Teach Me by Ella Sheridan – Review, Guest Post & Giveaway

 

 

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Description:

A woman determined to heal…
Shy researcher Jess Kingston spent the last eight weeks recovering from her ex-boyfriend’s brutal attack. Body healed, she’s ready to put her life back together—except her ex isn’t ready to let go. She won’t cower in a corner while Brit tortures her, but she’s powerless to fight back.

A man determined to resist…
Ex-military security specialist Conlan James avoids commitment like the plague. His job, his Harley, and the occasional one-night stand are all he needs, until the day he rescues Jess from a tense situation and realizes he can’t get her off his mind. He can teach her to protect herself, but protecting his heart is another matter.

A madman determined to win…
As the deadly game of cat-and-mouse with Brit heats up, so does the hunger between Con and Jess. Safety might be found in numbers, but in bed, all bets are off—and the wrong move could lead to heartbreak. Or death.

Review:

Wow !!!! Teach Me by Ella Sheridan was full of emotion, drama and smouldering passion.

Jess is a survivor of abuse, by her previous boyfriend who liked his women placid and mouse like (also his nickname for Jess).  And at first jess was too numb (her parents had recently died) to notice his controlling ways. But as she came to terms with her grief, she began to chafe at the restraints Brit (her ex) wasn’t happy and punished her 🙁

We skip forward a few months,and jess is still trying to put her life back together. (Brit was never brought to justice, and disappeared before the police could question him, so it was his word against hers). She gets accosted by the ex, (who swore to her, that she would always be his).  In swoops a tall dark stranger to rescue Jess.

Conlan had been watching a certain brown eyed beauty for a while. And wondered where she had been for the past few months. He would come to the coffee shop each Monday, in the hopes of getting a glimpse of her.  Con rescues Jess and gives her a card for a self defense class, and tells her to be careful.  Conlan won’t become involved with women for more than one night, he has seen what LOVE can do to people, he saw his best friend fall apart after the love of his life left him.

The story moves at a fast pace, Con (his nickname) and Jess fight their feelings for each other. A few scenes almost melted the kindle 😉

A kidnapping near the end had me on the edge of my seat, very intense and a few tears.  The other characters in the book are a great add, Cris her best friend is a riot. Jack (who needs a book) who is also an intense alpha male, had a few funny lines. Brit really was a bad guy, no redeeming qualities at all.

Yes it was a little predictable, but the author did an amazing job, she captured the intense emotions that both Con and Jess were feeling. The scenes were really well described, I could smell the pines in the woods, and my heart raced in time to the high adrenaline that was pushed through the characters veins.

I’m definitely adding this author to my reading list.  Highly recommend this one ladies 😀

Reviewed by Julie B.

Copy provided by Author

 

Five Things I Learned While Writing Teach Me

When I began this book, I’d only written bits and pieces. I had a degree in English Literature, and though I’d read thousands of books by that point in my life, I’d only begun my own stories; I’d never finished one. When I made the choice to leave my teaching position and stay home with my young children, I found there was still something missing, some spark inside me that begged for something more than what I’d done with my life so far.

And so Teach Me was born. And this process, these characters, taught me a whole heck of a lot!

1. Writing is NOT easy.

I’m sure you’ve all heard it: “Someday I’ll write a book!” I think many of us are storytellers; my mother is one. I grew up sitting around the kitchen table listening to her tell stories about our family. But telling a story, even knowing a story (think of legends like Sleepy Hollow or fairy tales like Cinderella), is not the same as putting a solid, cohesive story down on paper. That takes determination and yes, perseverance. A lot of perseverance! And I discovered I had it. 🙂

 2. Real emotion translates to paper emotion.

I have never had a stalker. I’ve never been through physical torture. But I have been afraid, and I’ve been through painful physical ailments. The old adage of writing is “write what you know.” I think authors do. They might never have lived through the exact things their characters are living through, but they’ve experienced the same kind of feelings. They write from the depths of their own emotional experience, and that truth translates powerfully onto the page.

3. Revisions are a necessary evil — and a powerful tool.

In training for my chosen career (teaching English and literature), I was taught to revise. It’s the all-important step before your writing is finished. The lovely flow of fresh writing is replaced with the blood, sweat, and tears of tweaking both the overall story and each individual word — and it is agony! But it makes a story so much better. Teach Me went through FIVE rounds of revisions before I and my editor deemed it “ready.” Every round was hard, but every round was worth it.

4. Sex is an important part of character development in a romance.

We’ve all heard the “bodice ripper” jokes. We hide our sexy book covers inside our favorite e-reader. But the truth is, sex is an important part of life, and it’s an important part of a character’s emotional development in a story. Every sex scene should mean something, either an advance in the relationship, a setback, a revelation, something. Sex for sex’s sake isn’t a relationship-centered story, and in a romance, the relationship is all-important, so the sex should mean something.

5. Trusting your gut is an important part of writing.

 It took five years to get Teach Me right. I went through revision after revision, and something in my gut kept telling me I just wasn’t quite there. When an editor I submitted to came back to me with a critique that basically touched on all the points I was uneasy about, I knew my gut was correct. So I scrapped the manuscript and started from scratch. Same characters, same setting, basically the same premise, but heavy on the suspense and culling out all those newbie things like showing versus telling. I found, through that “final” rough draft that my instincts had guided me well — I now knew these characters, this story, and where I needed to go. I wasn’t flying blind. And the story that came from trusting my gut was far better than anything I could’ve imagined. That book is the one I wanted to release. That book is the one my editor praised and helped me hone to perfection. That book is one I’m proud to hand over to my readers and have them come to love as I have come to love it over the years. I’ve lived with these characters for a long time, but now they are finally ready, and it’s going to be great!

 

Ella grew up in the Deep South, where books provided adventures, friends, and her first taste of romance. Now she writes her own romantic adventures, with plenty of hot alpha men and the women who love and challenge them. With a day job, a husband, two active teenagers, and two not so active cats, Ella is always busy, but getting the voices in her head down on paper is a top priority. 

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Ella  is graciously offering an e-copy  of her first book, DIRTY LITTLE SECRET to 1 (One) lucky commenter at The Reading Cafe.

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8. Giveaway runs from October 31 –  November 4, 2014