Tag Archives: royalty

I am thrilled to have MJ Schiller as my guest today. Let’s get to know her a little better, shall we?

What book have you read that you wish you would have written?

Geez! There are so many of them! I could go with the classics, A TALE OF TWO CITIES, THE GREAT GATSBY, TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD… Or some new favorites, anything by Nora Roberts or RT Wolfe (they’re so good they make me furious!). But at the same time, I don’t wish to have written them. I don’t have Dickens knack for plot twists, Fitzgerald’s lyrical prose, Harper Lee’s taste for the South. I’m not as edgy as Wolfe, or as brilliant at plotting. And face it, there’s only one Nora, dangnabbit! But I think I bring my own flavor to the mix, and I’m okay with that.

Ah, yes. Good point. We all have our own style, even though we may covet others’.

What do you love that most people don’t like and wouldn’t understand why you do?

Karaoke! Most of my friends would rather have a frontal lobotomy than get up and sing in front of people. But I…well I live in make-believe land whenever I write, why not carry that over into my nightlife? Pretend to be a rock star, and a decent singer. Besides, everybody’s drinking and they don’t care how bad you are anyway. It’s fun. It’s freeing! You should give it a try.

NO THANK YOU! I’ll take the frontal lobotomy, please.

What’s the main thing that you could get rid of in your life that would give you more writing time?

This whole pesky day job/solid income thing!

I think that’s pretty common in the writing world. Maybe someday, right?

Would you rather have a bad review or no review?

Bad review. At least that person’s interacting with your work. They’re getting it out there. They’re talking about it. And you might learn something valuable that will make you a better writer.

I agree completely.

What celebrity would you most like to be stranded on an island with?

Jenson Ackles, hands down! Not only would he be one hot distraction, but he’d have me in stitches all day long! (And I might have a chance, since it’s just the two of us…)

I would say you’d have a very good chance! I mean…who else, right? 🙂

Your most prized material possession? Why?

I’m gonna cheat and go with two, because Alicia is not here to stop me. My wedding ring, for obvious reasons. And my laptop, because I give it all of my crazy thoughts. Oh! Make it three. My Kindle.

Actually, I am here. But luckily for you, cheating is allowed on my blog.

Your favorite…

Movie  (I’ll try to be more decisive here!) “What About Bob?”

Music Three Days Grace

Place you’ve visited Ireland

Place you’d like to visit Hawaii

TV show from childhood Charlie’s Angels

TV show from adulthood Supernatural

Food Chocolate. And pizza. (All right. Not all that decisive…)

Sports team Missouri Tigers

Which do you prefer: Board games/card games or television? Love them all, but I guess I’d pick card games.

Thanks for having me, Alicia! I enjoyed running amuck on your blog.

Thank you for coming, MJ. I enjoyed visiting with you…as always!

Now, check out MJ’s beautiful cover and her compelling new release:

Blurb for AN UNCOMMON LOVE~

Princess Adriana had her life all figured out.  Or, to be more precise, she had her life all figured out for her.  Before she was even born she was betrothed to Garin, and that was perfectly acceptable as he became her childhood friend, and then, eventually, the person she would swap kisses with inside the palace gardens.  She never questioned it, never had a reason to, until the day a commoner was brought before her father, the King, to be punished.

As soon as Adriana’s eyes connect with Seth’s across the stone courtyard, she begins to question everything in her life.  For his part, Seth Hobbes is confused about his feelings for the beautiful princess who refuses to match any of his preconceived notions of what a princess should be like, starting when Adriana begs her father to release him.  When Seth creeps into the castle at night to thank her, they begin to build a relationship with one another that is often as explosive as it is endearing.  When fate ends up separating the two, they must undertake a long and arduous journey to be reunited and then overcome the objections Adriana’s father has to their relationship.  Will Adriana be able to make Seth see her for herself and not as the princess that he imagines?  And if she does, will she ever be able to convince her father that, despite his objections, there is nothing “common” about Seth at all?

Excerpt~

With that, she broke from his grasp and lifted her skirts to free her feet. Running down the stone pathway that curved around the corner of the building, she followed the uproar. As she ran, parallel to the crowd following the road, she peered between branches of the oak trees planted at regular intervals along the edge of the garden. She could see a man with his arms tied in front of him, struggling against his captors as he was pushed, shoved and pulled. He wore a loose-fitting, beige-colored linen shirt. His blond hair was long on top, and flew in front of his face as he swung his head violently. He seemed to be trying, at the very least, to injure someone with his skull.

She hastened her steps, and was actually the first person to reach the courtyard, angled as it was in her direction. She broke from the tree-line and stood just beyond the edge of the wide, hexagonal, stone court. High above, a small balcony jutted out from what she knew to be her father’s conference room.

She continued to hear the whistles and cheers of the crowd, though they were briefly out of sight up the roadway, and it filled her with apprehension. In the past, her father had never let her see the goings-on in cases such as this, and now she understood why. It frightened her. Her heart beat faster as a few guards poured into the courtyard, walking backwards as they took in the actions of the mob that trailed. She could see Derrick, her father’s Captain of the Guard. Even from this distance the purple bruising on his chin was obvious. He held the rope tied to the captive’s wrists and jerked it, a cruel move that sent the man crashing to the stone pavers.

Adriana gasped, but then covered her mouth.  She stood, barely visible, at the fringe of the trees. If her father or his men saw her, they would order her away, of that she was sure. The man struggled to his feet and defiantly shook the hair out of his face.  His white teeth flashed as he bared them, glaring with disdain at Derrick. His heavy work pants were torn at the knees, whether from the fall she had just witnessed, or from some other fall, she could not tell.

The prisoner’s gaze lifted and caught hers. For several seconds it was as if no one else was there besides Adriana and the stranger.  The air seemed to shimmer between them with the intensity of their stare. The noise of the crowd thundered in her ears, but was now accompanied by the sound of her own blood pounding through her veins. His eyes were the most startling blue, reminding her of the flash of a blue jay she sometimes caught a glimpse of in Ramport’s gardens.

M.J. Schiller~

MJ is a lunch lady in the heart of Central Illinois. My gosh, can you get more folksy than that? She met her husband at the University of Missouri-Columbia and now she has an eighteen-year-old (how did that happen?) and sixteen year old triplets! She loves to read, karaoke (where she can pretend she is a rock star) and spends WAY too much time on Facebook. She grew up in St. Louis and still has family there.

You can find MJ Schiller at www.mjschillerauthor.blogspot.com, MJ on FB, twitter, Pinterest, and Goodreads.

You can find AN UNCOMMON LOVE at Amazon and BN.com.

GIVEAWAY!

MJ will give away 2 ebook copies of each her 4 books (there will be a total of 8 lucky winners!)

Click here for more info and to enter contest