Thursday, September 26, 2019

A Little Like Scarlett

Very soon, I am releasing my partial autobiography entitled A Little like Scarlett.  I wrote this book like a person possessed.  I have always been curious about authors of romance novels, so I wanted to write about my own dating stories.  Each week, for the next four weeks, I plan to post a different clip from the book to whet all your appetites.  Here's the first one:

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When I was a teenager, I used to read books dedicated to teaching young women how to win men over.  Apparently, you should get him to help you with your coat. When I was studying this in the 1990s I thought that idea seemed so outdated it was laughable.  Yet, I am a ridiculous sort of girl and I wanted to try out the theory before I hurled it out the window.

So, as I was leaving a dance with a boy at the end of the night, we stood by the coat rack.  I pointed to my coat and said, “That one is mine."  

As a side note, it was a really ugly coat.  Really, really ugly. So ugly that I didn’t want to admit to owning it and if I hadn’t committed to trying that stupid idea, I probably would have left the church without claiming it rather than admit that the incredibly ugly coat that actually that grommets in the armpits to help with ventilation, was mine.  My mom bought it at a thrift store and was ever so pleased with herself.

Back at the church, the boy looked at the coat and shrugged his shoulders like, “So?"

I looked at him like he was stupid, took the coat off the hanger and handed it to him.  

He took it, but had his hands apart like, “I don’t know.  Why are you giving this to me?”

I looked at him like I was trying to be patient with him when really my face was aflame and I didn’t know why I had committed to this stupid idea, and he was going to think I was stupid and everything.  I spread the coat between his two hands and got into it.

He laughed, didn’t seem to notice that my coat was only pretending to be a jean jacket (because it was actually made of something much cheaper), enjoyed my playfulness, and afterwards he never forgot to treat me like a lady.

Friday, September 13, 2019

Kiss of Tragedy Excerpt

Hello Clever Readers!

Today I am going to share an excerpt from my newish novel Kiss of Tragedy.  Before we begin I would like to take a moment to talk about the dark romance and its progression.  To set the stage I want to frame a dark romance with the borders of novels like Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, The Phantom of the Opera, Bram Stoker's Dracula, and Frankenstein.  Those are classic novels everyone is familiar with and they don't spook anyone, even when they start stitching corpses together at midnight.  Think of the pleasurable parameters of those books and then start to consider what I would do with similar material.

For my own part, I want to write different kinds of novels.  I can't stand reading when an author picks one thing and does different variants of it until the genre is a husk.  A dark romance has always been on my radar, like something I wanted to voice in my own words and string along like a necklace made of black beads with the occasional pearl as a spot of light.  This means that a dark romance is not always my genre of choice.  The next book I release will belong to a different genre, and the book I release after that will be from yet another genre.  I want to explore everything.

With that in mind, let's get dark and romantic with this excerpt from Kiss of Tragedy. 

“Choose me,” Seth said, finally sounding sincere. 

“What?” Juliet muttered, quite out of breath.

“If that’s how you feel, then I want you.  If you’re just going to run out and let some monster like Rylan ruin you, then I want you.”

“Be real,” she said, closing her eyes and trying to brush past him.

“I am being real,” he said, clasping her elbow.  

Her shoulders fell.  “Are you saying you want to be my boyfriend?”

“Sure.  If that’s how you want to classify the love you want, then sure, I’ll be your boyfriend.  I’ll be whatever you want.”

“Weren’t you going to ruin me?”

“Better me than anybody else,” he said persuasively.

“What if I don’t want you?” she asked, a small part of herself barring Seth from convincing her.  Her mind was unraveling, but she still had one idea to hold onto. “What if I don’t want anyone, except a vampire?”

He faced her.  “It’s true that I’m not a vampire, but I kiss like one.”

He warned her, so she should have been ready, but absolutely nothing could have prepared her for his lips.  The fragrance from before, the spicy blend of leather and Paris, was gone and instead the taste of his saliva and the smell of his aftershave were like copper.  Darkness enveloped her. It was as if her lips and nose had been lowered into a puddle of blood rather than been captured by the man she dreamed of. Her mind was flashing with images.  

There was an image of the man she loved and his body was bleeding and dying at her feet.  Falling to her knees, she was embracing him—encompassing him with the greatest love she had ever felt.  His face was hidden from her, but it didn’t matter. She knew him by sense if not by sight. She was bending over him and kissing him for the last time as she had kissed him thousands of times.  This was to be the last kiss and her heart was overflowing with the intensity of the moment. Her mouth felt full with blood and she was choking, like someone choking on tears. She swallowed and with each swallow, she was safeguarding and sealing each one of their sacred memories.

Then she was kissing Seth.  He was the one from her vision, the one she crushed to her chest and ached to be near.  Nothing made sense except that she loved him and she wanted him. She tangled her fingers in his hair and drew him even closer, but the smell of blood was strong and she began feeling faint.

She slipped from his arms and half fell to the floor.  Seth cradled her and lowered her gently until she sat upright on the tile flooring.

“What happened?” she asked, putting her fingers to her face.  It felt like there was blood dripping from the tip of her nose and dribbling down her chin.

“I kissed you,” he explained.

Juliet pulled her hand away, expecting to see her fingers stained with red, but they weren’t.  They were white. In fact, her face wasn’t even wet.

“I…?” Juliet began.

“Kissed me back,” he finished for her.  “You’re a phenomenal kisser, Juliet. I think I even saw stars.  And I thought you were going to resist me. Now you’ll never be able to get rid of me.”

“I don’t want to get rid of you,” she mumbled, still confused about what happened.  She had been positive that she tasted blood in her mouth. She felt around with her tongue, but she couldn’t feel any cuts.  She even put her fingers directly into her mouth and touched her gums and cheeks, but there was only saliva.

“What are you doing?” Seth asked, laughing at her.

“I tasted blood in that kiss.  Are you bleeding?”

He examined her with amusement.  “No.”

“Then...?”

“Just think of me as your vampire, if that’s the only kind of man you’ll take,” he said as he put his arms around her and lifted her onto her feet.  “I’ll take you back to your room now, but I want to see you tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that.”

See what I mean by dark romance?  I hope you enjoyed that and that you'll give Kiss of Tragedy a try.  Here are the links.

Here's where you order the paperback in Canada.
http://www.amazon.ca/Kiss-Tragedy-Stephanie-Van-Orman/dp/1689418877/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=Stephanie+Van+Orman&qid=1567637141&s=digital-text&sr=1-2-catcorr

Here's where you order the paperback in the USA.
https://www.amazon.com/Kiss-Tragedy-Stephanie-Van-Orman/dp/1689418877/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=stephanie+Van+Orman&qid=1567637009&s=gateway&sr=8-3

And here's where you get your free ebook everywhere.
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/956670

Wednesday, September 4, 2019

Kiss of Tragedy

Hello Great Readers,

Today I get to announce the paperback and ebook release of Kiss of Tragedy.

Here's the back synopsis.

Juliet Hudson looks like spring. After all, she’s only eighteen years old and attending her first semester of university. Yet, even though Juliet’s eyes are clear and her heart as unspotted as the Virgin Goddess herself, she has her secrets. The least of which is that she loves the darkness. Not only does she join an occult club, but she falls head over heels for a man who looks and acts exactly like a vampire. Seth, with his black hair, white skin and with three perfect bite marks down the side of his neck, Julianne is convinced he is the vampire of her dreams. 

It would be perfect if something strange didn’t happen whenever they kiss. When his lips touch hers, she’s thrown into a world where violence is normal, romance and danger become the same thing, and where a simple kiss can lead to destruction.

Here's where you order the paperback in Canada.
http://www.amazon.ca/Kiss-Tragedy-Stephanie-Van-Orman/dp/1689418877/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=Stephanie+Van+Orman&qid=1567637141&s=digital-text&sr=1-2-catcorr

Here's where you order the paperback in the USA.
https://www.amazon.com/Kiss-Tragedy-Stephanie-Van-Orman/dp/1689418877/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=stephanie+Van+Orman&qid=1567637009&s=gateway&sr=8-3

And here's where you get your free ebook everywhere.
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/956670

Cut Like Glass

One of the things I really enjoy writing is novelettes.  I wish I had discovered them sooner.  They are SO MUCH FUN! 'Cut Like Glass'...