E.E. Burke’s Best of the West Featuring Jill Marie Landis

Get Lost in An Exotic Romance

Even paradise demands a price for love and happiness in this Historical Romance set in Hawaii, 1888…

| Amazon | 

Glass Beach by Jill Marie Landis

Widowed Elizabeth Bennett believes her troubles are over. Her loveless marriage is at an end. The death of her much older husband leaves her free to raise their daughter, Hadley, alone on her beautiful Hawaiian ranch…until the handsome Spence Laamea, her husband's heir and illegitimate son from a liaison with a native woman, arrives. Spence takes the estate--and Elizabeth's fate--under his control. 

Despite her distrust and against a backdrop of disapproval among the island's strict nineteenth-century white society, passions erupt between them. Elizabeth and Spence struggle to build a life for themselves and her daughter. When a deadly hurricane bears down on the island, it tests the bonds of love and loyalty they've tried to deny.

Excerpt:

Mauna Noe Ranch

Kaua‘i, Hawai‘i, 1888

   A YOUNG BLOND WOMAN with haunted blue eyes stood alone at the edge of the cliff, staring at the waves that battered the black rocks below with nightmarish force. Trade winds buffeted her from behind, coaxing her long fair hair free of the tight knot at the nape of her neck, teasing the hem of her worn and outmoded burgundy gown until it rose and tangled about her ankles and calves. Behind her, open pastureland rose gently, caressed the foothills that bordered lush green mountains etched with silver ribbons of falling water and crowns of mist.
   Situated between the mountains and the sea, a rambling ranch house stood surrounded by lush tropical gardens. A whitewashed fence protected the profusion of blooms and greenery from the cattle scattered across the land. The house had been designed to face both the sea and the mountains. A wide, shaded veranda, called a lanai by the natives, wrapped all the way around the structure. Anyone inside the house or on the lanai could see her, could watch what she was about to do.
     If anyone was watching, she did not care.

Get Lost in Historical Romance with Jill Marie 

Glass Beach is one of those books you never forget, and it's one of the most unique "Westerns" I've ever read. Maybe you're like me, and would like to have Glass Beach available to reread anytime you want. Or maybe you've never enjoyed this book, or other classic historical romances by Jill Marie Landis. Many are available now in e-format. 

Go to www.jillmarielandis.com for the complete list of titles and links. While you’re there, sign up on the HOME page for her newsletter to get the latest news on new releases.

JILL MARIE LANDIS writes novels that earn distinguished awards and slots on such national bestseller lists as the USA TODAY Top 50 and the New York Times Best Sellers Plus. She is a seven-time finalist for Romance Writers of America's RITA Award in Single Title Historical and Contemporary Romance as well as a Golden Heart and RITA Award winner.

She resides in Hawaii with her husband. When she's not writing or sitting on the beach reading, she enjoys visiting with family and friends, raising orchids, working in her garden, occasionally quilting, but most of all dancing the hula.

Some of her recent releases include the Irish Angels Series, inspirational historical romance from Zondervan, and MAI TAI ONE ON, TWO TO MANGO, and THREE TO GET LEI’D, the first three titles in her hilarious “Tiki Goddess Mysteries” set in Hawaii from Belle Books. Coming in June, TOO HOT FOUR HULA.

Q&A

E.E.: Glass Beach is set in Hawaii, yet you still call it a Western?

JILL:  In the 1830s, long before the American cowboy ever rode the range in our western territories, Californio vacqueros were sent to Hawai‘i to teach Hawaiians to round up the wild cattle introduced to the islands by British captain George Vancouver in 1793.

Unable to pronounce their colorful tutors’ names, the Hawaiians changed the word Español to paniolo and ever since, that word has become synonymous for cowboys all over Hawaii even today. One of the biggest cattle ranches in America is in Waimea on the Big Island of Hawaii. 

The hero of Glass Beach, Spence Laamea, is a paniolo, tall, dark, exotic and devastatingly handsome. And don’t forget, Hawaii is about as far West as you can get in the USA.

E.E.: So tell us a little more about the storyline and how you came up with it.

JILL:  They say “write the book of your heart” and this one, for me, might be just that. I live on Kauai and love stories of the island’s past and present. 

Writing GLASS BEACH allowed me to combine a lot of things that I love in one story: cowboys, ranching, tropical settings, the 1800’s, strong dark heroes and heroines facing incredible challenges. I tossed in a few elements that make the plot different. The hero is a bit younger than the heroine, he is her late husband’s illegitimate son, and the fact that he’s half-Hawaiian would have been an obstacle to any future they might have together. In re-reading the book when it was put into e-formats, I realized how much I loved the story because it’s apparent in the descriptions I wrote of the island and way of life and traditions in Hawaii then and now.

GOTTA ASK:  Is Hawaii really paradise?

JILL:  Weather-wise, it is most of the time. Hawaii is like anywhere else, really, but the sky is blue and smog free (though when the winds shift we do have “vog” which is volcanic smoke and steam that comes up from the Big Island) and because of the tropical flora, there is green everywhere you look.

The populations of each island can double with tourists. That leads to traffic when there is only one main highway around the island as there is on Kauai. Goods and groceries from the mainland cost a lot more since they have to be shipped by sea or flown in. Gas is the highest in the nation. It hovers around $5 a gallon no matter what prices do on the mainland. But the upside is we don’t need to heat our homes in the winter and even if you can’t see the ocean you can usually get there within minutes from wherever you live.

People on vacation can’t imagine what we do to keep from getting island fever.  I’m often asked, “What do you do there?” My response is, “What do you do where you live?” Work, hobbies, join organizations, garden, clean, shop. We’re not just sitting around on the beach 24/7. At least we don’t admit it.

Website: www.jillmarielandis.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/jill.m.landis

Facebook: www.facebook.com/JillMarieLandisAuthor

Twitter: www.twitter.com/JillMarieLandis

Journey back to Kauai 1888

If you enjoy reading historical romance, have you ever wished you could travel back to the 1800’s to see what life was really like? Do you think you’d like living longer than week without modern conveniences?

Comment today to win one of two e-book copies of Jill Marie Landis’s GLASS BEACH.

a Rafflecopter giveaway