As we come up to the winter solstice, I’ve enabled snow falling on my blog. Thanks, WordPress 🙂 It may be corny, but I find it rather cute.

‘The Captain and Claire’ is exclusive to Amazon.

The solstice seems like a good time to fire up the Kindle with an erotic romance. My historical romance short, “The Captain and Claire,” will have a two-day free promotion on Amazon Friday, Dec. 20 and Saturday, Dec. 21. Reviewer Shannon Yarbrough called it “a superb erotic romance” and wrote, “Betsy is a bit inexperienced when it comes to sex, but then she meets Claire on board! Claire introduces Betsy to the Captain, and Betsy soon finds herself in the middle of an interesting ménage à trois, seduced by two lovers that each take her to her limits in very different ways. . . .There’s also enough naughty spice here to whet your reading appetite in this genre which will certainly leave you wanting more.” If you haven’t yet read it, check it out!

Switching gears, UK reviewer Terry Baker did a wonderful review of my novel Time of Grace, which can be found in full on the Affinity eBook site. After describing the tumultuous relationship between Caroline and Grace, Baker writes, “The historical facts appear to be accurate. The images I saw, were in fact as I’d visualized them whilst reading the story. The people mentioned in the book as leaders of the rebellion are real people. All in all, I feel Gabriella West has written a terrific and true to history account in her book. Her research is very well done. Her scenic descriptions were excellent.

The history and facts are carefully integrated and neither overshadows the other. In my honest opinion, there is a perfect balance between the facts, fiction and romance.”

As a writer who was placing two women in a particular historical period (Dublin in the lead-up to the Easter Rising of 1916), I wanted to make very sure that what I was portraying could have happened. I didn’t want to cheapen or exploit the historical milieu at all. It’s very gratifying to read Baker’s reaction, so long after I wrote the book.