The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Stone of Love (Stones of Iona) by Margaret Izard

Episode Date: March 4, 2024

Stone of Love (Stones of Iona) by Margaret Izard https://amzn.to/3SZx8Zb Book 1 of 1: Stones of Iona After leaving her abusive ex, American scholar Brielle DeVolt embarks on a career-changing opportunity, the renovation of Laird Colin MacDougall's Chapel ruin. The attractive, broad-shouldered Laird leaves her weak-kneed, but can she trust herself to love again? Dusted in construction dirt, the curvy beauty in his study captivates Colin. As Brielle steps to the window, her brunette tresses halo in the sunlight, and he sees her as his dream soul mate. When he learns his hereditary duty is safeguarding magic Fae stones, all he wants is to protect Brielle from the evil forces of the Fae. Traveling to the past to assume his forefather's identity and find a missing magic stone is challenging enough. When Brielle appears, an undeniable attraction to his ancestor ignites, causing her confused passion. Faced with fighting an evil Fae to save the realms, Colin must choose between saving the stone or saving his love. About the author Margaret Izard is an award-winning author of historical fantasy and paranormal romance novels. She spent her early years through college to adulthood dedicated to dance, theater, and performing. Over the years, she developed a love for great storytelling in different mediums. She does not waste a good story, be it movement, the spoken, or the written word. She discovered historical romance novels in middle school, which combined her desire for romance, drama, and fantasy. She writes exciting plot lines, steamy love scenes and always falls for a strong male with a soft heart. She lives in Houston, Texas, with her husband and adult triplets and loves to hear from readers.

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There we go. And the Iron Lady sings, and ladies and gentlemen, that makes it official. Welcome to the show. We certainly appreciate you guys. Remember, the Chris Voss Show is the family that loves you but doesn't judge you, at least not as harsh as your mother-in-law because, you know, we all know she didn't like you anyway. She wanted her to marry Bob, and Bob went on to become that banker,

that investment banker, made all that money. So she's going to hold it against you for life. But you know the way to get it on her good side is refer the show to her and her family and friends and that way she'll maybe appreciate you more or maybe not but she'll like me so that's all that's really i'm looking for go to goodreads.com for just christmas linkedin.com for just christmas christmas one of the tiktok and christmas facebook.com as always we have the most smartest brilliant minds on the show none of me but that's why we do guests people see what we did there we have the most smartest, brilliant minds on the show. None of them are me, but that's why we do guests, people. See what we did there? We have an amazing, burgeoning,

great author coming on the show. She's going to be talking to us about her newest book that's launching March 4th, 2024. It's called Stone of Love, the Stones of Iona series. Margaret Izard is on the show with us today. She'll be talking to her about her amazing book. And she is an award-winning author of historical fantasy and paranormal romance novels. She spent her early years through college to adulthood dedicated to dance, theater, and performing. Over the years, she developed a love story for great storytelling in different mediums. She does not waste a good story, be it movement, the spoken or written word. She discovered historical romance novels in middle school, which combined her desire for romance, drama, and fantasy. She writes exciting plot lines, steamy love scenes, and always falls for a strong male with a soft heart.

What do you got against weak males? Come on, man. Weak males with hard hearts. She lives in Houston, Texas with her husband and adult triplets. Oh my gosh. And loves to hear from readers. Welcome to the show, Margaret. How are you?

I'm good. How are you, Chris? I am excellent. Welcome to the show. Give us your dot coms. Where can people find you on the interwebs? You can find me at margaretazardauthor.com that's m-a-r-g-a-r-e-t-i-z-a-r-d author.com my social handle is mazard author so it's not wizard but it's in for magic so it's mazard author

let's see what you did there margaret mazard so there you go maybe it's a maybe it's a female version of wizard mazard i don't know just make it up you can do whatever you want right well that's interesting yeah my husband's name is william so he goes he yeah he goes w he goes he goes by wizard yeah wizard and you're mizard i see it's the new it's the new what do they call it mr and mrs i don't know there's a term for it but to welcome the show congratulations on the new book and i understand this is going to be a book in a series that you've got outlined. So there's going to be more to come. Yes, there is more to come.

This is the first book. It's the debut book of the Paranormal Romance series, Stones of Iona. And Stone of Love will be coming Monday. And Stone of Fear will be coming in June, June 12th. There's a companion, a Christmas companion novel coming this Christmas season. And Stone of Lust, book three in the series, will come sometime in early 2025. There you go. Stone of Lust. That's the one I'm looking for. There you go. It'll be available on OnlyFans later on this year. No, I'm just kidding. It's not. We just use that as a callback joke. We

love OnlyFan callback jokes jokes so give us a 30,000 overview of what's in your new book and what's inside that we'll find stone of love stone of love takes place in scotland it features an american scholar who travels to scotland to fix and renovate a scottish lord's old chapel old 13th century chapel and during this process when she comes and renovates his chapel he finds out that he has a hereditary duty to protect magic fey stones called the iona stones and so the fey tasked him with the task to find these missing magic stones and he has to travel back in time to assume the identity of his identical ancestor and while he's back in time trying to fight the evil fey and find the stone in order to

save the realms, Brielle, the American scholar, accidentally trips and follows him back in time. Ah. So she's not really stalking him. She's just, it was an accident, right? Yeah. Maybe. Maybe the player behind it, but yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. This is what people usually tell me when I'm restraining her. They use that story. No, I'm just kidding.'m just kidding the jokes people the jokes so this sounds really cool and there's a bit of magic and mystery and romance i guess is there romance in here ah that would explain the steamy so the steamy lust scenes as you alluded to in the biography well yes there's you know it's interesting because I talk about this to some writers and it turns out to be a really

kind of interesting conversation. I spent some time, you know, as writers, you go through the process of trying to learn writing and, you know, you try and make your book better. And I spent some time mentoring under an erotica romance writer, a New York Times writer.

And so I mentored with her some in order to try and make my steamy scenes a little bit better and a little bit, you know, fuller and just more exciting. And the interesting thing that I found out with working with her is, you know, the first thing I sent her was a steamy scene. And she's like, no, I have to know what happens before. I have to know what brings meaning and how these people connect and what makes a difference to them before we get to the actual part of the intimacy. And so the interesting thing that I learned from of all things an erotica writer is that what's more important than the intimacy part is what makes

them connect and what makes people connect and how people connect and how they find love and how they fall in love. And intimacy, while it's a wonderful and a great wonderful step towards any kind of romance and relationship it's not the only thing there you go but yes but i do write some steamy scenes and my books are definitely for mature audiences there you go it's really about how you go through life you do your things and you connect with people and as you do life you kind of find love along the way. There you go. Yeah, you can't go right to the 50 Shades of Grey Whips of Chains or Sex on the Beach.

You got to lead up, people. You got to have some foreplay or something, you know, in the mind. Yeah, I was kind of a little disappointed when I saw the book's title was Stone in Love. And I thought it was a book about a guy in love with his bong, his marijuana bong. But this sounds like a much more interesting story. Thank you. The Stone of Love is actually the stone that they're searching. And so each of the books, you know, Stone of Fear, that's the stone that they're searching in that book.

And Stone of Lust, there's a lust stone. I know you'll be enjoying that one. Yeah, I like that. I think with lust, I enjoy it, yeah. But yeah, there's actually seven stones that they'll be searching. So there's seven books. All right. There you go.

And it's all, I guess, three or four of them are technically in the can. Is that how it works? Were they scheduled for release? Yes. There you go. Yeah. I've actually written ahead. When I first contracted the first book i'd i had already

drafted the first three there you go and so i'm actually all the way into drafting book six right now and there's seven books in the series plus there's three christmas companion books so there'll be seven total series plus three companion books for a total of 10 all right there you go doing this is your first novel. What was it like creating the characters? How did you pick them? What were some of the things you used to build them out? Well, actually, a lot

of information that I got concerning the MacDougall family, which is the Scottish family that previously owned Dunstaffnage Castle, which is where the chapel is and where the novel takes place in Scotland. It's near open Scotland. This is really a castle ruin. In the book, and where the novel takes place in scotland it's near open scotland this is really a castle ruin and the in the book it's actually not a ruin the chapel is a ruin and a lot of the characters are based upon who their current who their ancestors are in the

past who their current people are it's sort of loosely based a little bit on just some of their names but the history that is involved when we do travel to the past is actually pretty accurate. So that's kind of where my inspiration started. I came up with the concept of the magic stones when I read about the stone of destiny, which is the coronation stone, which is the stone that the king sits on in order to be crowned. It actually traveled through Dunstaffnage Castle back in the 1700s. And that's where the inspiration for this concept of these magic stones.

And so I thought, you know, this stone, it traveled through Dunstaffnage to the Isle of Iona. And so I came up with this concept of, you know, what if there were, what if the stone was magic? And what if there were multiple stones and they were magic? And so I wanted to include this folklore, the fae. And what is a fay fey fairies fairies okay there you go i i need to read up more on the whole fairy thing and and the and

what a phase now is so is a fey a fairy like kind of like what i saw in like the hobbit and stuff the movie yes yes it was kind of like that. Yeah, there you go. And so they go through this journey. Why does this genre you find appeals to you the most? Paranormal romance. Just the whole concept of the folklore and being able to involve the folklore of the fae from Scotland. A lot of the stories that come into play, some of the fables are from some of the lore of Scotland. I like the concept of the paranormal aspect that I can do the time travel and that it becomes timeless and that love becomes timeless and just exploring people's destiny and whether their destiny, you know, and it just seems that looking at time travel and and involving the fey and the paranormal it takes it to a level above and beyond what normal everyday life so

it becomes an escape but the concept is is that you find fate and you find fated love and your destiny is found whether you whether you're in this time or you're in another time ah there you go when you were young did you write? What made you first decide you were becoming a writer? Was paranormal activity something you were always interested in or was there something that triggered? I've always been interested in drama and fantasy and telling stories. I started dancing when I was three. I started taking acting class when I was eight, began performing when I was three. So telling stories in different ways, whether it's through dance, whether it's through theater, whether it's through singing, that's always appealed to me my entire life. And so I've always wanted to write.

And, you know, I thought about it when I first married and I sort of had a little detour when I had triplets. Was that because you technically named wizard. If you take the first one, there you go. Triplets. I was going to say, we need to flush that out because we can't have that in the bio without knowing more triplets.

Wow. Triplets. They're 26. Wow. 26 of them are. Oh, they're 26. You're cold. No, no, no. There's three? No, they're 26 years old.

No, no, no. There's three. There's two boys and a girl. That's quite a load. Did you find you wrote during that time or were you just too busy? I don't know. I've written some most of my life. I just never had the courage to share it with anyone.

And I never felt that it was good enough. I danced in college. I've always told stories through movement. I owned a studio, ran a dance company, raised my kids. Storytelling has been a part of my life all my life. Yeah. Stories are the things that shape life, or as we always say, the owner's manual to life. It's great entertainment. You know, I'm so stupid. I didn't understand the importance of stories, even though I was a story collector for all my life. I didn't understand that everything was stories, you know, movies, TV, books, everything. We love stories.

It entertains us. It motivates us. It inspires us. We learn from stories. You know, we learn from other people's lives. So when did you finally decide to say, hey, I'm going to write and start pursuing getting this publishing deal? Probably about five years ago, I decided to, I wanted to really sit down and do something important. I don't know if you want to call it

a midlife crisis, but I just wanted to do something very important for myself. I had spent a lot of time with my children through high school and college tutoring them. And they had, you know, kind of finished college and they've kind of got their lives set. And so, you know, my time kind of freed up and I said, you know, this is it. It's now or never. And so it's interesting because I finally did put my foot down and finally sat down and wrote something and took some classes and took some seminars and, you know, learned what writing was all about and how to write well. And that's what's important is how to write well. You finally got those darn triplets out of the house.

And I'm just kidding. And now you've been able to focus on it. Right. I've been able to do a little focusing on myself. And it's really been a very rewarding and a very growth experience in order to write a book and to share it with the world. It seems that I'm already into book six. I seem to have a lot to say. Yeah, you've become a font of just literature that's just pouring out of you. This is awesome. Thank you.

Why have you been keeping it from us all this time? Well, we know you had triplets. It had to be the right time. There you go. It is kind of interesting how life works that way, where you have to find the right time and then it comes out of you. As you've been writing the books, what sort of, you know, some people have different ways that they write.

Is there a certain pattern or trick that you use to write every day? Or do you have sort of rules and regulations? Like some people write in the morning some people write at night what's the thing that you find works for you because you you've been pretty proficient with it so far i've been very proficient i've been very disciplined i i write during the day i brainstorm during those insomnia hours at night i get some of my greatest ideas at three o'clock in the morning i I need to do that when I'm not sleeping. Just get up and try and write some stuff. I,

you know, I tried it once I tried to get up and write at 3am and it just, it's just awful. It just doesn't work. Thoughts come great, you know, cause that's, I think when you have your clearest mind and your mind,

you know, it's, it's the most open. So I usually make little notes with my phone, roll over and make little notes and try and go back to sleep but I'm very very disciplined about writing writing during the day sometimes I write in the morning sometimes I write in the afternoon I'm very disciplined about my outlines I do outline and I'm very disciplined about that but my muse has a tendency to take over from time to time and

we kind of go off on little tangents but it's kind of fun there you go i need to i mean i need to take inspiration from that when i'm having insomnia usually the only inspiration i'm usually having are thoughts going on in my head when i have insomnia is like go the hell to sleep we have to work tomorrow damn it but maybe i could do a maybe i could do a novel of a guy who has insomnia and steven king did this novel sounds like that's something he already did. But about a man who can't, who's just got insomnia. Wasn't there a movie about a guy who couldn't go to sleep called Insomnia?

I think it was called, I think Robert Jr. or Al Pacino was in it or something. I don't know. But yeah, maybe it's already been done. All the great stuff has already been done. But you're just kicking ass and taking names. Now, so is there a formula for, is there lots of love scenes

in the steamy love scenes in the book? Or what's the pace that you keep up through the book? Is it just going to be one big love scene or more? No, there's some scenes that lead up to the love scene. And there's more than one love scene. And it kind of, you know, it's, I don't want to give too much away because it explores a lot about who those characters are, who those people are, how they fell in love, what is important to them, what resonates with them as a couple, and what resonates with them as individuals. But I will share that their first kiss is shared over chocolate molten lava cake. Oh, wow.

That's good. That's good. I've had a few dates over chocolate molten lava cake. That stuff is good well both are kissing in the animal whatever but no i mean that's that's a romantic setup right there chocolate molten lava chocolate molten lava cake yes that's that right right away that just that gets the juices flowing there's a chocolate man that's good stuff what have we talked about that we can tease out the one thing about is we can't talk about the middle

and the end usually. What else have we teased out on the book that we should tease out? The couple connects over Colin as the main lead character and Brielle comes to renovate the chapel and they actually connect over his history. His history

is part of what the chapel is. His parents actually died in an accident just before the novel started. And that's how he learns that, you know, that's why during the beginning of the novel, he learns that he has this hereditary duty because he wasn't really aware of it and his parents died suddenly. But a chapel itself is actually a project of his mother's and he kind of inadvertently inherits it and he doesn't really want it you know he's a lawyer from edinburgh and and he you know they call them solicitors there we call them lawyers yeah but he's a lawyer from edinburgh and he doesn't really want it he's been called to the

castle in order to deal with her and he doesn't really want to deal with her but then when he first meets her you know and discovers that she has this rich knowledge of history of his family and how the mcdougals are are you know part of the lord of lorn which which were the original vikings along the western isles in scotland and she has all this vast knowledge of of what what his family is and how important the chapel is to his family and how important is the castle and the history of his family and and initially when it when he first has to meet her he's thinking oh you know what is this american though you know why why would my mother because his mother picked her you know why i would you know but then when he meets her he becomes very enchanted with the fact that she's very

knowledgeable and finds his the the history of his family something very fascinating wow and they actually connect over a dram of whiskey ah that's usually where i pick up all my days a dram of whiskey there you go in the bar so this castle do you have you been to this castle yes i have there and do research should you let me ask you this had you been there before in this when is inspiration the story or did you do it and going there for research i actually my husband and i went this last june uh we did a we did a like week and a half two weeks tour scotland and we spent an entire day in oban scotland and oban is one of the main little cities along the western isles of scotland and dunstaffnage castle and donnelly castle which is the both castles actually sit on the coast right near Oban, Scotland.

And both of these were previously owned by the McDougall family and are part of their rich history. And they both actually appear within the entire series. Dunstaffage appears in the first book. And then we learn about Donnelly in the third book. Wow. Maybe this will get famous. Go ahead. It'll get even more famous with your books and become a

stopping point everyone start going by there well they're actually ruins but they are they're very nice to visit and and they're they're very nice they're nicely kept the interesting thing is that donnelly castle the mcdougall family actually got back recently like within the last 10 years or so so they actually own Donnelly still. Wow. So they're not going to sell it to you. Probably. It's a ruin.

No, I mean, you could renovate it and then, you know, it could be like a tourist thing for fans of your books. See, this is for billions, but sure.

This is the, this is the mind thing. Is it billion? Is it worth billions? Wow. Okay. It's well, it would,

it would take billions to renovate it. Yeah. Yeah. The family it would take billions to renovate it. It's actually lost. Yeah. The family actually lives. There's a smaller home that was built much later, probably around the 19th century that they actually reside in on the property. There you go. Well, Margaret, just think big here. Just maybe write some more books and save.

There you go. I don't know. It's just an idea. So I think there's a book launch you're doing or some sort of gift basket or something. Tell us a little bit about that. There's a swag box or something. Yes. Yes.

The Stone of Love book swag box. It's actually a brainchild of mine and it's actually taken off really well. I'm actually giving a number of these away, but the next one that I'm giving away will be this next Monday. It'll be on my Facebook page. I'll be hosting a Facebook launch party Monday, March 4th from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Central Standard Time. And if you tune in, comment, we engage a little bit. I'll actually pick one of the people from the party in order to win the book swag box. What's in the book swag box is actually kind of fun naturally the book there is a bookmark there is a recipe card that has chocolate molten lava cake recipe that is on the recipe card there's an author pin there is a calendar from my publisher wild rose press so there's a 2024 calendar wall calendar

located with it there is a stuffed animal from the lore in the book, and I'm not going to give it away because it's a special story, special fable in the book. There is a insulated metal wine glass because Brielle, the main character, loves Chardonnay. There is also a Dublin whiskey shot glass that is, and both the wine glass and the shot glass have a special logo for Stone of Love etched on them. And then there's also a book bag. There you go. That's funny.

I'm looking at the picture. I won't tell what the creature is. But I've seen insulated mugs for like water and coffee. It's just one for wine. Yeah. Yeah. It's a foot. It is a footed glass for wine.

Isn't that hysterical? There you go. Because, you know, sometimes you need that on the drive to work. Don't do that, people. It's a joke. This is when you're traveling between parties, but don't drink and drive. There you go. I didn't even know there was one for wine. There you go.

So this sounds like fun. Where can people find your Facebook page? What name is it under? Link. Is there a link? I gave you a link, but there like fun. Where can people find your Facebook page? What name is it under? Link? Is there a link? I gave you a link, but there is also, you can find it. It's Mizard Author. M-I-Z-A-R-D Author is where you can find me on my Facebook page.

There you go. Mizard Author. Look for that. Margaret Mizard Author is the one that I have. I think this is the, is this your personal one or is this your, I think this is the this is your personal one or is your this is i think this is the fan page it's a fan page yeah so there you go search for that folks and you should be able to find it and get involved in that so it margaret it's been fun to have you on the show we talked about the steamy scenes so i'll look forward to lust book of lust a stone of lust i

think it is yes hey whatever the part is, just let me know. People can pre-order it now so they can get it wherever fine books are sold. Thank you very much for coming to the show. Give us any.coms you haven't covered here as we go out. MargaretAzardAuthor.com. M-A-R-G-A-R-E-T-I-Z-A-R-D-Author.com is where you can find me and my books. There you go. Stone of Love, the Stones of Ionaa series comes out march 4th 2024 you're going to want to hurry up order it pre-read it or pre-order it pre-read and read it just just

read it okay come on and then book two is going to come out june 12th so you need to read it fast and then stone of lust book, coming out in 2025. And watch for Thistle in the Mistletoe, Holidays from 2024. So there you go. A burgeoning, prolific author sits before us, ladies and gentlemen. Be sure to check out her works. Thanks for coming on the show, Margaret. Thanks for tuning in.

Go to goodreads.com, Fortress Crispus, LinkedIn.com, Fortress Crispus, YouTube.com, Fortress Crispus, and Crispus1 on the TikTokity. Thanks for tuning in. Be good to each other. Stay safe. We'll see you guys next time. And that should have us out.