#WriterWednesday: Sharon Cullen

Hiya, WordWrangler Readers! We're opening up the Round Corral today to welcome Sharon Cullen .. Sharon's going to answer a few questions for us and then she's giving us a peek into her historical romance, Sebastian's Lady Spy. Here we go!

Liz: Are there any funny stories your family tells about you that come to mind? 

Sharon: This was a tough one because there are so many stories I DON’T want to repeat :-) But whenever my mom and my aunt get together they always tell the story about when my aunt dropped me when I was a baby. I was the first grand baby and niece and my mom was very nervous around me when I was first born (I think she thought I was going to break or something). My aunt was 17 when I was born and while she was holding me she sat in a three legged chair that was supposed to have four legs. Obviously the chair, my aunt, and I went tumbling to the floor. Occasionally they’ll tell me that whatever is wrong with me is because I was dropped as a baby :-)

Nan: You're going to be running between appointments all day, with lots of hurry-up-and-wait time. You're going to read while you wait. What writer will keep you sane and entertained all day? 

Sharon: Lynn Kurland is one of my favorites. She writes medievals and time travels. I like them both but the medievals are my all time favorites. I can read them over and over and I’m on a quest to own all of them. Her stories are so darn romantic and her heroes are usually very tortured and her heroines strong. I get lost in her books.

Kristina: Was there a teacher or teachers who had a particularly strong influence on your life? Tell me about them. 

Sharon: There are two of them. Mrs. Dredge from 6th grade. Believe it or not I struggled in English. Really struggled. She was so patient with me and I remember things finally clicking in 6th grade and I “got” it. And then there was Mrs. Stefanics in high school. I was the editor of the school newspaper and she was the teacher in charge. We hit it off really well and just formed a close bond. She introduced me to the classic romances like Pride and Prejudice and Madam Bovary.


Margie: Tell us about your new book - where did the idea for the book first develop? 

Sharon: Sebastian’s Lady Spy is part of the Secrets and Seduction series. Sebastian and Gabrielle appear in Loving the Earl and it’s very clear they are having an affair but I left their story dangling. I like to plot my books and I also like to leave a little mystery for myself so when I first wrote Loving the Earl I knew Sebastian was a spy but I really knew nothing about Gabrielle. So when it came time to write their story I had to figure out what kind of woman Gabrielle was going to be and it was obvious to me that she had to be as strong willed as Sebastian. She had to match his wit and his knowledge and she could, under no circumstances, take the crap that he threw at her. That’s when it occurred to me that she needed to be a spy too. I loved writing this book because the chemistry between these two is so potent and they’re both so hard-headed. They were immensely fun to write.

About the Book: 

Seduction abounds in Sharon Cullen’s steamy historical romance! For the Crown’s top agents, love is a hazard best avoided—until an unforgettable affair exposes their undercover hearts.

Sebastian Addison has a powerful secret. To society he is the Earl of Claybrook, the patriarch who raised his siblings after the death of their parents. But to the king, Sebastian is Britain’s top spy—a position that has taken an emotional toll on him. Contessa Gabrielle Marciano has also been living a lie, her title a cover devised by the Office of Intelligence. The femme fatale was plucked from a life of crime and prostitution and trained to restrain her passionate nature. Until she meets the earl.

For three deeply sensual days and nights, Sebastian and Gabrielle drop their masks, indulging in pleasures that seem too good to be true. Then the lovers go their separate ways. Seven months later they reunite when inside sources report that an English aristocrat has been aiding France in a plot to topple the Crown. Their objective: to find the turncoat. Their greatest challenge: to keep their wild, wounded hearts from derailing a mission of life and death.

Praise for Sebastian’s Lady Spy


“Sharon Cullen spins a fast-paced tale full of sizzling attraction and high stakes that will keep the reader turning pages.”—Ashlyn Macnamara, author of What a Lady Requires

Excerpt

He reached for the door, but Gabrielle put a restraining hand on his arm, causing him to pause. “Sebastian.”
His head jerked up at his whispered name. Out of the shadows, Gabrielle emerged to press her lips against his. If he’d been prepared, he would not have kissed her back, but the unexpected touch had his head reeling and his heart pumping with remembered kisses.

She was everything he’d tried to forget, everything he remembered in the deep of night when sleep eluded him. Her kiss enflamed him deeper than any flame that consumed a forest. His body responded to hers as it always had. And, much to his regret, as it always would.
He groaned, the sound more capitulation than anything else, and crushed her against him. Her hands cupped his cheeks and they singed him. Through the many layers of clothing, he could feel her touch, and it burned him all the way through. His kiss was brutal, demanding, and she responded as she always responded to him, with her own strength and demands. She was his equal in every way. In more ways than he ever imagined. And he wanted her. He didn’t care that they were sitting in a carriage outside of his townhouse, that his tiger, a boy too young to be witnessing such a kiss, was just outside the door waiting for him to alight. He didn’t care about anything other than the woman in his arms, and that was the way it had always been.
She made him forget.
With that thought, he pulled away so abruptly that he had to catch her before she fell forward. But instead of seeing anger or disappointment on her face, he observed a brief glimpse of contemplation before she slipped back into the shadows of the carriage.
“Yes,” she murmured. “An aberration.”

All About Sharon: 

Sharon Cullen is the author of The Notorious Lady Anne, Loving the Earl and Pleasing the Pirate. She’s also published in romantic suspense, paranormal romance and contemporary romance.

Her other job descriptions include chauffer, laundress, cook and mediator to her three very busy kids, her husband and two dogs. She lives in southwest Ohio with her brood although her dream is to someday retire to St. Maarten and live on the beach. 

If you’d like to find out more about Sharon and her books, you can visit her website. She’s addicted to social networking so you can find her on Facebook and Twitter. Friend her! Like her! Follow her! She’d love to hang out with you and talk about her passion—books.

Buy the Book:  Amazon  Barnes and Noble  RandomHouse  iBooks 

Find Sharon Online: Facebook  Twitter  Tumblr  Website

Comments

  1. Loved your answers--and that excerpt is pretty inviting, too! Thanks for coming to the Round Corral today, Sharon!

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  2. thanks for visiting us today, Sharon!

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  3. Thanks for having me, Word Wranglers!!!

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