for adoption. Taryn is that child. But Taryn doesn’t want to be found and isn’t all that sure she wants to meet her mother. At first glance this seems like a pretty straightforward romance with some angst and some drama, but there is much more to it as there is much more to Taryn, as the blurb suggests. I won’t tell you what, that’s something you have to figure out on your own. It would give too much away, but trust me when I say, discovering Taryn and Jesse and company and the quest they undertake? Worth it.

Like with Sparring Partners the writing threw me. It’s really good and organized for a new author. It’s stylish and draws your right into to the story to the extent that it feels like you’re right next to Jesse, Taryn and the other. 

Yes, despite the fact that Fighting Fate can be read as a standalone, I think, there are tidbits from the previous story. I loved seeing the other characters again. 

What threw me a bit was the supernatural angle. I wasn’t really expecting it, though I shouldn’t have been surprised. It fit the story. 

The characters are well done, they make the story and I was glad to see that the story didn’t just focus on Jesse and Taryn. There is a solid cast of support characters that make the story and fill it out. I absolutely loved Jesse and wanted to install a filter for Taryn, cause she needs it when she’s drugged but who is also a strong woman who kicks butt! I do so love me a good, strong independent woman who makes the sheets go up in flames at the right times!  

Then there was Merlin….wicked cool! 

So to conclude: GO PICK THIS BOOK UP!  

----Note from B:

I seem to have misplaced Lis' pic, so here you go ;)

I fear the pic went missing in the The Great Photobucket Purge of images I can't use of 2012

Jesse Mohr longs to reunite his adoptive mother, Reed, with her child she gave up for adoption years ago. Taryn Campbell is about to embark on the expedition of a lifetime, trying to decipher the cryptic archaeological clues left to her by her now deceased father. When Taryn learns her true identity, will she accept it or fight her fate?