Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Today's Special Guest Melissa Keir



My Inspiration for Mac Thomas

Thank you for having me on your blog. I hope that your readers enjoy visiting with me today. I want to share a little behind my character creation of Mac Thomas, the hero of Chalkboard Romance.
I’m a news junkie. I admit it. We watch very little television at my home except for the NBC Evening News. At 6:30, hubby announces it’s newstime and we sit and watch what’s happening in our world. When it came time for me to create Mac Thomas, my thoughts kept returning to Richard Engel, NBC’s chief foreign correspondent. I enjoy his reports from the front lines during the conflict’s overseas. He has a calm demeanor that draws me into the report. He has stood on the front lines of conflicts from Egypt’s protests to the War in Afganistan. For his outstanding coverage, he’s received many awards and accolades. However, viewers don’t know much about Richard’s personal life. We only see the business side of him each night on the news. It had me wondering. Dangerous to a writer!

When I created Mac, I wanted him to have been a correspondent in the Middle East conflicts. I wanted him to have met with foreign dictators and tried brokering for peace. But like Richard Engel, we didn’t know much about Mac’s life outside of his career until he gave it all up. I see these men as ones who focus on their assignments rather than their own lives. So I wrote a backstory for Mac…a wife who wanted his money more than his time and attention. However, I knew that Mac deserved his own happily ever after and put Lauren in his path.
Do you have a favorite television reporter or news show you must watch? Is there a book character that you feel is similar to someone in real life?

Cowboy, Mine... He'll Leave You Breathless...
By the best-selling and award-winning authors….
Kathleen Ball, Krista Ames, Cheryl Gorman, Melissa Keir, Lyssa Layne, and D’Ann Lindun

On sale now. 

BUY LINKS:


BLURB

Chalkboard Romance by Melissa Keir
Will a One Night Stand prove to be their disaster or their salvation?

Lauren Walsh, a divorcee and elementary teacher, wants to feel sexy again after her ex tosses her aside for a younger woman. Her best friend encourages her to sign up for The Playhouse--a renowned dating agency. Forced to stay away from his young son, Mac Thomas lost the ability to trust. After the death of his wife, he returned to care for his son but his sister wants more for him. She sets him up with The Playhouse.

Passion ignites but Mac’s a parent of one of Lauren’s students. A teacher and a parent dating could cost Lauren her job and her chance at happiness. Will Mac be able to convince the school and Lauren, that love is the most important thing?

EXCERPT

Mac sat at the beautiful mahogany bar nursing his first beer. I’m more nervous than a long-tailed cat in a rocking chair factory. The last place he belonged was somewhere as opulent as this. He ran his fingers up and down the condensation on the beer glass. Even though he grew up in a family with a great deal of money, his parents taught him the benefit of working hard and doing what you love. At eighty, his dad still worked in the stables every morning, grooming his horse or was out in the pasture feeding the cattle.

Claire never understood his family. Money wasn’t important to them unless the cash could be used to befit someone else. Mac shook his head. Sure, he used his family’s money to get inside some of those war-torn countries but only so he could show the world the truth.

He’d worked hard to be impartial but his soft heart swayed him. Seeing any amount of suffering hurt, making him known as a compassionate emissary in those challenging countries.

With Claire gone, his life had changed once again. He took a job as a reporter at the local station affiliate, reporting on the important events happening in his community so he could be at home with Todd. Realizing how much poverty and conflict existed in his own hometown left him cold. They say charity begins at home. Well, he was determined to find a way to help, while setting a good example for his son.

He took a look at the clock on the wall. Where was she? Maybe she took one look at him and ran for the hills.

Mac turned on his barstool in time to see a gorgeous brunette walk into the bar. Her steps seemed to match the beat of his pulse. Shifting in his chair, he adjusted his now-tight, uncomfortable pants. Maybe it’s a good thing he was meeting a woman tonight, if she shows.

He twisted his stool around farther to get a better look at the hottie.

If only she was his date. The woman’s blue dress hugged her curvy body, and he couldn’t take his gaze off those legs that seemed to go on forever.

Oh no!

Other Books in The Box Set

Texas Haven Kathleen Ball
Can love shine through the clouds of treachery and misunderstanding?
Advertising for a wife seems like the answer to all of Burke Dawson's problems. He wants a wife and kids without emotional attachments, but he has no idea how much havoc one woman can cause.
Annie Douglas has her heart set on her hunky cowboy's love and she isn't about to stop until she gets it.

Take Me Home, Cowboy by Krista Ames
When tragedy strikes, will building tension and pride destroy a growing attraction or show them the way home?
Ally Kincaid returns to Rock Creek, Wyoming, to see her father after a two year absence. Anticipating a quiet family reunion, she finds herself butting heads with Matt Gentry—her father’s foreman—instead. The man’s arrogance and sexy drawl push all her buttons, making her wonder what he’s hiding beneath his cowboy swagger.
When tragedy strikes, will building tension and pride destroy their growing attraction or show them the way home?

Honeymoon Ranch by Cheryl Gorman
Can two reluctant partners ride off into their own blissful sunset on Honeymoon Ranch?
When wedding planner, Summer Conroy, discovers she has inherited half of Silver Creek Ranch, she is stunned to learn the other half is owned by sexy cowboy, Bryce Jericho. Her idea of turning the ranch into an exclusive wedding and honeymoon destination is met with a wall of resistance from Bryce who doesn’t want his ranch ruined with a bunch of wedding nonsense. He is determined to conceal his vulnerable heart that beats in fear of being betrayed again. Will this woman with dreams of happily-ever-after in her eyes transform his fear into love everlasting?

Until You Fall in Love by Lyssa Layne
Can a longtime friendship suddenly blossom into love?
Single mom Jordan Glastetter doesn't know how she'd survive without her best friend, Abram Tomko. He's the father her son never knew and he's the rock she's always leaned on.
When Abram's father suffers a heart attack, it's Abram's turn to depend on Jordan, finally seeing her as the woman she's become and not the little girl he grew up with.
Will they risk their friendship for a chance at love?

The Cowboy’s Baby by D’Ann Lindun
Cat wanted to keep her baby: Tanner insisted she give it up...can they find common ground seventeen years later?
Cat O’Brien left her heart in Granite, Colorado, seventeen years ago—her first love, Tanner Burke, and the baby girl she gave birth to at sixteen. Suddenly, both Tanner’s high school sweetheart and the teenage daughter they gave up for adoption are back in his life.
Cat is adamant their daughter keep her baby; Tanner isn’t as sure. Just like seventeen years before, he and Cat are butting heads over the fate of an unborn 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR


As a writer, Melissa likes to keep current on topics of interest in the world of writing. She’s a member of the Romance Writers of America and EPIC. Melissa is always interested in improving her writing through classes and seminars. She also believes in helping other authors and features authors and their books on her blog.

Melissa doesn’t believe in down time. She’s always keeping busy. Melissa is a wife and mother, an elementary school teacher, a movie reviewer, owner of a publishing company as well as an author. Her home blends two families and is a lot like the Brady Bunch, without Alice—a large grocery bill, tons of dirty dishes and a mound of laundry. She loves to write stories that feature “happy endings” and is often found plotting her next story.

Melissa loves hearing from readers!


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