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To celebrate the launch of Cadha’s Rogue Sept. 29, my Facebook group is hosting a Giveaway Bonanza of books and other goodies. If you’re not a member of Becca Nation, you can join today right here:��. The Bonanza starts September 27! More chances to win coming–stay tuned.

Have you ever been giddy about a book release? Well, I am. The final book in the first volume of The Highland Renegades is coming this month. I know many of you have been asking about when my next Highlander book is coming and you don’t have long to wait.��The cover for this book is absolutely dreamy.

Don’t you agree?

I wanted to let you know we will be running a countdown giveaway in the Becca Nation Facebook group leading up to the release of the book, so you may want to head over there and join the group. Lots of goodies!

Keep an eye on my social media channels for more news about the coming book.

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R.L. Syme Facebook page:��

Becca Nation Facebook group:��

Fall is almost here. Pretty soon leaves will be turning brilliant colors, football will start, jackets will come out of hiding (for those of us in the northern states) and school will be in session. As we all settle in to routines, I hope you will stay connected. Here are some ways we can keep in touch.

Facebook changed their system of how you see posts of pages you like, and if you want to see posts from my author page (R.L. Syme), would you consider marking it as a “See First”page? Here is how you can do that on my Facebook page:

Other Ways To Connect

My Facebook group, Becca Nation, is a more intimate place to chat, participate in exclusive contests, get free books, and have your say. It’s lots of fun. You can join that group here:��


Join the buzz on Twitter. You can find me there . It’s the real me.


Stay up to date on book releases, interviews with authors, book recommendations from readers, and other fun projects and prized by joining my newsletter. I won’t spam you or give your email to anyone else. .


Peruse my Pinterest boards. I love Pinterest and want to invite you to see all the goodies I have for you there. .

Thanks for being a loyal fan and supporter. Let’s stay connected!

In the last season of��The West Wing, there’s an episode called��365. It begins with Leo calling the staff together to discuss strategy, and one-by-one, everyone gets called away by some crisis. The first scene ends with Leo standing alone in his office, then he turns and writes ��365�� on the white board.

At the end of the episode, the President brings the staff back together in Leo’s office and Leo asks, “what did you do today?�� Nancy says, “Bolivia.�� Leo corrects her, “actually, it was a crisis��in��Bolivia, and it called you away and before you know it, the whole day’s gone.�� Then he erases the number ��5�� on the board and replaces it with a ��4.�� You get the immediate sense of a countdown and people start taking off their jackets to settle in for some motivated strategy talks. There’s new energy in the room. What was a tired group of people ending their day is now an enervated team, ready to take on the future. “We’ve got 364 days left in the White House,�� Leo says. “What do you want to do with them?��

I’ve had a week like that day in Bolivia. One crisis after another, or one thing calls me away from work, and then I don’t get a chance to return to this work that I think is so important. This telling of stories. This effecting emotional response in people’s hearts. This connection with hope and the future and the truth of story.

I feel like Leo just erased a number on the white board of my life, and I found myself asking�� how many days do I have left? How many more books��do I get to write? How many more stories do I get to tell? Am I doing what I want with the gradual countdown to zero on the time I have to leave a mark on this world?

The truth is, I don’t know.

But I feel like settling into a chair and taking my coat off and talking about what really matters. What I’m really doing here. Why I really sit down at my computer. I feel like I need to reconnect with my purpose. Because the truth is, I don’t know how many days or weeks I have left. But I know that it’s one less than it was yesterday. And I feel that urgency about being right in the center of the why. I can’t afford to waste time. And neither can you. There’s too much at stake to let these days go by with the mundane busywork that rules so much of our lives.

I don’t know about you, but I want to start living like I know time is running out. Because I do my best work under pressure, and I’m ready to get to it.

Being an author is a journey. I love the journey. But change is a constant for authors and you may have noticed a new name on some of my books. I’ve decided to write my romantic suspense books under the name Becca Boyd. Mainly, this will help people who are looking for my books on Amazon and other bookstores get to the right place. Also, Amazon will be able to recommend my books to the right readers now.

If you’re not in my Facebook group, I invite you to join. It’s great fun to connect with readers and other authors. Also, that group gets some exclusive offers and contests that you won’t find on my other social media channels.

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I love weddings. My little sister got married in San Diego in June and it was so much fun being a part of her special day. I discovered that weddings are about details–wow. One of my favorite experiences was spending the wedding morning and early afternoon with the rest of the bridal party (and moms) getting our hair and make-up done.

We started off the morning with donuts–and not just any donuts. Donuts from the famous Donut Bar in San Diego. They actually had a Butter Beer donut!

If you love weddings, you’re going to love Fire Fight. My new romantic suspense takes place around a big wedding. It was fun putting together that wedding too, but there are some surprising turns in that one. If you haven’t got a copy yet, here are links to your favorite online book stores. Hope you love it!

FIRE FIGHT BUY LINKS

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Time to meet the main guy from my new book Fire Fight, coming to your favorite ebook store on July 15.

Marcus Edison is a former Marine and a Sheriff’s Deputy in Somewhere, Texas. To see him on the street, you’d think he had a heart of stone, but the people who know him know better. He’s been in love with Tande Walker since he was in high school, and he keeps thinking every time she comes back to town, it’ll be the last time. She’ll stay. Meanwhile, he makes his life the best it can be, waiting. He loves his family, his brothers and sister, his mother. But he’s always waiting.

Until she says no. Forever. His supposed heart of stone crushed, he tries to forget her. She’s never coming back, she says. She’s done, she says. Marcus picks up what’s left of his life and sets his course. Works his job. Until Tande comes back to town��

If I could pick an actor to portray Marcus it would be Billy Brown from How To Get Away With Murder fame. He could fit in Marcus�� shoes quite easily.

Don’t forget Fire Fight is coming on July 15. Keep an eye on my Facebook Group, Becca Nation, for more news. .

It’s time to introduce you to the main characters in my new book Fire Fight, the second book in my In The Line Of Fire Series. Fire Fight will be available for sale beginning Wednesday, July 15. But I thought you might want to get a peek behind the curtain first.

Tande Walker has left Somewhere, TX more times than she can count, trying to find the thing that will make her feel whole, right. She thought it would be a college degree. Or her first job. Having a best friend. Even a boyfriend. But the guy she really wants is back in the one place she can’t bring herself to go back to.

When she opens a business with her best friend, she thinks this might be the thing that will keep her out of Somewhere. But when their biggest client wants to get married back in her old stomping ground, Tande knows there’s one person she just can’t see. And when she has to go to the Sheriff’s Office to report a crime, she can only pray that Marcus will have the day off��

If I could pick an actress that would play the part of Tande perfectly, it would be Reese Witherspoon of Legally Blonde, Sweet Home Alabama, and Walk The Line fame.

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So who is this Marcus she is trying to avoid? Find out in a couple days when we Meet The Guy. Fire Fight will be available in your favorite ebook store on Wednesday July 15. There will also be a ŷ������ giveaway coming sometime next week.

Hey, all!

We’re starting a “street team�� of sorts at R.L. Syme and I want to know if you’d like to be a part of it. It will get advanced exclusive access to the books we release, and encourage sharing, posting, engagement, reviewing, etc. We would love to have you if you are interested!

We’re calling it the Advanced Reader Team, in honor of the term “ARC�� common in the publishing world, which stands for Advanced Reader Copies. ARC’s are often given to reviewers and readers before the release so they can read and review, and give helpful feedback to other readers who might enjoy the book.

Upcoming Releases include:

Fire Fight (Line of Fire, Book 2)

Cadha’s Rogue (Highland Renegades, Book 5)

Montana Heat (Granite Peak, Book 2)

Catch Fire (Line of Fire, Book 3)

All members will be on an opt-in email list and every time we have advanced reader exclusives for you, we’ll send out an email. That will be the only emails you’ll get from the ART list.

Join today! And let us send you the first ARC!

I have a piece of pre-assembled furniture in my office. Well, several of them, to be honest�� but specifically, I have one desk that is the bane of my existence.

When I was first putting together this desk, I was new to the world of pre-assembled furniture, so I did my best to follow the directions, but something went wrong. I still had a desk with four legs, so I decided to use it. And if all I’m doing is sitting at the desk, working on my computer, it’s fine. Really.

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But as soon as I open the drawer, my whole life falls apart. Somehow, I missed putting the drawer on the right track, and it neither opens nor closes with any usefulness. In fact, most of the time, I sit and think about whether I really want to try to open that drawer. Hard. I think hard. And sometimes, I’d rather go to the kitchen for scissors or tape than try to mess with this drawer.

The desk is poorly constructed.

So, one day, I was��complaining about the desk to yet another person, and he said to me, why don’t you just fix it? I about gave him a freaking medal. Genius. Fix it. Perfect.

Only, when I tried to fix my swedish furniture, I couldn’t figure out how to fix the problem without completely disassembling my preassembled furniture, and then reassembling it. Because the flaw in my construction was in one of the very first steps. The drawer was surrounded by other pieces of poorly constructed reassembled furniture that had been incorrectly reassembled around it, and there was no way to just slip that baby back into place.

Nope. I would have to take apart the entire desk and start again.

By that time, I could have just bought and assembled a new desk, which would also likely have been both better for my sanity, and safer. There’s no guarantee that I didn’t majorly damage one of the pieces by putting it together wrong in the first place, and I really can’t trust anything I did after that second step.

At some point, I expect the whole thing to collapse on me. It might just be better to destroy it and start again. I still want a desk roughly this size, and this color and shape and height, with one big drawer. But because of the nature of assembling swedish furniture, it’s hard to go back and change something so core to the construction, especially after taking it apart, without risking that the whole thing won’t fall apart when you try to reassemble it, just because you unscrewed the screws.

Books are like swedish furniture. More specifically, editing a book is like having a poorly assembled piece of swedish furniture.

When you read one that needs fixing, sometimes the fix is easy, like reattaching a handle. But sometimes, the fix requires you to take apart the entire thing and reassemble it, because the mistake was made at such an early point, the rest of the book has been constructed around that mistake. And sometimes you can’t fix the mistake by just slipping the drawer back into the track, because the rest of the desk has been built around it, and relies on that bad drawer to remain stable.

It always looks easy, on first glance, to just re-track a��drawer. But it’s not. It’s all about leverage and physics and crap. And sometimes it really is better to just set the whole thing on fire and start from scratch, older and wiser.

Now, I have this bookcase��