Welcome to Sugarbeat’s Books – The Home of the Romance Novel
Today we are welcoming Laurel Cremant to the blog! She is the author of Negotiating Skills, and is here to answer some questions and share some information about her book. Laurel is touring her book with Goddessfish Promotions and is awarding one $10 Amazon Gift Card, one 4GB USB drive or an “I Heart Dr. Who” mug to three randomly drawn commenters. (US ONLY)
If you are interested in entering to win one of these prizes, leave a comment and to increase your chances, click HERE for the list of all the stops on this tour.
Barb – If someone else wrote a blurb about your book what would it say?
Laurel – Business mogul, Victor can’t seem to stop lusting after his new computer programmer, Veronica James. Unfortunately, the tech inclined beauty doesn’t seem interested. Victor never treads where he’s not welcomed, but an after hours encounter proves that the aloof Veronica is not as unaffected by their chemistry as she pretends and he has no qualms about using her attraction for him to negotiate his way into her bed and her heart.
Barb – What’s your current guilty pleasure?
Laurel – HGTV! I’ve always wanted to own a home of my own and recently my hubby and I have finally started to seriously look for a permanent abode. We haven’t even found the right place yet but, my mind is already spinning with possibilities and design ides. So sadly I’ve become obsessed with the Home & Garden channel. and when I say obsessed and I mean obsessed. It’s on in my house practically 24/7! I get so into the homes and designs, that I barely notice the hosts. My husband had to point out that the hosts from Property Brothers were twins. I actually argued with him for a good five minutes before he pulled a Google Slam and I had to concede his point. But seriously, the brothers don’t look anything alike. Seriously.
Barb – Do you write at a laptop/desktop or do you write freehand?
Laurel – Both. I’m pretty tech savvy and have all of the latest gadgets from a smart phone, tablet and laptop. However, I never go anywhere without several pens and a journal. You never know when inspiration will strike and I learned the hard way that telling myself “I’ll remember this,”or “I’ll get this down later,”is a guaranteed way for me to not to remember. Arghh! I spent a whole week once trying to recall one piece of dialogue I thought of while in line at the grocery store. By the time I got home I couldn’t remember a lick of it.All I knew was that it was brilliant and I forgot it! Never again (*shaking fist at sky*).
Barb – Do you have any advice for unpublished authors?
Laurel – Yes. There are to things I think every writer should remember:
1.) Check your ego at the door. The moment you decide to share your work with the world you open yourself up to both praise and criticism. Don’t become overly confident with one and ignore the other. You have to respect the fact that everyone is entitled to their opinions and sometimes those opinions won’t be favorable of your work. You also need to be aware enough to know when to ignore criticism and when to recognize it as an opportunity to improve your writing. Readers ultimately want to enjoy your work. They invest both time and money by choosing to purchase your book and read it. So if a reader goes out of their way write a review, respect the fact that their opinion is coming from an honest place.
2.) Keep pushing forward! Getting a manuscript together can be very daunting. there are times when you second guess yourself or worry whether the whole process is worth. Don’t listen to those voices in your head! It is all so worth it. Every single frustratingly, awesome moment. the feeling you get when you finish your last sentence, edit you last page, or see the first copy of you book is indescribable and more than a little addicting. Like crackaliciously addicting. I’m talking crack dipped in dark chocolate served by hot Greek Gods addicting.
Barb – What’s the hardest part of writing a book?
Laurel – Knowing exactly what you want to write, but not knowing how to write it. there are times when I know exactly how I want a scene to pan out and exactly how I want my characters to react, but getting the picture out of my head and on to paper can sometimes be frustrating. Those moments are the only time I need complete silence while writing. It’s like my brain is pushing against a steel wall and I need all of my focus to be on melting it down.
Barb – What was your favorite scene?
Laurel – It’s hard to just choose one, but if I had to it would be the first intimate scene when Veronica catches Rossi in his office. It was a completely voyeuristic scene and a lot of fun to write. I think it also set the overall feeling of tension for the book.
Barb – How did you come up with your premise for your books?
Laurel – I knew from the beginning that I wanted to write a book based on the Plain Jane/Handsome Boss model. However, I didn’t want there to be any mystery about how either character felt, at least not to the reader. So I chose a situation that makes the two character’s attraction to each other very apparent relatively early on in the book. I also love a strong female character who isn’t afraid of her sexuality and heroes who aren’t afraid of going after what they want, so the idea of a bit of sexual tug of war appealed to me.
Barb – Do you have an all time favorite book?
Laurel – I have a dog eared (yes I dog ear) copy of Beauty by Robin McKinley. It is one of my favorite books of all time. It’s the retelling of the classic story of Beauty and the Beast. I first picked up a copy of this book from the library when I was in middle school. I loved it and was so sad when I had to return it. Sadly I have a horrible memory for book titles, so I was able to remember the plot but not the title and every time I would ask my librarian for help she would give me a different book based on Beauty and the Beast but not the one I was describing. Anyhoo, years literally went by (a decade actually) and during one of my first dates with my husband we were talking about favorite books. I described Beauty and mentioned I’d never been able to learn the title. He somehow managed to figure it out and gave it to me for my birthday. Needless to say I married the man for a reason. I still read Beauty at least once a month. I love it!
Barb – Where can your fans find you ?
Laurel – Readers and fans can find me via my website (www.LaurelCremant.com). There are links to my blog there as well as updates on my upcoming releases and works in progress. They can also find me on Twitter (@LaurelCremant) and Facebook. Occasionally I can also be found strolling around on Goodreads ninja like.
Barb – Favorite place in the world?
Laurel – In bed with my hubby. Aside from the obvious things that occur in the marriage bed, my husband and I are are both big fans of a lazy Saturday or Sunday morning. We laze about in and snuggle in bed watching tv, talking or reading. those are seriously the best hours of my week so I’d pretty much go anywhere in the world as long as I still get those hours in bed with my hubby. I know it’s disgustingly sappy, but hey I write romance for a reason.
Barb – What projects are you currently working on right now? Would you mind sharing them with us?
Laurel – I’m in the process of getting my first paranormal contemporary romance titled How To Kill Your Immortal published. It will be out in spring 2013. I’m also currently working on another erotic contemporary romance titled High Stakes. Readers can check out my website for excerpts and I’ll be posting the release dates soon.
Negotiating Skills
by Laurel Cremant
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BLURB:
Witnessing a private act leads to some interesting negotiations… Software programmer Veronica James is struggling to make her new business a success. Unfortunately, after finally landing a major account, she’s at risk of losing it all when she catches her new client Victor Rossi in a very compromising position. In an effort to regain the upper hand, Rossi insists on some very sexy and compromising concessions that have Veronica reconsidering her hard fast rule of not mixing business with pleasure.
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Excerpt:
As soon as she felt her knee hit the floor she was shaking her head at the stupidity of her action.
Just because she was avoiding the man didn’t mean that she had to hide behind actual furniture when he was around. She was about to rise when Rossi entered the room speaking to his assistant across his shoulder.
“I’m sorry sir, Ms. James was here just a few minutes ago,” stated his assistant, Marie.
“Don’t worry about it. It looks like she left her report here for me. I wasn’t expecting to be over an hour late. Even I don’t expect people to wait for me this long,” said Rossi.
Veronica held her breath and took a peek around the edge of the couch. She saw Rossi standing behind his desk yanking off his tie and taking off his suit jacket, while Marie stood at the doorway.
“Go ahead and call it a night. I’m going to give this report a quick once over and head home myself.”
“Alright, I’ll see you in the morning. Goodnight.” Marie said as she turned to leave.
Veronica watched Marie close the door in growing horror. She could hear the woman packing up her desk and leaving the outer office, and with it any chance of Veronica crawling out of the room undetected.
There was no way for Veronica to make a graceful appearance. What could she say?
“Oh. Hi there! I was just checking for spider webs and dust bunnies?”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
AUTHOR Bio and Links:
Laurel is a romance author, who like most writers loves to read. Her first love (pun intended) has always been romance. From the sappy YA romance novel to the more risqué erotica novels, Laurel is a sucker for a good love story.
Laurel writes paranormal and contemporary romance and is a self proclaimed, out of the closet nerd. She admits that she can’t seem to avoid adding a bit of “nerdology” or “geek-dom” to all of her books. Living in Miami, she also admits that she can’t seem to avoid giving her heroines gorgeous shoes, “In Miami, we worship everything strappy, open toed and just plain hot!”
AUTHOR WEBSITE & LINKS
Negotiating Skills can be purchased:
Amazon * All Romance * Barnes & Noble
Kobo * Lulu * Smashwords
Blurb: 
Cheryl Yeko lives in Wisconsin with her husband Patrick. She loves to read, write, play piano and spend time with her grandchildren.
Blurb: