*Giveaway & Guest Post* Unsafe Haven by Char Chaffin

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For Kendall Martin, a small, remote village in Southwest Alaska seems like a good place to start over. On the run from an abusive relationship, she leaves everything familiar behind and begins a new life as owner of a small souvenir and sportsman trading post in picturesque Staamat.

Denn Nulo knows everyone in town: he’s the Chief of Police in Staamat. He’s lived there all his life, except for his college years, spent in Anchorage. Originally planning on practicing criminal law and living in Anchorage permanently, Denn is forced to change his plans when he receives word that his widowed mother has passed away, leaving his young sister, Luna, alone. Denn comes back to Staamat to care for Luna.

When Kendall meets Denn, she begins to believe there are truly good men in the world. Denn is everything she wants: strong, loving, dedicated to family, protective. . .and patient. There is instant attraction between them, but Kendall is leery of men, and Denn craves a serious relationship that includes marriage and children. Their courtship is a conflicting mix of hesitancy and passion, with Luna, desperately needing a mother figure in her life, cheering them on.

As Kendall learns how to trust again and her romance with Denn grows more intense, a local woman who’s had her eye on Denn for years releases a torrent of damaging jealousy. . .and the nightmare from Kendall’s past discovers where she’s hidden herself.

Now, I will hand the Lair over to the lovely Ms. Char.... Ladies and gents please give a warm welcome to ~Ms. Char~

Hi everyone! Char Chaffin here, and delighted to be with Cecile at All I Want and More! Boy, that could be me, every time someone comes to visit and they see my bookcases. They point and ask, “Do you think you have enough books?” My stock answer is usually, “Never!” I always want more.

My Kindle is similarly-loaded, and I keep on adding to the list. I think I’m up to twenty pages, a paltry amount when compared to others I know who can brag about having twice or three times as much. No worries, I’ll get there. J

As a young kid, once I learned to read it didn’t take me long to discover “literature” beyond Dick and Jane and My Little Golden Series, those books my mother thought were ‘safe.’ I’d received a few Trixie Belden novels for my ninth birthday and I read them, thought they were okay. Then my family moved into an old house that had a box of books in the attic, and I found a real bonanza: Edgar Rice Burrough’s entire Tarzan of the Apes and his “Mars” series. Alfred Hitchcock’s collection Stories Not For the Nervous. I started reading, and never touched Trixie again. Adult reading is heady stuff for a kid, and now I can’t recall a time in my life when I wasn’t reading far beyond my years. I might have been twelve when I found Harold Robbins, in my home town’s local library, no less.

So, was it good for me? J  Well, it was an eye-opener, that’s for sure!

I’ve been asked if I always wanted to be a writer. Absolutely not. It never crossed my mind, not even for a second. I was singularly apathetic growing up, my main goal to make it through high school, possibly get married, have a few kids, maybe a dog, etc. Nothing overly ambitious. Then I met this guy—Don—who had these amazing life goals, places to go and sights to see—and he kind of swept me along for the ride. Okay, he married me first. J But he opened my eyes from our very first date, and they’ve been wide open ever since. Still, through the first twenty years of our marriage, never would I have said, “Hey, think I’ll be a writer.”

So, as I write this (Yay! I’m a writer!), I’m waiting for my newest release, Unsafe Haven, to hit the ebook shelves. It’s my second novel and one very close to my heart, for it’s set in Alaska, where I lived with Don and our daughter for sixteen years. A voracious love of reading might have eventually spurred my need to write, but living in Alaska made my writing bloom from long letters to family and the occasional poem, to short stories and finally, novels. All writers need visual inspiration regardless of the kind of books they pen, and I found mine in Interior Alaska, with its long, frigid winters, and short, endless-day summers.

It’s a state of vast contrasts. Two and a half times as large as Texas and with less than a million residents statewide, Alaska is wild, untamed, dangerous. Then you go to Anchorage and see a modern, easy-to-recognize big city. Of course, beyond the city limits and pretty suburbs, you’re right back in the wild, untamed stuff again. There are roads that go only so far and just stop, blocked by either terrain or water. There are hundreds and hundreds of miles of uninhabited tundra/forest/flatland/mountain ranges/valleys. To the north, the Arctic Circle, beyond frigid for months on end. To the south, Anchorage and Juneau, Sitka and Prince William Sound, more populated but areas (like Juneau and Sitka) where you can only leave by plane or boat. To the east, mountains you can’t get over or around, and to the west, rivers, lakes, more mountains, lots of tundra. 

I close to set Unsafe Haven in southwest Alaska, where the desolate vastness is dotted with small villages and the Kuskokwim River provides a vital link to other, more populated areas. But only at the whim of Mother Nature, who likes to lock that river up into ice for seven out of twelve months a year. Thank heaven for bush planes and the hardworking pilots who risk their lives daily to deliver much-needed supplies to the tiny pockets of civilization that wouldn’t be caught dead living anywhere else. If you’ve ever watched an episode of the cable series Flying Wild Alaska, you’ll know what I mean.

I needed that kind of remoteness to tell the story of Kendall, an abused woman who chooses to hide in Alaska and start a new life. Alaska’s a place you can lose yourself in, which can be a good or a bad thing. If you just want to start over, why not do it somewhere thousands of miles from another US state? It’s why in Alaska you’ll hear folks refer to the rest of the US as “The Lower Forty-Eight.” Or they’ll say they’re going to travel “Outside.”

It’s also a bad thing when the person hiding out has a colorful or crime-ridden past. If good people can lose themselves, then so can your run-of-the-mill undesirable. Which keeps the Alaska State Troopers hopping. Talk about a hard-working police force, they’re a shining example. Oftentimes they’re the only law these tiny villages have, another reason to set Unsafe Haven in Southwest: my fictional village of Staamat, where Kendall goes to hide out, has only one cop and a part-time deputy. But luck is with Kendall, because that cop is the kind of guy she can fall in love with. My hero, Denn, is tall and handsome, strong and devoted, Native Alaskan and All Man. Denn can keep my heroine safe, right?

Well, not exactly, because there are dangerous forces against them. In a nutshell, it’s not easy getting into remote Alaska, and it’s definitely not easy getting out.

 Alaska’s the kind of place I wish everyone could see at least once in their lives. In a land where natural beauty abounds in every state, Alaska really does shine. I can easily envision myself writing another novel and nestling it quite comfortably somewhere in the Last Frontier. Maybe in Barrow, above the Arctic Circle, where the polar night remains for sixty-five days straight in the winter, and daylight hangs low in the sky for an endless eighty days during the summer. Maybe somewhere on the Aleutian Island chain, where the wind rips along the coast and a sunny day is rare and cause for celebration.

I’ll think of something. J

Speaking of celebration: I have one! I’m doing a giveaway with this guest blog, and gifting an ebook copy of Unsafe Haven to a lucky commenter. Just leave your email address in your comment.
This giveaway will close Saturday at 12:00pm. Good luck to all!!!

I hope you enjoyed learning a little about Alaska! Now, here’s a quick blurb about Unsafe Haven:

For Kendall Martin, a small, remote village in Southwest Alaska seems like a good place to start over. On the run from an abusive relationship, she leaves everything familiar behind and begins a new life as owner of a small souvenir and sportsman trading post in picturesque Staamat.

Denn Nulo knows everyone in town: he’s the Chief of Police in Staamat. He’s lived there all his life, except for his college years, spent in Anchorage. Originally planning on practicing criminal law and living in Anchorage permanently, Denn is forced to change his plans when he receives word that his widowed mother has passed away, leaving his young sister, Luna, alone. Denn comes back to Staamat to care for Luna.

When Kendall meets Denn, she begins to believe there are truly good men in the world. Denn is everything she wants: strong, loving, dedicated to family, protective. . .and patient. There is instant attraction between them, but Kendall is leery of men, and Denn craves a serious relationship that includes marriage and children. Their courtship is a conflicting mix of hesitancy and passion, with Luna, desperately needing a mother figure in her life, cheering them on.

As Kendall learns how to trust again and her romance with Denn grows more intense, a local woman who’s had her eye on Denn for years releases a torrent of damaging jealousy. . .and the nightmare from Kendall’s past discovers where she’s hidden herself.

Here’s the book trailer for Unsafe Haven:

http://youtu.be/ZJieck3U17Y

My book links: At this writing, Unsafe Haven has a few more days before its release, but you’ll be able to find it at Soul Mate Publishing, Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

And here’s how to find me!

My website: http://char.chaffin.com

On Facebook and Twitter: 
Facebook: http://facebook.com/char.chaffin
Twitter: http://twitter.com/char_chaffin
SMP Authors’ Blog: http://smpauthors.wordpress.com
Goodreads:  http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5337737.Char_Chaffin

Cecile, thanks so much for having me as your guest! Happy reading, all!


A little information on the author....
Char Chaffin started reading romance, science fiction and horror at a very young age. Her love of books is directly responsible for her overflowing bookcases, and the bounty stored on her Kindle threatens to eclipse her entire paper collection. Char currently writes mainstream and contemporary romance filled with family, rich characters and engaging plots. For her, it all comes back to the love.

Char began her writing odyssey as a poet, crafting Victorian-style poetry, then went on to writing short stories. She found her niche when she began writing longer and longer short stories, until she wrote her first novel. It might never see the light of day, but writing it taught her a lot. Over the years she worked a variety of jobs, from farm hand to costume designer to fiscal accountant, before deciding a writing career was her true focus.

In addition to writing, Char is also an editor for Soul Mate Publishing.

A native New Yorker, Char lives Upstate on a sixty-acre farm with husband Don, rat terrier Daisy Mae and two barn cats who constantly slack off on the job of keeping the barn free of varmints. The Chaffin extended family is scattered all over the United States and Alaska.

When she’s not pounding away at her keyboard or burying her nose in books and Kindle, she tends a huge vegetable garden and helps Don maintain their farm. 

And remember... Always keep it Dirty, Smutty & Hussy!