A New Release from Kat Attalla

How To Marry A Prince (The Desert Prince Series Book 2) Kindle Edition

by Kat Attalla

 

Angie Toricelli has a problem. What do you do when your two best friends are married to royalty? Well, you accept their offer to travel to the Middle East country of Touzar and add some impressive credentials to your resume.

Mandy and Mona made it sound so enticing Angie couldn't turn the opportunity down. The six month job posting would delay her plan to marry a rich husband, the plan she'd carefully constructed following the directions in "The Book", as she thought of it. How to Marry a Rich Man was her ticket to a great life. Playboy prince Tarik Khalid, younger brother of her two friends' husbands, was just a reckless ladies man and no threat to Angie's well laid plans, At least that's what she told herself. Then he started calling her Angel and circumstances threw them together. Soon Angie wasn't sure her 'great plan' was so great after all.

 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MDNPTGG

Remembering Kat Attalla...by Jamie Hill

Kat's BWL Page

"Your candle burned out long before your legend ever did." ~ Candle in the Wind, music and lyrics by Elton John and Bernie Taupin.

Kathryn Butti Attalla died on October 26, 2015. To her friends she was Kathy, to her daughter she was Mom...and to the rest of us, she was Romance Author Kat Attalla.

Born in Englewood, New Jersey on January 15, 1957, Kathy grew up in Cresskill, New Jersey. She attended cosmetology school after graduating high school and worked as a hair stylist. At age twenty she traveled to Greece, going by herself because "it seemed like it would be an adventure". In Greece she made some new friends including an Egyptian man who she called 'her own romantic hero'. Fouad Attalla would later become her husband. They moved to Egypt so she could get to know his family but eventually moved back to the states. Their daughter Jasmin was born in New Jersey. 

When Jasmin was a baby, Fouad was writing articles for newspapers and encouraged Kathy to try her hand at writing. With his encouragement, she would go on to write and publish numerous novels.

Kathy, Fouad and Jasmin did lots of traveling to visit his family in Egypt and hers on the Jersey shore. Once Jasmin graduated from high school they moved back to Egypt, where Fouad passed away in 2008. Kathy and Jasmin eventually returned home to the Jersey shore, finally settling in North Jersey.

Jasmin was the creative artist behind several of Kat's most recent book covers, the four 'Prince' themed titles. 

On a personal note: I 'met' Kat online when she signed on with Books We Love to publish her back list and new romance titles. I can honestly say she was a joy to work with, funny, sharp as a tack and extremely talented. I love contemporary romance and romantic suspense and those were the genres she wrote. I enjoyed reading each of her books and truly loved the prince themed books more than I ever thought I would. Kat's characters are endearing. Her heroines are down to earth, spunky women. Whether her hero was a hunky detective or a spoiled prince, they drew me in and I devoured every word she wrote. 

I knew Kat was active in her local New Jersey chapter of Romance Writers of America, but it wasn't until she died that I learned how loved and respected she was among that group. Many, many people wrote on her Facebook wall telling how Kathy had encouraged them, helped them get past writer's blocks, laughed with them, cried with them, whatever it took. It was lovely seeing the outpouring from her friends.

I also enjoyed the photo on the right which I found on her FB page. It seems when Kathy went with friends (or perhaps her beloved sisters?) to a bar she was usually the designated driver, and could often be found sitting with a pen and paper, jotting down what the characters in her head were telling her.

Kat's death has hit many of us at BWL hard. She and I were close in age, and as I messaged back and forth with Jasmin to check details, I discovered how much we had in common. I also attended cosmetology school and worked as a hair stylist for several years. (Yikes, not for me.) I'm an M&M nut, and I asked Jasmin what kind of candy her mother liked. Turns out Kathy was diabetic and not supposed to eat sweets at all. She did have a thing for York Peppermint Patties (yum) and Jasmin has inherited that love. 

Two of Kathy's favorite singers were Elton John and Billy Joel. They are two of my favorites as well. I chose quotes I thought were fitting from their music to accompany this post.

Kat Attalla was diagnosed with Myelodisplastic Syndrome, which is very similar to leukemia. She was being treated by oncologists and went through chemotherapy and radiation. She succumbed to complications from a stem cell transplant which they were hoping would cure her, but Jasmin admits they all knew there were risks.

(Another personal note: I have friends whose children were diagnosed with Diamond Blackfan Anemia, and I helped organize a Bone Marrow Drive for them a year or so ago. We're still getting reports of matches from that drive. I'm a registered donor and I hope everyone reading this is, too. http://www.deletebloodcancer.org/  )

It's comforting to know that Kat was doing what she loved for as long as she was able, and that she had good friends and a loving family around her. For my part, I have a beautiful little keep box that she sent me after one of her trips to Egypt. I treasured it then and will even more so now, as a reminder of her kindness.

Kat Attalla's books will continue to be available for her fans and new readers to enjoy long into the future. Books We Love hopes to publish her final novel in 2016.

Find her Books We Love titles here: http://bookswelove.net/authors/attalla-kat/  But don't start one of her books unless you have a couple of hours to spare, because I assure you, you won't want to put it down.   

Thanks to Jasmin Attalla for help with the details of this blog post. Any errors are mine alone and all blame can be attributed to the tears on my computer monitor.

R.I.P. Kathy. You will be missed. ~ Jamie

"You've got your passion, you've got your pride, but don't you know that only fools are satisfied? Dream on, but don't imagine they'll all come true. When will you realize, Vienna waits for you? 

"But you know that when the truth is told, that you can get what you want or you can just get old. You're gonna kick off before you even get halfway through. When will you realize... Vienna waits for you?"  Vienna, music and lyrics by Billy Joel

Coming Soon from Kat Attalla, Jamie Hill, and Books We Love

The Prince and The Working Woman
The Desert Prince Series, Book 1 by Kat Attalla

THE ROYAL PRINCE OF TOUZAR BELIEVES EVERY WOMAN HAS A PRICE…
Prince Hamid Khalid is not looking for love. Since coming of age he has watched a carnival-like parade of women vie for his attention. But they are more interested in his title and bank account than his sardonic personality.
 

...UNTIL HE MEETS A WOMAN WHO CAN’T BE BOUGHT
Amanda Wilkes, abuse survivor and hard-core feminist isn’t looking for love either. Especially not with a sexy chauvinist like the prince. Opening an international community center under his direction in the exotic Middle Eastern country, however is a job of a lifetime.
 

While working in close proximity an attraction develops. The two decide to share a purely physical, unemotional, relationship. The affair works well until the unthinkable happened.
CAN TWO STUBBORN LONERS ADMIT TO THE LOVE NEITHER BELIEVES EXISTS?

Available Jan. 31, 2015. Pre-order your copy now!

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00RQR9V0A 

Time To Kill
Witness Security, Book 2 by Jamie Hill

US Marshal Jordan Burke is happy for her partner when he takes a month off for paternity leave, but she's not happy about her substitute partner. Nick Pierce worked for the Topeka Witsec office years ago and left under less than the best of circumstances. When he’s asked to fill in he hesitates, but curiosity about Jordan makes him accept the job. The minute he sees her again he doesn’t regret his decision. From Atlanta to Los Angeles, Jordan and Nick discover that danger, and help, can come from the strangest sources. While they struggle to protect their witnesses, the bigger challenge seems to be keeping each other alive. And there’s always the possibility that they might kill each other first.
 

“Ms. Hill has the gift of knowing what the reader wants and then hitting you with an ending you certainly don’t expect. Two thumbs up!” ~ Val, You Gotta Read Reviews

Available Jan. 31, 2015. Pre-order your copy now!

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00RQRKB68

A Few Lines From. . .Kat Attalla

This week, a few lines from Kat Attalla's China Blue:

At eight p.m., he drove to the camp. The dark skies overhead made it seem later than dusk. Just to make sure he covered his bases, he ran his Jeep off the road in a ravine deep enough to need a tow-truck to get out. By the time he reached her Craftsman house, he was soaked to the skin. Damn! He never thought a summer rain could be so freaking cold. A woman who fed the squirrels and birds would not turn her back on a stranded motorist. Would she? 

He knocked on the door and waited. The air rumbled with a distant thunder. In the past decade, he had thought about her many times: The sad young girl with the magnificent eyes. So he wasn't prepared for the woman who opened the door. Her eyes were that same bright blue, but the rest of her bore little resemblance to the skinny teenager in that hospitalbed. Her hair had grown back and fell below her shoulders in thick black waves. Denim jeans molded long legs and a fitted tee shirt revealed a hint of cleavage at the scoop neck. But her most striking feature was the rifle cradled in her arms.

http://bookswelove.net/attalla.php

Please stop back next week for a few lines from Hazel Statham.

Behind the Cover: Images selection

By Michelle Lee

BWL Art Director

I’ve been called a Cover Goddess a couple of times, and as typical of me, I shrugged it off.  But now, I have decided, that if others are going to award me Goddess-ness, then I am going to start using it. So in true Goddess fashion, I have a few proclamations!

1. No professor shall require a term paper to be written for any class that I am attending during my graduate coursework.  All term papers are to be voluntarily done for extra credit.

2. No final shall be comprehensive.  In fact, finals shall be abolished!

3. This crap with “self-teaching” is not going to happen anymore.  I am paying you, as my professor, to instruct.  Don’t tell me my learning is going to be self-guided.  If I wanted that, I would just buy the textbook and read it.

Wait … what?  You just want to hear the ones in regards to cover art.  You sure?  Cause I have a few more.  Well, okay …

Cover Art Proclamation 1:

No character, from this day forward, shall have hair.  None.  No wavy golden locks, no straight raven tresses.  Nadda, nothing.  Zero, zilch hair.

Number 2 …

What?  I can’t proclaim that characters can’t have hair anymore?  Why not?

Artistic freedom!  The heck you say!  But I am a Goddess … but, but …

*Insert several minutes of whining and whimpering*

Well fine then!

I guess I will return to the original topic I meant to address this blog post – image selection and how they relate to covers and artists.

The images that are picked for a cover are crucial.  CRUCIAL I say.  For, after all, they are the core of the cover.  And the cover is what a reader sees first.  Before the blurb, before the excerpt, generally they see the cover.

So you want a nice one.

You also want a sane cover artist.  S.A.N.E.  Got that?  Which means when you are selecting images to suggest, think about what you are asking for.

What I mean by that is, if the image has a woman with fly-away hair (you know what I am talking about, where it looks like a fan was turned on during the photo-shoot) and you don’t like the background, find a new image.  Isolating hair in images is tricky, so it is better if it lies fairly flat in the image.

Also, don’t pick a real dark image of a person, where they fade into a black background, and expect it to work with a sunny day beach scene behind him/her. 

It’s hard, as an author, to pick images.  I know – I am also an author.  So I know that there is a certain way a character is supposed to look, and often times, stock art is just too limited in options.  But doing photo-shoots for each and every e-book an author does is not cost-effective or practical.

So authors have to, in some ways, settle for what is available.  Which can be hard.

But if you take the time to make sure and pick images you are happy with, and that are easy to work with, you and your cover artist will both wind up happy with the finished product.

To that end, I am offering just a few suggestions, off the top of my head:

• Don’t pick images with fly-away hair (see above) unless you LIKE the background
• Don’t pick dark images, with dark background, and expect a bright background to be put in replacing it.  (Also see above)
• Think about how many images you are suggesting.  Often, most covers have 1-3 images.  Any more than that gets costly.
• Think about the perspectives of the images.  If you are looking flat on at a couple, and upward at the background you want behind them, it isn’t going to work together.
• Make sure you know if the image is a photograph or computer generated.  Some times, a computer generated background can work in a cover – other times, it just doesn’t. 

For example, here’s one where it does work:

• If you KNOW you are doing a series, and using the same characters, make sure there are other images of the SAME model that you like for future covers, and that there are enough for however many books you are planning.
• If you know you are doing a series, think about the style of image, and make sure you can find other images in the same style to match your future characters.
• Consider your images carefully – have you seen it/them on a ton of other covers?  If so, you should probably find something else unless you are just absolutely, completely in love with that image and it just fits perfectly and you have to have it or the world will just end in misery.
• Be open to changes … I can’t stress this one enough.  Just because you suggest an image does not mean that it will be used.  Often times there is a very good reason why the cover artist will not use it (such as the sizes not being right, it is more long than tall – such as a woman laying down, it doesn’t match with the other images you selected, it can’t be isolated to fit with the other images, or there are terms that don’t allow for the image to be used on commercial items)
• Speaking of isolating images, when you pick an image of a person, you want at least one side of their body to fully be in the image, not both sides running off of the image.  That allows for the person to be isolated from the background and merged with other images.  (Unless, that is, you just want that ONE image on your cover).

For example:

The image for CODENAME: ROMEO is one that I would not be able to move to the side.  Whereas the woman in WILDING NIGHTS I could move around the cover as needed.

• If you are want the person moved into another background, be careful that you don’t pick an image with something from the foreground blending into the image.  For example, grass or wheat stalks, snow or rain, etc.  Both of these images work because they fit the changed background.  Had the author wanted either of these women at the beach, it wouldn’t have worked.

Well that’s all that I can think of right off.  Hope it makes selecting images just a little bit easier!

As for how I work them together, well, it’s not really something I can put to words.  I have to look at the angles/perspective of images, the colors and brightness/contrast to them, and just play around some times to get the right fit.

I do keep in mind previous covers I have done for the author, and also the genre. The hardest covers for me are mysteries and dark themes, since I like doing light covers.  I like happy couples – and especially SEXY couples.  Which can cause some problems, since I like sexy images, and some romances are sweet.  (So half-naked people just don’t work).

When I select images, I also keep my own “do/don’t” list in mind.  I also look at colors, and sharpness/starkness of images.  It a couple has almost a harsh lighting on them, then I won’t put them on a real soft focus background.  

Also, while brown/red hair can be switched fairly decently to the other, turning an image of a blond into a  raven haired person, vice versa, etc isn't that easy.  So I try my best to find images that fit the hair color as well as I can.

Eye color on the other hand is something that I can modify - so I never worry about it when I pick an image, because I know that I can modify it as needed (provided I know what color to change it to - so be sure to provide that info in your CAF).

Other than that, a lot of image selection for me is just flipping through images on stock sites and seeing if anything jumps out at me.  From there, I work all other elements around the image I selected.

If period clothing is required, then I will focus on the person, and worry about making the background fit.

If a setting is pivotal, and the couple’s attire isn’t that big of a deal, then I find a background that will work and then find a couple to fit.

And so on …