#SaturdaySnippet Bell's Accident from Dancing in the White Room.

I've got a few more excerpts from Dancing in the White Room to Share. In this one, Mallory remembers what happened the first time Bell tried a descent down the West Rib of Denali. He's gone to try again, and Mallory is upset that he would.  This is the reason why--

It’s been five years, and I can still hear Roddie’s voice. “We had to grapple him down. Copter’s won’t go that high. We’re shipping him off to Anchorage.” When I didn’t say anything, he added, “Hope I didn’t worry you, love.”

After we hung up, I called the airlines and booked the first flight to Anchorage. They had Bell in a room by the time I got there. He looked like he’d been the loser in a prizefight. One eye was swollen shut, one hand bandaged because of frostbite on two fingers.

I was trying at the time to unhinge an awful fear, the awful thought of Bell as fallible, as vulnerable. It sat in my head, reinforced by tape and bandages and the blistering on his face. It sat there and I couldn’t shake it. It still sits there, this heavy pulsing gravitational thought.

When I think of Bell on Denali, this is the picture I get. Bell vulnerable. Bell fallible.

For more, please go check out Dancing in the White Room on my website

White Room stops at the Lusty Penquin

I'm talking with Lori Zalewski about skiing, writing, and life in general, over at the Lusty Penguin. There's still a chance to put your name into the hat for some free books! Okay, it's not a hat, it's a rafflecopter. But still, you gotta be in it to win it.
I love the name Lusty Penguin. If I ever opened a pub, I think this is what I would call it...

http://lustypenguin.com/dancing-white-room-ute-carbone-interview-giveaway

#Ski Addiction at Gemini Girls

The Dancing in the White Room blog tour stops at Gemini Girls today, where I talk about being addicted to skiing.  There's a contest to enter for some free books by yours truly!

http://www.geminigirls.com/dancing-in-the-white-room-by-ute-carbone-plus-giveaway/

Dancing in the White Room Blog Tour

Just because the Winter Olympics are over doesn't mean you can't still enjoy Dancing in the White Room. I'm taking my ski-themed book on tour over the next few weeks and there'll be plenty about my characters and skiing. Hope you'll make a few of the stops with me.

Tour Schedule

Feb 25 - The Book Bug Review   

Feb 26  -  Reviews by Crystal

Feb 27 -  Fiction Witches

Feb 28 -  Fall into Reading Reviews

Feb 28- Angela Smith

Feb 28- Coffee Time Romance

March 1 -  Harlie's Books

March 2- A Passion for Romance

March 3  -  Toots Book Reviews

March 4- Romance Lives Forever

March 5  -  Gemini Girls

March 6  -  London Scribbles

March 6 -  That Girl Reads 

March 7- Lusty Penguin Review 

March 10 - Romantic Reads  

White Room Snippets: Mallory and Bell #TMP

Part of Dancing in the White Room is told in back flash as Mallory recalls her life with Bell over the past seven years. This snippet is one of those scenes. In it, Mallory tells how she and Bell first met. She's a patrol woman, he's an extreme skier who's at Whiteface doing a demonstration ski.

The lunch crowd had long since filtered out of the cafeteria, choosing to stand in line for the lifts rather than hamburgers. I spooned up a bowl of chili from what looked like the dregs of the pot. Bell sat at a corner table with some other guys from the team. His blond hair curled around his shoulders, and I thought he was the best-looking guy I had ever laid eyes on.
I sat down a few tables from them. When I glanced up, I saw Bell watching me. I smiled and he smiled back, said something to his friends, picked up his tray and started walking in my direction. I figured he was done with lunch and about to leave. I wanted to check him out, but not stare, so I concentrated on my chili.
I didn’t look up again until he sat down across from me, at which point I was caught up in a kind of gummy, adolescent speechlessness. He had a half-eaten burger on his tray and a mound of fries slathered in ketchup.
“Chili any good?” he asked.
I stared at it as though it might give me an answer to his question. The crackers I’d been crumbling into the bowl were stuck to my palm. “I wouldn’t recommend it.” I brushed the crumbs from my hand.
“I was watching you ski,” he said. “You’re pretty phenomenal.” He smiled down at his burger.
“You’re not so bad yourself,” I answered, thinking the minute after I said it that this was possibly the stupidest thing that had ever dropped out of my mouth.
“You want to grab a beer or something later?”

Dancing in the White Room as an e-book at a wide variety of online bookstores including
TMP , Barnes and Noble and Amazon

White Room Snippets; Opening Lines

I was told, once, never to begin a book with the character waking up. That is, of course, exactly how I started Dancing in the White Room. Though Mallory is not waking so much as lying awake.

The alarm goes off at four-thirty, and I stare at the skylight of our sleeping loft. Bell

bangs on the clock to keep it from singing out again. I turn my back and nestle under the blankets. It’s almost March and it shouldn’t be as cold as it is—five below last night according to the thermometer propped outside the kitchen window. The temperature inside’s not much warmer. Bell would probably say I’m the one causing the freeze. We spent the past few days fighting. I did my share of pleading and cursing. I refused to help him pack his gear.

I wait for it, the hand that comes to my waist soon enough. Bell’s long fingers caress the contour and follow up under the curve of my breast.

“Mallory, you awake?”

I try to decide if I should answer him. I try to decide whether I want to have this conversation again, the one we’ve had off and on for the last six months, ever since he let slip he would be going back to Alaska to do the glisse on the West Rib of Denali.

I’ve never been good at pretense, so I turn to face him. His face is angular in the gray light of the room. His blond hair shuffles around his shoulders. He reaches over, his arms still warm from the down of our comforter, and kisses the arch of my shoulder.

“I’m going to miss that.” His voice is as inviting as a warm bath in the winter. It would be easy to fall into his warmth, easy to make this goodbye tender and inviting,the way our goodbyes usually are. Soft and intense, full of a kind of sweetness that can hold us,both of us, for a week or a month. A goodbye that promises a return, that says we’ll be here again, together.

Today, I push him away. I’m in no mood for sweet goodbyes. Last minute lovemaking won’t change his mind. And what I want is a mind change. What I want is a turnaround. I’m too stubborn to settle for less.

Dancing in the White Room is now available at TMP and Amazon

Dancing in the White Room #BookTrailer

Ready, set, go! Dancing in the White Room is being released on February 11th! Holy smokes, that's on Tuesday! Stay tuned for places to buy the book and lots more about this ski-based story. 

Next week, I'll also be doing a Valentine's Blog Hop with some other great authors. There'll be lots of fun and prizes, including a grand prize of an e-reader loaded down with books, books, books. I'll have more for you on that on Monday.

Meanwhile, in the countdown until Dancing in the White Room's debut, here's the trailer for the book-

Cover Reveal: Dancing in the White Room #TMP

Can I have a drum roll? The cover for Dancing in the White Room is here!

Getting cover art is one of the truly fun parts of being an author. It's like unwrapping a Christmas gift. I love the energy in this cover, by Kim Jacobs. It looks like the skier is going to ski right off the page, doesn't it? Perfect for this ski-themed book.
Dancing in the White Room will be available in mid-February, just in time for the Winter Olympics. It's set in ski country, but at heart, it's a love story.

Here's the book blurb--

 Dancing in the white room is slang for skiing or boarding in deep powder snow. The dancer is PD Bell, one of the best extreme skiers on the planet. Mallory Prescott, the woman who lives with him and loves him, is used to Bell’s exploits. A patrol woman at Whiteface Mountain near Lake Placid, New York, Mallory is no stranger to risk. But this time Bell is taking on the West Rib of Denali, highest and most dangerous mountain in North America. It’s a descent that has never been done, though it’s been tried. Five years ago, Bell had tried it. The attempt nearly killed him. Five years ago, he promised Mallory he wouldn’t try it again.     
    Over the six weeks in which he’s gone, Mallory begins to question her relationship with Bell. Does he really love her? Is he in it for the duration? What has loving him cost her?  Mallory’s life choices are thrown into stark relief when her daughter Emily takes a terrible fall. Together with her life-long friend Creech Creches, she must work her way through a maze of uncharted territory at a hospital miles from home.       
      Dancing in the White Room is the story of the love we keep, the price we pay for that love, and the forgiveness it takes to hold on to what is precious.

#Write-a-thin Check in. Week Four

Sometimes, it seems, the goal posts move. It's the final push in the month-long write-a-thin sponsored by the Women's Fiction Writer's association. I had set writing a first draft of Willow, part four of the Anton and Lenora historical novella series, as my goal for the month. I haven't, and won't make this goal. Primarily, because the book my publishers at TMP had scheduled for a March release is, with a little luck and work, being released early.
The book, Dancing in the White Room, is set in and around skiing. The publisher has hoped to release it to coincide with the Winter Olympics. Which is a fabulous idea. It means I've had to work hard to get my galley proofs (the final edit before the finish line) in a lot sooner than expected.
I've got the galleys done--and, if the fates allow, the book will come out mid-February.
I've got a fabulous new cover, which I can't wait to show off. I hope you'll stay tuned for exciting new updates on the project.
Sometimes, having the goal posts move is not such a bad thing, after all. 

#Write-a-thin check in

My goal--get a good start on the first draft of Willow, book 4 of Anton and Lenora

January is whooshing by, or here in the great white north, skating by. I haven't increased my word count at all this week. In fact, I've taken a giant step backward because I had taken a wrong turn. I was stuck, as sometimes happens in a manuscript. When it happens, I need to sit back and ask myself why. The answer, this time, was clear--I needed to do more research.  I saw the wrong turn, went back, took a deep breath and pulled off the last 2,000 or so words. Sigh. The new words will be better, I think.

I'm also proof reading galleys for Dancing in the White Room. The full length novel comes out March 9 and proofs are the last step before we go to publication. There's some exciting new cover art, too. Stay tuned.

Here's a short snip from Dancing--

Emily goes outside with Chance when we get home. I fry up a couple of burgers and watch her from the kitchen window. She and the dog chase each other through the yard, then  Emily climbs up on her swing set. It’s only a short reach to the lower branch of a huge maple that stands in our yard. She grabs the branch and swings on that, Chance yapping at her heels. I hold my breath a second. A few times she’s climbed up into the tree. Both Bell and I have told her not to, but she’s fearless like her father. Each time I try to stay very calm and tell her to come on down. She can’t understand what the fuss is about.

#Write-a-thin check in

It's week two of the month long write a thin at the Women's Fiction Writers association. The concept is to chose one goal for the month. Mine was to finish a first draft of novella #4 of the Anton and Lenora series, or at least a good portion of the novella.
It was slow going this week. I'm taking Anton and Novella to China this time around and I had to do a bit more research on Shanghai in 1854.
Word wise--I'm up around 6k and we're just about ready for the Willow to weigh anchor.

Here's a bit (unedited) of what I've written--

“Aye, you should. Yet as you have just now admitted, he is not up to the task. You have put yourself and our child in some danger.”

            She turned serious then, her anger and mine both melted with the merriment, and she put her hands to my face and ran her fingers over my brow. “I have faith, Anton. In you and in myself. We have been through a good deal. We have prevailed. And I love you all the more for our trials.”

            I took her into my arms. “It does not due to tempt fate, mon amie.”

            She put her lips to mine. “Faith,” she said before kissing me softly.

             “To lose you would be to lose my life. I could not bear it, Lenora. I could not.”

            “I know, love.” She kissed my brow and ran her lips over my cheek, until my mouth caught hers again.

            Faith, hers and mine, would have to sustain us.

#Write-A-Thin First Week Update

Last week, I blogged about joining in the Women Fiction Writer's Association Write-A-Thin, a month long write-and-edit- a- thon where each writer sets a single goal. My goal is to finish a draft of Willow, the fourth novella of the Anton and Lenora series. A lofty goal, and if I get a good chunk of it done I'll be content.
In the interest of keeping myself on track, I plan on posting weekly updates of my Write-A-Thin progress.
I've had a pretty good week. It's been cold and I'm still eating Christmas Cookies--which is great for a sugar high! I've got lots else to do, playing catch-up after the holidays, so I'm pleased to have 4,000 words  on Willow. At novella length, I'm aiming for 20-30 K when it's finished. The content will determine the length.
In Willow, Anton and Lenora sail to Shanghai. Here's a snippet of what I've written this week--Still new and uncut, from the opening scene of Willow:

One look at Lenora’s countenance on that bright lit morn let me know I had made the right decision. We stood in the garden of our little cottage and though we were far from the goings on at the square, Lenora’s skin was pale as milk and I wondered if the ordeal—both the memory of what had happened and what was about to transpire-- made her ill.

“You should not trouble yourself so.” I took her by the hand and hoped she could feel the sincerity of my words.

“I wish there were some other way to bring him to justice.” She looked out over the bay. The view had always brought solace to my heart and I hoped it would do the same for her. She was a daughter of the sea, the daughter of a ship builder. We held a love of the sea in common, Lenora and I.

“We will sail away soon.” I kissed her fingers and she put an arm around my waist. “We will put this misfortune behind us.”

Write a Thin #Women'sFictionWriters

Who doesn't love New Year's resolutions? This year, I'm starting with one I can keep. I'm participating in the month long write-a-thin sponsored by the Women's Fiction Writer's Association. My goal--to write the fourth novella of the Anton and Lenora series. I'll keep you posted on how I do--it might take me a little more than a month and I'll be happy if I get twenty thousand words of the draft. It's good to aim high,right? Right? Where's my chocolate?