Sat­ur­day again! And it’s Octo­ber, which means awe­some base­ball! Except my team did­n’t make it to the post­sea­son, I still had fun watch­ing all year. So who do I root for to win it all?

Work in Progress News ~ I’ve been work­ing on my ski patrol sto­ry, titled Let­ters from Vic­tor. Maybe I’ll get it done before ski sea­son! Would­n’t that be great? I’ll put sweet choco­laty offer­ings on my Muse’s shrine, we’ll see if that helps. I signed up for the Romance Times con­ven­tion in Dal­las in May of 2015, and I refuse to go with­out a new book out, so maybe that will light a fire under my butt.

Favorite Song of the Week ~ Kei­th Urban’s new one. And his HAIR IS BACK YOU GUYS!! I real­ly like this song, but I might need a NSFW warn­ing on the video…whoo weee!!

Back­list News ~ As of  tomor­row, my book AT EASE will no longer be avail­able. I got the rights back from Ellora’s Cave, and it will be off the shelf as I pon­der its new home. I’m ridicu­lous­ly hap­py about this.

Tweet of the Week ~

I woke up with my cred­it card lay­ing on my key­board. I can’t wait to see what drunk me bought for sober me.

— 333Nat (@_NTFG_) Jan­u­ary 20, 2013

Indus­try News ~  It’s not real­ly news any­more, but a cou­ple of weeks ago, dig­i­tal first erot­ic romance pub­lish­er Ellora’s Cave came under scruti­ny, then filed suit against their scru­ti­niz­ers. There are sev­er­al blog posts that explain the whole sit­u­a­tion bet­ter than I could.  Here You Go.  That should do it.

What I’m read­ing ~ Noth­ing new this week, I’ve been re-read­ing some old favorites. I can’t be the only one who does this, right? I mean seri­ous­ly, there are some books I just can’t get enough of. If they were made of paper they’d be pret­ty worn right now. Plus, I find it eas­i­er to fall asleep to a book I’ve already read. I’ve got plen­ty of books in my TBR, but if you’ve read some­thing recent­ly that you loved, let me know! My TBR can nev­er be too big.

Today’s Tear­jerk­er ~

Book Snip­pet ~ From Let­ters from Vic­tor, my work in progress:

“I’m not in the habit of get­ting guys stu­pid drunk to seduce them.”

Nathan set both bot­tles of water on the glass cof­fee table and leaned in. “Good thing then, because I’m not stu­pid drunk. I’ve got just enough in my sys­tem to make me think that bring­ing you here is a very good idea. And don’t wor­ry. You’re not the one that’ll be doing the seducing.”

Okay, that’s it for me. Hope you guys have a great week­end! If you’d like to join in on the Sat­ur­day Sta­tus parade, just use the hash­tag #Sat­ur­daySta­tus so I can find you on Twitter.

Hel­lo! We’re sneak­ing up on what some of you call “Autumn”, but it’s just pre-win­ter to me.  Hop­ing the weath­er stays mild enough for the leaves to change col­ors before they freeze and drop dead.  (Why do I live here again??)

Work in Progress News ~ Dean start­ed talk­ing to me! I feel so hon­ored. I’ve been able to focus on him for a few days now, and it feels good!

Favorite Song of the Week ~ 97 year old Fred Sto­baugh wrote a poem about his late wife, and the good folks at Green Shoe Stu­dio put it to music and made this very cool video. Please feel free to sup­port Fred by pur­chas­ing this on iTunes or Ama­zon. If you can see through your tears to click. This is so good, it dou­bles as today’s tear­jerk­er! Okay, I’m cheating.

Tweet of the Week ~

“No thanks, I’m veg­e­tar­i­an” is a fun thing to say when some­one tries to hand you their baby.

— Tyler Schmall (@tylerschmall) August 19, 2012

Indus­try News ~ A new Kin­dle! The Kin­dle Voy­age, which is a lighter, thin­ner, and sharp­er Paper­white. There are a lot of pret­ty cool fea­tures on it, but my favorite is the etched glass, which gives it the feel of paper. Seri­ous­ly! You can have it all for a dol­lar under $200. At this point, I’m hap­py with my Paper­white. Just like I’m not camp­ing out for a new phone this week either. I’ll just caress a paper­back as I’m reading.

What I’m read­ing ~ A new one by Cameron Dane’s alter ego Jamie Urban! Jamie writes a lit­tle less intense scenes than Cameron, but I love her both ways. This is a friends to lovers GFY-ish.

Book Snip­pet ~ From Retreat:

“I don’t trust myself around you Andi. You come near me, and I for­get every restric­tion I’ve forced on myself.” His voice turned husky, like the low voice of a sen­su­ous jazz singer. His breath in her ear was the music.

“I’m sor­ry. Do you want me to go?” Her eye­lids were sealed, and she couldn’t seem to lift them to his.

“Yes. I do. I want you to get far away from me.” His state­ment was belied by the actions of his mouth, his hands, his hips. “I want you to start dress­ing in long heavy robes and veils so I can’t see your sweet body and gor­geous face. I want you to stop using that per­fume that dri­ves me to dis­trac­tion when you walk past me.” He pressed his hard arousal against her, and caught his breath. “I want you to make me for­get what it was like with you.”

Okay, so it’s a short report this week. You guys have a great weekend!

Howdy! I missed last week’s sta­tus, and yes­ter­day I had com­put­er issues, so it’s real­ly a Sun­day Sta­tus.  I still have the issues, but I found a workaround. Why don’t these machines last for­ev­er? I haven’t even worn off the let­ters on this key­board yet 🙁 I’m shar­ing a pic­ture of Derek Jeter, because of course I’m shar­ing a pic­ture of Derek Jeter.

Work in Progress News ~ Work­ing away on a book that I don’t even have a work­ing title for. Usu­al­ly I name them after my hero, but he’s still John Doe until his per­son­al­i­ty shines through. One of these days a John and Jane will stick! That would be very strange…

Favorite Song of the Week ~ So a video edi­tor had a day off or some­thing. Found a bunch of ama­teur videos on YouTube, and mixed them into this orig­i­nal work:

Tweet of the Week ~

Big butts: do you like them? Lying: can you? Oth­er broth­ers: can they deny? More at 11

— Ris­to­lable (@Ristolable) August 24, 2014

Indus­try News ~ There is so much I want to tell you but I can’t. Please do Google.

What I’m read­ing ~ I start­ed on Jen­nifer Bernard’s Fire­man series. I’ve met Jen­nifer in real life, and she’s such a great per­son, and I do love every word she pub­lish­es. Fire­fight­er Patrick “Psy­cho” Calla­han earns his nick­name every day. Fast, fit, and a furi­ous work­er, he thrives on the dan­ger which helps him for­get a near-tragedy that changed his life for­ev­er. But when his off-duty carous­ing gets out of hand, Patrick is sent back to Love­less, Neva­da, where the wild­fire threat­en­ing his home­town has noth­ing on siz­zling Dr. Lara Nelson.

Lara would rather be thought of as the physi­cian who returned to Love­less than as the mis­fit brought up at a hip­pie New Age com­mune. But right now she’s focused on her job at hand, patch­ing up injured firemen…until the past hits her in the hard-mus­cled, blue-eyed form of Patrick Calla­han. Now, the embers of their decade-old attrac­tion have ignit­ed into a full-on infer­no, as the bad-boy fire­fight­er and the good doc­tor take a walk on the wild side they’ll nev­er forget.

Today’s Tear­jerk­er ~ This daugh­ter moved the date of her wed­ding so her father could attend. Then she made sure he got the first dance with the bride.

Book Snip­pet ~From Pre­View, my roman­tic sus­pense. It’s a short snip­pet, but it makes me smile:

“I have noth­ing to say to you.” Unless one would count the new names she’d made up to describe him, but she didn’t have that kind of time.

“Maybe not, but I have some­thing to say to you, and you can either lis­ten to me right now, or you can hang up and I’ll—”

She hung up.

Okay, that’s it for me. I hope you stay warm and snow-free until at least autumn. I don’t think I’ll be so lucky.

Wel­come! It’s the end of August, and already it’s cooled down here enough to make me turn on my heater 🙁 Why do I live here again? I missed last week’s sta­tus because I was in St Louis! And yes, it was HOT there, so maybe I’m just nev­er happy.

Work in Progress News ~  I’ve been hop­ping around on wips this week. Haven’t accom­plished much to speak of on any of them, but it feels good to stay busy. School start­ed on Mon­day, so I’ve got no excuse not to type my fin­ger­prints off.

Favorite Song of the Week ~ Every Breath You Take — or as my daugh­ter calls it “the stalk­ing song” by the Police as cov­ered by UB40. Because every song needs reggae-ified.

Back­list News ~ This week­end All Romance Ebooks is hav­ing a 30% rebate, and all of my titles (both Alan­na Coca and Olivia Brynn are includ­ed! It’s a great week­end for romance.

Tweet of the Week ~ I laughed ridicu­lous­ly hard after read­ing this:

Just plucked out a nose hair that was con­nect­ed to my entire cen­tral ner­vous sys­tem and now my nose is leak­ing spinal fluid.

— EEEANJAY (@blondenorsky) Jan­u­ary 21, 2014

What I’m read­ing ~ While I was in Mis­souri, the newest San­dra Brown’s newest book came out! I’m just start­ing it now. So excited!

Dr. Emory Char­bon­neau, a pedi­a­tri­cian and marathon run­ner, dis­ap­pears on a moun­tain road in North Car­oli­na. By the time her hus­band Jeff, miffed over a recent argu­ment, reports her miss­ing, the trail has grown cold. Lit­er­al­ly. Fog and ice encap­su­late the moun­tain­ous wilder­ness and par­a­lyze the search for her.

While police sus­pect Jeff of “instant divorce,” Emory, suf­fer­ing from an unex­plained head injury, regains con­scious­ness and finds her­self the cap­tive of a man whose vio­lent past is so dark that he won’t even tell her his name. She’s deter­mined to escape him, and will­ing to take any risks nec­es­sary to sur­vive. 

Unex­pect­ed­ly, how­ev­er, the two have a dan­ger­ous encounter with peo­ple who adhere to a code of jus­tice all their own. At the cen­ter of the dis­pute is a des­per­ate young woman whom Emory can’t turn her back on, even if it means break­ing the law. Wrong becomes right at the hands of the man who strikes fear, but also sparks pas­sion.

As her hus­band’s decep­tion is revealed, and the FBI clos­es in on her cap­tor, Emory begins to won­der if the man with no name is, in fact, her res­cuer from those who wish her dead — and from heartbreak.

Today’s Tear­jerk­er ~

Book Snip­pet ~ From Posi­tion Secured:

He stood straight, and Mari felt the first stir­rings of embar­rass­ment. What had she just done? She didn’t even know him! She avoid­ed look­ing at his face, but he cra­dled her chin in his hand and tilt­ed her head back so she couldn’t help but look into two blue eyes.

Damn, her fan­tasies were good. She’d pegged this guy, right down to that glassy look. His pupils had dilat­ed. His breath came fast against her cheeks.

“Now that we got that out of the way, I think you can relax a lit­tle bit and enjoy the rest of this.”

She swal­lowed. “The rest?”

He grinned. A cocky, preda­to­ry smile that only tilt­ed one side of his mouth, but crin­kled both eyes with mirth. “We’re just get­ting start­ed.” He took her hand and, like one hyp­no­tized, Mari fol­lowed him as he backed into her room and sat her on the bed. He strad­dled her knees and stood inch­es in front of her. She had to look way up to see him.

Okay folks. Enjoy your Labor Day Week­end. Grill some deli­cious foods, put your feet up, and send sum­mer off with a bang!

Wel­come! What an awful week news-wise. I’m still bro­ken up about Robin Williams’ pass­ing. You know how there’s a small hand­ful of celebri­ties that feel like they’re “yours”? Like no one under­stands them or appre­ci­ates them like you do? Robin was one of those guys for me. He remind­ed me a bit of my broth­er, a bit of my father, and a bit of sev­er­al favorite uncles all put togeth­er. I’ll miss him for a long long time.

Work in Progress News ~ Still work­ing on Jack­son. I did­n’t get a whole lot done this week though. I think my muse is on an extend­ed vaca­tion. I have no excuse, so I won’t even both­er try­ing to rea­son why. sigh At what point do I have to call myself a “For­mer Author”?

Favorite Song of the Week ~ AKNU. Three broth­ers. What do you guys think?

Tweet of the Week ~

If I did have a thigh gap, I’d prob­a­bly just use it to sneak can­dy into the movie theater.

— Lin­da in Dis­guise (@LindaInDisguise) May 27, 2014

What I’m read­ing ~ A new Cameron Dane book!
Ex-con David Joyn­er returns home know­ing he must atone for his past sins. Work­ing at an ani­mal shel­ter, David keeps his head down, des­per­ate to prove to a hos­tile town he’s a new man. The one time David looks up, he spots fel­low motel dweller Ben, and is ter­ri­fied by his attrac­tion to the man. David doesn’t want to feel any­thing. He can only dam­age what he loves. 
On a forced vaca­tion, PI Ben Evans accepts a job to tail a recent­ly released pris­on­er. What begins as an easy gig turns com­pli­cat­ed when Ben, a con­trolled man, can’t deny the pang of empa­thy he feels for his sub­ject, David. Ben can’t sup­press his aggres­sive sex­u­al desires when­ev­er he’s near David either. 
Repeat­ed­ly cross­ing paths, David and Ben do their best to fight their grow­ing attrac­tion. When pas­sion explodes, and secrets are revealed, both men have to con­quer inner demons in order to accept the oth­ers love. 
Some­one has turned the tables on David, though, stalk­ing him and leav­ing threat­en­ing notes. Will any­one believe David if he tells? And when David’s stalk­er rais­es the stakes, can Ben find the man who has become his world in time to save their love?

Today’s Tear­jerk­er ~ Be sure to watch to the end.

Book Snip­pet ~ From Last Call:

“Josie?”

“Hm?”

“How do you feel?”

She stretched, then ran her hands down his arms until her fin­gers linked with his. “I feel great.”

“Not hun­gover at all?” He brought their hands tighter around her, hug­ging her against his front.

“My throat hurts, I must have been talk­ing too loud. A bit of a headache, but not too bad.”

“That’s good, because I want to take you out.”

She was qui­et for so long, he start­ed to won­der if he’d blown it. No mat­ter, he’d do it again in a heartbeat.

“Out?”

“Yeah, you know. We could start with lunch…maybe some putt-putt golf.” He stroked the soft skin of her stom­ach. “I have three days off from work, and I know that you’re…you know…unobligated.”

“I don’t know,” she rolled onto the mat­tress beside him and propped her­self on her elbows. “My mom­ma warned me about boys. They just want one thing.”

“Did she warn you about fire­men?” He kissed the tip of her nose.

She gig­gled. “I know they han­dle some pow­er­ful hoses.”

Howdy! Wel­come back. If you reached this post via social media, you’re one of the lucky ones! 

No sta­tus last week, since I was part of the JustRomance.Me blog hop. I know the three of you out there in the world real­ly missed my sta­tus post. (Hi, Mom!) 

Work in Progress News ~ Back to work on Jack­son. I don’t know why, he’s just the guy who start­ed talk­ing when I opened the WIP fold­er, so I’ll keep writ­ing as long as he keeps talk­ing. This is a stand­alone (at least for now) M/M. It’s actu­al­ly a GFY, and I’m hes­i­tant. Hope I can pull it off. Luck­i­ly I have a pletho­ra of M/M authors I can rope into giv­ing me advice on this thing. 

Favorite Song of the Week ~ New coun­try duo, new label, new sin­gle. I’m gonna have to say these two are going to be pret­ty big. This song is great for many reasons:

Tweet of the Week ~

Damn girl, are you an apos­tro­phe? Because you’re real­ly pos­ses­sive and always jump in at the end and change what I’m try­ing to say.

— seag­ull (@seagullski) July 24, 2014

Indus­try News ~ Ama­zon has begun “same day deliv­ery” in very lim­it­ed areas (and with very lim­it­ed mer­chan­dise options). I don’t think they get to use drones yet though, so I’ll hold out for that! I’m still hop­ing Hatch­ette and Ama­zon will work out their dif­fer­ences before my favorite author San­dra Brown’s book comes out lat­er this month. If not I’ll have to read a hard­back copy like the old days!

What I’m read­ing ~ Oh, you guys. I read a hor­ri­ble book, and by chap­ter two I knew I was going to hate it, and I kept read­ing any­way. By chap­ter five I had sev­er­al pas­sages high­light­ed where the hero is such a JERK! I mean rude and mean and lots of fill in the blank­ish­ness. I should­n’t have wast­ed my time, but this was writ­ten by a fair­ly well known author, so I fig­ured I must be miss­ing some­thing. Any­way, I won’t be show­cas­ing it here for you because I’m pret­ty dis­ap­point­ed that I won’t get those few hours of my life back.

Today’s Tear­jerk­er ~

Book Snip­pet ~ From my wip Jack­son, because I feel like sharing.

Noah slouched over his whiskey, try­ing like hell to ignore the dry-hump­ing cou­ple on the seat beside him. He’d get up and move, but the place was packed, and he had to hold onto this bar stool or he’d end up stand­ing against the wall. Fac­ing the crowd. That would lead to eye con­tact. Eye con­tact led to conversation.

Noah wasn’t here for con­ver­sa­tion. He was here for nine­ty min­utes and as much alco­hol that his twen­ty dol­lar bill would buy. Unfor­tu­nate­ly it wasn’t much, so he nursed his drink until the ice melt­ed. He showed up fif­teen min­utes before this bus­load of bar-hop­ping col­lege stu­dents. If there is a God, they’ll get bored and look for a club with dancing.

All right, you guys.  Foot­ball has already start­ed, and base­ball is still in full swing (haha!), but go out and enjoy these few remain­ing sum­mer weekends.

Hey guys! We’re near the end of July, and I feel like I haven’t squeezed enough enjoy­ment out of sum­mer yet! I’ll have to plan a camp­ing trip soon or some­thing. I real­ly need to move some­where that has a longer season.

Work in Progress News ~ Plug­ging away on my “bed and break­fast” wip. Reg­u­lar blog read­ers know that I name my wips after the Hero. This one is so fresh that I don’t even have a name for him yet. It takes a while for the char­ac­ters’ per­son­al­i­ties to shine through enough to name them, so right now they’re “John and Jane Doe”. Got any good hero names you’d like to share?

Favorite Song of the Week ~ If you are active on any sin­gle social net­work­ing site, you’ve seen this. Prob­a­bly mul­ti­ple times, but as an author, I just gotta:

Tweet of the Week ~

Pro tip: When in an awk­ward sit­u­a­tion, stop, look around, & say “Oh boy”. They’ll think you got Quan­tum Leaped and give you time to catch up

— Pete Lynch (@PJTLynch) May 21, 2013

What I’m read­ing ~ Sep­tem­ber Moon by my friend Tri­na M Lee came out last week while we were in Las Vegas. If you haven’t read the series, now is your chance. The first FOUR full length nov­els are bun­dled togeth­er and at a spe­cial low price of FREE. It’s a great series, and Sep­tem­ber Moon just takes it to the next level.

Death is com­ing for Alexa O’Brien. 

Alexa must stop Shya from claim­ing Lilah’s vacant throne. If the demon suc­ceeds all hell will break loose. Form­ing alliances is a chal­lenge. The vam­pires hate her and the wolves don’t trust her. Rebel­lious vam­pire activ­i­ty cre­ates ten­sion between Alexa and the FPA. It gets ugly when the covert gov­ern­ment oper­a­tion learns that Shya needs her as a sac­ri­fice.

The strain of what’s to come is weigh­ing on both Arys and Alexa. Arys’s need to pro­tect her is as strong as his grow­ing desire to kill her. Haunt­ed by visions of her death at his hand, Arys can no longer trust him­self. The strength of their bond is about to be put to the test.

Today’s Tear­jerk­er ~

Book Snip­pet ~ From For a Price, which is FREE at all e‑tailers!

He kissed her. He couldn’t help it. It was awk­ward and some­what dan­ger­ous the way they prac­ti­cal­ly fell out of their chairs, but it was worth it. He released her when the wait­er cleared his throat. He’d for­got­ten that they’d ordered ice cream. Nick watched her take two bites, and tried to keep his thoughts away from the erot­ic things her chilled tongue could do to him.
“Tell me why.”
The spoon froze in her mouth. She looked at him curi­ous­ly, then pulled it through her lips. “Tell you why what?”
“Why…you’re still a vir­gin at twenty-four…”

Well folks, that’s it for anoth­er week. Hope you all have a great one.

Hel­lo! I’m back from the Romance Nov­el Con­ven­tion! Here I am with my best author bud­dy Tri­na M Lee. If you’re inter­est­ed in more pic­tures from the con­ven­tion, I post­ed them on Flickr, and of course I post­ed a bunch of Vines if you like six sec­ond videos. So I took some time off to recov­er from the trip and now I’m already anx­ious to get start­ed again, so that’s a good sign!  Now if only I could pick a wip to work on…

Favorite Song of the Week ~ I’m hav­ing a hard time cat­e­go­riz­ing this song. But the mes­sage is fun: Meghan Train­or’s All About That Bass:

Back­list News ~ There’s still time to get Flipped and Fine Print for FREE at Smash­words! 

Tweet of the Week ~

don’t cry for the spi­ders you acci­den­tal­ly eat while asleep bc they know mouth spelunk­ing is dan­ger­ous but can’t resist the adren­a­line rush

— hun­tigu­la (@huntigula) July 17, 2014

Indus­try News ~ By now you’ve prob­a­bly heard about Kin­dle Unlim­it­ed. It’s like the Oys­ter for Kin­dle devices. The good part is the fact that you don’t actu­al­ly need a Kin­dle device to par­take in Kin­dle Unlim­it­ed. For $9.99 a month, one can read as many books (in the KU selec­tion) as one wants! The prob­lem I see with it are the fact that it’s only going to have Kin­dle Select books in it (so authors have cho­sen to keep books off all oth­er venues) and a few oth­ers. Although I would nev­er make my books avail­able on only one plat­form, Select seems to be pop­u­lar with some authors, and more pow­er to them. I hope KU is a big hit for their sakes.

What I’m read­ing ~ On a Night Like This by Bar­bara Freethy. It’s FREE right now! (I got it in a box set). Inci­den­tal­ly, it’s also enrolled in Kin­dle Unlim­it­ed. Click the cov­er to open an Ama­zon tab.

The sec­ond old­est of the Call­away clan, Aiden Call­away veered from the fam­i­ly tra­di­tion of urban fire­fight­ing and became a smoke­jumper, nev­er ques­tion­ing his choice until the job took the life of his friend, Kyle, and left Aiden with injuries and frac­tured mem­o­ries. Every­one blames Aiden for what hap­pened, but he does­n’t remem­ber, nor is he sure he wants to remem­ber. The truth may clear Aiden of blame but destroy Kyle’s rep­u­ta­tion and hurt the peo­ple he left behind. Aiden seeks help from an unlike­ly ally …

Sara had always been untouch­able, sweet, inno­cent, his sis­ter’s best friend, and the girl next door. But one reck­less night in their youth took their rela­tion­ship to a new lev­el. Sara has nev­er for­giv­en or for­got­ten the way Aiden brought it crash­ing down, but she’s no longer that girl with the crazy crush. She’s a woman in search of her own truth.

The sparks between Aiden and Sara have been smol­der­ing for a very long time. Sara is afraid to take anoth­er chance on a man who broke her heart, and Aiden knows bet­ter than any­one how dan­ger­ous an intense fire can be. As teenagers they weren’t ready for each oth­er. Are they ready now?

Today’s Tear­jerk­er ~ Anoth­er com­mer­cial. Sor­ry, but these adver­tis­ing guys know their stuff!

Book Snip­pet ~ From Flipped:

Mario was only one of three peo­ple in the world who knew Carter’s his­to­ry. Hell, Mario knew every­thing there was to know about Carter, and though the man loved to talk, he had nev­er once betrayed that con­fi­dence or teased him about the incident.

At that thought, Carter real­ized the car was qui­et. Rarely did Mario even turn on the radio, since he’d just turn the vol­ume down or talk over it any­way, but now there was­n’t even any chat­ter to fill the emp­ty space.

Carter glanced across at Mario, whose brow was fur­rowed. The dis­turbed expres­sion was unchar­ac­ter­is­tic. Even more so than the silence.

Carter tossed his phone onto the dash. “Maybe next time we try the new place on Nine­ty-sec­ond Street. I hear they have half-price well drinks dur­ing hap­py hour.”

“Sounds good.” Mar­i­o’s voice was rough, as if he was dis­tract­ed and answer­ing on rote.

“Or we could go to a coun­try west­ern bar. Swing dance with some ladies.”

“Okay.”

Yeah, Mario was­n’t lis­ten­ing. Carter turned to the win­dow to hide his grin. “We could always just stay home and play Scrabble.”

“You cheat.”

He glanced over at Mario and encoun­tered a raised mid­dle fin­ger. “You think I was­n’t listening?”

“I told you, you did­n’t have to leave the club. I could have grabbed a taxi.”

“And I told you I was done.”

“Then why are you being such a prick?”

Mar­i­o’s face melt­ed into a mis­chie­vous smile. “You are what you eat.”

Okay, enough from me, you’ve got a beau­ti­ful sum­mer week­end to enjoy! See you all next week.

Wel­come! I’m head­ed to Las Vegas this week to join in the fun at the Romance Nov­el Con­ven­tion. Any­one close by? I’d love to chat. I’ll be the pale girl sweat­ing in the shade. It’s 73 F here now and it could­n’t be more per­fect. Still, I’m very excit­ed to vis­it with my fel­low authors, espe­cial­ly Tri­na M Lee!! Be sure to fol­low me on Twit­ter if you’d like to see some pho­tos and Vines of my adventures.

Work in Progress News ~ Ugh.

Favorite Song of the Week ~  An oldie but a good­ie. This just hap­pens to be play­ing as I write out this sta­tus report.

Tweet of the Week ~

Next time at the mar­ket, take a fruit out of some­one’s bas­ket, smell it, and say “mmm. Ripe. Con­grat­u­la­tions”. Means a lot.

— josh groban (@joshgroban) July 2, 2014

What I’m read­ing ~ A Mea­sured Risk by Natasha Black­thorne. I was in the mood for some his­tor­i­cal stuff and breezed through this one: 
Emo­tion­al­ly scarred in the hor­rif­ic acci­dent that took her hus­band’s life, Lady Cran­field is impris­oned by her lin­ger­ing ter­ror of hors­es and car­riages. She longed to be clos­er to the fas­ci­nat­ing Earl of Ruel. She sensed intu­itive­ly that he could teach her how to over­come the ter­rors that held her in bondage. 
And now she’s will­ing to risk almost any­thing-her rep­u­ta­tion, even her virtue-to find out. But what he pro­pos­es star­tles her. 
When the shy, stu­dious and social­ly awk­ward young wid­ow approached him, Ruel instant­ly sensed she would be the sweet­est, most sub­mis­sive expe­ri­ence of a life­time-if only he can gain her total and com­plete trust. He makes her a non-nego­tiable offer. His help in return for her sub­mis­sion and obe­di­ence. 
But Lady Cran­field grew up neglect­ed by her ducal par­ents, raised by ser­vants and then lat­er ignored by her hand­some, charm­ing hus­band. She’s learnt to pro­tect her heart at all costs and she trusts no one but her­self. 
How can the jad­ed Earl of Ruel break through her self-pro­tec­tive defences and show her how to love when he has spent his life­time avoid­ing that ten­der trap?

Today’s Tear­jerk­er ~ Okay it’s a com­mer­cial for a home improve­ment store, but it’s so good!

Book Snip­pet ~ From Fine Print, (which inci­den­tal­ly along with Flipped has a 100% coupon at Smash­words, so check that out!)

“Okay…so what are you going to do?”
“Well, on Fri­day morn­ing, I’m fly­ing to Can­cún. I want you to go with me.”
Kara sat upright, and faced him. “What?”
“It’s a week­end trip, nei­ther of them want­ed to take off of work, so they want­ed a long week­end. Can­cún is a short flight.” He spoke calm­ly, and he looked seri­ous, which was odd, con­sid­er­ing the off-the-wall propo­si­tion he had just made. “Fly out at ten a.m., fly home Sun­day at sev­en p.m. Of course, you’ll need to take Fri­day off, do you think…”
“Are you serious?”
“Of course. The tick­ets are non-refund­able, and I don’t want to waste them. I also sprung for a two bed­room suite that I was told sleeps six. From the pic­tures, it looks like a great loca­tion, huge swim­ming pool, right on the beach…”
“But…I can’t go to Can­cún with you!”
“Why not?”
Kara opened her mouth, then shut it when her planned words would make her sound like an old fud­dy-dud­dy prude. She looked around her emp­ty liv­ing room, hop­ing for a way out of this. As if some­one would pop out from behind Max’s lazy boy and tell her she was on a hid­den-cam­era tele­vi­sion show. “I can’t just take a day off from work for no reason.”
Even to her ears that sound­ed lame, but maybe it would buy her time.
“Call in sick.” He dragged her back against him.
“I can’t do that!” She did­n’t struggle.
“Why not?”
“My GM is a friend of mine. I could­n’t lie to him.”
“Good. Then tell him the truth. You have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to go to Can­cún for the week­end, and you’ll see him on Monday.”
“But…”
“Am I going to have to call your sister?”
Well, that shut her up. With­out think­ing, Kara glanced over at the pic­ture of Kris that sat in a Mick­ey Mouse frame on her man­tle. Her sil­ly smile as she tried to look like Goofy, the char­ac­ter who had his big felt arm around her shoul­ders. She knew what Kris would do, and she knew what Kris would say when she found out she turned down a week­end get­away to Can­cún, Mexico.

Well, that’s it for me! Thanks for stop­ping by on this hol­i­day week­end. Stay safe, if not sober 🙂

Howdy! It’s a windy day here, but what’s new? At least there’s no snow.

Work in Progress News ~ Going back to my roots, and work­ing on my west­ern set in the late 1800s.  Which means I’ve got one brows­er tab open to the ety­mol­o­gy web­site so I don’t mess any­thing up. It’s name is Jared, but that might change, it’s still a baby. I swore I’d nev­er do his­tor­i­cal again! Some­body talk me out of this!

Favorite Song of the Week ~ I love every­thing these guys do, but I’m try­ing not to use them every week. Here Pen­ta­tonix is cov­er­ing Say Some­thing by A Great Big World and Christi­na Aguilera.

Tweet of the Week ~ I hope the gif works for you. It’s so true!

This is how it feels to write a book… http://t.co/Ebi60n1l5N

— Tom Win­ter (@wintrybits) June 22, 2014

Indus­try News ~ Looks like Barnes and Noble sold off their Nook divi­sion. [source: http://nyti.ms/1lna5y9] I hope this is a good move for BN, I’d like to see some steady com­pe­ti­tion in the dig­i­tal read­ing world.

What I’m read­ing ~ Defin­ing Des­tiny by Dean­na Chase. Here’s half of the blurb: Singer-song­writer Lucy Moore thought her life was per­fect. At just twen­ty-one, she’s already met her soul mate and togeth­er they’ve land­ed a record­ing con­tract. But when her father dies and the love of her life betrays her in more ways than one, she returns home to pick up the pieces. On the shores of Men­do­ci­no, Cal­i­for­nia, Lucy has some deci­sions to make. Should she start a solo career? Or should she leave it all behind for some sem­blance of nor­mal­cy in the qui­et town she grew up in? And what about Seth, the tor­tured artist who always seems to be there when she needs him?

Today’s Tear­jerk­er ~

Book Snip­pet ~ From Falling Star:

He fol­lowed her into her house, and even into her bed­room, despite her fee­ble attempts to kick him out. “If you brought some of your things over to my house, we would­n’t have to go through this.” He peeled last night’s dress off her. Again.

“You would­n’t mind a wom­an’s things in your bach­e­lor bathroom?”

“Hell no. And when you aren’t with me, I can go in there and sniff them.”

“You’re depraved.”

“No, Depraved is what I would do after I sniffed them.”

“I think I’d like to see that.”

“I think I can arrange a pri­vate show­ing.” He pulled her into the show­er, and lath­ered the loofa while she sham­pooed her hair.

“You, sir, are a dis­trac­tion, and I can’t be late for work.”

“I’m just help­ing so you’ll be ready faster.”

“Then keep your tongue in your mouth.”

Not hard­ly. She did make it to work on time, but only because Adam drove like Mario Andret­ti. “And now I’ll have to pick you up tonight.” He kissed her cheek.

Okay folks. I’m off! Have a great week­end. Be sure to check out Dee Car­ney’s blog at http://deecarney.com to see what she’s been up to!

Howdy! It’s a breezy (as usu­al) sum­mery day here on top of this moun­tain. Isn’t this the coolest tree? It’s at a local park here. I feel like I’ve stepped into a Dr. Seuss book. I’ve got a bunch of dri­ving to do in the next few days, but I’ve got just enough time to catch you up on what I’ve been up to:

Work in Progress News ~ I haven’t accom­plished much this week. I’m so ashamed of myself. Still, I open my wip every day, and get a lit­tle bit done. Luck­i­ly I have Tri­na M. Lee who will keep me in line and focused.

Favorite Song of the Week ~ Sor­ry. I know you’re prob­a­bly sick of Let it Go. But this one is “African­ized”!

Back­list News ~ For a Price, Olivi­a’s very first pub­lished novel­la is now FREE at many retail­ers, and hope­ful­ly the rest will get with the times. I wrote this book over a long week­end, after read­ing an arti­cle about a woman auc­tion­ing off her vir­gin­i­ty. Check it out! You’ve got noth­ing to lose:

 
Tweet of the Week ~

I’m very sus­pi­cious about jog­gers They’re always the ones who find the bodies..

— Humor Like A Man (@humorlikeman) June 13, 2014

What I’m read­ing ~ The author of this book passed sud­den­ly last week. If you feel so inclined, and if you enjoy roman­tic sus­pense, you might give this a try. Every lit­tle bit will help her young fam­i­ly dur­ing this dif­fi­cult time. I hon­est­ly haven’t read it yet, but it real­ly looks good!

For two years, State Troop­er Kayne Dobres­cu has want­ed only one thing: to under­stand why his wife inex­plic­a­bly killed their chil­dren and then her­self. Mem­o­ries haunt his days and lay siege to his nights, leav­ing him ques­tion­ing his rea­sons for liv­ing. 

Jes­si­ca Hall­statt became a wid­ow and sin­gle moth­er the night her fire­fight­er hus­band died in a fiery explo­sion at an acci­dent scene. While her hus­band may have died a hero, he left Jes­si­ca with deep emo­tion­al scars that haven’t begun to heal. 

When Kayne accept­ed a trans­fer to the moun­tain town of Payson, Ari­zona, he nev­er expect­ed to meet any­one like Jes­si­ca. From the moment he pulled her over for speed­ing, he was drawn in by her whiskey-col­ored eyes and sassy dim­ple. He knows she and her chil­dren are a for­ev­er type pack­age, and he’s vowed nev­er to give any­one the pow­er to destroy him again. Yet fate has oth­er ideas, throw­ing Kayne and Jes­si­ca togeth­er in a fight against an unknown ene­my to save the life of a child—and hope­ful­ly one another. 
Today’s Tear­jerk­er ~

Book Snip­pet ~ From Cov­er Story:

She pulled him down for anoth­er kiss. His tongue made danced in her mouth, his lips gen­tle but demand­ing, his hands mov­ing in per­fect har­mo­ny with the rest of his body to make her feel his kiss from head to toe. Like two teenagers dis­cov­er­ing sex, they were tan­gled in each oth­er. She only pulled away from his mouth to breathe and whis­per encour­age­ment and praise in his ear.

He looked down to grin at her. When she smiled back, he again cov­ered her lips with his.

Music. A jaun­ty tune, even muf­fled by the bed­ding rang clear through the room.

Cate bit her lip, her amuse­ment clear.

His head rose, and he grinned up at her. “They can leave a mes­sage.” He went back to his seduc­tion of her shoul­der, ignor­ing the per­sis­tent ringing.

Before it even stopped, there was a pound­ing on the door.

“I know you’re in there, Bo. I can hear your phone.”

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

I’ve been slack­ing on these sta­tus updates, and I just read Dee Car­ney’s which inspired me to get back into it! Thanks, Dee. Also, I real­ized I haven’t post­ed a RT Con­fer­ence update! I’ll do that soon too, but until then you can look through my pic­tures on Flickr. New Orleans was amaz­ing, you guys. Even if I don’t like seafood!

Work in Progress News ~ I’ve been dink­ing around on sev­er­al wips. I know, I know, I need to focus on one! But back in the old days when I used to write, this worked well for me, so I guess I need to quit ques­tion­ing it and just go with the flow.

Favorite Song of the Week ~ I can’t get enough of this song by Ush­er. I love that he’s gone back (kin­da-sor­ta) to his R&B roots with this.

That dude can dance. (rawr)

Back­list News ~ Olivi­a’s Col­lec­tion is now FREE on many sites (give Ama­zon time, it should even­tu­al­ly kick in there too.) Three novel­las for one no price!

Tweet of the Week ~

Just had 4 Dos Equis. For those of you that are not bilin­gual, that’s 8 Equis.

— Wade (@TheWadest) June 3, 2014

Indus­try News ~ So by now you’ve prob­a­bly heard about dis­pute between the world’s third-largest pub­lish­er Hachette and Ama­zon, with the lat­ter mak­ing many of the for­mer’s books either unavail­able or very slow in arriv­ing. I believe the issue is a lot more com­plex than I can under­stand, so I won’t try to unrav­el it here. There are sev­er­al very good edi­to­ri­als out there on the sub­ject if you’re in the mood to Google or Bing. Also this past week, the online mag­a­zine SLATE pub­lished an arti­cle sham­ing adults who read YA (Young Adult). You can imag­ine the back­lash from that. Can you imag­ine feel­ing shame for read­ing Har­ry Pot­ter!? Ridiculous.

What I’m read­ing ~ I’ve read sev­er­al books since we last spoke (sor­ry!) I’m cur­rent­ly read­ing The Riv­er Lei­th. Blurb: After an injury in the ring, ama­teur box­er Lei­th Wenz wakes to dis­cov­er his most recent mem­o­ries are three years out of date. Unmoored and strug­gling to face his new real­i­ty, Lei­th must cope anew with painful rev­e­la­tions about his fam­i­ly. His broth­er is there to sup­port him, but it’s the unfa­mil­iar face of Zach, a man intro­duced as his best friend, that pro­vides the calm he craves. Until Zach’s pres­ence begins to stir up feel­ings Lei­th can’t explain…

Today’s Tear­jerk­er ~

Book Snip­pet ~ From Com­pa­ny Ink by Olivia Brynn (HEY! This is in that free col­lec­tion I men­tioned above!)

Sud­den­ly Sid­ney felt very naked. Heat burned her cheeks and she squeezed her thighs togeth­er before fum­bling to latch her bra. She had three but­tons on her blouse secured before he took both of her wrists in his hands.

“Hey, hey…don’t go shy on me now.” He moved back between her dan­gling knees.

She forced her­self to look up at him. Grant Porter. Her boss. The man she’d have to report to on Mon­day with a sta­tus update on the pri­or week. The man who would give her annu­al per­for­mance eval­u­a­tion in front of the com­pa­ny CEO in three months.

Grant Porter. My lover.

She swal­lowed. As con­fu­sion and mis­giv­ings fair­ly oozed from her pores, he stood star­ing down at her with the most car­ing expres­sion she’d ever seen on a man. She licked her lips to moist­en them, and again when she tast­ed him there.

“Don’t tell me you already regret this. I’d hate it if you start­ed feel­ing uncom­fort­able around me.” He linked their hands togeth­er and squeezed. “Tell me. If I made a wrong move, tell me now. I’ll try to make it right. I can’t lose you. Not as a man­ag­er, not as a friend.” He low­ered his chin to pierce her with his intense gaze. It was the same expres­sion that had made her quiver in the seat just a few feet away ear­li­er today. “Not as a lover.”

That’s it for me this week! I’ve com­mit­ted to being bet­ter at this blog­ging thing, so expect anoth­er sta­tus update next week from both Dee and me. Have a great weekend!

Wel­come! I hope you’re all hav­ing a good time hop­ping around the web vis­it­ing all of us! I’m sure you’ll find an author or three that inter­ests you! If you’re just hap­pen­ing upon this post, be sure to click the pho­to below to get on the guid­ed blog tour by justromance.me. We’re hav­ing a lot of fun already, you don’t want to miss out.

So I don’t know about you, but when I heard the theme for this week­end’s hop, Fool For Love, I imme­di­ate­ly thought about Elvis. I was going to post all the Elvis videos with Fool in the title, but wow, there are a lot. Do your­self a favor one rainy day and Google that.

If you like Elvis.

After get­ting rock n roll out of my sys­tem, I wrote this lit­tle scene, only I’m inter­pret­ing the word fool to mean “to trick” as in April Fool. I hope you enjoy:

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Okay, that’s it for me. If you’re look­ing for more tastes of my books, be sure to check out my Free Reads by Alan­na Coca and Olivia Brynn. Enjoy the rest of the blog hop!