Lost Soul

Hi, all.  Hope you're all doing well, or at least striving for love and happiness.  I've had a lot of my fans ask me why I'm a few months late on my sequel to my first novel, Castilian Heat. To be fair, I suffered a major personal setback:  My good friend, Beth Tegarden, died suddenly in February. She was an ex-Ford model and did some movies that were noteworthy. She was a beautiful human being who was not terribly happy here on Earth. A very loving soul, she had been unsuccessful in finding a long-lasting love that was meaningful and this led to severe depression at times. All of you can actually find her either on Google and/or www.imdb.com. Beth had a marvelous, quirky sense of humor and possessed a singular intelligence. Apparently, she was very active in women's advocacy groups highlighting domestic violence. I shall keep her in my heart always.

As to my sequel, I now attend to the finishing touches and will disappoint my fans no longer: May is the month of its debut, this I promise you wholeheartedly. My continued prayers to the families of those on Malaysian Flight 370 and for those poor children and others on the Korean ferry.

How little do most of us know how good we have it until some or all of that goodness is taken away from us. Be well, to all of you, dear hearts.

2014 - Full Speed Ahead!

Hello, everyone.  As you've discerned from my tweets, I've been fully immersed in finishing my sequel to my first novel, Castilian Heat, now called Castilian Heat 2 - A New Beginning.  I won't give the storyline away, of course, but suffice to say, Sheila, my heroine, continues to mush on courageously in the face of grief, and has a new baby to boot. I'm excited because a lot of the book takes place in Barcelona this time, which is where I spent some time last year doing research.

I shall have Castilian Heat 3 finished sooner than expected as well this year before moving on to a different series. While not writing, I went to see the second Hunger Games movie (the book was written by the marvelous Suzanne Collins) and was thoroughly enthralled ... yet heartbroken, too, of late, with the untimely passing of Philip Seymour Hoffman, who had one of the lead roles in the film. He was marvelous as always. A great tragedy how he died and it forever exemplifies to us all that drugs are a very bad thing indeed.

And with that, I am going to take a break and go see the film, Pompeii, which is supposed to be a good love story in addition to a gala spectacular tent-pole film filled with special effects, pyroclastic clouds and lots of lava!

Stay well, my beloved readers.  Monica

Romance illuminates our imagination and ignites fire in our hearts!

Hi everyone…. I wanted to relay my thanks to all of you that have sent me emails and direct messages about how much you loved reading Castilian Heat and in wanting to know when Castilian Heat 2 will be coming out.   I currently have my outline that I worked on while spending my summer in Barcelona with my husband John and my children.   I do hope to work hard in getting out the sequel by the end of the year or by no later than Jan 2014.  I had no idea that my book would be so well received by so many.   I have always loved reading romance novels and enjoyed fantasizing about the world of romance and took a stab in writing one.  I let a dear friend of mine read it and this person encouraged me to self publish my book so that others could enjoy the spice and Latin flair of romance….  

I have always enjoyed hot Latin men, since my husband is of Latin descent, and he swept me off my feet with his charm and sensual demeanor.  We met 20 years ago in Barcelona and the romance of our encounter was like a romance novel fantasy come to life.  We married a few years later and had three wonderful children together and still have romance in our hearts and display it daily to one another.  I am so blessed in life to have my dreams come true and a future with someone who fills my every waking moment with one romantic day after another.  This was my inspiration for writing Castilian Heat.

I do apologize that that it will be a couple of more months for Castilian Heat 2 to be released.  Trust me, it will be worth the wait.   

My month of October was not spent writing my sequel but donating much of my time to cancer awareness.   This to me is such an important cause, since I have a dear friend who is a cancer survivor and another who passed from breast cancer.  It’s so important that we all contribute to this cause and get ourselves checked out regularly to prevent the development of breast cancer in its early stages.   Life is too precious not to exercise such caution and we should enjoy every moment we have to take the necessary precautions to ensure we have future dreams to share with our loved ones.

Again, I want to thank all of you wonderful fans that have purchased my book, sent emails, and left reviews on Amazon.   I am touched!

For those of you reading my post, please feel free to pick up a copy of Castilian Heat on Amazon.

Romance illuminates our imagination and ignites fire in our hearts. It makes life worth living. 

Monica

Check out readingheatintheam review for Castilian Heat!

readingheatintheam

Castilian Heat by Monica Hart – @MonicaKHart

POSTED ON AUGUST 12, 2013 BY REVIEWSBYAM

ABOUT: Sheila Donahue’s staid life as a PhD translator struggling to make ends meet in New York is turned upside down when she meets billionaire investor Cruz Terranova, a brooding Spaniard with a dark secret. Her ordinarily uneventful existence transforms into a dizzy adventure of forbidden love and intrigue when Manhattan Irish cool collides with Spanish passion. Castilian Heat is a lusty international romp that fans of 50 Shades of Gray, Bella Andre and Barbara Freethy are sure to enjoy.
MARILYN’S REVIEW: Boy where to start, so good and similar to many but with great story line twist and you know there will be more to come. Sheila and Cruz are our main characters, connected by a job. Cruz hires Sheila as a translator to help him with a business acquisition, he wants to make sure do to with potential language issues that nothing gets slipped up in wording. Sheila has much on her daily plate, she takes care of her sister that is ill and needs much care and help, so she take this short term job, to help bank some money for the just in case needs and a little breathing room. Sheila has not had many relationships but with the few that she has had she has never fully experience of pleasurable sex. The heart and chemistry with Cruz is instant and all consuming for both. This weeks work that she has been hired for also takes place during hurricane Sandy which of course brings it’s own issues. Curz other then being the gorgeous hot hunky male lead brings his own back story, being part of a family feud in the likes of the international mafia. Danger lurks around every corner and any given time for him and soon for Sheila too. It is a edge of your set read, hot and sensual sex scenes, real life happenings, something you can see coming but more that just leaves your needing more. If I had one complaint that I must bring up – is my love / mi amor is used almost too much, sickly sweet if that makes sense, But the story is so different and good that by the end I just didn’t care…. LOL – Good Job Ms Hart I anxiously await more.

VERDICT:- Great Change Up!!!

RATINGS:

Spain and Sangria

Hi, everyone.  Here in Barcelona, Spain (again) on Los Ramboles Boulevard, copping to good food and Sangria.  Will be doing a major promo on my first book, Castilian Heat, upon my return.  In the meantime, doing research for Castilian Two.  I was planning of setting much of the book in Madrid but not making that decision yet. Right now, enjoying the wonders of Antoni Gaudi. He did most of the architecture in Barcelona, including the famous Basilica of the Sacred Family.  This is a miracle in the making from a building point of view (feel free to google); it's essentially a huge cathedral that Gaudi built but did not finish and you will see few comparisons in design structure compared to it.  The massive spires, viewed up close, are monolithic in nature and send off a supernatural zeitgeist that is eerie.

Though the international scene and travel is predictably fun, I continue to miss my cats and family and friends at home.  I may pop over to Madrid and do some research, but not sure at this time.  Folks keep asking me what my take will be on Castilian Heat, the sequel, but I shall remain secretive on this point and I hope my readers understand.
I continue to sing and Sangria! Adios, amigos.

MY FIRST-BORN

Hi, everyone.

This is my first blog and, of course, I am introducing my first novel, Castilian Heat, now successfully launched on Amazon.  Castilian Heat, like any first-born, is a special baby for me - it marries my love for Spain, which I visited in 2005 (Barcelona, specifically) with my memories of Hurricane Sandy, which so devastated the east coast of the United States in the latter part of 2012.  I had been to New York only once before, in my callow youth, and I remembered the city as being stunningly vibrant - a thing in perpetual motion that took no prisoners in terms of activity and sound.  Sandy soaked a lot of that dynamism in those few dreadful days and I left The Big Apple sad and remorseful.  It had become a city without its customary magic. Imaging New York brutalized by a super-hurricane is like imagining the New Testament without Jesus.  It's just wrong.

I adored the Spanish culture and the people were undeniably gorgeous.  I went to that country reasonably prepared - I had crash-coursed myself on the language, so at least I did not completely flounder with the natives.  To be sure, though, I was far from ever being comfortably conversational in the Spanish idiom.  Oftentimes, I cursed my fate for not being more like the little genius of my book, Sheila, who had such dexterity and facility with languages.

I hope all of you enjoy the book as much as I enjoyed writing it.  Sheila Donahue is everything I would like to be - brilliant, beautiful, adventurous and frightened. She represents the epitome of the phrase "passionately flawed."  But she is also very human. I'm sure you will come to love her as I did in her creation.

Working on a second book now which I hope to launch in September.