It’s a beau­ti­ful day up here on top of this moun­tain. A dust­ing of frozen dew on the ground, but clear skies and no wind! It’s going to be a great weekend.

Work in Progress News ~ I’m back to work­ing on Dean. I’ve been bounc­ing around my wip file all week, and real­ized that my next con­fer­ence is just over two months away, and I would real­ly like to have some­thing to pro­mote while I’m there. There’s no rea­son I can’t fin­ish this book, so back at it I go.

Favorite Song of the Week ~ It’s March, which means you get to hear some of my old favorite Irish tunes! You’re wel­come. Dúlamán is a very old song, sung in Irish here, reworked for this a capel­la choir. You’d nev­er believe they’re singing about seaweed.

Back­list News ~ Today is the LAST day to get all of my Smash­words titles free for Read an Ebook Week! They’re fea­tured here at Smash­words, along with hun­dreds of oth­er titles either free or at a dis­count. Have fun!
Tweet of the Week ~

I’m sor­ry I licked your face but you’re wear­ing a Boba Fett shirt and I don’t make the rules.

— Mis­tress Jedi (@JediGigi) Feb­ru­ary 26, 2014

What I’m read­ing ~ Anoth­er his­tor­i­cal romance from the box set I pur­chased a while ago that’s now no longer avail­able. This one I’m just start­ing, so I don’t yet know much about it, but here’s the blurb: Mis­tak­en Identity
Dirick of Derk­land cares about noth­ing but seek­ing vengeance for his father’s bru­tal death. When the beau­ti­ful and spir­it­ed Maris mis­takes him for her betrothed, sparks ignite, and he sud­den­ly finds him­self torn between hon­or and the only woman who may be able to heal his soul.
A Whis­per of Rosemary
Maris is a gift­ed heal­er who can cure many ills with the herbs in her gar­den. But can she find a rem­e­dy for the dan­ger and decep­tion that threat­en to keep her from the man she loves?

Today’s Tear­jerk­er ~ One of the most pow­er­ful One Sec­ond A Day videos you’ll see.

Book Snip­pet ~ From my work in progress, as yet unti­tled, a friends-to-lovers story:

John stretched. It would be best if every­one here assumed he slept like a rock. “Give me a break. I’m on vacation.”

“I know you are, sweet­ie.” Judy set a plate piled high with fluffy pan­cakes down in front of him and plant­ed a smack­ing kiss on the top of his head. “You work too hard.”

He driz­zled syrup on his pan­cakes. “Can I get that in writing?”

Kendall said some­thing. Prob­a­bly some­thing snot­ty, but John didn’t hear it. Hal­lie had opened the refrig­er­a­tor, bent over to peer inside, and John went stupid.

She’d found the “per­fect jeans” a few months ago, and bought out her size at the store. He’d seen her wear a pair just about every day. There was no rea­son for her ass to look that round. That tight. That per­fect. She straight­ened, turned, and caught his eye. For the life of him, he couldn’t look away or pre­tend he wasn’t just check­ing out her ass.

His best friend’s ass.

Hal­lie held up a car­ton of orange juice. “Want some?”

Get a grip, John. “Yeah, please.” He shoved pan­cake into his mouth and again dropped his gaze to his plate.

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

Hel­lo! Stay­ing warm out there? It’s been so windy around here, but like they say, if the wind ever stopped, the whole pop­u­la­tion would fall over.

Work in Progress News ~ I wrote a new chap­ter one, because my MCs have zero chem­istry. Now there’s chem­istry but the premise is bor­ing. Ugh! I’ve got them both open now, try­ing to decide what to do. This writ­ing stuff is hard, y’all! Maybe I’ll work on some­thing else until some­thing comes to mind. My back burn­er has like 15 flames going by the way.

Favorite Song of the Week ~ This is from my favorite B52 album. She Brakes for Rainbows:

Tweet of the Week ~

Hubs: If you could sleep with… Me: THOR!!! Hubs: …the fan off tonight, that’d be great. Me: Ohhhh…

— Ann (@writerPT) Feb­ru­ary 12, 2014

Indus­try News ~ I got noth­ing. Any news out there?

What I’m read­ing ~ The Dev­il of Kil­martin is not my usu­al read, which is one rea­son I picked it out of my TBR pile:

As the chief of the Lach­lan clan, Symon MacLach­lan vows to pro­tect the fiery-haired lass whose gen­tle touch relieves the demons claw­ing at his soul. Despite her fierce denials, he is cer­tain Ele­na is the leg­endary Lam­ont heal­er — and cer­tain that he must have her for his own.

Lov­ing the author’s voice! And there are kilts, so…

Today’s Tear­jerk­er ~ Because I can’t watch enough of these

Book Snip­pet ~ From Wyoming Solace:

“What can I do for you, Mr. Camp­bell?” She spun around to face him, clutch­ing the bed sheet to her chest. With­out pause, he cov­ered the dis­tance between them with two steps. He stud­ied her upturned face for only a heart­beat before he pulled her by the shoul­ders against his body, crush­ing the sheet between them. Her damp shirt had chilled her chest, which only empha­sized his warmth.

Stunned, she blinked a few times to cen­ter her­self. Yes, a man’s body pressed against her, the for­eign scent of tobac­co and cof­fee fur­ther evi­dence that this was indeed happening.

She gripped his shirt­sleeves to keep from melt­ing into the grav­el. When the sit­u­a­tion did sink in, her entire body tensed, indeed her inter­nal organs con­strict­ed, and her mind began the famil­iar retreat from real­i­ty. If she sep­a­rat­ed her­self, it wouldn’t hurt.

His hand, hot against the small of her back, crushed her against his ribs, while the oth­er moved around from her back up to her rib cage and to the out­er swelling of her breast.

His thumb test­ed the firm­ness, and her mind zigzagged, caught between fear and…something else. Some­thing inex­plic­a­ble tried to draw her out. Some­thing in this assault enticed her to par­tic­i­pate. She fought the temp­ta­tion. She wouldn’t relax; she couldn’t embrace this. It would turn ugly at any moment. Although, for some rea­son she couldn’t fath­om, her hands weren’t restrained in any way. Still, she wouldn’t even think about push­ing him away. It was safer that way. She wouldn’t want to anger him. And there was some­thing about the pres­sure of his fin­gers against her, the way he caressed with­out mov­ing, that intrigued more than fright­ened her.

Cody dipped his head, only to brush his lips against her ear. “My name is Cody…”

Okay, since this book is set in Wyoming, imag­ine those sheets on the line blow­ing and whip­ping around until they’re shred­ded, and these two yelling to be heard over the roar and squint­ing against the dust that’s fly­ing… Oh…sorry…that’s not very roman­tic. I’ll just leave it as is.

Work in Progress News ~ Still work­ing on Col­by, my ski sto­ry. It’s real­ly mak­ing me want to go ski­ing this year. But then I remem­ber that it’s cold out­side and I haven’t been on a pair of skis in a decade or two. This is offi­cial­ly the first book that I’ve had to write one of my char­ac­ters puk­ing, so I’d like to thank the pants­ing gods for that.

Favorite Song of the Week ~ I love The Postal Ser­vice. They rank at the top of the “things in life that end before their time” list, along with Calvin and Hobbes, Michael Jack­son, Fire­fly and sum­mers. Here they’re cov­er­ing Phil Collins’ hit “Against All Odds”:

Back­list News ~ Olivi­a’s Box Col­lec­tion is now avail­able! Three books for the price of one! I also learned that some e‑tailers don’t like 3D book cov­ers. No idea why though, they’re real­ly just 2D cov­ers with per­spec­tive, it’s not like it makes the  device screen bumpy, geez.

Tweet of the Week ~

When he said he found Jesus, I thought “Woohoo! Hand ’em over, I’m as hun­gry as a mutha­fuc­ka” cause I thought he said Cheese-Its.

— Grant Tana­ka (@GrantTanaka) Feb­ru­ary 6, 2014

Indus­try News ~ The Sony Book­store, the “Read­er Store” will close in March.  Sony announced the clo­sure and is work­ing with Kobo to trans­fer cus­tomer libraries. I’m not sur­prised so much, I’ve had a heck of a time get­ting my books to appear at Sony (read 2+ years, and they’re still not there) and with last week’s Adobe news about their DRM, this might have just pushed them over the edge.  Still, it’s always sad to see the lit­tle guys go, no one wants an Ama­zon monop­oly. Well no one except maybe Amazon…

What I’m read­ing ~ The Alexan­ders Boxed Set by M. Mal­one. I was in the mood for a quick and easy con­tem­po­rary romance, so I found this which has three in one!  These three books fol­low around the Alexan­der broth­ers (and their friends). Looks like book four comes out tomorrow.

Today’s Tear­jerk­er ~ Okay, so this is an ad for booze, but I guess liquor peo­ple have enough mon­ey to pay good agen­cies to make good ads:

 Book Snip­pet ~ from Tes­sa’s Pride:

Tes­sa crossed the car­pet again, then fid­dled with her col­lar, a habit he remem­bered from years ago, a clear indi­ca­tion she had some­thing on her mind. Then more lip chew­ing. He knew her lips had the tex­ture of rose petals, and he wished those were his teeth dent­ing the flesh. He chid­ed him­self for notic­ing the way the sun shone through her shirt, high­light­ing the curves beneath. Now wasn’t the time to remem­ber how her breasts had looked in the dap­pled shade of aspen trees. He dropped his gaze low­er, to the swell of her hips, enhanced by her snug jeans. The ass was fad­ed from hours in the sad­dle, but no hun­dred-dol­lar pair of jeans would look bet­ter on her than these West­ern work den­ims. Know­ing she had enough strength in those thighs to pin down a year­ling for tag­ging only made him want them wrapped around his hips.

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

Ah, wel­come Feb­ru­ary. Anoth­er month clos­er to sum­mer! Tomor­row being Ground­hog Day, and I’m not sure I’ll be able to watch the movie this year, thanks to the Super Bowl Com­mer­cials, but maybe Monday.

Work in Progress News ~ I’ve been mak­ing real progress on my newest m/m book, as yet unti­tled. It fea­tures a Ski Patroller, and thanks to Twit­ter I got some pro­fes­sion­al input. How did authors get any­thing done with­out the inter­net!? (How do authors get any­thing done WITH the inter­net might be a bet­ter question.)

Favorite Song of the Week ~You’ve all heard the cup song. In fact I post­ed it before it was fea­tured all over the place and played wayyy too often on the radio, but this Irish ver­sion breathes more life into this cute lit­tle song:

I’d love to find the pho­net­ic lyrics to this so I could learn it.

Back­list News ~ On Tues­day, The Olivia Brynn box set will be released to the world! That’s the cov­er above–that I just adore–created by Booknib­bles!  So if you haven’t read any of those three books, the box set is a great deal. Alan­na will get a box set even­tu­al­ly as well.

Tweet of the Week ~ Maybe the tweet of the year. I can’t stop laughing.

Don’t look at his legs don’t look at his legs don’t look at his legs don’t look at his legs don’t look at hi pic.twitter.com/JvJA4tCE1p

— Mark Hol­land (@RiffRaff41) Jan­u­ary 15, 2014

>

What I’m read­ing ~ The The­o­ry of Attrac­tion (The Sci­ence of Temp­ta­tion #1) by Del­phine Dry­den: I bought this think­ing it would be a neat lit­tle geek love sto­ry, but wow, was I sur­prised when I got into the meat of the sto­ry. Part of the blurb:

Camil­la can set her watch by her hunky rock­et-sci­en­tist neigh­bor who jogs past her win­dow each day. She rel­ish­es each glimpse of his shirt­less abs, and is dying to see more. But it’s hard to con­nect with a man who does­n’t seem to know she exists…
Ivan feels at home in the lab, not in social sit­u­a­tions. When he final­ly approach­es his attrac­tive neigh­bor, it’s not for a date—he wants tutor­ing in how to behave at an impor­tant fundrais­er. Ivan does­n’t expect the chem­istry between them to be quite so explo­sive, and is sur­prised when Cami actu­al­ly accepts his pro­pos­al to embark on a series of “lessons.”

Today’s Tear Jerk­er ~ Some­one com­piled the tweets of a woman who even­tu­al­ly died from a brain tumor. Very hard to watch, even though they’re just screen­shots of tweets:

 Book Snip­pet ~ From Tak­ing Her There:

“One sum­mer dur­ing col­lege, I spent two weeks paint­ing my very reli­gious aunt’s house right in the mid­dle of the Bible Belt. I think that’s about as close to dry as I’ve ever had to be.”

“Okay, now imag­ine twelve of your aunts and sev­er­al hun­dred recov­er­ing drunks in their paja­mas all up in your business.”

Anoth­er chuck­le. “I don’t think I want to imag­ine that. My dad threat­ened mil­i­tary school so often that I have an irra­tional fear of cam­ou­flage to this day.”

“Hah! You were a dif­fi­cult child, huh?”

“You have no idea.”

“Oh, real­ly? I’m not sure I like the idea of my dri­ver hav­ing repressed anger issues. What’s to stop you from dri­ving us over a cliff?”

“Don’t wor­ry, Miss Rowe. You’re safe with me.”

Her half-closed lids were lost on him, thanks to the tint­ed win­dow, but she couldn’t help the expres­sion and even found her low­er lip between her teeth. “You have no bad boy left, huh?”

There was a long pause before he answered. “I’m a very good boy.” His voice dropped low and dripped with sex­u­al overtones.

Ange­line crossed her legs and squirmed in her seat before sigh­ing dra­mat­i­cal­ly. “That sucks. Good isn’t any fun.”

“Try me.”

Her heart pumped, echo­ing in her ears. “Good boys don’t tease.”

“Exact­ly.”

Okay folks. Have fun watch­ing com­mer­cials tomor­row, and if you’re drink­ing, don’t drive!

 Baby, it’s cold out­side! Good thing you’ve found the hop with the hottest romance authors around.

If you’re just hap­pen­ing by my post, click HERE to get on the Blog Hop Bus. We’ve got dozens of authors signed up, and you could enter to win a 7 inch Kin­dle Fire HDX!

When I think of the phrase, baby, it’s cold out­side, I think of a cou­ple spend­ing a snowy after­noon keep­ing each oth­er warm.

I’ve got a lit­tle snip­pet of one of my books Tes­sa’s Pride that illus­trates this per­fect­ly. Tes­sa and Josh just came inside after chores on the horse ranch. It gets pret­ty chilly up in the moun­tains. So imag­ine a huge bath­tub with a view of a beau­ti­ful snow-cov­ered Mon­tana landscape…

.

.

I’ve got a free pre­quel to Tes­sa’s Pride called Tempt­ing Tes­sa. It’s at your favorite ebook store, so you can click the cov­er to down­load it and give it a try!

Tes­sa’s Pride is avail­able as an ebook and audio­book at all retail­ers for the new low price of $2.99 and low­er in some places! Click here to see more about Tes­sa’s Pride.

Thanks for hop­ping along with JustRomance.Me! Hope to see you at the hop end­ing chat, and good luck in the drawing!

Alan­na aka Olivia

Wel­come to anoth­er Sat­ur­day Sta­tus. I don’t have a whole lot to update you on this week, but I’m try­ing to get bet­ter at this blog­ging thing, and real­ly this is all I’ve got going on over here. I’ll try not to bore you. Today is a somber day, as we remem­ber the events of 12/14/12. If you have chil­dren, hug them a lit­tle bit extra. Also, I’d love it if ¹²⁄₁₄ became Ran­dom Act of Kind­ness Day. And sure, we do ran­dom acts of kind­ness every day, but today let’s bump it up! Who’s with me?

Work in Progress News ~Still plug­ging away on my Christ­mas sto­ry. I wish I’d accom­plished more than I have, but every day I add some­thing to the file, even if it’s just a few words. As I watched my home­town Christ­mas parade, I was struck with some inspi­ra­tion, and a prob­lem I was chew­ing on was sud­den­ly solved, so that’s good. Full force on Monday.

Favorite Song of the Week ~ This one went viral a few weeks ago. I’m only now post­ing it here, but I’m pret­ty sure this will be a favorite for many years. Lit­tle Drum­mer Boy by Pentatonix:

Tweet of the Week ~

“If writ­ers wrote as care­less­ly as some peo­ple talk, then adhas­dh asdglaseuyt[bn[ pas­dl­gkhas­d­fas­df” ― Lemo­ny Snick­et #writ­ing #quote #humor

— L.M. Stull (@LMStull) Decem­ber 12, 2013

Indus­try News ~ Nor­way is lead­ing the world in dig­i­tiz­ing archives. They’ve been work­ing on this project for a half dozen years, and by 2036 their entire Nation­al Library will be dig­i­tal. As if that’s not cool enough, it will make them free to read for every­one in their coun­try. Isn’t that beau­ti­ful? Let’s get on that, USA. [Source]

What I’m read­ing ~ I’ve got an Ava March addic­tion. Ama­zon knows this, and I get a lit­tle pop­up noti­fi­ca­tion when she’s got a new book out.  So I got All In with the Duke. It’s first in a series, so expect the rest. His­tor­i­cal m/m are becom­ing a favorite of mine. Take one exceed­ing­ly rich Duke, and a pros­ti­tute drown­ing in gam­bling debt and throw them together.

Today’s Tear­jerk­er ~ It’s anoth­er musi­cal video, so wait until Pen­ta­tonix is done. This flash mob sings a song writ­ten to hon­or Nel­son Mandela:

Book Snip­pet ~ From Retreat:

He ignored her protests, and squat­ted before her, to deft­ly slide his arms beneath Jessie’s knees and shoul­ders. He had to con­scious­ly keep his hands away from the curve of Andi’s breasts. As it was, the sim­ple warmth of the woman’s body made his blood race, but he hes­i­tat­ed only a sec­ond before stand­ing with the lit­tle girl in his arms, and Andi’s gaze hold­ing his. Unsteadi­ly, she stood.

“Thanks Lau­ra.” He turned to lead the way.

“You bet, boss.”

He didn’t have to turn around to know where Andi was. He heard her fol­low­ing him. He sensed her, felt her. She rushed ahead to open the front door. Ele­va­tor or stairs? The ele­va­tor was clos­er, but he would have to stand in that small cubi­cle with her and not…

He took the stairs.

Okay, don’t for­get your ran­dom act of kind­ness. I’d love to see tweets and Face­book posts or even com­ments here about what you accom­plished today. Have a great weekend 🙂

Tis the sea­son! Where I actu­al­ly don’t mind shop­ping, (much) and play my favorite Christ­mas tunes and eat lots of sug­ary sweets and com­fort foods galore! We got our first big snow­storm this week, enough to make me break out my trusty green Sorels. Also it has­n’t been above zero for a few days. If you guys want to know where the term “cab­in fever” comes from, check back with me in about five days.

Work in Progress News ~ Plug­ging away on my Christ­mas friends-to-lovers m/f short sto­ry. At least it’s short for now, who knows how this will end. I don’t expect I’ll get much done between now and the end of the year, but I’m already plan­ning a new year’s over­haul on my writer­ly work ethic.

Favorite Song of the Week ~ Maybe my favorite ren­di­tion of this song ever. I’ve got such a crush on Josh Groban, so he can do no wrong in my book, but seri­ous­ly, this guy’s pipes are pret­ty much golden.

Tweet of the Week ~

After your first drone arrives, five oth­ers will arrive bear­ing items we think you might also like.

— Ama­zon Drone (@AmazonDrone) Decem­ber 2, 2013

Indus­try News ~ So as the above tweet sug­gests, Ama­zon has announced its plans to have home deliv­ery by drone with­in the next few years. They say they’ll be able to deliv­er ordered mer­chan­dise with­in 30 min­utes. I find the prospect of drone deliv­ery fas­ci­nat­ing, though I doubt it will reach me here in the mid­dle of nowhere. [source]

What I’m read­ing ~ I’ve been work­ing my way through this boxed set of eight novel­las. It’s a great way to read new-to-me authors while still ensur­ing I’m get­ting at least one sto­ry I’ll like from an author I know and love. I’m read­ing book #6 in the set, and so far it’s won­der­ful. All eight sto­ries are cen­tered around a tat­too shop (Mid­night Ink), so the books are woven togeth­er beau­ti­ful­ly. I think novel­la boxed sets are my new favorite things.

Today’s Tear­jerk­er ~ I hope you all appre­ci­ate how many tear jerk­ing videos I go through to find just the right one to share with you here. I’m keep­ing Kleenex in busi­ness, that’s for sure. This one is kind of long, but you can skip ahead. The real mag­ic starts after most of the kids fin­ish the race at 2:35

Book Snip­pet ~ From Pre­View:

“I need to talk to you.”

She wait­ed for him to con­tin­ue. It irri­tat­ed her when he didn’t. “Go ahead.”

“No, not over the phone. I was hop­ing to meet you somewhere.”

“Right now?” Ryann shot upright. She wasn’t pre­pared to meet him. Emo­tion­al­ly or even phys­i­cal­ly. She’d have to show­er and—

“No, not right now. It’s Sat­ur­day night. I’m sure you have plans.” Again he paused. If he expect­ed her to fill him in on her Sat­ur­day plans, or lack there­of, he would be sore­ly dis­ap­point­ed. “Tomor­row. Cof­fee somewhere?”

“I don’t know.” But cof­fee was com­plete­ly innocent…

“Look. I know I didn’t make the best first impres­sion on you. I’ve apol­o­gized for that, and I hoped you were adult enough to let it go.”

“Mr. Kear­ney, there is no need to ques­tion my matu­ri­ty.” Ryann saw red again, as was becom­ing a habit with him. “If you want to talk to me, one good way to start is by see­ing me as a woman and not a flighty lit­tle dreamer.”

His qui­et laugh only made her angri­er, and she almost hung up on him

His voice dropped to an inti­mate pitch. “I know you’re a woman, Ryann.”

Okay, that’s a wrap! You all have a great week!

Here we are, Thanks­giv­ing week. Do you all have your menu ready for Thurs­day? Have your run­ning shoes all bro­ken in for Fri­day? I’ll be think­ing of you ear­ly morn­ing shop­pers as I sleep off my turkey hangover.

Work in Progress News ~ Con­tin­u­ing on my Christ­mas sto­ry. I still haven’t named my hero, he might just end up stay­ing “John”. This book is going to have a huge cast of sec­ondary char­ac­ters, and it’s a bit intim­i­dat­ing. I hope I can pull it off with­out hav­ing them all feel like card­board stand-ups. I also got inspired by a craft project that would work won­der­ful­ly as pro­mo­tion­al give­aways for this book, so it’s giv­ing me incen­tive to fin­ish it!

Favorite Song of the Week ~ A 16th cen­tu­ry Latin Christ­mas car­ol. This ver­sion is re-imag­ined by Era­sure, one of my favorite groups back in the day. (Um, actu­al­ly I think they used the same tech­nol­o­gy from back in the day to make this video, but it’s cool in a retro way.) Era­sure released a Christ­mas album this year, and it’s all won­der­ful. I love this song so much.

Tweet of the Week ~

Even Matthew McConaugh­ey him­self has no god damn clue how to spell his last name

— Logan (@PlagueLovers) Novem­ber 15, 2013

Indus­try News ~Long time blog vis­i­tors (or Twit­ter fol­low­ers) know what a huge base­ball fan I am. Okay, real­ly what a huge Yan­kee fan I am. Okay, real­ly what a huge Derek Jeter fan I am. You guys, the man’s got dim­ples! I did­n’t think there would be any way for him to get more attrac­tive, unless he joined me in the pub­lish­ing indus­try. Like maybe starts up an entire line with his name on it. Some­thing like Jeter Pub­lish­ing at Simon and Schus­ter, my favorite pub­lish­er since they pub­lish my favorite author San­dra Brown’s books. What’s that? He DID?

It’s only a mat­ter of time now before he asks me to run away with him. Stay tuned. 

What I’m read­ing ~ Sweet Chem­istry by Sep­tem­ber Roberts. [Some of the very long] Blurb: After weeks of watch­ing from a dis­tance, Kate Rhodes meets James, ignit­ing a desire nei­ther of them has pre­vi­ous­ly expe­ri­enced. Kate, a senior at Bow­man State Uni­ver­si­ty, is hor­ri­fied the fol­low­ing Mon­day when she dis­cov­ers James is her bio­chem­istry professor…

Today’s Tear­jerk­er ~

Book Snip­pet ~ From Posi­tion Secured:

He groaned. “I’m sor­ry I’m late. It couldn’t be helped.”

She slipped her fin­gers beneath his shirt and ran both hands up his back. Shit, he must be fevered, because they felt so cool against him.

“I didn’t think you’d be back.”

“I got anoth­er call.”

“Every­thing okay?”

“Take off those clothes and I’ll tell you.”

Okay folks, have a great week, and for my fel­low Amer­i­cans, have a hap­py Thanksgiving!

Howdy! I reor­ga­nized my home office, so now I can actu­al­ly use it as an office! It’s a cozy room filled with my col­lec­tion of Dis­ney’s Goofy, some of which you can see in the pic­ture. If he has any effect on my love scenes, let me know.

Work in Progress News ~ This week I worked a lit­tle bit on Dean, and a lit­tle bit on “John” my con­temp Christ­mas sto­ry. They’re all John and Jane until their per­son­al­i­ties reveal their true name, so that tells you how far along I am in that one lol. I also worked on a non-writ­ing project that feels good to com­plete, so maybe it’s incen­tive to actu­al­ly com­plete some­thing writ­ing related!

Favorite Song of the Week ~ I played the alto sax­o­phone for many years, so a sax­o­phone choir is near to my heart. Please give this a lis­ten, you won’t believe your ears.

Tweet of the Week ~

Indus­try News ~ I total­ly for­got to post here about Kin­dle Match­book! It’s a great new fea­ture at Ama­zon that offers print book buy­ers the oppor­tu­ni­ty to pur­chase the Kin­dle ver­sion of the same book for a great­ly reduced price or even free!  All of my paper­backs (except Wyoming Solace) are part of the Match­book pro­gram, and Kin­dle ver­sions are free! The best part about this, is it’s retroac­tive. Mean­ing books you pur­chased from Ama­zon since they start­ed book­selling in the mid nineties. I already took advan­tage of the pro­gram. Just look for the lit­tle info box on eli­gi­ble book pages on Amazon.

What I’m read­ing ~ This week I read an awe­some new book by Tri­na M. Lee. Freak Show comes out ¹²⁄₁₃ (It is up for pre­order though!) and I can tell you that this might be my favorite of all Alexa O’Brien Huntress books. And they’re all amaz­ing, so that’s say­ing some­thing. The first in the series is free, so go down­load it and get hooked like me!

Today’s Tear­jerk­er ~ If you’re not fol­low­ing Humans of New York on Face­book (or Twit­ter, but Face­book is the best medi­um for this guy–believe it or not the com­ments are 99% decent and kind) you’re real­ly miss­ing out. He posts won­der­ful street pho­tog­ra­phy, but his heart is huge, and he’s stepped up to help sev­er­al of his sub­jects via his online reach. Late­ly, he’s help­ing a fam­i­ly adopt a boy. 

Book Snip­pet ~ From Last Call, Olivi­a’s con­tem­po­rary short:

“No. Josie, you can’t,” he con­tin­ued. “You’re drunk.”

“I want to.” She kept her eyes closed, but she held his cheeks in her hands and spoke against his mouth. “I need this. Let me show you.” His face was rough. She out­lined his stub­ble with a fin­ger, dip­ping into his mouth when she reached it. She traced the edge of his teeth. “Kiss me.”

He did. A rough des­per­ate kiss that took over her whole body. His tongue swept her mouth, stroked every inch, con­fi­dent and sure. She moved clos­er and wrapped her arms around his neck.

All right folks. Enjoy your weekend!

Howdy! It’s been a beau­ti­ful month here on top of the moun­tain. Mild tem­per­a­tures and falling leaves, World Series (damn Sox) on tele­vi­sion, and my elec­tric lap blan­ket to keep me happy.

Work in Progress News ~ Had a cou­ple good days on my friends-to-lovers sto­ry. It’s got a Christ­mas fla­vor, so I’d like to get it fin­ished up before the hol­i­day sea­son hits! I’ve got to buck­le down before 2013 ends as a big ol bust. I’m at the point in this book where I need to fig­ure out who’s writ­ing it. Such a weird prob­lem to have!  I’m open to any suggestions.

Favorite Song of the Week ~ I’ve been lis­ten­ing to Mika’s newest album on repeat this past week. This song is very mov­ing. Sor­ry there’s no offi­cial video.

Back­list News ~Retreat, Fine Print, and Falling Star are now avail­able at expand­ed loca­tions such as Barnes and Noble, and libraries, where­as before they were only avail­able through Ama­zon. The down­side to that was that the price had to come up about a dol­lar. When all is said and done, and still I only make a whop­ping nine cents for every paper­back sold through this expand­ed dis­tri­b­u­tion, but I’d rather get it out in front of peo­ple than make a bun­dle on each sale. (If you’re think­ing of buy­ing my paper­backs (oth­er than Wyoming Solace which is han­dled by Samhain Pub­lish­ing, I’ll hap­pi­ly direct you to the store that shares the most with me 🙂

Tweet of the Week ~ I swear, every time I read this I laugh out loud. Even days lat­er. Might be my favorite tweet of all time so far.

Indus­try News ~ I’ll try to sum this lat­est ker­fuf­fle as con­cise­ly as I can. Last week, ebook dis­trib­u­tor WH Smith dis­cov­ered some “bare­ly legal” con­tent, and took the sweep­ing action of clos­ing its entire web­site down until “all self pub­lished eBooks have been removed and we are total­ly sure that there are no offend­ing titles avail­able.” (ALL!!) So then Kobo jumped on board and did the same. Twit­ter explod­ed, and the hash­tag #Koboged­don was born. Today it looks as though most titles have been replaced at the UK Kobo store, though I can’t say if mine are, since I’m only able to see the US store from here. Barnes and Noble and Ama­zon did a few key­word search­es and unpub­lished some titles that seemed to be ques­tion­able as well. Detailed sto­ry at The Dig­i­tal Reader

What I’m read­ing ~ I am strug­gling through a book. Seri­ous­ly. Not sure why I haven’t just delet­ed it off my Kin­dle, but at this point I’m 65% invest­ed, so I’ll read it. I hate when this hap­pens. I hope I did­n’t spend much on this. I also pur­chased Stephen King’s newest, and I’m try­ing to psych myself  up for start­ing it. I usu­al­ly read before bed, and King usu­al­ly isn’t good for that kind of thing.

Today’s Tear­jerk­er:

Book Snip­pet ~ From For a Price:

“Ah, Mau­reen,” he groaned. She felt him swal­low before he con­tin­ued. “I know you think I’m only after sex. I bun­gled it when I touched you that first night. And then I couldn’t keep my mind out of the gut­ter when we talked on the phone, and I can’t seem to keep my hands off of you now…” He swore, then tight­ened his arms around her. “Just know that I’m hap­py sim­ply hold­ing you like this. Don’t feel like you have to do any­thing else. I don’t want you to wor­ry tonight, or when­ev­er you’re with me. I’ll nev­er force you to give more than you’re will­ing to share, and I’ll nev­er be dis­ap­point­ed. Understand?”

That’s it for me, guys. I’ll try to catch up more often. Have a great Hal­loween, be safe, have fun, save the choco­late for me!

Howdy folks. I’m sit­ting here beneath my heat­ed throw, and I’m here to tell ya: Sum­mer is over. I’m not sure if you’re as upset about it as I am, but I’m also nurs­ing a big glass of wine to take the edge off.

Work in Progress News ~ I’ve been hop­ping around on projects. I REALLY want to write Dean’s sto­ry Ris­ing Heat. Of the 18 or so wips in my file, that’s the one I’d love to fin­ish first. But every time I open it, Dean just cross­es his arms and shakes his head. Not sure what his prob­lem is, but he’s real­ly start­ing to make me mad. So I’ve been writ­ing a lit­tle bit in oth­ers just to keep my fin­gers loose. Dean will come back to me. On his knees, beg­ging for his sto­ry to be told.

Favorite Song of the Week ~ Don’t You Wor­ry Child by Swedish House Mafia is a pret­ty cool song, but then the Piano Guys got a hold of it and put an eth­nic twist to it and…well…check it out:

Tweet of the Week ~

Indus­try News ~ Goodreads has changed its terms. While it tries to con­trol the bul­ly­ing that it’s becom­ing known for, it’s imple­ment­ed a new pol­i­cy where reviews focused on the author and not the book will be delet­ed. Many review­ers awoke to miss­ing reviews and even delet­ed “shelves” where they orga­nized bad­ly behav­ing authors. I try to stay away from Goodreads as a rule, it’s more for read­ers than authors, so the pol­i­cy change does­n’t affect me much (unless I’m on one of the bad­ly behav­ing lists?! Which I should­n’t be…I’m an angel sent from heav­en above.)

What I’m read­ing ~ I read a few books since we last spoke, but none were note­wor­thy so I won’t men­tion them here. I also reread Aidan and Ethan by Cameron Dane. This was the first book I’ve read by Cameron, and it hooked me. She’s an amaz­ing author and I love just about every word she writes.

Today’s Tear­jerk­er ~ Seri­ous­ly. Grab a Kleenex:

Book Snip­pet ~ From Flipped

Once dark, the entire old house seemed to set­tle in, curl up like a cat in front of a fire­place. Carter stood in the kitchen, star­ing at the closed door that stood between him and his best friend. He would­n’t let the thought of walk­ing down­stairs and tak­ing Mario into his arms form in his mind. Not going to happen.

So why would­n’t his feet move?

He relaxed his jaw to breathe through his mouth. His eyes start­ed to water from star­ing at the dark door, but he seemed glued in place.

Go to bed, Carter. The soon­er you get to sleep, the soon­er you can put this weird­ness behind you. He repeat­ed the order a few times before he took a step back­ward. Just as he did, the door opened.

Mario entered the kitchen, wear­ing noth­ing but his box­er shorts. He kept hold of the door­knob. Even from across the room—lit only by the neigh­bor’s back porch light shin­ing through their uncov­ered windows—there was no mis­tak­ing the desire ooz­ing out of every pore.

I guess that’ll do it for me! Hope you enjoy your weekend!

Hap­py Labor Day Week­end! Hope if you’re in labor this week­end, it’s good news, oth­er­wise put your feet up!

Work in Progress News ~ Poor Dean. I swear I’ve been pound­ing the keys for months on his sto­ry. This week I tried start­ing out at a dif­fer­ent spot and remov­ing one of the plot threads that I think was unnec­es­sary. I’m not sure why this book is giv­ing me such a hard time. Don’t you want to get writ­ten, Dean!? Ugh. But progress this week, so that’s good. At it again on Monday.

Favorite Song of the Week ~ Anoth­er cov­er. Are you sick of my cov­ers? This one is by The Maine, cov­er­ing Girls Just Wan­na Have Fun by Cin­di Lauper:

 Tweet of the Week ~

Indus­try News ~ Smash­words, the big dis­trib­uter of indie books, has part­nered with a store in India! One more coun­try cov­ered in my quest for the entire world to go digital.

What I’m read­ing ~ I just fin­ished Aquar­ius: He Said, He Said by Jaimie Craig. I’m kin­da dig­ging the new first per­son switch­ing MC thing. If I could do 1st POV I’d try it, but… Blurb: On the sur­face, the only things sin­gle dads Peter Irv­ing and Aaron Hardi­son have in com­mon are their eight-year-old lon­er sons, who strike up a friend­ship. But the con­tin­ued play dates with the boys and meet­ings in the park force the men to re-eval­u­ate that posi­tion. When Peter dis­cov­ers Aaron isn’t as straight as he thinks, they agree to a “friends with ben­e­fits” arrange­ment. Sex for the sake of sex. But the men soon find out, even those appear­ances can be deceiving…

Book Snip­pet ~ From Fine Print:

Kara liked to lis­ten to Derek talk. His voice was com­mand­ing, but not abra­sive, and low enough to vibrate against her. Every once in a while she could detect a slight accent, usu­al­ly when he spoke words of Span­ish ori­gin. He laughed at some­thing his old col­lege bud­dy said, and in a seem­ing­ly unre­lat­ed ges­ture, he kissed the top of Kara’s head. The famil­iar­i­ty warmed her already sun-rav­aged skin.

Final­ly, they made their way to Kara’s car, and she threw their game gear in the back seat.

“Look Jason, as much as I like you, you don’t com­pete with the gor­geous woman sit­ting next to me, so I’m hang­ing up now.”

Have a great Hol­i­day week­end! See you next Saturday.

Well here we are again; the week passed way too quick­ly. It seems the entire sum­mer is gone! I hope you’re all enjoy­ing the weath­er while it’s still nice. It’s been rainy every after­noon here, which is more like June than August, but at least we don’t have the wild­fires we did last year! My daugh­ter took this pic­ture while we drove down the inter­state in Den­ver. What does it mean!?

Work in Progress News ~ My sched­uled writ­ing time was a suc­cess! Well sort of. It worked for the first day. After that I was­n’t real­ly able to write through­out the rest of the week. School starts on Tues­day, so I plan to kick some wordage butt for at least four days next week while I’ve got qui­et time dur­ing the day. I’ve got sev­er­al read­ers look­ing for­ward to Dean’s sto­ry. I promise, I’m work­ing on it! No one wants this sto­ry writ­ten more than I do.

Favorite Song of the Week ~ Not sure how many times I’ll share some ver­sion of this song on my sta­tus posts, but this one is total­ly wor­thy. Some­body That I Used To Know by May­day Parade fea­tur­ing Vic Fuentes

Back­list News ~ Wyoming Solace received a nice 4 rib­bon review from Romance Junkies, and Tak­ing Her There was reviewed over at Guilty Plea­sures. Check them out!

Tweet of the Week ~

Indus­try News ~ Smash­words came out with a new fea­ture that I think is pret­ty neat. Author Inter­views will be post­ed on the Smash­words site, so read­ers can get to know the authors! I start­ed fill­ing one out, but come to find my Smash­words pro­file is set as a “pub­lish­er” since I have a pen name attached to my account. So there’s a bug there, I hope it gets sort­ed out. I have so many cool answers to these ques­tions, guys. [Source] I could always add a question/answer sec­tion to my week­ly post! Leave a ques­tion in the com­ments and I’ll answer next week.

What I’m read­ing ~ Promis­es by Marie Sex­ton (who is a real­ly great per­son in real life!)  Blurb: Jared Thomas has lived his whole life in the small moun­tain town of Coda, Col­orado. He can’t imag­ine liv­ing any­where else. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the only oth­er gay man in town is twice his age and used to be his teacher, so Jared is resigned to spend­ing his life alone. Until Matt Richards walks into his life, that is. Matt has just been hired by the Coda Police Depart­ment, and he and Jared imme­di­ate­ly become friends. Matt claims he is straight, but for Jared, hav­ing a sexy friend like Matt is way too tempt­ing. Fac­ing Matt’s affair with a local woman, his dis­ap­prov­ing fam­i­ly, and harass­ment from Matt’s co-work­ers, Jared fears they’ll nev­er find a way to be together–if he can even con­vince Matt to try.

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.

Well that’s it for me for anoth­er week. I hope to report many thou­sands of words next Sat­ur­day. Have a great one!

It’s the Sat­ur­day Sta­tus Reboot! I did­n’t think I’d miss post­ing, but I feel real­ly dis­con­nect­ed when I’m not check­ing in with the web every week. Did ya miss me?

Don’t answer that.

I just got back from Vegas, where I spent four days in the com­pa­ny of romance authors, cov­er mod­els, and  slot machines. This pic­ture is me at the book sign­ing. It was actu­al­ly one of the best expos I’ve attend­ed. Not that I sold a bunch of books, but the com­pa­ny was great, and there was a steady stream of vis­i­tors to my table. I ran out of lots of swag! I’ve got pic­tures on my Face­book page if you want to scroll through them.

I’m also post­ing to show off my new website(s)! Alan­na, Olivia, and this blog all got facelifts. What do you think? I real­ly like the one-page theme, keeps every­thing simple.

Work in Progress News ~ I think I’ve start­ed sev­er­al WIPs since I last post­ed, but I haven’t fin­ished any. I’m real­ly not sure what my prob­lem is, but start­ing Mon­day I’m on a strict word count sched­ule with Tri­na M. Lee. My goal is to fin­ish Ris­ing Heat by the end of the year. I can doo eeett!! I’m also seri­ous­ly con­sid­er­ing giv­ing birth to a third per­son­al­i­ty to write a dif­fer­ent genre. Some­one slap me.

Favorite Song of the Week ~ Speak­ing of Tri­na M. Lee, she’s got a book com­ing out on August 27th. (PREORDER!) It’s titled Whis­per To A Scream, and when­ev­er I think of it, I sing this song from 1984 in my head.

Book News ~ Tak­ing Her There is now avail­able! Click the cov­er to get to Olivi­a’s web­site, where you can find chap­ter one and buy links. I start­ed this sto­ry as a sweet-ish bad-girl-gone-good thing, but my bad girl did­n’t want to be very good! So THT is a short hot sto­ry, avail­able at your favorite e‑tailer. Isn’t the cinecov­er great? Thanks, booknibbles.com!

Tweet of the Week ~ Maybe this is only fun­ny if you’re a Pink Floyd Fan.

What I’m read­ing ~ I read sev­er­al books since I last post­ed. Right now I’m re-read­ing one of San­dra Brown’s, they’re all slow­ly being released for Kin­dle, and I’m eat­ing them up! Here’s the blurb: Alexan­dra Gaither is a savvy, beau­ti­ful attor­ney who final­ly has the pow­er to get what she has always want­ed — jus­tice. Twen­ty-five years before, her moth­er died a scan­dalous death. Now as she inves­ti­gates her moth­er’s for­mer lover, his best friend, and the father fig­ure to them both, she will risk every­thing to uncov­er their best kept secrets.
Book Snip­pet ~ From Tak­ing Her There:

He kicked open the door to find her still sleep­ing, her long leg peek­ing from beneath the blan­ket and just the curve of one breast exposed. Her short blonde hair stuck out, sex­i­ly mussed and beg­ging for his hand to rake through the silky strands. Full lips, soft clear skin…damn. The woman was cap­ti­vat­ing, both on-screen and off. As lust filled his veins, he set their meal on a near­by chair, then knelt beside the bed to kiss her ankle. He worked his way up the shape­ly curve of her calf, avoid­ed the back of her knee, then on up to her hip bone where his prim­i­tive self was tempt­ed to leave a love mark.

“Do it, and I’ll kill you.”

He grinned and met her gaze. “I don’t know what you’re talk­ing about.”

“You growled. It doesn’t take much imagination.”

“Heh.” He nib­bled up her side, licked the plump curve of her breast, then swirled his tongue around her ear­lobe. “I don’t growl.”

“Yes, you do.” She thread­ed her fin­gers through his hair. “It’s sexy as hell.”

“Maybe you heard my stom­ach. I’m starving.”

Okay folks. Every­one have a great week­end! See you next Saturday 🙂