Author Spotlight - Louise Rose-Innes

Today we have South African author (now living in the UK) Louise Rose-Innes in the spotlight talking about her brand new release The New Year's Resolution.

1. Tell our readers a little bit about yourself.
I write contemporary romance and have just branched out into romantic suspense. I’ve been writing for about five years, seriously – and about ten years, stopping and starting and generally playing around.

2. What number book is this? First? 100th? 200th?(Nora only!)
The New Year Resolution is my fourth book (but first novella)

3. Everyone who writes knows it's not easy - what methods do you use to keep at it on days when it would be so much easier to go shoe shopping?
I have limited time to write, so it’s precious to me. I write while my child is at school, so I sit down as soon as possible after I drop him off, and I don’t get up until it’s time to collect him (unless I do have something important to do). But that is it for the rest of the day, so I have to make every second at the keyboard count.

4. What is your top promo tip for other authors?
Building your social media presence can help get your name out there. Some authors have hit it big that way.

5. How does writing fit into your day? Or does your day fit in around your writing?
I like to write for substantial blocks of time. I can’t do much in an hour (it takes me that long to read through my previous work and get my thoughts in order). So I like to sit down for at least four hours at a time. If I don’t have that, then I won’t bother to work on my latest manuscript. I’ll do something else like marketing and promotion, or catch up on emails and blog posts – and then go and get my toes done!

6. Which blog(s) do you read regularly?
I enjoy Bestsellerlabs.com as they have good marketing articles. I also pick up useful info from A Newbie's Guide to Publishing, and Copyblogger.com. I subscribe to the Google Webmaster Blog for SEO advice (to keep up with my online marketing), and various other web design and e-marketing blogs.

7. What was the most fun part of writing this book?
I wrote this book for a friend, who really wanted her own happily ever after. She told me that her only New Year’s resolution last year, was to have a date for this New Years Eve, and it didn’t look like it was going to happen. So I wrote her a gorgeous, wealthy date, threw in a fabulous island holiday and a love triangle with lots of sizzling sex on the top!

8. Just for fun: a year from the end of the book, where would your couple go on holiday?
Back to the luxury island resort off the coast of Mozambique where they fell in love, of course.

9. At what point in your career did you actually start to feel like you were a writer?
After I’d self-published my second novel, The Italian Inheritance, and it hit the Amazon bestseller list and stayed there for a couple of months. That’s when I started taking myself seriously as a writer.

10. Do you have any tips, tricks or sacrificial rituals you do when you hit a story roadblock?
I plan my stories to an inch of their lives before I start writing, so I don’t hit stumbling blocks.


The New Year Resolution is available from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk. Please sign up to my New Releases Newsletter at www.LouiseRoseInnes.com to win free copy of The New Year Resolution.

Last year, divorcee Nicole had only one New Year’s Resolution – to have a date for this New Years Eve – but with no strings attached. One thing she knows for sure is that she isn’t ready for anything more complicated than a casual date.

So when eco-tycoon and international jetsetter, Ryan Jackson begs her to accompany him to a tropical island for a week, in order to impress his benefactor, Nicole categorically refuses. He’s way too hot and she’s way too vulnerable. Not a good idea.

Yet Ryan won’t take no for an answer. It’s for a good cause. She would only have to pretend to be his lover. It’s a luxury island resort with all expenses paid. How can she refuse?

Under the tropical sun, things heat up and their pretence goes out the window. Nicole gets cold feet. She’s not ready for this kind of affair. It’s doubtful she ever will be.

But have they come too far? Distancing herself from Ryan will cause him to lose the funding he so desperately needs for his eco-project, but staying with him means she’ll lose something far more valuable... her heart. And that’s a risk Nicole is simply not willing to take.