Carmen DeSousa

It may be a little early, but since I’ve shared all I am willing to part with on She Belongs to Me and Land of the Noonday Sun , I figured I’d start introducing you to, Difficult Decisions , my third novel releasing this summer. So each Sunday, please join me for a six-sentence passage from the prologue, and then I’ll share a few excerpts until it publishes. Excerpt: As a child, Alexandra Nicole was a princess in a fairytale.           Her royal family would spend every Sunday on the pristine beaches of Destin together. Her father, the king, would carry her on his shoulders, pretending to be her noble steed as he pranced around at her behest. He would battle dragons, the vicious Chihuahua that chased them; conquer new worlds, also known as a sand dune further down the beach; and build elaborate castles, well actually, sandcastles.           If her father was the king, then her mother was most definitely the queen. She would laugh softly under her umbrella, a

Land of the Noonday Sun will be out in a few weeks, but if you haven't read She Belongs to Me , my current bestseller in romantic-suspense, you'll want to read first. Here’s the the mini synopsis: After secrets and a mysterious background leave a wife’s life hanging by a thread, a husband must look for answers in the only place he knows—the past. When wealthy construction company owner and Charlotte detective, Jordan Monroe, meets Jaynee for the first time he is awestruck and determines to make her his wife. Jaynee, however, has a history she cannot easily overcome and is fearful to submit to love. Jordan succeeds in making her his wife, but five years into their marriage, he realizes she is keeping secrets.   Before he can decipher her duplicity, he discovers her unconscious in their home from a gunshot wound only hours after giving her an ultimatum concerning their relationship. With Jaynee’s life hanging in the balance, the mystery of her past drives Jordan to inves

 Don’t look at the rocks below, keep your eye on the wave, and ride it all the way to shore. Does that translate? I think so. I don’t think you have to be a surfer to get that analogy, and you certainly don’t have to be able to surf well—I can attest to that. Thank goodness for web-surfing, because I never was good at it, even though I grew up in Cocoa Beach, home of Ron Jon’s Surf Shop if you didn’t know. Anyway, how does this relate to writing? It doesn’t. It relates to selling. Here’s what I learned in the last year: · Writing is easy; writing well is fractionally harder · Writing a query letter and synopsis is harder than writing a novel · Querying an agent or publisher is agony, way harder than writing a novel · But the hardest part of writing a novel, beyond a shadow of a doubt, is selling your novel. It’s a nightmare! Especially when you realize that though most authors are a little wacky and flamboyant, pretty muc

Our female protagonist has made disastrous decisions when it comes to men, so she knows this tenacious gentleman will be no different from all the other men in her life. Excerpt: Order in hand, she was off to the service bar, which was at the far end of the customers’ area. Across the service station sat Jordan. He smiled, a brilliant smile exposing a perfect set of white teeth as she approached. He was an ideal specimen of a man, and obviously he didn’t take “no” for an answer. Of course, he could have just decided to have a beer, but she doubted that. Most guys would have scampered off with their tail between their legs, but here Jordan sat, smiling at her. Unable to control herself, she smiled back, retrieved her order and returned to her customers. Adrenaline coursed through her veins, as if she’d just ran a marathon. The cocktails she carried nearly toppled over as her hands quivered beneath the tray. How could a man she didn’t even know affect her in such

I’m sure it’s been said before, but I didn’t find it on Google, so I tweeted it and then retweeted it, because I really liked it, and now I’m blogging about it. It’s so true, isn’t it? You may be staring at a trash heap, but with a little cleaning up or by simply turning in the opposite direction, you could be gazing at a serene sunset. I cannot go into detail, but let’s just say I’ve been trying to explain this concept to a close person in my life for … well … forever actually. I learned this lesson at an early age; I think I was twenty-one. Of course, I was well ahead in years mentally, as I’d been living on my own since I was seventeen, really since I was twelve, as no one was ever home in my house. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. I am who I am because of what I’ve seen and experienced, and I’m so happy with my husband and children that I wouldn’t change a thing. Everything led me to where I am. However, at twenty-one, I'd realized that nothing would

I am a Florida native, born and raised in Daytona Beach. I spent my days sunning, surfing, or sailing, but sailing was my favorite. Soaring swiftly across the water with no sound of a motor and no gas fumes to detract from the salty spray was pure heaven for a teenager full of angst. However, one of my favorite destinations was an island on the other side of the Halifax River where I’d dig for clams. The problem, I just had a little sunfish with one sail, and it wasn’t an easy task to sail into the wind. How does this relate to life, writing ... anything? I learned I could tack and go in a different direction. I could find a new course. Even if I had to sail upriver from my target, I could get there. And though there were times when the wind ceased and left me stranded in the channel, I knew eventually, a small gust could put me back on track, so I just enjoyed the solitude. Until next time, happy reading, my friends. Carmen Thank you for stopping by my p

When two strangers have nothing left but their dreams, they must forge a relationship in Nantahala, North Carolina, a small town known as  Land of the Noonday Sun .   This is it! Last excerpt for Land of the Noonday Sun , and yes, I’m gonna leave you guessing, I hope. He called her mobile again, nothing. Now what? What else was there to do? He ran his hands through his hair frantically. If he left…she could show up. Or, she could be in a ditch somewhere. Decision made, he jumped in his truck. He’d keep a lookout the entire way, hoping she’d pass him. He watched the entire trip back to the store…there was only one main road. He would have passed her if she’d been driving. He stormed through the parking lot, but her car wasn’t out front. He parked his truck sideways in a no-parking zone and jumped out of the truck, charging into the building. Land of the Noonday Sun  is available now in print and ebook formats. If you don't see yo

I write tragedy-laden beginnings, and sometimes endings, but I’m a sucker for true love and happily-ever-after. Mix that with mystery and suspense and you have a modern-day, true-to-life fairytale . The fact of the matter is if you took all of the instances that happened to the protagonist in the fairytales Disney turned into animated movies, I don’t know that they would qualify as children’s stories. Let’s see: Parentless is the main qualification, it seems. Pretty much all of them have one or no parent at all. And often, the child watches the parent’s demise (Lion King, Bambi) Enslaved (Cinderella) Poisoned (Snow White) Cast out (Lion King) Cursed (Sleeping Beauty) Crippled—No voice, can’t walk (Little Mermaid) Humiliation (Dumbo) Kidnapped (101 Dalmatians) Imprisoned (Pinocchio) Racism (The Fox and the Hound) Lost (Finding Nemo) Feeling unwanted (Chicken Little) Just plain sad beginning; I cried like a baby (Up) Wow ...