@GoddessFish Guest Post: A Jar of Dreams by Clarissa Cartham (@ccartharn)

A Jar of Dreams


Clarissa Cartham


Genre: Contemporary Romance
Publisher: Self-Published
Date of Publication: May 28, 2015
Number of pages: 260

Available at the following retailers:
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He was the assassin running for his life and she was the blind refuge who gave him reason to stop and fight for theirs

When Eric Tanner, an assassin, is targeted to be murdered by his former employer, he seeks refuge in the house of a blind woman, Anne Mullen.

Eric knows how to live in silence. He’s done it all his life. So when he discovers Anne is blind and living on her own, he thinks this would be his perfect hideout.

But then he makes the mistake of his life. He forms an attachment to her. And for a man in his profession, such attachments are a weakness. Now, he must do everything he can to protect Anne from the world he’s come from.

Excerpt: 

The bus drifted back slowly on its route, leaving an odor of its exhaust fumes behind it.

“Well, I would say I’d see you again, but I can’t.” Anne smiled.

“Excuse me,” he stammered.

“I was teasing,” she explained. “You know, I’m blind if you hadn’t noticed.”

“Right… yeah,” he said awkwardly.

She played with the head of her cane, supposedly feeling just as awkward.

“Well, goodbye then,” she said and turned around to walk away.

He floundered back and forth. Who was he kidding? He wasn’t ready to just let her walk away. It surprised him that even after fifteen years, she continued to make his heart pound like she did the first time he had seen her. He had thought he was well over her. After all, he had indulged in several relationships after her, no longer the shy teen afraid to ask a girl out for a date. He became widely known as a Don Juan, and he savored the popularity and gifts the women showered upon him. That was until someone handed him a gun and challenged him to shoot an empty can placed fifty paces away. It was then that he found a new obsession and every other passion paled before it. At least, he had thought it had. He stared after Anne helplessly.

“Wait,” he called out to her.

Guest Post: 

MY SUMMER PERSONALITY

I’ve always believed in the motto write what you know and do what you love. So naturally when I did start writing I latched onto a season I dearly loved and titled my first romance book after it- Winter’s End.

I can’t tell you exactly why I love this season so much. I probably was the Snow Queen in my other fantasy life. But seeing snow coating fir trees, snow covered roofs and snow crystals dazzling under the glare of the sun creates a magical atmosphere.

However, according to http://www.studyholistics.com/article/seasons/, I would most likely have a summer personality.

I would like to think I have the positive traits inherent to summer personalities such as being a good listener, dependable and diplomatic. My cheerfulness and dry sense of humor have been great assets in my writings. There are always trying times such as when I’ve received a harsh review and my sense of humor had saved me from growing mental because of it. I’ve always somehow managed to put a smile on my face as I waded through my troubles and woe.

But the summer trait that I feel I am most concerned with is my irritable and unresisting urge for details.

There have been numerous occasions during the course of my writing where I’ve been caught on a scene, sometimes as much as a week or two because of the need to detail it. I would ponder over the right words, the right background or the timing and I won’t be able to move on until I’ve fixed it. I remember whilst I was writing A Jar of Dreams, I hung about Anne’s garden for days wondering what Eric should plant for her. I changed from peonies to lavender to forget-me-nots until I finally settled for the simple deep red rose, a metaphor for her lips.

It becomes even more annoying because I know exactly what the next scene is but I don’t have the interest to write it until I got the prior scene corrected.

I have asked writers on how they deal with this problem and most often their advice is to simply keep writing and return to the troublesome scene later. How does one even do that, I ask? And most often they stare back at me with narrow, questioning eyes. Is she crazy?

Perhaps I am. Or perhaps I am just a summer personality.

Giveaway: 

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Author Bio:

Clarissa Cartharn is the author of romance novels such as Captive, Red Collar and the romance thriller/ suspense Jar series.

Once an English teacher, she embarked on a law profession before finally realizing it was writing she really wanted to pursue. After almost eight romance novels, each with eclectic themes ranging from a Cinderella re-telling to the barren war torn lands of Afghanistan, Clarissa is currently on a journey with her next novel titled The Yearning.

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