CastleGate Magazine June 2014 | Page 8

Over 40 and loving it! Characters that rock! By Alexandrea WeisCharacters Brieanna Robertson If someone were to ask me what I am, it could be summed up in one, simple word: Dreamer. Ever since I was a small child my imagination has run wild. I have been telling stories for as long as I can remember, creating grand worlds in my head and going on adventures that were invisible to others around me. Am I eccentric? Yes. Am I proud of that? Absolutely. I write about the things that inspire me, both in this world and in realms only seen with the imagination. My heroines are sassy and strong. My heroes are sometimes shy. I have an obsession with music (and musicians) and a fascination with wings. I believe true love does exist, and sometimes it is found in the strangest, most unexpected places. I also believe that family and close friends are the glue that hold people together. Above all things, I believe in being true to yourself and seizing the day. Life is an amazing gift. Make your experience as beautiful as you possibly can. Second Rate Groupies Release date 04/15/2014 Logan Savage is a man’s man. His idea of a good time has never included watching over and entertaining a bunch of kids at a summer camp. Especially when that camp happens to be full of kids with a love for mythology and medieval fantasy. In other words—a bunch of geeks. Unfortunately, in order to avoid a jail sentence for assaulting a cop, that’s exactly what he has to do. Head counselor and owner of the camp, Willow Avaris, is a nice surprise. Beautiful, fiery and sexy… Too bad she loathes his very existence. Plus, the kids are making his life a living nightmare. Could the summer get any worse? Bravery and strength were things Logan always thought he had in spades, but as the summer goes on, and strange, surreal events take place around the camp, Logan is forced to look within himself and figure out what’s important to him. It’s safe to remain the selfabsorbed, shallow man he’s always been, but can he find the courage to reach inside and embrace the true warrior he was meant to become? that rock. Being a reader, I discovered many of the books in the romance market had characters under the age of thirty as the heroine. Being a woman over 40, I wanted to write about a heroine going through the same inner turmoil as someone from my generation. I believe the over 40 reader is woefully underrepresented in today's market. I set out to write a character that many women could relate to, and to cover issues that are part of getting older. I also wanted to tackle the foibles of a relationship and how age doesn’t lessen the complications. A lot of books end at the "happily ever after" part in a story, but fail to cover the challenges of when “happily ever after” goes horribly wrong. Where do the characters go then, and how do they rise to the challenge of a new relationship. In Cover to Covers, we find a successful woman, Monique Delome, in her forties, grappling with a failed marriage and a broken heart. Monique runs across an old flame at a weekend writer’s convention, and it turns into something much more than she ever imagined. But instead of embracing a second chance, she runs from it, and ends up being pursued by her long lost love, the twice-divorced and womanizing, Tyler Moore. After a failed attempt at a relationship twenty years prior, Tyler and Moe are given a second chance, but they must first overcome fears and insecurities that have built up through the years. Love the second time around can be harder for many because the obstacles put forward by previous relationships can sometimes taint the willingness of many to fall into l