Posted on by sarahmichellelynch

CONFIRMATION OF THE SUB ROSA SERIES

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BOOK ONE

We should chase away from what we’re scared of, right? Run as fast as we can. Yet some of us seem to veer toward chaos and destruction…

Chloe sees anguish and despair lurking beneath the surface of Cai Matthews, the dark and dangerously handsome freelance photographer she meets on her first day in a new job. She can’t see straight in his presence—blinded by a blistering sexual attraction that has the potential to sweep her clean off her feet.

When Cai disappears from the workplace and doesn’t come back, Chloe tries to find out more about his life but all she knows is he’s set to inherit a ton of money and his aunt runs one of the most famous fashion magazines in the world.

Cai is running from a complicated past he doesn’t like talking about. Gossip columns rage with speculation concerning him and his aunt, who took guardianship of Cai after his parents died.

Conscientious journalist Chloe has a mind for details and once she gains access to his world, Cai realises she could undo every, single dirty little secret that he and his aunt have tried desperately to cover up.

CLICK COVER TO BUY IN PAPERBACK OR EBOOK

 

 

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BOOK TWO

I’ll stab you in the heart.

I’m coming for you.

No secret dies.

But you will.

When news breaks that enigmatic magazine editor Jennifer Matthews is dead, it irks Chloe that Cai refuses to shed even one tear. What she doesn’t know is that he was expecting it, perhaps even, hoping for it.

In this dark, romantic tale of revenge, Cai explodes the deepest, most destructive aspects of his past as he comes to terms with the tragedy at the heart of Jennifer’s downfall. With Chloe’s love and support, he must brave his demons and dodge death to finally end a bitter feud between two damaged families.

***This is the sequel to Unbind and is not intended to stand alone.***

RELEASE DATE: February 26th.

ADD TO GOODREADS

 

 AN UNEXPECTED ADDITION!!

 

wipAround a year ago I began planning this series and toyed with the idea of three books. I was just so unsure. I’ve written series before and you just never know if you’ll have the energy or if you have enough material to sustain that amount of words.

A certain side character always toyed with my heart and this character will be the voice of Book Three, UNLEASH. The plot continues on and the story develops onwards from Unfurl but from an entirely new voice. I am excited to complete this series and almost have the major plot points covered. It now remains for me to make this presentable for other’s eyes!

ANOTHER ★★★★★ REVIEW

I am loving every moment of writing Unleash and if you’re debating whether to get started with the series, check out the latest review of UNBIND, which I am quite frankly thrilled by…

5.0 out of 5 stars Gifted by author in exchange for an honest review. January 22, 2015
By Books and Beyond Fifty Shades
Format:Kindle Edition
Journalist Chloe is leaving her past behind to start a new job in a new city. Everything is going great until she meets Cai Matthews. He is a mysterious photographer who she cannot stop thinking about. She believes that he feels the same way, until he randomly stops coming into work.
Chloe then finds she is not the only one who is trying to forget her past. Cai’s aunt, Jennifer, seems to want to keep Cai and Chloe apart. Can Chloe and Cai forget their past, be together, and live happily ever after? Or will everything come crumbling down?

Wow! Where do I begin? I am a huge fan of love stories with a twist of mystery but this book blew my mind. I have no idea how Sarah Michelle Lynch managed to mix together the perfect amount of love, intimacy, and mystery. There were so many twists in this story, you never saw any of them coming. No spoilers here, but prepare to lose it when a BIG twist comes your way.

You will also fall in love with the characters. I wish I was as cool as Chloe, and as lucky as she was to find a man to fall madly in love. You might also sympathize with Cai; someone who struggles to find who he is. These characters are so relatable, which draws you in even more. The past effects all those in this story, and you get to see how they will move on from the things memories that haunt them. There are 2 stories intertwined: the past and the present, but both could stand on their own. The way the author mixed them together is pure genius.

I honestly could not put this book down, and luckily there is a 2nd book coming sometime this year. I cannot wait to get my hands on it. I strongly suggest you take a chance on this book; you won’t be disappointed!

Posted on by sarahmichellelynch

New year, new book, new stuff…!

It’s been a while since I’ve blogged and that is because I have been so busy editing and getting back up to speed after such a lovely Christmas break!

2015 certainly hasn’t begun without its trials and tribulations! My love of Paris is evident in my work and I thought it was frightening and truly saddening to watch communities being terrorised last week! It was even more scary to think that could happen anywhere and seems to be happening more often. As a former journalist I can’t help having strong opinions on a lot of things and as a Christian, I hold mine and other people’s faiths dearly. Faith in anything good is healthy, I believe, and underpins a strong moral belief system. I could write books shoving my beliefs down your throats but I don’t, I just write stories; fiction. I guess some days I am very thankful I am not a journalist anymore. Goodness knows I am well aware of the world in which we live. My husband is a writer too and tells me, “Don’t watch the news. For every bad story they report, there are ten good ones out there you could be immersing yourself instead.” Need I say more? There are heroes on the streets every day.

So, personally, I got this in my hand this week…

 10854320_535672739869814_996808118508988806_oIt’s my first proof copy of Unbind. Obviously I was really happy to finally hold all those physical words in my hands. And, actually, I got two copies. I gave one to my husband for him to keep and I am using the other one to highlight, scribble and make a mess of before I release the book for real! Yes, I am hopefully going to be making it available for sale on Amazon (in paperback) within the next week or so. I am signing in the UK, in Peterborough on March 14th and all the details can be found through this website, so soon you will be able to get your copy if you’re coming to meet me! Don’t forget A Fine Profession, Angel Avenue and A Fine Pursuit are in paperback already.

 

I’ve been scouring Unbind for the threads I laid for Unfurl to later unravel the mystery of Jennifer Matthews. I’ve received some messages from readers who are desperate to know more and are even a little bit worried about what I might do with Unfurl!! I guess people will just have to read the book! It’s been a challenge meshing the puzzle together but a really healthy one. Perhaps the purpose of Unbind was to show Chloe as just any ordinary girl in love, just desperate to keep her man and keep him happy. Sometimes in the early days, we don’t pursue answers from our lovers because we’re just so enmeshed in those honeymoon throes. So, Unfurl will be a much different beast because it follows the couple as they begin a family and to complicate matters, a DEATH is going to throw up some definite trouble. I hope it will be a most rewarding book for those who have already read Unbind. More on Unfurl soon: the cover and synopsis reveal are on MONDAY!

There is still time to sign up for the cover reveal here.

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Finally, I was most pleased to receive this review of Unbind last week! It made my day! Reviews are amazing and really help authors, so thanks to this lady who I hadn’t asked to review my book but she did anyway! The most valuable reviews in my opinion come from actual readers as opposed to those who’ve agreed to read in exchange for an honest review. It’s my aim to find readers and I will keep trying!

5.0 out of 5 stars Understandable emotions in twisted characters make for a great read. 9 Jan. 2015
By Fieldcene
Format:Kindle Edition|Verified Purchase
I found the book a pleasure to read, down to earth and showing understandable emotions in the twisted characters. Surrounded by luxury yet weighed down with sickening memories, Cai and Chloe fall in love. I’m not interested in explicit sex, yet the scenes will appeal to some readers, and are written so well that they hardly offend. I skipped those sections, relying on the plot to entice me forward. Chloe’s unique thoughts drew me into her rise in a career of journalism, featuring fashion descriptions and with various personalities of those around to guide her. Despite self doubts, she does well. Her lover Cai remains a mystery although he hints at events from his sordid childhood. Worried for Chloe, I followed the fantastic plot, which kept my attention with twists and turns to the very end. With it’s faultless writing, I can do no better than give this book five stars.
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Posted on by sarahmichellelynch

Reaching 100,000 Words and Knowing…

…you now have another novel. That recently happened for me. It’s a point where you feel achievement, also a point where you know there’s much more work to do!

Often the story of creation is a story in itself, one you feel loathe to tell, but might be just as important as the work you’re creating.

A lot of my books centre on psychology and it’s something I have always been fascinated by. The human mind and its strengths, weaknesses and possibilities are why we write after all. I’ve found with my recent books, 100K is around about the stage I find myself with a first draft. In the first draft I’ve told myself the story, and now instead of telling it, I need to build upon what I’ve already established and embellish the events that make sense of the mystery. It is time to slow it down and explode the smells, sights, feelings, thoughts and dialogue… et al. So in other words, I need to ensure the reader can see exactly what I see.

??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????When I was writing UNBIND, the prequel to the novel I’m currently writing, I didn’t want to put a label on the complex psychology of one person in that novel. I still don’t. We all know mental illness is a complex thing, a grey area, and I consciously created a character you can’t put into one box or another. Going forward into the sequel, I had a job on my hands to keep away from that box and still not put this particular person into one category or another.

So when you’ve written about difficult topics in the past (i.e. issues of the mind), you feel like you have to find different ways of exploring those avenues…

I probably would have made myself ill in trying to keep UNBIND at just the one book. I know that sounds freaking crazy!! There was too much story and what I took out of UNBIND, I did purposely, so I could write a whole other story in UNFURL. No way is the sequel a retelling of the first book or a rehash. It’s not the same book, it’s got its own plot, yet some bits elevate and expand upon UNBIND. As an author, it is the hardest thing to know your characters and to try to write their stories without ruining the suspense.

UNFURL came to me so thick and fast and when I read it through last week, I felt the arrangement set into place inside my mind and I knew after that… I knew what I had left to do.

Yet still, the mysterious character I’ve alluded to in this blog is more than just a victim. She’s so much more. She’s an enigma, a mystery that will never be solved. She’s an artist and what I hope I am doing with UNFURL is showing how and why we use art. Why, even, we need art, and what it evokes in our souls.

Cai, our hero, is a dual artist – a photographer and a painter. He has the same gifts his mother mastered – and more. The purpose of Cai’s point of view in UNFURL is to explore that struggle we share, as artists, during the process of creation. A pain that is necessary to produce something that actually speaks to other people.

Instead of focusing on the label, then, I tried to focus on the confusion and mindset of a person who refuses to be misunderstood or even, understood. There isn’t even a middle ground. There is an unrealistic place where things make sense and another place, a worldly place, where nothing makes sense. Basically, there’s an artist who had her talent ripped from her… and her ability to create was tainted. Imagine if you’re born to create, and you just can’t. The reasons are hard to bear, but must be.

I wrote about life as art in another blog and I’m trying to follow through on that with UNFURL, a book that doesn’t play by the rules but when knotted to UNBIND, side by side, makes sense and yet, whether an injustice can be ever be truly resolved, we may never know…

As a writer, you know, anything can happen during the editing process. It’s a miraculous, thing, editing. Maybe like Rorschach in Watchmen, whose mood changes constantly, whose mask expresses him better than his own face, a writer can keep trying to paint the truth but only the reader can give the book its truth. So like an artist trying to paint a picture, I’m trying to use the tools (words) at my fingertips to explain what creation feels like, to explain why creatives need creation and what could happen if someone born to create had that ability tragically stolen from them.

Perhaps that’s why a novel is a novel and why sometimes, you can write all those words, only for one truth to come out of all of it.

It’s a work in progress… for sure!

(Hopefully this was an annoyingly spoiler-free preview)!

Posted on by sarahmichellelynch · 2 Comments

#NaNoWriMo – THE VERDICT!

I’ve been writing fiction for three years now and this is the first time I attempted November Writing Month. I admit I have been doing this unofficially because I have a couple of projects on the go and it was a test to myself to see what I could do when really pushed. Could I write 50,000 words in one month? That was the test.

Well, I have written at least 60,000 words this month… I’ll explain…

I am currently quite deep into my ninth novel, Unfurl, which is the sequel to Unbind. Unfurl had its claws in me before November 1st dawned so my first aim with November Writing Month was to see how many words I could add to the novel in one month. Well, I added around 39,000 words to that book.

At around 39,000 words I knew in myself I was burnt out. I knew I had reached a certain barrier and there was no going beyond that. Unfurl is a planned 120,000-word novel and yet when I reached 89,000 words… I knew that was it for me, for the time being. I am a writer who listens to my gut and my gut was telling me that if I continued on, I would be writing a load of air. The thing is, the novel in question is a slap-bang-wallop thriller and when you’re writing this kind of book, it is mind taxing on every page. Every sentence. The only other book I’ve written that was like this i.e. slap-bang-wallop… was Beneath the Veil, now The Radical. Unfurl will be the type of book where you simply cannot put it down… you simply have to know what evil lurks beneath the pages. It is an evil I was reluctant to explore in the first book, Unbind, but I have someone to do justice and their will is bidding me to tell their story.

So I gave up at 39,000 words and moved onto something else. I wrote a little vampirism (an Xmas novella) and because that was already pre-planned in my head and a lot less complex than Unfurl, it was easy to churn out and actually a great relief after the aforementioned block of stuff I had given to Unfurl. 60K words to two separate projects was being kinder to myself than forcing 50K words into a novel I knew I needed a break from. As a seasoned writer, you know your own strengths and limitations and gradually, you work out what works for you and what doesn’t. Be kind to yourself, sometimes, something just isn’t meant to be.

Writing, writing, writing… with just a wing and a prayer… is not a bad method. Sometimes writing freefall as I sometimes term it, or by the seat of your pants, can help spring an idea you never would have thought of. Writing with no onus other than to get the words out has its benefits, but also its drawbacks too. I know from those 39K I added to Unfurl, I will be scrapping around 10-15K or re-writing a hefty chunk of it. I have now had a period of reflection; I’ve given the editing side of my brain enough chance to absorb and consider – reflection is invaluable when creating a novel. If you have a period of reflection during which no regrets and no doubts emerge, then you know that work is done. If however you realise it all adds up but not as perfectly as you would like, you know you have more work to do.

I suppose what I am surmising here is that NaNoWriMo is good but only for experimentation purposes. Even a seasoned writer such as myself was tested to meet that 1,600+ words a day quota required to complete the task. Though what I often ended up doing was writing 500 words most days and on good days, when an idea was straining to get out, I might have written a healthy or indulgent 8,000. I am a mood writer, like some people are mood readers, and sometimes I have to wait all day to be able to get my precious writing time in. After working and looking after my husband and daughter, the idea has to be good for me to want to write, otherwise I am too tired to struggle with something that I am not quite feeling.

Word count is irrelevant, however. I firmly believe that. A story will be told in how ever few or many words it needs to be told in. I advise writers who take part in NaNoWriMo to step into the experience with the knowledge that what they write in one month is very likely to need plenty of work afterwards. You might even *shock horror* just want to put it in the bin. Yet the experience might have been worth it for exactly that – the experience. I also advise that if you don’t finish NaNoWriMo, it isn’t because you’re not good enough to be a novelist, it’s just that the story you were writing at the time wasn’t meant to be written so quickly or in so many words, or so few in my case. As I said, Unfurl will be around 120K when complete. If not a little less, maybe a little more! It will have as many words as it needs. I have said things in the past that my future self has disproved, so you know…

I can honestly say, I found the NaNoWriMo experience helpful but I won’t pressure myself to take part in this again. Especially when half the battle of being a writer is connecting to your readers and having enough time away from the laptop to actually generate the content and ideas that make your novel what it is… i.e. an enjoyable reading experience which doesn’t give away the fact that the writer rushed, struggled or compromised themselves during. Readers can tell, they can always tell.

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Posted on by sarahmichellelynch

UNBIND CHAPTER 40 ‒ INSIGHT INTO CAI’S MIND

Guys and gals,

I am currently writing UNFURL, the sequel to UNBIND. #NaNoWriMo has so far helped me add 30,000 words to this WIP.

The following extract does NOT appear in UNBIND, neither will it appear in UNFURL. This is extra material, for those of you wondering about the content of UNFURL…

UNFURL is a dual POV novel that will take Chloe and Cai right up until present day. The tagline is “NO SECRET DIES”.

UNFURL will answer a ton of questions but also take Cai and Chloe’s relationship to another level… so here is a tiny, little *unedited* insight into the mind of CAI MATTHEWS…

***

I felt torn between maintaining composure and doing what she was trying to do earlier—rip the punch bag from the ceiling and then kick the stuffing from it until there was nothing left.

I wanted to smash something. Hard. Chloe didn’t know but I was an undefeated champion on the underground boxing circuit in New York. She didn’t know that all the stuff she was telling me—she used to compete and then gave up—made her more like me than even I could have guessed. I was stock still on my gallery floor just because I was terrified if I moved, I’d start punching and I wouldn’t be able to stop.

She’d just told me the horrific circumstances surrounding that scar on her head. Worse—she’d told me about the one man in the world who was meant to protect her no matter what—and he hadn’t.

“I have this memory,” she said pointing to her skull. “I can remember all the names and faces of people I’ve ever met. I remember when I fell from a rope swing into a stream when I was little, I was wearing some cheap high-top trainers I loved. They were ruined by the mud. I remember what top I wore to a school disco when I was 13, a thing I spent hours picking out. I remember the day Kay got her first tattoo,” she smiled such a sad smile it made me swell with love for her, “I remember how long she spent making sure the design was right, how faint she looked when the dude doing her ink brought the needle toward her skin. I remember the ringlets in Amanda’s hair and how innocent they were and I remember every, single moment of pure evil he ever wrought on us. You see I can’t forgive, Cai, not when I can’t forget.”

I shut my eyes, the red fury replaced by incensed, overprotective love. “I wish you’d told me all this sooner, tigress. I wish you had.”

“Why?”

“Because I’ve spanked you and hit you. I didn’t know, Chlo.” I finally allowed myself to react and slammed my fist against the floor, the urge to keep hitting something there… but quelled by her resounding presence.

“Yes, you’ve spanked me lots of times and I never said stop because I like it that we’re open enough to do that. It’s not the same, Cai. It’s just not… you’re not spanking me to hurt me, you’re doing it because you’re expressing our bond, our passion… I love it when you spank me. I love you.”

I wanted to rip her father’s insides out, then my own. “Look… the truth is… I don’t like spanking, Chloe. I don’t fucking like it. I just do it because I think you want it.”

I didn’t like it. I didn’t. Yet I wanted it. Wanted it like I wanted to fight. Hated that aspect of myself, couldn’t caution myself enough about the danger of letting myself loose, yet all the ways she made me feel unleashed me. Set me free. Made me who I really was. It was just that, he was a man I didn’t like, wasn’t yet happy to be. I didn’t want to be ME.

“I do want it, but only if you want it too,” she said passionately, like she thought she was saying the right thing. She was saying what she thought I wanted to hear but it wasn’t her fault she didn’t know the whole of me—I’d tried to keep the dark away from her shining light.

I felt manic, shaking my head side to side. “I want to please you, I always said that. I want to give you everything you need.”

“I only want you to make love to me, how ever you need to make love to me. I don’t care how… I love you. I just need you holding me. I don’t care about the rest, Cai! I don’t care!”

She was yelling, trying to make me listen. I was listening. It was just she didn’t know… she needed to know… but she didn’t know about the real me.

The demons danced constantly on both my shoulders.

I had to divert this away from me, so I stood and started pacing the room rapidly. “You’ll fight everyday now, Chlo. I’m not having you hide who you really are anymore. You’ll fight me and I’ll teach you some better tricks than the ones you learned. I’ll teach you and protect you. I don’t care if you hurt me, you can hurt me because I can take it. Chlo, you have to be who you are, do you hear me? You don’t know how much I need that from you? Please… say you’ll fight again, for me? Please baby.”

Her soft, plump body captured mine from behind and pressed against my back to give me shelter. “I’ll do it for you, if you ask it of me.”

I turned and put my hands on her warm cheeks, asking, “Fight for me.”

“I’ll do it.”

She let the demons keep dancing by not asking any more, but I didn’t mind, I’d rather they danced on both my shoulders than touch a patch of hers. “Good. You’ll still keep your figure. I want breasts and my big ass, still.”

“Okay,” she said, and then to quell the conversation, I took her upstairs.

I had something to prove to myself, not just to her. I had to give over control. I could do it. I could be different, I could break the cycle. I removed my clothes and told Chloe, “Tie me up. Do whatever you want to do to me. I need this. Now, do it. Damn it. Tie me up, tigress and use me. I’m yours to use, baby.”

She proceeded to bind me and dominate me. I was hard for the touch and scent of her before she even began kissing my body, inch by inch. I begged for her soft layers to take me home and it was a temporary reprieve from the raging war inside my mind.

The man I wanted to be and the man I was didn’t much like one another.

BUY UNBIND ON AMAZON…

**IMPORTANT NOTE** UNBIND does not have a cliffhanger. It was originally intended to be a standalone. Readers said they wanted more answers, so….

99 cents

Posted on by sarahmichellelynch

****NEWS NEWS NEWS****

UNFURLMy Latest Series…. the SUB ROSA books!!!!! Yes it’s a series now!

When I was writing Unbind, I was so conflicted about where I was taking the story. I wanted to write a standalone and in many respects, the novel does work as a standalone. There isn’t a cliffy.

However, there are a lot of aspects of the novel that can be expanded upon. There are deep, dark secrets and nothing in Unbind is ever as it seems.

In my mind, there were always going to be three books in this series and there will be three. I just didn’t know if I had it in me to write more. Cai and Chloe are complex and their FULL story just doesn’t fit into one book.

Unfurl will be an expansion of Unbind and that is all I am prepared to tell you right now.

The third novel will feature the story of a different character. A really, interesting character.

I didn’t want this to be a series but all the time, certain ideas niggled the back of my mind. I wasn’t sure if I had the energy to continue writing these characters’ stories but it appears I do!!!

Add to goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23454305-unfurl