Saturday Status

Alanna Coca

Sat­ur­day already? Wow, sum­mer weeks go by so quick­ly. Well, here we go, my week­ly report

New Release News~ I got a great email from Cari­na Press, the pub­lish­er for Alan­na’s book Pre­View. Her roman­tic sus­pense comes out in about six weeks, and Cari­na Press is already plan­ning some great pro­mo­tions. It’s going to be released dur­ing their Roman­tic Sus­pense Week. I’m not going to divulge the pro­mo­tion plans, but I’m very excit­ed to be a part of them. More info as soon as plans are final­ized. If you like your love sto­ries with a lit­tle bit of heart pound­ing excite­ment, then mark the first week of Sep­tem­ber on your calendars.

Works In Progress News ~Well, I passed 20K on my m/m nov­el. Then two days ago I woke up with not only a plot, but the first para­graph and even the con­flict for a short sto­ry, so I had to drop every­thing to write it while it was still fresh in my mind. Now I used to do this often, but being scat­ter­brained is usu­al­ly frowned upon, so I worked hard on focus­ing on one WiP at a time, and tried to fin­ish. The prob­lem with that is when I get stalled, rather than work on some­thing that’s speak­ing to me, I just end up star­ing at the blank page. So call me a flighty pantser, but that’s how I roll. So this new one will be about 12–15K, a con­tem­po­rary m/m friends-to-lovers theme, which I’ve always want­ed to write. If it con­tin­ues to write itself like it’s been, I might have more for you soon.

Indus­try News ~ I touched on the fact that Bor­ders was clos­ing, and that seems to be the big indus­try news this week. I’m see­ing a lot of tweets from the pub­lish­ing indus­try reach­ing out to the Bor­ders employ­ees with employ­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties, which real­ly warms my heart. Com­ic Con was held in San Diego, and while I don’t think my style would ben­e­fit from attend­ing such a con­fer­ence, the news com­ing out of Cali sounds like there was fun had by all attendees.

Real Life News ~ I’m not going to go on and on about how beau­ti­ful the weath­er up on top of this moun­tain is. I won’t tell you that I read news about heat waves and triple dig­its as I’m sit­ting out­side in the per­fect Wyoming weath­er. But I will enjoy it, because as much as I com­plain about my weath­er from Sep­tem­ber through June, you’re just going to have to give me July and August. Aren’t you glad I did­n’t say any­thing about the weath­er? In oth­er news, I gouged my shin on some aggres­sive Rub­ber­maid stor­age con­tain­ers, and it looks like my first time shav­ing with a real razor. Hey, I nev­er promised any­thing inter­est­ing in these updates.

Search Term of the Week aka How peo­ple found my web­site ~ One very spe­cial Googler found Alan­na’s web­site by search­ing: “rip her up nos­tril cocaina”. No. I did not make that up. How could I pos­si­bly make some­thing like that up? I’m pret­ty sure it’s from a Googler whose native lan­guage is not Eng­lish, but I doubt they found what they were look­ing for.

Hero Quote ~ A new fea­ture begin­ning this week. A quote from one of my heroes, just for fun. This week I’ve got Mar­cus from Posi­tion Secured:

“It was damn hard to con­cen­trate on that perp when I knew you were there. I don’t know how many times I won­dered if you were naked under that robe before I focused on my job.”

Favorite Song of the Week ~ Speak­ing of weather…okay you prob­a­bly know the Nor­we­gian group A‑Ha from their 80’s hit Take On Me, or more accu­rate­ly, the pen­cil-draw­ing-real-life video that went with it. No, A‑Ha was­n’t a one hit won­der. In fact they have sev­er­al hits in the US, and they’re still togeth­er and tour­ing Europe. This song came out in the nineties, and I must say I like it bet­ter than the orig­i­nal. Let me know what you think. I’m a suck­er for harmony.

I think that will do it for me. I hope you are all enjoy­ing sum­mer as much as I am. Thanks for stop­ping by.

 

Six Sentence Sunday 7/17/11

Alanna Coca


Welcome!

Today I’m shar­ing six sen­tences from my con­tem­po­rary west­ern titled Retreat avail­able at all major ebook dis­tri­b­u­tion sites, and also in paper­back. More info here. These six come right after their first kiss (which was just way too many sen­tences to post here. Sor­ry lol)

His eyes danced over her face for a long moment before lift­ing his chin with resolve.

“My wife,” he paused over the word, “Lau­ra, is the sta­ble manager.”

She pulled out of his arms and backed a step away; the blood that col­ored her cheeks now sank to her toes. “Oh, oh God Jake … Jacob. I’m sor­ry. I didn’t know.” She cov­ered her now-swollen lips with a tremu­lous hand.

“Yeah.” He adjust­ed his hat.

Retreat is the book that I always for­get that I wrote. When I tell peo­ple about my books, I seem to always over­look this one, and when I opened it up today to find six sen­tences, I kept find­ing things that I’d for­got­ten all about. I should read this again! I swear I wrote it!

Any­way, enjoy all the oth­er snip­pets from the rest of the S3 Par­tic­i­pants, and we’ll see you next week!

 

Saturday Status 7/16/11

Alanna Coca

Hap­py Sat­ur­day! I hope you’re all out there enjoy­ing sum­mer to it’s fullest potential!

 

Works In Progress News ~ Plug­ging away on Olivi­a’s con­tem­po­rary m/m. It’s titled Jack­son (no, it’s not set in the ski resort town, that’s one of the hero’s names) When I get a lit­tle fur­ther along I’ll come up with a blurb for you. I already have plans for a sec­ond book in the series, but we’ll have to see how these guys shape up in the end. I end­ed up cut­ting a whole lot because it just was­n’t right, so I’m back at 18K right now. If I was­n’t such a pantser, I’d tell you more, but I’m just along for the ride here!

Indus­try News ~ Kin­dle is rumored to be devel­op­ing a tablet device. No news yet on cost, but com­pe­ti­tion from Ama­zon is always  good, espe­cial­ly for those of us look­ing for a tablet, but not will­ing to sink half a grand into one.  There are also rumors about a new Kin­dle ver­sion to be released lat­er this year.  Fur­ther Read­ing  Also sad news com­ing from Bor­ders book stores, looks like liq­ui­da­tion is in their future. As much as I love my ebooks and gad­gets, I hate see­ing few­er book­stores out in the world for book lovers. Fur­ther Reading

Real Life News ~We have a say­ing around here: Wyoming has two sea­sons. Win­ter and Con­struc­tion. You think that’s a joke, but actu­al­ly it’s a warn­ing for tourists. But real­ly we do have sum­mers. They’re short but spec­tac­u­lar. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, since they’re so short, the entire region has to cram a year’s worth of con­struc­tion into six weeks. So…since I’m a night owl, and can work well into the wee hours, bright and ear­ly every morn­ing I’m awak­ened by the beep­ing and diesel rum­bling of big yel­low trucks. sigh A small price to pay for snow­less days though, so I won’t complain…much.

Search Term of the Week aka How peo­ple found my web­site ~ While I might have men­tioned a time or two about my celeb-crush on Derek Jeter, I tru­ly can’t see how some­one who is search­ing the web for him could pos­si­bly find my blog. Sure­ly my one or two…or five…or maybe ten…mentions of Derek put my blog on Google’s page 500 or so on the Derek Jeter Search Terms. I’d like to think that it’s one of Derek’s pub­lic­i­ty team mem­bers search­ing for men­tions online so that Derek can come along and per­son­al­ly thank me for being a #1 fan. I’d bet­ter buy a new outfit.

Favorite Song of the Week ~ March­ing On by Tim­ba­land (pic­tured above) and One Repub­lic. OR released this song with­out the Tim­bo influ­ence, but I pre­fer this ver­sion. Sor­ry, I guess there’s not an offi­cial video, just this fan-made one.

Okay folks. That’s it for me. Have a great weekend!

Six Sentence Sunday 7/10/11

Alanna Coca

Hap­py July Tenth! Today is my state’s 121st birth­day! Wooohoo! I’m going to cel­e­brate by read­ing a whole bunch of six sen­tence snip­pits. How about you? 🙂

This week I’m shar­ing six sen­tences from my upcom­ing roman­tic sus­pense Pre­View, which will be pub­lished Sep­tem­ber 5 from Cari­na Press:

Ryann ground her fore­head into her bent arm and leaned into the show­er wall. The hot water beat down onto her back. Steam had built to such a lev­el that she was bare­ly able to see the var­i­ous bot­tles of beau­ty prod­ucts lin­ing the stall. Tak­ing a deep breath was out of the ques­tion; the air in the show­er was too hot and thick. As much as she want­ed to relax and purge her mind of the dream, when­ev­er she closed her eyes it would replay, start­ing with the deep twist­ing in her gut.

Some­thing isn’t right.

Hope you all have a great day. Enjoy sum­mer while it lasts!

Saturday Status

Alanna Coca

Well, here we are again. Anoth­er week flew right by. I’d like to say I was so busy writ­ing, but um…I keep get­ting dis­tract­ed. I love sum­mer, but I can’t wait until the kids are back in school! The sweet dog in the pic­ture here is Patrick. He was res­cued from the jaws of death at the hands of an abuser on St. Patrick’s Day. I just love the look on his face here. We could learn a lot from this guy.

Works In Progress News ~ Still work­ing on Olivia’s m/m WiP. I real­ly want­ed to get it to 20K before my tweet count hit 20k. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, that didn’t hap­pen. It’s just over 18K right now, and the first steamy scene is behind me. My tweet stream is mov­ing right along as well, thank you very much.

Indus­try News ~ A British “jour­nal­ist” wrote an arti­cle last week detail­ing why (in her opin­ion) romance nov­els are bad for women and rela­tion­ships. There are a lot of dis­agree­able points in her arti­cle, such as only eleven-some per­cent of books men­tion con­dom use (uh…what?!) but the biggest prob­lem I have is that she seems to think that women can’t dis­tin­guish between fic­tion and real­i­ty. Which is insult­ing. Fur­ther Reading

Upcom­ing Events ~ I will be at the Nine Naughty Nov­el­ists on the 12th. I won’t give away my post top­ic. Not because I don’t want to tell you, but because I haven’t fig­ured it out yet. I’m tak­ing suggestions!

Real Life News ~ It’s Rodeo Sea­son in Wyoming. That means lots of traf­fic and tourists–and cow­boys! Don’t be jeal­ous. I’ll try to take pic­tures. There’s a car­ni­val in town, and I’m pret­ty damn proud of the fact that my youngest doesn’t know about it. I’ll prob­a­bly take her today though. Pray for me.

Search Term of the Week ~ Behind the scenes here, it shows me inter­net search terms that find my web­site. I get some doozies. I thought I’d share my favorite here. This week? ” irish dragged through the door” Why? Don’t ask me. I just hope that Googler found what they were look­ing for.

Favorite Song of the Week ~ Total­ly SFW. In fact, get your kids to watch, so they can try it out.

That’s about it for me. Have a great weekend!

Six Sentence Sunday 7/3/11

Alanna Coca

 

Tis the week­end for patri­o­tism! Cana­da Day on Fri­day, and Inde­pen­dence Day on Mon­day! I searched through my pub­lished books for six patri­ot­ic sen­tences. I could­n’t find any, but I did notice that more than one set of char­ac­ters enjoy our nation­al pas­time. Base­ball! I won­der where they get that.…blush Here are six from my book Fine Print:

“The Braves made it fif­teen innings–that run in the end was bull­shit and you know it.” Derek spoke into the phone, using his free hand around Kara’s waist to keep her beside him amid the throngs of sta­di­um evac­uees. “No way; keep your Angels, man. The Braves are gonna pull out of this slump.”

Kara liked to lis­ten to Derek talk. His voice was com­mand­ing, but not abra­sive, and low enough to vibrate against her.

I’ll have you know that I don’t like the Braves. At all. But thanks to my cov­er art request error, I end­ed up with an Atlanta sky­line (I got my books mixed up, okay?) I had to change Derek from a Rangers fan to a Braves fan dur­ing edits. I can’t tell you how much that hurt me (Apolo­gies to Braves fan). In con­so­la­tion, his name is Derek, in homage to the best short­stop in his­to­ry. sigh

Any­way, enjoy your hol­i­day week­end, and have fun read­ing the pletho­ra of SSS Posts,  all list­ed at the offi­cial web­site.

Saturday Status

Alanna Coca

It’s been a while since I post­ed any­thing oth­er than my Six Sen­tence Sun­day snip­pets. Not that I have much to say, and not that I think any­one but my mom reads my blog snort. I thought I’d start post­ing an update every week. This way any­one who hap­pens to stop by can see that I actu­al­ly do more than tweet all day (occa­sion­al­ly) and maybe see­ing the same update every week will give me moti­va­tion to get off  my butt and write!

Back­list News~ Noth­ing going on with my back­list. Movie rights are still up for sale, and Oprah’s off the air. Dammit. 

New Release News~ Pre­View is all edit­ed! For those of you who read Pre­ja Vu, it’s the same sto­ry, just refreshed, re-edit­ed, re-cov­ered, and will be repub­lished at Cari­na Press in ear­ly Sep­tem­ber. Just in time for Cari­na’s Roman­tic Sus­pense Week! I know, I haven’t shared the cov­er with the world, but as soon as I get per­mis­sion, I’ll do that. The blurb is on Goodreads, so you can see what it’s all about there. 

Works In Progress News ~ I’ve got about three works I’d love to fin­ish as Alan­na. One is a roman­tic sus­pense, as yet unti­tled, that I was shar­ing six sen­tences at a time every Sun­day. Unfor­tu­nate­ly it got to a spot where it would bore you to tears to read it like that, so I’ve stopped post­ing. The file name is Park­er, and it’s at about 16,000 of an esti­mat­ed 60,000 words. I haven’t touched it in weeks though. I’m also work­ing on a con­tem­po­rary with a para­nor­mal twist. No title for that either, its file name is Ian. (Can you tell I title my WiPs as my hero names? Yeah, I’m a dork.) Ian’s only about 8K. I plan on it end­ing up around 60K as well. I’ve also got an his­tor­i­cal west­ern with a  trea­sure hunt plot. That one’s been per­co­lat­ing in the back of my mind for a while, and I real­ly like the char­ac­ters there. Unfor­tu­nate­ly Olivia has tak­en over the lap­top, she seems to think that her m/m con­tem­po­rary is more impor­tant than all of my oth­er works. She’s pret­ty pushy too, so I give in. 

Indus­try News ~ I found it very inter­est­ing that JK Rowl­ing is releas­ing her Har­ry Pot­ter series in dig­i­tal for­mat, and all by her lone­some. Good on ya JK! Wel­come to the future! Her plan is genius. Read about it Here.

Upcom­ing Events ~ I’ll be guest blog­ging at the Nine Naughty Nov­el­ist’s blog lat­er this month. I met most of these ladies at the RT con­ven­tion in LA ear­li­er this year, and I just want­ed to turn into a rav­ing fan­girl who dress­es like the NNNs. They’re a great bunch of ladies, and a whole lot of fun, espe­cial­ly with PG’s wine and choco­late. But I digress, link to my guest blog com­ing soon. 

Real Life News ~ The weath­er on top of this moun­tain is gor­geous. Our sum­mers are enough to make 90% of you drool with jeal­ousy. Not too hot, not too cool. The only prob­lem is they’re not too long either. Got­ta enjoy these months while we can! Also, my daugh­ter turned 16, and I haven’t seen her since. Hav­ing anoth­er dri­ver in the house is pret­ty handy. I don’t think I’ll have to “run to the store because I ran out of _____” for months. 

Favorite Song of the Week ~ On My Lev­el, by Wiz Khal­i­fa, fea­tur­ing Too Short. Love the bass on this, and the low har­mo­ny. Imag­ine me cruis­ing down these small-town streets with this song cranked loud enough to shake the mir­rors. Yeah that’s me. NSFW video:

I sup­pose that’s it for this week. Any top­ics you’d like to see a week­ly rehash on the blog? Oth­er­wise, see you tomor­row for Six Sen­tences from either one of my Works in Progress, or a pub­lished work. I haven’t decid­ed yet. Thanks for stop­ping by! 

Six Sentence Sunday 6/26/11

Alanna Coca

Well, I know I was post­ing six sen­tences of my work in progress, but I think I was bor­ing you to tears, so it’s time to move along.

This week I’m shar­ing six sen­tences from my first nov­el, Wyoming Solace. An his­tor­i­cal west­ern love sto­ry set in the Snowy Range Moun­tains here in Wyoming.

Since when was laun­dry such an enjoy­able chore?

Elise stooped beneath the shade of a cot­ton­wood, drenched with soapy water and her own per­spi­ra­tion, but she’d nev­er felt bet­ter. She remem­bered her maid Amelia crouch­ing over the laun­dry tub. Although she nev­er com­plained, nor accept­ed Elise’s offer to help, the job didn’t look exhil­a­rat­ing in the least. Now, she took out years worth of frus­tra­tion on the can­vas work pants, which filled her with a sense of accomplishment.

A strand of blonde hair escaped her braid, and she brushed it from her cheek with the back of her hand.

It’s nice to revis­it my old­er sto­ries. Like old friends meet­ing for coffee 🙂

Have a great week. See you next Sun­day! Again, vis­it the oth­er SSS par­tic­i­pants HERE.

 

Sexy Summer Solstice

Alanna Coca

Wel­come to the JustRomance.Me Blog Hop! It begins right HERE if you want to find the beginning.

It’s the Sum­mer Sol­stice! The longest day of the year, and a day filled with myths and leg­ends all around the globe. Here in Wyoming, there is a ranch called Crim­son Dawn. Folks gath­er to sit around a bon­fire and tell sto­ries before par­tic­i­pants make a wish as they toss a hand­ful of red dirt on the fire. In hon­or of the cel­e­bra­tion, I’ve writ­ten the begin­ning of my take on the event, and some oth­er blog­gers have picked up where I left off. Enjoy!

Jessie Bolton sat astride her mare, shak­ing her head at the diverse crowd step­ping off the KISS FM 93.7 tour bus. They had come from all over the coun­try, and Jessie imag­ined that not one of them had ever been to Wyoming, let alone the top of Casper Moun­tain. Crim­son Dawn Ranch had host­ed the annu­al Sumer Sol­stice gath­er­ing since the 1930s. Some say a woman’s ghost haunts the area, but Jessie didn’t believe it. She’d worked at Crim­son Dawn since she’d turned six­teen and had nev­er seen any­thing but pranks and hoaxes.

Jessie grinned, and nudged her horse into the clear­ing to greet the new­com­ers. Per­haps this year would be more enter­tain­ing than the oth­ers. These nine folks had gone to great lengths to win the trip to Crim­son Dawn to take part in the Sol­stice Cel­e­bra­tion. Sure­ly there was at least one trick­ster in town who would come up with a prank for these city slickers.

“Howdy!” Jessie swung out of the sad­dle, hand­ed the mare off to one of Crimson’s cow­boys, then knocked the dust from her gloves. “Wel­come to Crim­son Dawn. I’m Jessie.”

The man in front of her looked down his long nose, but did reach for her out­stretched hand. “Dr. Mar­tin Santorini.”

Ah yes. She remem­bered his infor­ma­tion. The “world famous” geol­o­gist that Jessie had nev­er heard of. She tried not to gig­gle at his pre­ten­tious atti­tude, or his han­dle­bar mus­tache. Who knew they still made wax for those? “Wel­come, Mr. San­tori­ni. I hope you enjoy your–”

“That’s Doc­tor Santorini.”

Some­one in the crowd snort­ed, but it didn’t seem to both­er the geol­o­gist. He wan­dered away and Jessie focused on the next in line.

“Hi, I’m Car­la Hilde­brand. So excit­ed to be here! I kept expectin’ cow­boys and Indi­ans in stage­coach­es and stuff, ya know? I’ve nev­er even set foot out­side Geor­gia, so I’ll be takin’ lots of pic­tures.” To prove her point, Car­la snapped one of Jessie’s deer-in-the-head­lights look. “I’ll have to post these on my blog. Karl is just gonna shit. Karl’s the cook where I work. He thought I was pullin’ his leg about win­nin’ this trip. I nev­er win any­thing!” She squealed and snapped anoth­er picture.

Jessie stepped aside to offer her hand to the next new­com­er. Oh yeah. This had to be Jer­ri Carl­sile, the strip­per from Atlantic City. Fake boobs, fake hair, fake tan…even a fake smile.

“I’m Jer­ri. I don’t sup­pose you sell those boots in your gift shop, do you? They’d go great with one of my outfits.”

“Uh…no. I’m sor­ry. Maybe on your way back to the air­port the dri­ver can stop somewhere–”

“You’re too damn cute.” Jer­ri winked and snapped her gum before saun­ter­ing away.

Jessie focused on the tight-faced woman in flow­ing pais­ley silk. Her eyes were the light­est blue Jessie had ever seen. She found that she couldn’t look away from the direct stare.

“Zoe Red­ner, darling.”

Oh. The psy­chic. Jessie hoped her eye­brow didn’t quirk as it was known to.

“I do hope you don’t spend your entire sum­mer up on this moun­tain. There is a lot of ener­gy in this area. Not all of it kind.” Zoe spread her hands out, palms down. If she was get­ting a read on the grav­el beneath their feet, Jessie hoped the psy­chic wasn’t afraid of rattlers.

“I’ve heard sto­ries, but I’ve spent a lot of time at Crim­son Dawn. Unfor­tu­nate­ly I haven’t seen any­thing extra­or­di­nary myself.”

“You need to close your eyes…and open your mind.”

With that, Zoe flared her nos­trils and walked away. Jessie couldn’t hide her bemused grin as she faced the next vis­i­tor. This had to be Phineas Wal­ton. The Com­put­er pro­gram­mer from Day­ton Ohio blinked rapid­ly, as if he was fil­ing images away in his bril­liant brain. Jessie had nev­er met a “geek” who looked this good. Before she could check him out too thor­ough­ly, he reached for her hand and pumped it vig­or­ous­ly “I’m Phineas. Very nice to meet you. Tell me you have Wifi.”

Jessie laughed. “Yes we do. After the cer­e­mo­ny I’ll get you all set up in your rooms for the night.”

“Great!” He pulled out his smart­phone and tapped the screen.

“Hel­lo. Lindee Pen­ton. I’m the astrologer for the New York Cen­tu­ry magazine.”

The man beside her cleared his throat.”And I’m Will Tread­worth. I have a real job.”

Lindee’s face flared with col­or. “I swear to God, Mr. Tread­worth. If you don’t shut your trap about my career, you can expect a scathing review of your lat­est arti­cle by my colleague.

Will shrugged. “Big deal. What’s your cir­cu­la­tion, fifty?”

Lindee’s lips turned white, but Jessie was glad to see that she spun away rather than con­tin­ue the argument.

Mak­ing a men­tal note to change the Tread­worth and Pen­ton rooms from con­nect­ing to oppo­site ends of the floor, Jessie shook Corey Thurston’s hand. Strange how cops looked like cops even in street clothes. He did have a nice smile though, and the scar on his cheek only added to his attractiveness.

After scratch­ing behind Offi­cer Thurston’s Ger­man Shepard’s ears, Jessie turned toward the last man off the bus. He wore head to toe black. From his Stet­son to his boots, and even his long duster. She peered through the shad­ow of his hat and caught sight of a black goa­tee, and an equal­ly dark expression.

“John,” he growled. He didn’t offer his hand, and Jessie was a lit­tle relieved. John P. Smith was the only one of the KISS FM win­ners that hadn’t both­ered to fill out the per­son­al infor­ma­tion sec­tion on the pre-noti­fi­ca­tion packet.

“Wel­come, John.” As intrigu­ing as the man was, she forced her­self to face the group. “Wel­come all of you! We’ve got some great sto­ry­tellers lined up for this after­noon’s sol­stice. We’re set up just around this bend. Tonight we’ve saved you the best van­tage point for the bon­fire. The sol­stice will arrive in less than an hour, so we’d bet­ter get set.”

As Jessie led the mot­ley crew down the path, the grav­el beneath her boots hummed.  She shook her head. She did­n’t believe in witch­es, war­locks or fairies. It was just anoth­er day out of the year.

Right?

 

Thanks for stop­ping by today. At the end We’ll be chat­ting on Sat­ur­day evening (7pm EST)  at Gem’s Place. Hope to see you there!

Sexy Summer Solstice Blog Hop

Alanna Coca

Hel­lo! I’m so glad you stopped by. I hope you’re enjoy­ing the JustRomance.Me Blog Hop! Click HERE to find the begin­ning. I’m pick­ing up the Crim­son Dawn Ranch thread. For some rea­son the strip­per Jer­ri and the K9 cop Corey begged me to tell their sto­ry, so I went with it. I did­n’t have a choice.

Corey Thurston scooped up a hand­ful of red dirt and faced  the bon­fire. The crowd behind him was solemn. Corey pinched his eyes closed so no one could see them roll. As if his wish­es would come true just because he’d sat through local per­form­ers and sto­ry­tellers pro­claim­ing Crim­son Dawn Ranch’s mag­i­cal aura. He almost laughed out loud and threw his hand­ful of dirt on the fire. Sure­ly the myth­i­cal crea­tures would help Corey in his quest to get in that exot­ic dancer’s pants tonight. Sti­fling a smile, he gave his dog Kevlar the hand sig­nal and the Ger­man Shep­ard obe­di­ent­ly fell into step beside him. As they made their way back to the crowd, Corey glanced at the woman for whom he’d just wished car­nal knowledge.

Jer­ri Carlisle met his gaze steadi­ly. In fact with the glim­mer of the roar­ing fire, Corey could have sworn there was lust behind those clear blue eyes. Per­haps there was. She’d spent the entire bus ride read­ing from a very erot­ic romance nov­el. She’d shared a few pas­sages aloud to the enjoy­ment of the rest of the pas­sen­gers. Corey had shift­ed in his seat to hide his inter­est, and he could­n’t help but notice her squirm­ing too. Now, as the flames from the bon­fire reflect­ed in her eyes, he did­n’t both­er to hide his inter­est. He let it show in the flick­er­ing orange light.

He returned to his spot, and forced his focus back on the fire. He absent­ly scratched behind Kev’s ears, as the rest of the par­tic­i­pants threw their dirt on the fire.

“I’m dying to know,” a whis­per came close to his ear. “Just what does a big tough…sexy cop like you wish for?”

He did­n’t have to turn to know it was the strip­per teas­ing him with her sweet breath and if he moved back just a lit­tle, he could feel her breasts brush against his back. “Now Miss Carlisle, you know that I can’t tell you that. My wish won’t come true.” He turned his head just enough to see her from the cor­ner of his eye.  From her prox­im­i­ty, he could­n’t tell if she licked her lips or if he just imag­ined it, but it took every ounce of willpow­er to turn away rather than kiss her.

“And maybe,” she whis­pered again, this time he felt the brush of her lips against the rim of his ear. “Your wish was the same as mine…”

He reached behind him, brush­ing his fin­gers along her bare thigh. “I guess we won’t know unless they come true.”

“Then in my case, we should know by sun­rise.” With that she pulled away from him, and he lis­tened to her foot­steps in the grav­el. When she’d walked a few steps far­ther than her orig­i­nal spot, he gave in to his curios­i­ty and checked over his shoulder.

Jer­ri had looked over her own shoul­der to meet his gaze from the grow­ing shad­ows of the tree. The crack­ling fire was drowned out by the pound­ing in Corey’s ears. With­out anoth­er thought, he spun on one heel and fol­lowed her, Kev on his heels. He caught up with her at the front door, where she slipped a key card  behind the waist­band of his pants, com­ing way too close to his erection.

“Room one-oh-five. Five minutes.”

Corey wast­ed no time in get­ting Kev set­tled into their own room on the third floor. The place was all but aban­doned. Every­one in the coun­ty must be at that bon­fire. Corey grinned. When room one-oh-five opened silent­ly to reveal Jer­ri Carlisle’s naked body reclined on her bed, he decid­ed that maybe wish­es real­ly did come true at Crim­son Dawn Ranch.

Makes you want to find a hand­ful of red dirt, right? And maybe a sexy dream come true too.

I’m throw­ing in win­ner’s choice of my back­list to the grand prize pot, but I’m hold­ing a spe­cial con­test for my read­ers here. All you have to do is com­ment, and you’re eli­gi­ble to win the very first down­load of my brand-spank­ing new release Cov­er Sto­ry, com­ing to ebook stores every­where on Mid­sum­mer’s Day, June 24th.

Good luck!

Six Sentence Sunday 6/19/11

Alanna Coca

Wel­come back!

Anoth­er big list of SSSers today. Good gravy, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get to all of the sites like I used to!

Brynn groaned. “Was it bad?”

“Naw, but I shaped them into my ini­tials. I like to leave my mark you know.”

She rolled her eyes. “Go. I want water.”

“I knew you were going to come out of this with your diva intact.” Cade chuck­led on his way out.

Be sure to check out the oth­er SSSers on the Offi­cial Web­site!

Six Sentence Sunday 6/12/11

Alanna Coca

Wel­come! I’m like #90-some­thing on this linky list, so I know you’ve got plen­ty to visit.

Okay, on with the sto­ry. Brynn has just awak­ened from surgery after being stabbed in a hotel park­ing lot.

“You’ll be hap­py to hear that the only dam­age done was to your TVA.  The knife hit right in that gap between your stom­ach, pan­creas, and liv­er, miss­ing every­thing impor­tant.” He winked. “I was hop­ing I’d get to donate a kid­ney or some­thing, make you indebt­ed to me for life, but it didn’t work out that way.” He pressed on her stom­ach, and Brynn winced. “Good…perfect. I closed you, so you can thank me for your beau­ti­ful scars.”

That’s it for me! (Don’t count sen­tences…) If I have any med­ical pro­fes­sion­als, please don’t judge! This is a rough rough draft so I could have some stuff wrong lol. Have a great week everyone.

Six Sentence Sunday 5/29/11

Alanna Coca

Wel­come to SSS Alan­na Style! And Hap­py Memo­r­i­al Day week­end every­one! I won’t chat much, I know there are lots of posts this week­end, so I won’t take up too much time. Con­tin­u­ing the sto­ry with Bryn­n’s friend Susan by her side in the hospital.

“They can’t talk to her now, she just woke up. Tell them they can’t both­er her.”

Cade ignored Susan. “I’ll let the nurs­es know you’re awake. They’ll do the whole,” he threw up air quotes, “com­fort thing.” Cade snapped the blood pres­sure cuff to the instru­ment on the wall, and as it did its job, he pulled the blan­kets back to check her bandages.

Okay, these six sound rude, but I don’t think Cade would talk to just any patient that way. At least I hope not! Off you go…many more six­es to read! Find them all at the Offi­cial Site.

 

 

New Cover

Alanna Coca

Michael from Boooknib­bles made this beau­ti­ful cov­er for me, as I relaunch For a Price. Start­ing June 1, you’ll find it at a low­er price! Begin­ning with Ama­zon Kin­dle, All Romance Ebooks, Barnes and Noble, and Goodreads. Even­tu­al­ly I’d like to get it every­where else also. I absolute­ly love the cov­er. Thanks Booknibbles!