I know it’s been a while since I updat­ed my blog. Most­ly because I haven’t done much writ­ing late­ly. My muse seems to have fled the coun­try. I’m pret­ty jeal­ous of her.

Any­way, you might have heard that Samhain Pub­lish­ing is clos­ing its doors at the end of the month. I can’t tell you how thrilled I was when I first signed with them. They were super good to me, and they seemed to have the mag­ic touch. I loved just about every­thing about them. What this means is that the rights of five of my books will be returned to me. I pon­dered send­ing them to the only oth­er pub­lish­er I trust right now (Cari­na Press) but in the end I decid­ed to just recov­er and self pub­lish them through Dark Moun­tain Books. These should be back up for sale some­time in the begin­ning of March.

Let me know what you think!

Hap­py Inde­pen­dence Day, USA! I hope you all have some plans to get out and enjoy your free­dom. (Did you know it’s per­fect­ly legal to go top­less in most states?) So have fun.

Work in Progress News ~ Work­ing on my fire­fight­er sto­ry. This one is due mid August, so I real­ly need to get my poop in a group. I still don’t have a title.

Favorite Song of the Week ~ Sor­ry, no real video. Some­one tweet­ed a link to this song, wish I could remem­ber who so I could cred­it them.

Back­list Review ~ From For a Price, reviewed by The Romance Stu­dio:

This was an easy and enjoy­able read. Mau­reen is stuck between devel­op­ing a rela­tion­ship with a too good to be true guy and hold­ing to the plan that can save her moth­er. While the char­ac­ters are not com­plex you find your­self root­ing for Mau­reen to throw the auc­tion to the wind and run off with Nicholas…The love scenes are hot and find you wish­ing they would keep going. Absolute­ly a fun and quick read!

Tweet of the Week ~ 

WEDDING CEREMONY TIP: Some­thing old, some­thing new, some­thing bor­rowed, some­thing blue; some­thing fleek, one canoe, some risot­to, déjà vu.

— Pants (@onedumbshark) June 26, 2015

Indus­try News ~ Since I last post­ed, Ama­zon has changed the rules for their sub­scrip­tion ser­vice. They’ll now pay by the page rather than per bor­row. This makes a lot of sense to me, and will reward those authors who write good beefy page-turn­ers. Ama­zon’s move is much bet­ter than Scrib­d’s move. Scrib­d’s sub­scrip­tion ser­vice was los­ing mon­ey, appar­ent­ly they did­n’t real­ize how vora­cious romance read­ers can be. So rather than look­ing for oth­er ways to stay afloat–and there are oth­er ways if one stops to ponder–Scribd just delet­ed 90% of books labeled romance from its ser­vice. That did­n’t go over well at all. I went ahead and delet­ed my remain­ing books from Scribd, sor­ry for any inconvenience.

What I’m read­ing ~ Angel, by Johan­na Lind­sey. A nice his­tor­i­cal western:

Hop­ing to cool off a twen­ty-five-year-old feud between two neigh­bor­ing fam­i­lies, Cassie Stu­art only suc­ceeds in pour­ing kerosene on the flames. Both sides have warned her to get out of Texas pronto…or they will burn her father’s ranch to the ground. What Cassie needs is a peace­mak­er but she ends up with a wid­ow-mak­er instead.

He is called Angel , a rugged­ly hand­some hired gun with eyes as black as sin. Unwant­ed and unwel­comed by his ungrate­ful employ­er, he would just as soon leave Cassie to fend for her­self. But a stub­born sense of duty , and a desire to taste the sweet­ness of her kiss steels Angel’s resolve to make Cassie want him, come hell or high water…and for more than his gun alone.

Today’s Tear­jerk­er ~ This is in Finnish, but you don’t need to under­stand the words.

Book Snip­pet ~ From For a Price:

“When should I pick you up?”

Few peo­ple knew her cell phone num­ber, even few­er had hint­ed at a night out. She knew exact­ly who was on the oth­er end of the phone, but she couldn’t let him know that. She also need­ed some time to steady her rac­ing heart.

“Who’s this?” She tried not to let her smile come through her voice. There was a long pause on the oth­er end.

“Did you agree to more than one date tonight?”

“Well, I can’t be sure.” She lay back onto her bed, throw­ing her free arm over her head. “Is this the sev­en­ty-five year old gymnast?”

“Guess again.” She heard his smile.

“Are you the man who’s been breath­ing heavy in my ear every Fri­day since I got to Vegas?”

“I’m the man who’s going to make you a very wealthy woman.”

Mau­reen bolt­ed upright. What did he mean by that? Did he know who she was? Her heart beat loud­ly, its pres­sure pound­ed in her eardrums. Aside from the fact that she didn’t want this man to know about her upcom­ing pros­ti­tu­tion stint, she won­dered if he intend­ed to make the final bid.

“What do you mean?” Her voice sound­ed as thin as tis­sue paper.

“Your invest­ment strat­e­gy, or did you find your­self anoth­er advisor?”

She released a pent up breath, and tried to clear her mind. “Oh, well I’ve got one final inter­view before I make my decision.”

All right, folks. That’s it for me. I’m off to a fam­i­ly bar­be­cue. then to watch the fire­works! Stay safe out there.

Howdy! It’s been a while. Not that you’ve missed any­thing. I did have a good time in Dal­las dur­ing the RT Con­fer­ence. It was cloudy the whole time, but still warm. I met my idol, San­dra Brown, and only embar­rassed myself a lit­tle bit. I think. I know I bab­bled a lot and my face glowed red. This pic­ture is from a recent trip to Col­orado. Pic­tures nev­er do moun­tains justice.

Work in Progress News ~ Plug­ging away on my fire­fight­er sto­ry. I final­ly came up with a bit of an inter­nal con­flict, but I think it needs more, so we’ll see what hap­pens. Pants­ing is hard, guys.

Favorite Song of the Week ~ You prob­a­bly remem­ber Howard Jones from his 1980s synth days, but he’s still writ­ing and per­form­ing music, and I think he’s only got­ten bet­ter. (That’s a play on words if you’re a HoJo fan) The video is pret­ty psychedelic…

Back­list Review ~ From FLIPPED which is on sale through the end of the month for only $0.99! Lasha at Dark Diva Reviews gave Flipped 4 ¹⁄₂ Delight­ful Divas and this review: “What I loved about Flipped by Olivia Brynn was the rela­tion­ship between Carter and Mario. You could feel the his­to­ry, love and friend­ship between the two men as you were read­ing. Plus, once they decide to become lovers…wow, there was some seri­ous chem­istry going on there! But then Ms. Brynn adds in the extra twist that both men are tops, so how will this affect them in the long run if they decide they want a rela­tion­ship and not just a one night stand? That is not a plot device I’ve nor­mal­ly seen in m/m books, where so many char­ac­ters switch, so the orig­i­nal­i­ty of that plot point real­ly perked my interest.”

Tweet of the Week ~ 

A man is knocked out dur­ing a robbery.His wife and chil­dren are bru­tal­ly mur­dered- Pixar: Gee it’s kin­da dark …Ok a FISH is- Pix: YES.

— Space­Girl Incog­ni­to (@iamspacegirl) June 4, 2015

What I’m read­ing ~  A real­ly nice and easy read:

Ley­la Kari­mi can’t keep her eyes off the hunky guy liv­ing in the house behind her. How coul­dany woman resist ogling Dr. Mason Bar­rett, espe­cial­ly when he makes it so easy by parad­ing around in his skin and skivvies?

If it was only their age dif­fer­ence, she would have made a move a long time ago. Except Mason is more than a neigh­bor. He’s her baby brother’s old­est friend. It’s not like they can have a casu­al fling and walk away in the morning.

Today’s Tear­jerk­er ~ This per­for­mance artist and her lover went their sep­a­rate ways years ago. As she per­forms a piece at MOMA where she shares a minute of silence with a stranger, her for­mer lover Ulay sat down in the emp­ty chair. A third artist, a musi­cian, saw the video and wrote the song you hear. Okay, if you just read that para­graph, you can skip ahead to about 36 sec­onds on the video.

Book Snip­pet ~ From Flipped:

Mario tossed aside the sweat-soaked T‑shirt he’d just peeled over his head and turned, to look over his shoul­der at Carter. Every win­dow in the house stood wide open, but there was­n’t a breeze to clean out the stuffy air caused by dry­wall dust, the com­pres­sor for the air-pow­ered tools, and the sweat and heat from two male bodies.

“Too hot for you?”

“Very hot.” Carter set the trow­el down and took off his own shirt. “But I think I can han­dle it.”

Mario watched each mus­cle in Carter’s abs rip­ple back into place as he low­ered his arms. The freck­le on his hip­bone peeked from behind his waist­band, mak­ing Mar­i­o’s mouth water. “Maybe we should work in sep­a­rate rooms. I think I’d get more done if I did­n’t stop to stare and day­dream every thir­ty seconds.”

Carter shook his head. “Nice try. I know you hate dry­wall, and this is your way of get­ting out of fin­ish­ing this job.” He crossed the room, a dan­ger­ous glint in his eye.

That’s it for this week. I’m enjoy­ing the weath­er here on top of this moun­tain. Hope you all get some fresh air as well!

You’ll nev­er guess what’s going on out­side my win­dow today. Unless you’re a neigh­bor of mine.…or maybe you fol­low me on Twit­ter and you’ve seen my com­plain­ing.  Yep, it’s a snow­storm. In May. I hope it clears up by Tues­day, because I’ll be on the road. I know I swore I would­n’t go to RT, but then a few things fell into place like first find­ing out that SANDRA BROWN WILL BE THERE!!!! then very cheap air­line tick­ets, and final­ly three very nice peo­ple who are will­ing to put up with my snor­ing for a cou­ple nights. So yeah, Dal­las TX is about to get a whole lot of Alan­na. And prob­a­bly some Olivia as well.

Work in Progress News ~ I start­ed a new work in progress. sigh I’ve got so many wips in the fire it’s ridicu­lous! One of these days I’ll even fin­ish one of them!

Favorite Song of the Week ~ I was once a very big fan of Bare­naked Ladies. It was very sad when one of the found­ing mem­bers left the group, and their sound changed. This is their new sin­gle though, album out in June, and I’m cau­tious­ly optimistic.

Back­list Review ~ From Got Erot­ic Romance, by Jil­lian, for Fine Print:

“Wow…as an author myself, I was blown away by this sto­ry. It has everything…wonderfully devel­oped char­ac­ters, a deli­cious love sto­ry and a bit of sus­pense thrown in. I absolute­ly adored the build­ing, halt­ing rela­tion­ship between Kara and Derek. And I think the author hit the mark (at least with me) because I fell com­plete­ly in love with Derek. He’s the quin­tes­sen­tial hero. And the way he wove his patient and lov­ing way around the anal-reten­tive Kara was beau­ti­ful to watch. Seri­ous­ly, this was one of the best books I’ve read in a very long time. Nice job, Alan­na Coca. I can’t wait to read more from you!”

Tweet of the Week ~ 

Omg. The WiFi went off a minute ago so my kids came out of their rooms. They’re get­ting so tall!

— Peach­esM­c­Peach-Moron (@PeachesMcPeach) March 5, 2015

What I’m read­ing ~ I’m get­ting ready to pack for Dal­las, and know­ing I’ll meet San­dra Brown, I had to choose only TWO books to have her sign. So I’m bring­ing the book by her pen name that I read when I was 12, that start­ed my love for romance. This is the cov­er, too. It’s a great west­ern set in the ear­ly 20th cen­tu­ry with some sus­pense ele­ments. sigh I love this book so much. So I reread it, for about the 97th time. It comes out in dig­i­tal in Decem­ber. I pre-ordered it two years ago…

Today’s Tear­jerk­er ~ Hap­py Moth­er’s Day.  Grab a tissue.

Book Snip­pet ~

“What is with you late­ly?” Krista twirled her Chi­nese noo­dles around her chop­sticks, while Kara poked at her food.

“What do you mean? Noth­ing’s with me.”

“Yeah, so that’s the prob­lem. You’re act­ing like you did after Bud­dy got run over in sev­enth grade.”

Krista was ten months younger than Kara, and their birth­days fell so that they were actu­al­ly enrolled in the same grade at school. They had been insep­a­ra­ble since they could both walk. They rarely fought while grow­ing up, and with hav­ing polar oppo­site col­or­ing and per­son­al­i­ties, they were often con­fused for best friends rather than sis­ters, which was just fine with them.

Now, star­ing into her Irish twin’s face, Kara could­n’t help but unload. “It’s the guy. The donor I found last month.”

“The guy you stalked? Not pan­ning out? Did he fail the phys­i­cal?” Kris cov­ered her sis­ter’s hand on the table.

“No, phys­i­cal­ly he was fine. Per­fect even.” Too per­fect. “But he want­ed to change some of the con­di­tions of the contract.”

“Like what?”

Kara looked around the crowd­ed eat­ing area where they sat sur­round­ed by parked strollers and exhaust­ed shop­pers. No one who was close enough to hear was lis­ten­ing; they were par­ents busy calm­ing down their chil­dren or teens flirt­ing with passersby.

Kara was glad that Kris had brought this up. She had been hop­ing to get all of this off of her chest for the last week. Well, ten days real­ly, but she’d tried to come to terms with it before invit­ing help. She shoved her cup of noo­dles away, and gave her sis­ter a sad smile.

“He…uh…wanted to bypass the clinic.”

Kris wrin­kled her brow in con­fu­sion, and Kara raised her eye­brow in a telling gesture.

“Oh! Oh God! You mean he want­ed to—”

“Yes. Some­thing I was­n’t pre­pared for, to say the least,” Kara grumbled.

Kris’s lips twitched. Kara knew her sis­ter was hid­ing a smirk, or even an out­right laugh.

Before I go, I’ve got BIG NEWS! Olivi­a’s re-release At Ease is up for pre­order! Check it out HERE where you can read chap­ter one and see where it’s available. 

Okay folks, you prob­a­bly won’t hear from me again until after I get back from Dal­las. Fol­low me on Twit­ter, I’ll be post­ing a lot of pic­tures and Vines!

Well, it’s spring­time in most of the world, but here on top of this Wyoming moun­tain range, I’m buried under a foot of snow. Although I’m sick of win­ter weath­er, this is much need­ed mois­ture, so I’m not com­plain­ing (much).

Work in Progress News ~ I’ve hopped around to a few wips this week. I hate when I do that, because it feels like I’m not get­ting any­where on any of them. And I’m not. Which one of you would like to come over to my house and give me a swift kick?

Favorite Song of the Week ~ This is Wyclef Jean and Avicii with Divine Sor­row. There’s a one hour ver­sion, I thought I’d just share this four minute one lol

Back­list Review ~ From You Got­ta Read Reviews, Sari­na Her­mann seemed to enjoy Falling Star: Hmmm…a spin off for Ty…

Tweet of the Week ~ 

My super-pow­er? I’d say it’s rear­rang­ing cook­ies on the tray so no one knows I’ve eat­en some. — Wil­low­but­ter­cup (@Willowbottom) April 14, 2015

Indus­try News ~ Looks like Ama­zon and Harp­er Collins came to an agree­ment recent­ly, and it did­n’t take near­ly as long as Hachet­te’s nego­ti­a­tions, so I assume one or both par­ties learned from that. More here.

What I’m read­ing ~ I’ve just been re-read­ing some old favorites late­ly. Cur­rent­ly on my Kin­dle is Grey’s Awak­en­ing by Cameron Dane. An edit­ed ver­sion of the blurb:

Grey is, hands-down, one of the sex­i­est men Sirus has ever seen. Too bad he’s an arro­gant ass and his eyes are so damn cold. Every once in a while, though, Sirus thinks he sees a hint of fiery pas­sion in the con­trolled man sleep­ing one room away.
For Grey, one look at the rough­ly hand­some Sirus puts Grey’s celiba­cy pact in seri­ous jeop­ardy. One prob­lem: Grey doesn’t believe in love, has even less patience for rela­tion­ships, and he refus­es to get mixed up in anoth­er messy roman­tic part­ner­ship that can only end badly.

Two weeks. Two hard men. Both run­ning like hell from love. Look out. Something’s got­ta give.

Today’s Tear­jerk­er ~ 

Book Snip­pet ~ From Falling Star:

Well, that’s all I have to say. Enjoy your spring, no mat­ter what kind of weath­er you have to deal with.

Hap­py Easter/Passover Week­end!  I’m cur­rent­ly orga­niz­ing the annu­al trea­sure hunt for my daugh­ter, even though she told me she did­n’t need one this year. I don’t hide eggs because my dog will eat any­thing left out. And many things not left out.

Work in Progress News ~ A love­ly read­er emailed me (Olivia) ask­ing about Ris­ing Heat, the sec­ond book in the Earth Scents series, the fol­low up to Falling Star. That email got me think­ing about that poor book. Ris­ing Heat has been pushed to the back burn­er so many times. I blame Dean (the hero) for not speak­ing to me. I think we got into a nev­er end­ing cycle of pout­ing. So I opened RH up, we’ll see if I get any bet­ter results this time around.

Favorite Song of the Week ~ Mod­est Mouse is a real­ly neat band. Last week they released a new album, this is their first sin­gle. The video is a bit…um…artistic:

Back­list Reviews ~ First, let me tell you that COMPANY INK is now FREE! on most etail­er sites! (Ama­zon is always last to get the memo) Links are all next to the Com­pa­ny Ink cov­er right HERE. Okay, now a review for Cov­er Sto­ry, anoth­er short by Olivia that has­n’t received many reviews. Holler at me if you’d like a copy in exchange for your opin­ion! This one is from Karen over at Goodreads:

Cov­er Sto­ry is a taste­ful­ly writ­ten and incred­i­bly hot sto­ry that has you turn­ing the pages to find out where the fan­ta­sy takes Cate. It is very sen­su­al and I thor­ough­ly enjoyed it. You’ll find your­self want­i­ng to read it again – prefer­ably with a part­ner near­by! Fans of con­tem­po­rary erot­ic romance are going to love this one.

Tweet of the Week ~ 

“I AM HAVING THE BEST DAY!” she screamed out her car win­dow, donut crumbs tum­bling from her mouth.

— slaugh­thie (@slaughthie) July 22, 2014

Indus­try News ~ By now you’ve heard about the Dear Author blog vs. Ellora’s Cave pub­lish­er. This week Jane from DA announced that she’d been secret­ly pub­lished as a new adult author, she’s been writ­ing since 2012, and even has a movie deal in the works. My first thought was “wow, that’s great, con­grats!” My fol­low­ing thoughts were tan­gled. There are sev­er­al authors who have put their unclus­tered views out there in the web, if you’d like to check that out. Grab some popcorn.

What I’m read­ing ~ Okay, I admit I bought this just because it’s only $1.99, but I have read and enjoyed book one and two in this series. Click the cov­er to get your own copy while the price is so good.

Emma Shaw needs a hus­band, and fast! Not because she’s inter­est­ed in romance—after all, she’s too busy with her land­scap­ing company—but because Grand­ma Shaw is com­ing to town, and she will have non­stop ques­tions about Emma’s (stag­nant) love life.

Sean Kowal­s­ki no soon­er leaves the army than he’s recruit­ed by Emma to be her fake fiancé. Sean does­n’t like the decep­tion, but he can’t help his attrac­tion to the feisty brunette. A lit­tle pre­tend kiss­ing won’t hurt anyone—especially when there’s no chance he’ll fall for a woman with deep roots in a town he’s not plan­ning to call home. But when fake, inno­cent kiss­es lead to very real, explo­sive sparks, Emma and Sean dis­cov­er that their big ruse might just lead to happily-ever-after….

Today’s Tear­jerk­er ~

Book Snip­pet ~ From Cov­er Story:

“Zoe says you’re a banker.” Bo lift­ed a strand of hair away from her temple.

She pulled her focus away from the mechan­i­cal mon­stros­i­ty Kei­th was cre­at­ing, and focused again on the man sit­ting close beside her. “Not exact­ly. Zoe tells peo­ple I’m a banker because it’s eas­i­er to explain.”

“So why don’t you explain?”

She smiled. “It’s not very inter­est­ing. I’m sure you don’t real­ly want to hear details.”

“We’re going to get pret­ty inti­mate in the next few hours.” He raised one eye­brow. “I don’t like to get naked with a com­plete stranger.”

Kei­th snort­ed. “Liar. You’d take your clothes off to order a pizza.”

“No one’s talk­ing to you.”

The pho­tog­ra­ph­er snapped a pic­ture of Bo’s snarl. “Show­time, Romeo. Let’s see some skin.” Kei­th ducked back down, and snapped a few pictures.

Skin? I can’t do this. Cate’s hands were damp with sweat, and she’d tan­gled her fin­gers togeth­er almost painfully.

That’s all I’ve got for you this week­end. If you cel­e­brate East­er or Passover, have a great one! If not, enjoy your weekend!

It’s St. Pat’s Week­end! Do you have plans? I’ll be in Mis­souri, but I’ll be home in time to see an Irish band in con­cert on the 17th. I usu­al­ly get a corned beef, but I’m not sure I’ll have time this year. I’ll have to set­tle for my annu­al pint of Guinness.

Work in Progress News ~ I don’t want to talk about it.

Favorite Song of the Week ~ It’s St Patrick­’s Day Week­end!! I hope all of you with even a lit­tle bit of Irish inside (even if it’s in spir­it rather than blood) will have a great and safe week­end. Here’s some River­dance for you guys.

Back­list Review ~ This is the only review for Com­pa­ny Ink! If you’d like to read this title in exchange for an hon­est review, please email me at olivia@oliviabrynn.com. This is from Pearl’s World of Romance, where it received a score of 84:

In 5 short chap­ters COMPANY INK offered every­thing I look for in a sexy con­tem­po­rary novel­la: heat, chem­istry, humor and exter­nal con­flict. Wrapped up in a tight, fast-paced pack­age I went through it quick and easy and was left yearn­ing for more when I finished.

Tweet of the Week ~

What is every­one writ­ing songs about? John: rev­o­lu­tion Paul: for­give­ness George: true love Ringo: hmm, a sub­ma­rine or maybe an octopus

— Jay (@theshamingofjay) Feb­ru­ary 26, 2015

Indus­try News ~ A new app that changes out “dirty” words in an ebook, called Clean­Read­er was intro­duced this week, leav­ing many authors a bit frus­trat­ed with the thought of an app chang­ing their work. I per­son­al­ly don’t care what you do with my book once you pur­chase it it’s yours to do with as you please. What are your thoughts?

What I’m read­ing ~ This Fairy Tale retelling col­lec­tion is a lot of fun, and it includes some authors that I’ve per­son­al­ly met, and are great peo­ple.  It’s lim­it­ed time offer of $.99 for 11 books is pret­ty damn good, guys. Get to it:

Today’s Tear­jerk­er ~ I’ve always want­ed to learn sign language…

Book Snip­pet ~ From Com­pa­ny Ink:

That’s it for me. I’m enjoy­ing spring­time in Mis­souri this week. I hope you all get out and enjoy some spring weath­er. Hap­py St Pats!

Isn’t this a beau­ti­ful pic­ture!? When I was in Jack­son in Jan­u­ary I looked for this famous barn, but it’s sit­ting on pri­vate land accessed from a small stretch of road that is closed through­out the win­ter. I nev­er thought about it, but you don’t see any pic­tures of this barn in the snow. Now you know why!

Work in Progress News ~ Work­ing away on Vic­tor, but this morn­ing I was vis­it­ed by a plot bun­ny with TEETH! So I did stop and write a few para­graphs to get the idea down on “paper”. I think this new one might actu­al­ly be an Alan­na book, so woohoo! But I real­ly need to fin­ish Vic­tor first, so back off, rabid plot bunny.

Favorite Song of the Week ~ So these guys were real­ly pop­u­lar across the pond, they did­n’t make it huge here thanks to the oth­er boy bands they were com­pet­ing against at the time (Back­street Boys, ‘N‑Sync etc), and I’m a lit­tle sad that I did­n’t get to join in on the scream­ing fan fren­zy I think these guys deserve. They’re IRISH, you guys. Cov­er­ing Garth Brooks:

Back­list News ~ I rarely have back­list news. I don’t know why I have this in my sta­tus update tem­plate. I think I’ll change this to high­light an old review from a back­list title. Too com­mer­cial? Well, it’s my blog, yo. So here we go, a review for Pre­View, back when it was orig­i­nal­ly titled “Préjà Vu”, by Seri­ous­ly Reviewed:

HOLY CRAP!!! Let me start by say­ing that I was skep­ti­cal when I first grabbed this one. Though the blurb was inter­est­ing it did­n’t just reach out and grab me by the nose.….BUT once I got start­ed read­ing, I just could­n’t stop!!!

What a nifty lit­tle mys­tery with some sex­i­ness right smack dab in the mid­dle! By page 30 I thought I had it all fig­ured out. I was sure I knew who the bad guy was and I was just wait­ing for the shoe to drop. BOY HOWDY did I get thrown a curve ball!

Ms Coca, *SNAPS* you did a great job! Total­ly kept me involved and inter­est­ed and then WHAM! gave me a big shock! LOVED IT! I will be look­ing for your name in the future

Tweet of the Week ~ You’ve prob­a­bly seen this in sev­er­al places all over the net, but it tru­ly is the tweet of the week, if not the month and year:

Indus­try News ~ So let’s say you wrote a book, and maybe you think the Big Five is too tough to get into, or not right for your book, but self pub­lish­ing isn’t for you. Now there’s some­where to turn. Book­trope takes your book (if you’re accept­ed into the sys­tem) and a pool of edi­tors and cov­er design­ers col­lab­o­rate and get your ms ready for pub­li­ca­tion. The good thing is that these folks will get paid roy­al­ties, so there’s no up front cost as far as that goes. I’m com­plete­ly over­sim­pli­fy­ing here, so be sure to check out their web­site if you want more info.

What I’m read­ing ~ So I bought sev­er­al books on Valen­tine’s Day dur­ing All Romance Ebooks’ sale. Two I bought with­out much thought because I remem­bered the author, and wow. Those were awful awful books, I almost did­n’t fin­ish them. So after that, I re-read some old favorites to cleanse my palate. Then I picked up one from L.A. Witt, who nev­er dis­ap­points. This Friends-to-Lovers sto­ry has just enough angst to give it some teeth. Find­ing Mas­ter Right:

Today’s Tear­jerk­er ~ Those who have the least, are the most like­ly to share.

Book Snip­pet ~ From At Ease, my book will be re-released in August!

Base­ball is back! Well Spring Train­ing at least. Okay, that’s all for now. Have a great week, everybody.

P.S. The dress is blue and black.

It’s Valen­tine’s Day! A great day for romance. I hope you all have a won­der­ful day, whether it’s with your bet­ter half, or curled up with a great book.

Work in Progress News ~ Mak­ing progress on Let­ters from Vic­tor. I orig­i­nal­ly thought this would be a 15K short sto­ry, but it’s already at 19K and the boys aren’t quite at their HEA yet, (they bare­ly had their first kiss!) so we’ll see what I end up with.

Favorite Song of the Week ~ I’m not even sure what you’d call this kind of music. A bit reg­gae? Calyp­so? Hip Hop? I’m not sure, but I like the groove. Okay, while find­ing the video for you guys, (wow, it’s not very good) I dis­cov­ered that this song is from 2012, which is ANCIENT in music terms, but I only heard this song on the radio this week! So par­don me if this is all old news.

Tweet of the Week ~ So many good ones, maybe you should Fol­low Me on Twit­ter so you can get all my faves.

“You want some breast milk?” “Gross, no” “It’s breast milk from big filthy cows” “Well, why did­n’t you say so? Pour me a tall, cold glass”

— Shane Mur­phy (@Shanehasabeard) August 14, 2014

Indus­try News ~ Ama­zon Give­away, a new way to host or enter online give­aways. Looks to be a bit like raf­fle­copter, but it does­n’t sup­port ebooks, so it’s not very use­ful to me just yet. Some­thing to keep an eye on though.

What I’m read­ing ~ NEW RELEASE! From my friend Tri­na M Lee, book one of her new series For a VERY lim­it­ed time, you can get this one at only $.99. Go! Hurry!

Spike.
The feisty Crim­son Sin gui­tarist with com­mit­ment issues, a were­wolf best friend and a pen­chant for par­ty­ing. She’s a nephilim, half human and half angel. Like all unde­cid­ed nephilim, she has to choose: serve the light or the dark.

Rowen.
The intrigu­ing bass play­er who catch­es Spike’s eye even though he’s her com­pe­ti­tion in the annu­al Bat­tle of the Bands con­test. He’s also an unde­cid­ed nephilim and he does­n’t even know it.

Arrow.
An arro­gant, drug deal­ing front­man. A dark nephilim, it’s his job to recruit Rowen for the dark and Spike is get­ting in his way. But there’s some­thing he does­n’t know about Rowen. Some­thing the dark has been keep­ing from Arrow.

When Spike and Arrow go head to head in more than just music, black­mail and secrets exposed chal­lenge Spike to accept what she most fears: that she belongs in the bat­tle between light and dark.

Today’s Tear­jerk­er ~ This man kept his wife’s voice on his answer­ing ser­vice since her death 10 years ago. Vir­gin Com­mu­ni­ca­tions retreived it for him:

Book Snip­pet ~ From WITH A VIEW the free PREVIEW com­pan­ion read that you can pick up by click­ing the cov­er right there to the right–>

Okay ladies and gen­tle­men. Have a great long (in the US) weekend!

Work in Progress News ~ Well, I did­n’t get a lot done on my wip, but I did refresh my web­sites! Both Alan­na and Olivi­a’s got facelifts. Please check them out! My favorite part is the book excerpts and oth­er info. just click on a cover.

Favorite Song of the Week ~ The hero in my wip is a vio­lin­ist, and although Ludovi­co Ein­au­di is known for his piano  com­po­si­tions, here is one piece that my hero just played for me:

Tweet of the Week ~ When acclaimed neu­ro­phys­i­ol­o­gist and best­selling author Colleen McCol­lough passed away, one news­pa­per print­ed a hor­ri­ble obit­u­ary. (recap here) Twit­ter did­n’t stand for it.

Gan­gling and ugly, he was for­tu­nate to have entered pol­i­tics before the age of tele­vi­sion #myozo­bit­u­ary pic.twitter.com/UP0GquuDXR

— Thomas A. Stew­art (@thomasastewart) Jan­u­ary 30, 2015

What I’m read­ing ~ This new adult book made me cry! And I liked it! Blurb:

Jet Tay­lor is the quin­tes­sen­tial bad boy. A wom­an­iz­er. A fight­er. Dan­ger­ous. The type of guy most girls do their best to avoid. But Zoe Janes is no saint her­self. In fact, she sees in Jet the per­fect oppor­tu­ni­ty to dis­tract her­self from her respon­si­bil­i­ties at home and the mis­takes that keep her trapped there. He’s gor­geous, likes to par­ty, and is clear­ly only inter­est­ed in hav­ing fun—just like Zoe.  The more time they spend togeth­er, the hard­er it is for Zoe to stick to her “fun only” mantra. Jet is get­ting under her skin, mak­ing her believe things could actu­al­ly be dif­fer­ent. She knows they’re both trapped by the sins of their past but Jet is start­ing to make her think free­dom might actu­al­ly be possible.
And that makes him the most dan­ger­ous boy of all.

Today’s Tear­jerk­er ~

Book Snip­pet ~ From Wyoming Solace:

Okay boys and girls. That’s all for me. Have a great week.

Howdy! I’m fresh back from Jack­son Wyoming, maybe one of the pret­ti­est places on earth. As long as I’ve lived here, I’ve nev­er vis­it­ed the Tetons in the win­ter. They’re amaz­ing all year! I dis­cov­ered that Jack­son has a real­ly great library, where I sat in com­fy chairs with a view to the ski moun­tain across the street. It was won­der­ful, but I’m glad to be home.

Work in Progress News ~ I worked faith­ful­ly all week on Let­ters from Vic­tor. Around mid-week I opened up the orig­i­nal file, which was a whole dif­fer­ent begin­ning and scene, but I actu­al­ly liked it bet­ter than what I had, so I found a way to use that begin­ning and rework the rest so they both work togeth­er! Now the wip has a whole new life and I have high hopes that I can fin­ish this soon.

Favorite Song of the Week ~ SO glad I found the video to this. It’s adorable.

Back­list News ~ I just saw the draft for the cov­er of At Ease. This is the M/F IR short sto­ry that Ellora’s Cave pub­lished in 2011 and I sent it to Samhain when I got the rights back. I real­ly like the cov­er. A lot. Edits should begin on that soon, it’s got a release date in August.

Tweet of the Week ~

“What if a third team came and attacked these two teams?” — my daugh­ter, not under­stand­ing football/making foot­ball more awesome

— David Waghal­ter (@dwaghalter) Sep­tem­ber 29, 2013

What I’m read­ing ~ I just fin­ished this one on my trip: New­ly job­less and adrift, for­mer invest­ment banker Ker­ri Wil­son trav­els to Vir­ginia to see her best friend and regroup, only to run into bil­lion­aire play­boy Ethan Lloyd. It’s been years since she’s snuck out of his bed after the most amaz­ing sex of her life, and he’s so not her type — she likes them tall, dark and man­age­able. But he’s too hot to resist, and she suc­cumbs to anoth­er siz­zling, no-strings-attached (or so she thinks) night.

Today’s Tear­jerk­er ~ I meant to post this before Christ­mas, but I got super lazy:

Book Snip­pet ~  From Tempt­ing Tes­sa, my free read pre­quel to Tes­sa’s Pride I thought I’d post a screen­shot here so the for­mat­ting is better:

Okay, that’s it for me. Have a great week­end, everyone!

Wel­come to mid Novem­ber! This year is just prac­ti­cal­ly gone! Okay, so this Sat­ur­day Sta­tus isn’t a week­ly thing any­more. Sor­ry about that. I’ll at least check in every month (Mom!)

Work in Progress News ~ Still plug­ging away on Let­ters from Vic­tor. I’m deter­mined to fin­ish this one by the end of the year. If I don’t, you each have my per­mis­sion to thwap me next time you see me.

Favorite Song of the Week ~ “Geez, Alan­na! When are you going to get tired of post­ing Pen­ta­tonix songs?” Nev­er, okay!? This one is from their new Christ­mas album, though the song itself isn’t very Christ­masy. The lyrics are actu­al­ly a bit dis­turb­ing, but I did some Googling and learned that the lyri­cist says they’re just non­sense so don’t read any­thing into them, just enjoy. Plus the clap­py thingie is cool.

Back­list News ~ I have GREAT NEWS! My inter­ra­cial (bmww) novel­la At Ease has been picked up by Samhain Pub­lish­ing! Samhain is one of my two favorite pub­lish­ers to work with, and I real­ly could­n’t be hap­pi­er. This puts all of my men in uni­form togeth­er at Samhain, too. At Ease was my only book with Ellora’s Cave, and there are a lot of words to describe how I feel about get­ting AE back in my hot lit­tle hands and right into Samhain’s. If you’re fol­low­ing the EC news, you’ll under­stand what I mean. I’m tempt­ed to change the title, since there’s not a whole lot of mil­i­tary ref­er­ence in the book, as the title sug­gests, but we’ll see what my edi­tor thinks. Have you read At Ease? What do you think? Change the title, or add more military?

Tweet of the Week ~

Hey Mr. Tam­bourine Man, play a song for me. *Tam­bourine Man shakes tam­bourine for sev­er­al min­utes* Well that sucked.

— John Lyon (@JohnLyonTweets) July 12, 2014

Indus­try News ~ FINALLY, Ama­zon has buried the Hachette! (Sor­ry, I had to.) No, it was­n’t a total­ly one sided thing, and I think every­one came out of this at least a lit­tle bit hap­py. I think. Source

What I’m read­ing ~ Rid­ing Wild is book one of a six book series by Jaci Bur­ton, so it’s an old­er book (2008). This one is chock full of romance and suspense.

Mac Can­field was the last man Lily West expect­ed to see again, nev­er mind aim her gun at. But there he was, the bad boy who’d bro­ken her heart years ago — still a thief, hijack­ing a price­less arti­fact — and it was all she could do to push aside the mem­o­ries of how it felt to have his per­fect­ly chis­eled body next to hers.

Today’s Tear­jerk­er ~ Okay, I always lose it on mil­i­tary home­com­ing videos. This one has a twist. This sol­dier’s wife is sur­pris­ing HIM! If you don’t soak two tis­sues, check your pulse.

Book Snip­pet ~ From Tes­sa’s Pride:

He toyed with her oval belt buck­le, and her libido sprang to life with his prox­im­i­ty. She want­ed to feel his hands on her. It would be so easy to help him undo her belt. Then the zip­per on her jeans. Instead she stared up at him, expect­ing him to dis­ap­pear into a fine mist if she so much as moved a mus­cle. Only when he pulled her shirt from her waist­band and slid his cool hand up her warm abdomen did she suck in a sharp breath.

“Stop me, Tes­sa. If you’re going to stop me, do it now, because I’m about to lose myself in you.”

Stop him. Should she? She opened and closed her mouth a few times as she tried to fig­ure out what to say. She swal­lowed. “We shouldn’t…”

“Prob­a­bly not,” he agreed, “but I want to.”

That’s it for me. Hope you all have a great week. Stay warm out there, unless you’re in Aus­tralia, then stay cool!

<—THIS is autumn in Wyoming. We’re actu­al­ly get­ting an autumn here! It’s so pret­ty. I can see why it’s a favorite for many. So yet anoth­er Sat­ur­day where I haven’t much to report, but here I am anyway.

Work in Progress News ~ Plug­ging away on Let­ters to Vic­tor, my sto­ry about the ski patrol. It’s com­ing along, just not as quick­ly as I wish it were. I might be dis­tract­ed by Octo­ber baseball…

Favorite Song of the Week ~ This Amerindi­an music is Peru­vian with a mod­ern kick. I get goosebumps.

Only very tal­ent­ed musi­cians can dance like that then play any kind of wind instru­ment with that kind of con­trol. Believe me.

Tweet of the Week ~

My refrig­er­a­tor just walked to my bed­room, opened the door, stood there and stared at me for five min­utes, then it closed the door and left.

— Chez McCor­vey (@CelebrityChez) July 24, 2012

Indus­try News ~ I’ve got noth­ing new. I guess no news is good news? So there’s some good news.

What I’m read­ing ~ Look at this: Thir­teen amaz­ing authors, thir­teen mil­i­tary m/m romances. One dol­lar. You can’t lose. I also can’t post all 13 blurbs here, but click on that cov­er to read them from Amazon.

Today’s Tear­jerk­er ~

Book Snip­pet ~ From Tak­ing Her There:

“Late­ly I haven’t been work­ing. Just a whole lot of star­ing and cussing. Maybe a lit­tle scream­ing.” He took her emp­ty glass and set it beside his.

“Try music?” She cud­dled back against him.

“From rap to opera. I think I’ve tried every­thing.” He reached down to cup her ass through her robe. “But with this kind of dis­trac­tion, why would I want to focus?”

“Oh now, don’t blame me. I don’t want the gov­er­nor on my ass. I’ve man­aged to stay off polit­i­cal naughty lists so far.”

“You’re naughty?” He rolled them both over until he had her pinned beneath him. “I think that’s half your appeal.”

“Only because you’re naughtier.”

That’ll do it for me. See you next week!