Sharing Links and Wisdom: The Soul Mate Tree Series VBT

THE LEGEND OF THE SOUL MATE TREE

I am old, I am ancient, my purpose is clear

To give those who are needy a treasure so dear.

They who come to my roots, touch my bark, stroke my leaves

Find the soul of their lives if they but believe.

When I call and you listen, your prize will be great

If your heart remains open and you don’t hesitate.

Do you yearn? Be you lonely? Is your time yet at hand?

Reach for me and I’ll give to you. I’m yours to command.

For your trust, for your faith, keep my secrets untold

And I’ll gift you forever, to have and to hold.

Realm of the Dragon Blurb:

An ancient legend spanning eras, continents, and worlds. To some, it’s nothing more than a dream. To others, a pretty fairy tale handed down through the generations.

For those in critical need of their own happy ending, a gift.

For sheltered Lily Kiers, it’s all too real. Her escape from danger, straight into the arms of her destiny.

Thrust into a realm made of fantasy and unbridled passion, Lily faces violent resentment and jealousy from extremely powerful enemies. Amidst fierce creatures whose very existence defy all common sense, Lily pieces together a past she could never have imagined.

Claimed by Kord, Prince of Battle Draconian, their love will not be denied, even as malevolent forces plot to rip them apart.

Excerpt:

Free to ponder, as his mother had urged, Kord shook off the troublesome feeling of being torn in several directions. He knew his parents worried, and he couldn’t avoid the inevitability of choice much longer.

Royals had strict duty to family and kingdom. Kord’s mate had been near her time of majority when he’d traveled to Anglican to meet her. The kingdom in an uproar, her tearful parents had met him with the devastating news of her death. Instead of a joyous announcement of impending joining, he’d returned to Draconian alone.

His dragon had been uncharacteristically silent since that fateful day, and Kord missed his beast’s conversation.

Enough, he thought bitterly, saddened and angered by the loss of a mate he never knew.

Refusing to dwell on things he couldn’t control, he cleared his mind of the memories and dove lower, seeking what enjoyment he could muster from the day.

Suddenly, something dropped onto his back, between his wingspan.

Something cold and soft.

Something that had limbs . . . and smelled unfamiliar. Not of this realm.

“What the demon?” He banked quickly as he felt the lightweight, chilled lump slide precariously to the left. Worried it might fall—whatever it was—Kord maneuvered gingerly, until he could descend safely into an open pasture.

He touched down lightly over the bumpy ground-scrub, careful to avoid jostling his unknown burden, turned his head to glance behind him . . .

And stared disbelieving at a vision from a dream.

- Char Chaffin and Cheryl Yeko write together as CiCi Cordelia. They have responded to interview questions as themselves, and also as CiCi Cordelia –

How long have you been writing?

Cheryl: I’ve been writing for eight years. I wrote my first book in 2011, and sent it out to three publishing houses, and I received two contract offers. I signed with Soul Mate Publishing and my debut novel, Protecting Rose, went on to win the Gayle Wilson Award of Excellence. Wow! I was super thrilled. It wasn’t long after that that I quit my job as a legal assistant and began writing full time.

What advice would you give a new writer just starting out?

Cheryl: Once of the biggest mistakes I made was pushing boundaries that made me uncomfortable. I thought this was something an author had to do to succeed. I was wrong. My publisher was kind enough to let me go in and fix some of that, which I’m very grateful for. The other was a self-published novella where I used some language I regretted. Thankfully, I was able to go in and fix that too.

What comes first, the plot or characters?

Char: For me, plot and characters come at the same time. Yes, that does sound rather naughty. ::grin:: I have never thought up a plot first, then started thinking up and/or discarding possible characters to fill that plot. I might not know their names up front, but these two elements do show up in my head as a matched set. Neither would I select a character from the miasma of my brain and then say, “Hmm, what can I do with them that’ll sound intriguing?”

What is a particular writing quirk of yours?

Char: I’m a very anal writer. It’s odd because I don’t necessarily have OCD/anal tendencies in general, anywhere else in my life. Sometimes the anal-writer thing works in my favor, other times it doesn’t. My strongest quirk is my urge to read back over everything I have written up to the point where I stopped writing because I would need to “pick it up” the next day. I finally had to break up my writing into chapters and force myself to only open whatever current chapter I am working on, otherwise every time I pull up the draft, I would have to return to the very beginning and read it all again—oh, and edit as I felt the necessity—before getting to the spot where I can create anew. Usually by the time I got to that spot, I would have to set it aside for whatever cropped up that needed my attention, and consequently nothing got done. My advice: if you can avoid being an anal writer, absolutely do so.

Tell us something about your newest release.

CiCi: We started thinking about our next venture right after we finalized Realm of the Dragon. A genre hadn’t yet been chosen and pinned down, when Cheryl’s family, specifically her mother and her aunt, told her about how Cheryl’s great-grandparents met. Their unusual circumstances sparked our idea for The Substitute Wife which is Book 1 of a Western Historical series trilogy entitled Brides of Little Creede. We set the series during the height of the silver mining craze in Colorado, right after the territory attained statehood in the latter part of the 19^th century. And because much of our first book in the series was steeped in fact, we have had an absolute blast writing in a genre that is very different for both sides of CiCi. Book 2, The Dance Hall Wife, has been released, and CiCi is now in the midst of writing Book 3, The Innocent Wife.