Feeling Hot! Hot! Hot!

By: Marcia King-Gamble

www.lovemarcia.com

Summer time and the weather is steamy!  Down my way it’s hot, hot, hot. So, in keeping with blue skies, cool ocean breezes, soaring temperatures, and the rum punch I’m thinking of sipping, I’m taking you on a trip down memory lane  to the tropics with me. 

I’m an Island Girl at heart, and although I’ve spent far more years in the USA than in the Caribbean, there’s something about stress free island living and a lively calypso beat that gets my heart pumping. Is it  a wonder that several of my books are set in the Caribbean or have that distinct island flavor.

Book number one, my first published one ever, and titled Remembrance was published over nineteen years ago. The story starts off on a Caribbean cruise, making stops at some of my favorite islands.  

Book number 3, titled Under Your Spell, gives you insight into a different aspect of island life and has a bit of a sinister undertone. It’s a quirky tale of modern medicine clashing with the old. I call it traditional medicine butting heads with naturopathic medicine.  The setting, San Simone, is fictitious and loosely modeled after the island I grew up on.  While for the most part Christian, old timers, in rural areas still practice obeah or black magic. Live there for any length of time and you will have a healthy respect for the supernatural. The inhabitants have no problem sharing tales of bad luck befalling those daring to cross families that are connected to the occult.   

Island Magic is an anthology shared with three other writers.  This work was published by St. Martin’s Press. The story is set on the beautiful Grenadine Island of Bequia.  The Grenadines; a chain of islands is shared with Grenada and St. Vincent.  Imagine a brokenhearted woman left at the altar, goes on her honeymoon anyway, and finds love in this most unlikely of places. 

Following Island Magic came Island Bliss. My contribution to this anthology was again set on a cruise ship where a beauty pageant is underway. No one expects my heroine to fall in love with a handsome officer. I titled this one, An officer and a Hero.

Somewhere among the thirty-five plus books I have written, I found time for A taste of Paradise set in   Fiji,  and part of The Ports of Call series. I also penned The Way He Moves, the final book in the Mediterranean Nights series published by Harlequin.

More recently there have been novellas like Tempting Andie, set during Junkanoo in the Bahamas. Shortly after that I wrote Islands Apart, another novella with a distinctly Hawaiian flavor to it.     

Currently, I am working on yet another island story set on Union in the Grenadines. This one is a marriage of convenience story with a gigantic twist to it. 

All the books I have mentioned can be found in print or  as eBooks on Amazon or Barnes and Noble.  But it  wasn't  until writing this blog,  did I realize just how many of my books have tropical settings. 

Do you think the adage holds true? You can take the girl out of the island, but you can’t take the island out of the girl?

 

This girl never wants to leave the islands. Someone pass me that rum punch.

Have a fun summer!  

About Marcia King-Gamble:

Romance writer, Marcia King-Gamble originally hails from a sunny Caribbean island where the sky and ocean are the same mesmerizing shade of blue. This former travel industry executive and current world traveler has spent most of life in the United States. A National Bestselling author, Marcia has penned over 34 books and 8 novellas. Her free time is spent at the gym, traveling to exotic locales, and caring for her animal family.

Visit Marcia at www.lovemarcia.com or “friend” her on Facebook: http://bit.ly/1MlnrIS