September | 2013 | Lea Bronsen

“Wild Hearted” is a short, intense train ride of a novel that takes you effortlessly into its story of a seemingly unredeemable inner-city crime lord and the woman he falls in love with. The pace is fast, and the characters colorful. More so than other romance fiction, “Wild Hearted” has a very dark, noir quality — of gritty crime, tough inner-city neighborhoods, hurt people and broken dreams…..it does not soft-pedal this atmosphere to let the protagonists (Tomor and Luz) fall in love. In fact, the ending is not the usual “and then everything was all flowers and roses”, but leaves the reader in a dark place, without diminishing the character’s complexity or challenges.

The ending is open and ambiguous enough that it is not hard to imagine a sequel or two, continuing the twists and turns of this story.

It is easy to imagine “Wild Hearted” filmed in black and white, with long deep shadows and darkened streets….it’s a very bracing change from the typical character romance. Author Lea Bronsen is very talented, and has a keen eye for detail. I look forward to reading more of her fiction.

Check out the other reviews and ratings for Wild Hearted on Amazon and Goodreads.

I’m discussing Evernight Publishing’s RotG concept and presenting my latest release My Biggest Fan on http://www.evernightonthego.blogspot.no/

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Romance on the Go is a new concept for me. Having previously worked with the novel format, the task of putting a complete story into about a 10th of the usual length was one tough challenge. How would I, with just a few words, introduce each of the characters, give them enough backstory, allow them the time to develop along with the plot arc, and still be able to wrap it all up with a satisfying end? And how would I manage to give enough descriptions, atmosphere, and movement, not to mention weave in a few sub-plots to keep the read interesting?

There was no magic tool except the delete button, and boy did I scratch my head, closely monitoring the word count. Thankfully, the first person present tense allowed me to use short, concise sentences instantly relaying the main character’s thoughts, feelings, and actions. And having chosen a young male rebel’s point of view, I could skip the lengthy poetic imagery *smiles*

Critical voices complain about the shortness of the Romance on the Go titles. I agree, they are short—but that is the point. In less than a half hour, you can have your fix of romance, bedroom steam, poignant drama, happy endings, AND have the time to hate and love their sexy characters. The trick is just for us authors to compress our complete, well-developed stories without having them sound too rushed, and to balance all the usual ingredients well with a few unexpected goodies.