Guest Post with Author Cheryl Holt and Giveaway

Today I am super excited to welcome to RFTC, author Cheryl Holt. When I first began reading historical Cheryl was one of the very first authors I picked up. I am so unbelievably excited to have her on today and for her to share with you info on her upcoming Lord Trent Trilogy. Please give Cheryl a warm welcome.

CHERYL HOLT is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of over thirty novels.

She’s also a lawyer and mom, and at age forty, with two babies at home, she started a new career as a commercial fiction writer. She’d hoped to be a suspense novelist, but couldn’t sell any of her manuscripts, so she ended up taking a detour into romance where she was stunned to discover that she has a knack for writing some of the world’s greatest love stories.

Her books have been released to wide acclaim, and she has won or been nominated for many national awards. She is particularly proud to have been named “Best Storyteller of the Year” by the trade magazine Romantic Times BOOK Reviews.

She lives and writes in Hollywood, California, and she loves to hear from fans.

Places to visit Cheryl: 

| Site | Facebook | Twitter | 

MY NEW ‘LORD TRENT’ TRILOGY—COMING SUMMER 2013!

About 12 years ago, erotics began to spark as a romance subgenre. I quickly jumped on that bandwagon, and for years, I was hailed as “The Queen” of erotic romance.

When you think of what we’ve been reading the past decade, it’s difficult to recall how exotic the first erotics were deemed to be. A typical publisher’s contract at the time described a historical romance as a book that had one completed sex scene between the hero and heroine. A few daring authors threw in some extra sex scenes and—voila!—a new subgenre was born: erotic romance.

I had just begun my career by writing fairly standard historical romances, and when I made the switch to erotics, it changed the trajectory of my life and career. Erotics exploded out into the market in ways that—at the outset—no one could have envisioned.

When I first moved to my erotic publisher, I was going to be “the” erotic author at the company. Three years later, they had hired a new editor just to handle all the erotics they intended to publish. Readers couldn’t get enough. I became one of many and the market was saturated.

As authors joined the erotic ranks, they pushed the boundaries so that erotic quickly came to mean full-on erotica. Many women enjoyed the more graphic content, but many more women did not.

By 2005, I began to receive letters from long-time fans who complained that, when they went into a bookstore, they could no longer find a lush, yummy love story. Every book contained either a vampire or explicit content or both. A reader who simply wanted a fun and delicious love story was out of luck. There weren’t any.

By 2007, the market had gone so far into erotica that many people felt it had become pornographic. My publisher asked me if I would begin writing this rougher type of erotic. They actually suggested that I try “the virgin trapped in the brothel.” I thought the request was an interesting and depressing comment on the arc of my career—but also on our tastes as readers.

When I sold my first erotic, LOVE LESSONS, in 2000, my editor told me that she had looked at hundreds of manuscripts, but she had bought mine because I was the only one who understood that it had to be a love story rather than a sex story. Seven short years later, she simply wanted the sex story and we could forget about the love story altogether.

But I didn’t want to do that.

I abandoned my crown of “Queen” of erotics in 2009, and I felt that I needed to go back to writing great love stories. That’s where I started my career, where I made a name for myself, and where my fans had found great joy in my stories. Some of my most popular novels were written during that period.

With this in mind, I set down and wrote LOVE’S PROMISE, my book that’s coming in May, 2013. It’s my attempt to take readers back to the sort of love stories we read before all the vampires and erotica swept into the New York publishing houses. For those of you who have followed my career for many years, it’s similar in style and tone to my old novel, MY ONLY LOVE, that many fans tell me is still their favorite book out of all the ones I’ve written.

LOVE’S PROMISE is a longer book, very dramatic, very heart-wrenching and emotional, and I think it will give readers a different kind of love story from what has been available for many years.

The good news is that it’s Book #1 of a three-book trilogy, and all three books will be released this summer back to back, so readers can enjoy the entire story without having to wait six months or a year for the next installment.

I am publishing them myself, and while many people have issues with the new self-publishing trend and the onslaught of e-books, this has allowed me to get the story out to readers. I showed LOVE’S PROMISE to several New York editors who declined to publish it. They all told me that American women won’t read a love story if there is no vampire or explicit content.

I know they’re wrong.

I hope all of you will devour the three books. I’m calling them my ‘Lord Trent’ trilogy and they will be released this summer:

• May, 2013 LOVE’S PROMISE
• June, 2013 LOVE’S PRICE
• July, 2013 LOVE’S PERIL (The hero is pirate. Yum!)

I’m currently running a contest on my web page to give away ten autographed copies of LOVE’S PROMISE when it’s released in May, and I hope all of you will enter for a chance to win.

If you haven’t tried one of my books before, my newest release is SWEET SURRENDER. It’s my most critically acclaimed book in years and my first Amazon bestseller. My hostess today, Danielle, is giving away a copy of SWEET SURRENDER, and you can enter by posting a reply to my blog.

Thank you for taking the time to read my blog today. I hope you’ll enter my contest and that you’ll watch for my trilogy this summer. It’s so fun! Thank you for thinking of me. I’m always grateful.

Charles Sinclair, the Earl of Trent, is England's most notorious roué. He never sired any lawful children with his aging, bitter wife. But he has many illegitimate children scattered across the kingdom. His oldest son, Phillip, is on a quest to find his lost half-siblings, to create a family with them and to fix any damage inflicted on their lives by their father's licentious conduct. The three books, LOVE'S PROMISE, LOVE'S PRICE, and LOVE'S PERIL tell the stories of four of Lord Trents lost children.

Finally coming in 2013, Cheryl's long-buried trilogy—three fabulous novels filled with heartbreak, dashing characters, drama, passion, and love—will sweep you away!

Check out the Lord Trent Trilogy: 

Check out whats up for grabs.

Up For Grabs:

• 1 lucky winner will win a copy of Sweet Surrender

To Enter:

• Please leave a comment/question for Cheryl
• International Shipping Available
• Please fill out the Rafflecopter form

**Don't forget to head over to Cheryl's site and enter to win a signed copy of Love's Promise when it releases in May. 

Good Luck =)

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