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AUTHOR J. Arlene Culiner – A Swan’s Sweet Song

Published by The Wild Rose Press

Country Music, Humor, and a Pregnant Pig

I had so much fun writing — and narrating — A Swan’s Sweet Song because I love my main characters, I love laughing, and I love making readers laugh, too. My heroine, Sherry Valentine, is a country music star who has been in the limelight for too long and wants out. She’s tired of being pursued by fans; she hates makeup, cowboy gear, and being on the road. Her unfulfilled dream is to become an actress. My hero, Carston Hewlett, is a very sexy, appealing, and successful playwright. However, he’s also a loner who hates crowds, noise, country music, and people who want to use him for his influence.

When Sherry and Carston meet at a radio station, it’s love at first sight, although they both spend most of their waking hours denying it. And despite many humorous complications — Sherry’s nosy manager, rumors spread by the paparazzi, cranky secondary characters, much travel, and a pregnant pig — true love does finally triumph.

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BLURB

The instant Sherry and Carston meet, there’s desire and fascination in the air…but they’re complete opposites.
Smart-talking Sherry fought her way up from poverty to stardom as a country music singer. Now, she’s ever in the limelight, ever surrounded by clamoring fans, male admirers, and paparazzi, and her spangled cowboy boots carry her all across the country, from one brightly lit stage to the next.
A renowned but reclusive playwright, Carston cherishes his freedom, the silence of his home in the woods, and his solitary country walks. Any long-term commitment is obviously out of the question: how about a quick and passionate fling?
But when their names are linked in the scandal press, Sherry’s plans to become an actress are revealed. Is their budding relationship doomed?

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EXCERPT

Perhaps she could avoid meeting Carston Hewlett again and circumvent disaster. And why worry? She had a concert to do, interviews to give, and contacts to make so her name stayed in the forefront. And when this festival was over, she’d climb back into the bus with Charlie and her boys and ride away.

Yes, she had enough on her agenda. No room for a temporary fling. A fling at a conference like this? That had become so commonplace, it was positively banal. And, at this stage of her life, it would also be undignified.

“There he is now,” said Charlie, ripping into her thoughts. “Right over there. On the left. You see?”
Of course, she saw. How could she miss him? Tall, mighty easy on the eye, he leaned, glass in hand, against a plaster pillar, listening to the dozen people surrounding him. “Don’t make plans,” she warned Charlie. Yet she couldn’t avoid looking in Carston’s direction again. Didn’t he look delicious in that brown silk shirt and elegant tweed jacket; look how those jeans hugged his long legs. He was just the way she’d always imagined a successful playwright should be: cool, intelligent, strong, and sexy.

As if aware she’d been watching him, Carston turned slightly, caught her eye. She tried forcing herself to look away. And failed. For an eternity, their gaze held over the space separating them. Then detaching himself from the surrounding group, he headed in her direction.

She commanded herself to pretend indifference, but her pulse accelerated, and her heart thumped a sensual jungle beat. Was this supposed to be pleasure? Something closer to pure panic. She swallowed, tried to summon up some zen-like calm…then realized she didn’t have any available. She needed help. Fast.

“Charlie?” she gasped. Looked around. Damn! Where had that man gone now that she needed him?

Why come over here anyway? What would they talk about? They had nothing, absolutely nothing, in common. She had to stop staring at him like this.

Here he was now, tiny inches away, his jaw a hard definite line, his body that tight, sinewy stretch she’d thought about too many times during the night. But it was the expression in his eyes, warm eyes, humorous eyes, that confirmed her instinct: the immediate, deep reaction was mutual. Try as hard as they could to avoid it, something would happen. It was inevitable.

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ABOUT AUTHOR J. Arlene Culiner

AUTHOR J. Arlene Culiner

I was born in New York, and raised in Toronto, but I set out to have a life of adventure and discovery. I’ve crossed much of Europe on foot, traveled, by bus, train, car, or truck throughout North and Central America, Europe, and the Sahara, has lived in a Hungarian mud house, a Bavarian castle, a Turkish cave dwelling, on a Dutch canal, and in a haunted stone house on the lonely English moors. Such a lifestyle has meant staying flexible and taking up any sort of work that presents itself: belly dancer, fortune teller, b-girl, translator, fashion model, storyteller, radio broadcaster, actress, social critical artist, photographer, and writer. I now live in a 400-year-old former inn in a French village of no interest, and protects all creatures, especially spiders, earthworms, and snakes. I adore incorporating into short stories, mysteries, narrative non-fiction works, and romances, my experiences in out-of-the-way communities with their strange characters, and very odd conversations.

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