An oldie but a goodie.

Wel­come! It’s full win­ter mode here on top of this moun­tain. If you fol­low me on Twit­ter you know that my car was hit while parked out­side my house, so I’ve got a rental (Camaro!) and I’m too afraid to dri­ve that bad boy in the snow.

Work in Progress News ~ Work­ing away on Falling Star book 1.5. (I need a title) This is going to be a short sto­ry between Adam and Jade’s sto­ry and Dean’s. We’ll meet Lance in this one and see what Adam has up his sleeve. I won’t give it away though. Not exact­ly sure what I’ll do with it when it’s done, but at the rate I’m writ­ing, I have plen­ty of time to decide. I also have some won­der­ful news about my upcom­ing book Tak­ing Her There, but I’ll give that to you next week.

Favorite Song of the Week ~ I almost edit­ed my post last week to show you guys this video. I real­ly like Walk Off The Earth. Many of their cov­ers are bet­ter than the orig­i­nals. Here they are fea­tur­ing KRNFX doing Tay­lor Swift’s Trouble:

 Back­list News ~ A new review was post­ed on Ama­zon for With a View. It reads: “Haven’t read it yet , but I’m sure I will.” I sure hope when she reads it she still thinks it’s worth five stars. Okay, that’s not real­ly news, but I had to share that.

Tweet of the Week ~

Indus­try News ~ I find this inter­est­ing. Entan­gled Pub­lish­ing, a new­er pub­lish­er, has come out of the gates with some real­ly sur­pris­ing suc­cess. Sev­er­al of their books have reached NYT Best­seller sta­tus. This week Entan­gled has teamed up with Macmil­lan and St. Mar­t­in’s. “In the new arrange­ment, Macmil­lan will dis­trib­ute Eng­lish lan­guage e‑books of Entangled’s new pub­li­ca­tions in all domes­tic and inter­na­tion­al mar­kets and for all plat­forms where Macmil­lan cur­rent­ly does business. In a sep­a­rate agree­ment, St. Mar­t­in’s Press will launch a new joint ven­ture imprint known as St. Martin’s/Entangled which will bring into print and pub­lish a select num­ber of Entangled’s dig­i­tal first titles.” [source] Inter­est­ing.

What I’m read­ing ~  Con­duct Unbe­com­ing by L.A. Witt is a mil­i­tary love sto­ry. I could real­ly tell that the author has some mil­i­tary back­ground, the details are so true to life. “What starts as a scorch­ing-hot one-night stand leaves both of them want­i­ng more…until Eric finds out Shane doesn’t just out­rank him, he’s an offi­cer. DADT may be repealed, but an offi­cer get­ting involved with an enlist­ed man falls under con­duct unbecoming.”

Search Term of the week aka How Peo­ple Found My Web­sites ~ I just don’t get the fun search terms that I used to get. There’s seri­ous­ly noth­ing notable in my dash­board. Sor­ry, folks. I might dis­con­tin­ue this entry.

Book Snip­pet ~  From Last Call:

Her T‑shirt was tight enough to hug every curve. It wasn’t any­thing spe­cial, just a plain light-pink T‑shirt, but from this prox­im­i­ty, he could see the out­line of the cup of her bra. He fol­lowed the line down the slope of one breast and back up the other.

She laughed, a low husky sound, so dif­fer­ent from her ear­li­er gig­gles. “Looks like my brother’s friend is a boob man!” She reached for the hem of her shirt and inched it up her stom­ach. “Wan­na see? I think you’ll like–”

“No!” He stopped her hands, mind­ful of the watch­ful eyes on the side­walk. “Keep your shirt on, Josie.”

One last thing…I’ll be guest post­ing at Wild and Wicked Cow­boys on 1/14/13. Please stop by and leave a com­ment so I don’t look like a total los­er! I’d appre­ci­ate it. You all have a great week. Stay warm!

Hap­py New Year!! I can’t real­ly believe the Hol­i­days are over. I still have my tree up, but that’s only because I’m too lazy to tear it apart (also, I store it out­side, and it’s been reaaal­l­ly cold out there lately).

Work in Progress News ~Sooo I did­n’t start the year out being as pro­duc­tive as I want­ed. I don’t even have an excuse. I got kin­da stuck on Ris­ing Heat, so I hopped over to anoth­er wip I call “Ian”. This one will be Alan­na’s book, and I can’t real­ly even divulge much about the plot at this point. Let’s just say it’s some­thing unlike any­thing I’ve done so far. I’m excited.

Favorite Song of the Week ~ As a child of the 80s, it’s hard to swal­low the fact that my favorite songs are now “oldies” and are being cov­ered by young whip­per­snap­pers who think they can do it bet­ter than the orig­i­nals. Although I can’t in good faith say that this Only You cov­er is bet­ter than Yaz’s (Yazoo if you’re a Brit) but um…I real­ly like it.

 Indus­try News ~ Okay, I’ve always thought that a print ver­sion of any­thing (books/magazines/newspapers/music CDs even) should come with a free dig­i­tal ver­sion. Google Play is now mak­ing that hap­pen for some mag­a­zine sub­scrip­tions. Just log in to ver­i­fy your sub­scrip­tion and get your dig­i­tal mag­a­zine free! I love it. [source]

What I’m read­ing ~ I actu­al­ly read this two weeks ago, but the book I’m read­ing now might end up being a DNF for me. Just not feel­ing it. This is I Don’t by Kari Gregg. It’s about a guy who works so hard on a mar­riage equal­i­ty bill, and once it pass­es is hurt when his boyfriend isn’t ready to rush out and get mar­ried. The cou­ple heads to one hero’s fam­i­ly home for the hol­i­days, where we meet a great cast of char­ac­ters that real­ly round this book out.

Search Term of the week aka How Peo­ple Found My Web­sites ~ Not sure what this means, but “woman free in horse” found Olivi­a’s website.

Book Snip­pet ~ Here’s one from Ris­ing Heat, Earth Scents book two:

Before he could think about it, he took the nec­es­sary steps toward Dean, grabbed his fore­arm and spun him around. “Is that what you think? That I’m afraid?”

Dean’s lazy gaze moved from Lance’s eyes past his chest, to rest where his hand was wrapped around Dean’s arm.

Damn, the man’s flesh felt bet­ter than it should.  This is exact­ly why Lance denied him­self. As much as he want­ed to leave the room, he also want­ed to pull Dean even clos­er, until he felt that heat from head to toe.

Dean met Lance’s gaze. “I get the feel­ing very few things scare you, Lance.”

I’ve actu­al­ly got this scene high­light­ed, which means it might get cut here pret­ty soon. We’ll see. Have a great week, everyone!

Wel­come! I’m cur­rent­ly in the mid­dle of a Just Romance Me Blog Hop. Just click that ban­ner to join in! It’s a lot of fun, and there’s a Kin­dle Fire up for grabs. I’m shar­ing a few feel-good sto­ries from 2012. Come see!

Work in Progress News ~ Thanks to Twit­ter Hive Mind (specif­i­cal­ly Lea Grif­fith) I have a title for my recent­ly com­plet­ed book! I then sub­mit­ted Tak­ing Her There to a few pub­lish­ers. Now the fun part…waiting. (That’s sar­casm right there). I did post chap­ter one on my site, so you’re wel­come to go read it and see what took me so long to finish.  Now back to work on Dean’s sto­ry. Earth Scents Book Two, ten­ta­tive­ly titled (already! I know!) Ris­ing Heat. I real­ly did­n’t get much done at all last week, with Christ­mas fill­ing my time.  I’m just under 9K. Let’s hope I can get into a groove this week.

Favorite Song of the Week ~ Josh Groban sigh has a new album com­ing out soon. This is the first single.

Tweet of the Week ~ This lady cracks me up:

My hus­band just had to get in the car to make a phone call if you’re still con­sid­er­ing hav­ing kids.

— Jen­ny­SaisQuoi Surly (@JennyPentland) Decem­ber 28, 2012

What I’m read­ing ~ I’m in the mid­dle of Pesti­lence by TA Chase. This is one of four “Horse­men” books, obvi­ous­ly about the four Horse­men. Blurb: Hav­ing lost his wife and child dur­ing the Black Plague, Pesti­lence accepts the fate des­tiny has giv­en him as one of the Four Horse­men of the Apoc­a­lypse. For cen­turies, Pesti­lence did his job, spread­ing plagues and dis­ease around the world. He does it to keep the bal­ance between good and evil, yet he hates every minute of it. He longs to be left alone, but sud­den­ly fate seems to have a dif­fer­ent plan for him.

Search Term of the week aka How Peo­ple Found My Web­sites ~ “can­dy erot­ic south­ern “google­books””. I don’t know what that means, but it sounds deli­cious. And prob­a­bly deep fried.

Book Snip­pet ~ A short excerpt from For a Price:

Nick though, didn’t stop to chat. He con­tin­ued guid­ing her with his strong hand press­ing against her spine, and his long strides led her around the cor­ner of the estab­lish­ment, in the same shad­ows where she watched him before. He took her by both arms, and backed her against the cool brick.

“You didn’t answer my question.”

She could smell his breath. Taste the moist puffs of air against her mouth. Her heart pound­ed in excite­ment. Such high­hand­ed treat­ment should have made her livid, but instead it lit a fuse on a pow­der keg of desire. Look­ing into his appeal­ing face, she couldn’t even remem­ber the question.

“I thought you want­ed to kiss me,” she said almost inaudibly.

And then he did. His firm mouth cov­ered hers. She indulged in the scent of his spicy cologne, the feel of his warm lips. She part­ed hers, and bold­ly dart­ed her tongue inside his mouth. Whiskey nev­er tast­ed so damn good.

Okay folks. Have a great New Year, be safe and respon­si­ble. See you next year!

Wel­come! Can you believe it’s almost Christ­mas? I’m not even sick of Christ­mas music yet! For all my loy­al read­ers (mom) I apol­o­gize for skip­ping last week, but after what hap­pened in Con­necti­cut, I just could­n’t make myself  post anything.

Work in Progress News ~ I fin­ished! My short bad-girl sto­ry should have tak­en me two weeks to write, but at least I fin­ished by the end of the (world) year like I’d hoped. It’s off to my cri­tique part­ners. We’ll see what they say. I’m read­ing through it again myself. I plan on send­ing it to my favorite pubs only. If they don’t bite, I’ll self pub­lish it. As soon as I fig­ure out a title, I’ll make a book page on Olivi­a’s web­site. Wish me luck!

Favorite Song of the Week ~I know I post­ed this last year, but it’s tru­ly one of my favorites. So much bet­ter live. Please Enjoy:
Tweet of the Week ~ It’s real­ly been two weeks, and some of the tweets were tear-jerk­ing. This one is on the lighter side:

Indus­try News ~ Pen­guin has set­tled with The Depart­ment of Jus­tice, leav­ing only Apple and Macmil­lan left to answer to the col­lu­sion charge. It’s pret­ty inter­est­ing to watch this unfold.

What I’m read­ing ~  The Heart of Texas by RJ Scott. Imag­ine Dal­las with an m/m fla­vor. This book has a lot going on. It moves quick­ly, and has lots of char­ac­ters. We’ve got an arranged mar­riage (the two heroes, GFY) a secret baby, mil­lion­aires, bad blood, adultery…you name it. This might be one of my fave books of 2012.

Search Term of the week aka How Peo­ple Found My Web­sites ~ I’m sure this is a typo, but I’m a lit­tle mad that I did­n’t think of this spelling when com­ing up with my pen name. It looks a lot more exot­ic. “olyvia brynn”. That would have helped with the recent baby-nam­ing trend.

Book Snip­pet ~ From my new­ly fin­ished yet still unti­tled book!

“Do you know what I think?” His voice. God, his voice. Low and rumbly, it washed over her skin to tease each nerve end­ing with a gen­tle lick.

She swal­lowed. “What?”

“I think you do a lot of hid­ing behind that dom­i­na­trix façade you’ve built.” His cof­fee-tinged breath was warm on her cheek. “I think that’s prob­a­bly how you get through your time iso­lat­ed in your glass palace. Prob­a­bly how you get through your day-to-day life being ordered around by direc­tors and agents and–” he dropped his focus to her mouth when she licked her lips “–boyfriends.”

“You don’t know a damn thing about–”

“I know every­thing there is to know about you. Your whole life is an open book. You nev­er used that mute but­ton in all the time I’ve been dri­ving you around. If I were any­one else I’d blush.”

Every­one, have a very Mer­ry Christ­mas! I hope you’ve all been very good boys and girls.

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my moth­er would say to me, “Look for the helpers. You will always find peo­ple who are help­ing.” To this day, espe­cial­ly in times of “dis­as­ter,” I remem­ber my mother’s words and I am always com­fort­ed by real­iz­ing that there are still so many helpers — so many car­ing peo­ple in this world.”

– Mr. Fred Rogers

Hap­py Hol­i­days! Grab some egg nog, or a hot tod­dy and curl up this week­end. I hope you’ve got a great book on your TBR pile, and I hope all of your Chrits­mas shop­ping is at least in its final stages.

Work in Progress News ~ I crossed the ²⁄₃ mark on Take the Wheel. I’m actu­al­ly get­ting a few good writ­ing days in here and there. Just not enough to fin­ish the thing. I’ve got two more scenes to write and I’m done. Go me!

Favorite Song of the Week ~ I just love The Piano Guys. They need to make an entire Christ­mas album for me.

 Tweet of the Week ~

“If you hear voic­es, you’re a lunatic. If you write down what they say, you’re an author.” ― Dani Harper

– A Eck­stut & D Ster­ry (@TheBookDoctors) Decem­ber 6, 2012

Indus­try News ~ Big news! The Kin­dle Store is offi­cial­ly open in Cana­da! I’m not real­ly sure why Ama­zon did­n’t do this years ago, but bet­ter late than never.

What I’m read­ing ~ By Chance by Cat Grant. A friends to lovers GFY. “Inde­pen­dent Eric does­n’t know the first thing about being in a rela­tion­ship, much less with a lover who can’t even admit he’s gay. But con­ser­v­a­tive Nick can’t seem to find his way out of his own per­son­al clos­et. Rock, meet hard place.”

Search Term of the week aka How Peo­ple Found My Web­sites ~ This one is con­fus­ing. “summe.blode.sexe.com”. I searched it myself, and could­n’t find my site in the first few pages of results, so that poor Googler was deter­mined! And prob­a­bly disappointed.

Book Snip­pet ~ From For a Price, a lit­tle exchange between Mau­reen and Nicholas:

“What are you doing?” she asked through a smile.

“Try­ing to wake you up.” His voice was low, almost a whisper.

“I didn’t want to sleep in the first place. It’s your fault, so leave me alone.” She tried to sound irri­tat­ed, but when he laughed, she couldn’t stop her grin.

“It feels good to wake up with you next to me.”

Mau­reen opened one sleepy lid. The room was still dark, the sun hadn’t risen. “What time is it?”

“I don’t know. Does it matter?”

She thought about that. “No, I guess not.”

“I plan on spend­ing every minute of the com­ing day with you. I thought I’d get an ear­ly start on it.”

That’s it for me. Have a great week­end, stay warm out there!

Wel­come to Decem­ber! I’m actu­al­ly get­ting into the Christ­mas spir­it! Here we go with my week­ly to-done:

Work in Progress News ~ I’ve been writ­ing!! I’m so proud of me. A few more good days and I’ll be done with this thing! I’d like to at least fin­ish it by the end of the year so 2012 isn’t a total loss pro­duc­tiv­i­ty wise.

Favorite Song of the Week ~ A capel­la plus Christ­mas. My favorite com­bi­na­tion. I just dis­cov­ered these guys, it’s a six part har­mo­ny, not sure why they only have four guys lip sync­ing, but I still love it.

Back­list News ~ Flipped is now at all online out­lets! It hit Apple iTunes two days ago.  It lost the reviews at some places, and kept it at oth­ers, but it’s good to have it back up for sale.

Tweet of the Week ~

Indus­try News ~ Simon and Schus­ter is get­ting into the “Self Pub­lish­ing” busi­ness. But not real­ly. Real­ly they’re get­ting into the Van­i­ty Pub­lish­ing busi­ness. I’m a bit appalled at the prices they’re charg­ing authors, when real­ly an author should be the one get­ting the pay­check. [source] Also in the news, Ran­dom House intro­duces four new dig­i­tal only lines. Not a whole lot of infor­ma­tion quite yet, but I’ll be watching.

What I’m read­ing ~ An Improp­er Hol­i­day by K.A. Mitchell. An his­tor­i­cal m/m (my weak­ness). Blurb: wound­ed in body and plagued by mem­o­ries of what hap­pened between them, Ian is sent to car­ry out his old­er brother’s plans for a polit­i­cal alliance with Nicky’s father. Their sis­ter Char­lotte is the bar­gain­ing piece. Nicky nev­er believed that what he and Ian felt for each oth­er was wrong and he has a plan to make things right. Get­ting Ian to Car­leigh is but the first step. Now Nicky has only twelve nights to con­vince Ian that hap­pi­ness is not the price of hon­or and duty, but its reward.

Search Term of the week aka How Peo­ple Found My Web­sites ~ Not too many strange ones this week. Just “sum­mer wyoming” which is only a sur­prise that my site would be on the front few pages for that query.

Book Snip­pet ~ This one is from Flipped, with no dialogue:

His mouth sud­den­ly dry, Carter reached for his beer, only to remem­ber too late that he’d fin­ished it. When Mario licked his lips, Carter’s mouth filled with sali­va. He looked away. Focused again on the writhing bod­ies on the dance floor. Maybe he’d had more alco­hol than he thought. Maybe he was hornier than he thought. Maybe he read too much into that sim­ple glance. From the cor­ner of his eye, he chanced anoth­er look across the table, only to find Mar­i­o’s atten­tion had­n’t wavered. There had to be anoth­er mean­ing to the flare of heat behind those eyes, but a mil­lion images flood­ed his mind–not one of them to do with spend­ing the night alone.

Okay, now that you’re done here, go on over and check out my guest post on Romance Cooks! I post­ed a very sexy fruit sal­ad, and had a lit­tle fun with the recipe. Check it out!

Can you believe Thanks­giv­ing has passed? I hope you all had a great one, and a safe Black Fri­day. We’re now offi­cial­ly into the Christ­mas sea­son. Is it me, or did 2012 just fly by?

Work in Progress News ~ Back to work on my Bad Girl short sto­ry. I real­ly want­ed this one done by the end of Novem­ber. I need a kick in the butt, but I’ve real­ly only got about 6K left to go. I can do it, right??

Favorite Song of the Week ~ I’ve begun lis­ten­ing to Christ­mas music which is my very favorite part of the sea­son. So I’ll be shar­ing a Christ­mas song with you for the next four weeks. This is a very very short song. I love acap­pel­la music.

Indus­try News ~  A few weeks ago I men­tioned the merg­er of Ran­dom House and Pen­guin. Now it looks like News­corp, the own­ers of Harper­Collins are look­ing to buy Simon & Schus­ter. [source] So now there’s a pos­si­bil­i­ty of the big five becom­ing the big four? Simon Collins & Harp­er Schus­ter? I just don’t know.

What I’m read­ing ~A new book by Dee Car­ney! A food­ie romance based on those real­i­ty game shows we all love.  Blurb Snippet: With a chance to win a cook­ing com­pe­ti­tion that will advance her career, the last thing food truck chef Pep­per Joseph needs is a dis­trac­tion. Except she’s got a heap­ing help­ing of it in the form of fel­low chef Darien Priest, the man who broke her heart. It’s been years, and she tells her­self she’s over his betray­al, but to her irri­ta­tion, she finds she still has an appetite for his steel-gray eyes, clean-shaven head, and sleeve tattoos.

Tweet of the Week:

Search Term of the week aka How Peo­ple Found My Web­sites ~ I’m not sure if I should be insult­ed by this, or if I should start prepar­ing for a new drink fla­vor launch: “alana coca zero”

Book Snip­pet ~ From Fine Print:

Derek closed the door behind him, and flipped on the lamp. He imag­ined Kara Bianchi, walk­ing into her own home min­utes ago, and curs­ing him. She would be the type to throw one hell of a fit. Did she take off those sassy shoes at the door and throw them across the room?

No, too much feel­ing. She prob­a­bly just marched into her bed­room and put those pumps right back in their tis­sue-filled box, and filed them alpha­bet­i­cal­ly in her col­or-coör­di­nat­ed closet.

And then she’d take off her skirt.

Derek groaned, and land­ed on the couch, bump­ing the back into the wall with his exuberance.

Okay folks, have a great week­end, don’t spend too much mon­ey, and be nice to all those retail work­ers out there!

Thanks­giv­ing Week! Where did this year go? I’m total­ly not ready for the next six weeks. We’ve had some great weath­er here, so it’s even hard­er to believe the Hol­i­days are com­ing. Usu­al­ly we’re under a foot or two of snow right now.

Work in Progress News ~ I switched back to Dean yes­ter­day. I got to the point where I hat­ed my oth­er work in progress so much that I could­n’t look at it (this hap­pens to me, I promise I’ll go back to it and find that it isn’t as bad as I make it out to be). So I’m pick­ing up from where I left Dean, right before a major plot turn. Poor guy was sit­ting there for months wait­ing for me to drop the oth­er shoe Hah!

Favorite Song of the Week ~ Not sure why, I added a few Bea­t­les songs to my playlist this week, and I’m so glad I did. A lot of faves, as I’m sure you have your own. Here’s one of mine. I dare you not to sing along:

Tweet of the Week ~  A bit off col­or, but it made me lit­er­al­ly laugh out loud:

“My last name’s Miller. My ances­tors milled grain. What’s yours?”“Dickinson.”“…”“…”“…”“…”“Nice weath­er we’re havin…”

– wheat­nik (@wheatnik) Novem­ber 13, 2012

Back­list News ~ I’ve recent­ly acquired my rights back for Flipped. It should go back up at all major e‑tailers with­in the next week or so with the awe­some new cov­er by Booknibbles.com. What do you think? This is the offi­cial reveal.

Indus­try News ~ Fic­tion­wise, the orig­i­nal (maybe, maybe not, I did­n’t research that) ebook store on the web was pur­chased by Barnes and Noble back in 2009. This week they announced that they’d be shut­ting down at the end of 2012. It’s a lit­tle sad to see the site go. I’m just sen­ti­men­tal like that. So if you’ve pur­chased any­thing from Fic­tion­wise, now is the time to go back and down­load your books before they’re gone forever!

What I’m read­ing ~ Noth­ing new this week, so to clear my mind at night before bed, I’ve been read­ing San­dra Brown’s Temp­ta­tion’s Kiss. Blurb: Megan, young wid­ow and worka­holic at a tele­vi­sion sta­tion, des­per­ate­ly tries to avoid her late hus­band’s for­mer boss — with whom she once shared a kiss — but Josh wants her again and will stop at noth­ing to have her. Hm, that’s more of a tagline than a blurb.

Search Term of the week aka How Peo­ple Found My Web­sites ~ I’m not sure who “erot­ic jacob black” is, but it sounds kind of inter­est­ing. Like maybe a pirate or some­thing! Par­don me while I day­dream about John­ny Depp…

Book Snip­pet ~ From Falling Star, some ban­ter between Adam and Jade:

“Too good to be true, huh?” he teased.

“Yes. Besides your obvi­ous good looks, you aren’t cocky or con­ceit­ed. You are intel­li­gent enough to hold a con­ver­sa­tion, Dean likes you, you play guitar–which by the way I found stored in the clos­et, so you’ll have to play some­thing for me.”

He smiled against her tem­ple. He’d been com­pli­ment­ed before. He was­n’t shy by any means, but com­ing from her those words meant a hell of a lot more. His heart kicked up to a stac­ca­to. “Any­thing else?”

“Hmm.” She turned toward him and put those cool juicy lips on his cheek. “I changed my mind. Maybe you are a lit­tle cocky.”

“And don’t for­get that I’m a gen­tle­man, or I’d make a dirty com­ment on your choice of words instead of offer­ing you a meal.”

These short excerpts are more fun than my old hero quotes. It gives a bit more of a taste of the book. Okay Amer­i­cans, enjoy your Thanks­giv­ing, and the rest of you enjoy your week!

Wel­come! Anoth­er week in par­adise over here. We’ve had some won­der­ful weath­er! So after a very stress­ful Tues­day, the US can now put the elec­tion behind us. I was nev­er so hap­py to see those yard signs come down. On a relat­ed note, yard signs in Wyoming are pret­ty lethal.  This image is the US dis­tort­ed by pop­u­la­tion and by votes for Oba­ma (blue) and Rom­ney (red). Pret­ty cool.

Work in Progress News ~I’ve been more pro­duc­tive this week than I have in a long time. I used to have a 2K word goal per day, but now I’m lucky if I get 1K. I’m present­ly in the mid­dle of the inti­mate scene that just won’t end. Also, I was going to make this a Christ­mas sto­ry, but decid­ed to just take that thread out since I already missed that dead­line. Still chug­ging away!

Favorite Song of the Week ~ I’ve shared a Jack­son Foote cov­er with you before. This is a new one and I just love it: Mer­cy (orig­i­nal­ly by Kanye West)

Tweet of the Week ~ So many good tweets! The most retweet­ed tweet of ALL TIME was one sent on Tues­day by Barack Oba­ma right after the elec­tion. But here’s a dif­fer­ent kind of smile:

If writ­ers took the “write what you know” rule seri­ous­ly, most new nov­els would be called Con­stant­ly Dis­tract­ed By The Internet.

– Sixth Form Poet (@sixthformpoet) Novem­ber 6, 2012

Indus­try News ~ Ama­zon has announced a Month­ly Prime Mem­ber­ship. The $7.99 month­ly fee will direct­ly com­pete with Hulu and Net­flix for stream­ing video (did you know Ama­zon has stream­ing video?) and for book lovers, you can bor­row eli­gi­ble books! You end up pay­ing almost $20 more than if you pay the $79 annu­al price, though.

What I’m read­ing ~ Shy­ing Away, a con­tem­po­rary west­ern m/m. Blurb: Quinn Don­ahue will do any­one once, so when Aaron Miller spots Quinn mak­ing his moves in a Van­cou­ver gay bar, Aaron thinks he’s found just the guy to relieve him of his unwant­ed vir­gin­i­ty. Quinn, how­ev­er, has appar­ent­ly decid­ed to make an excep­tion to his usu­al open-bed pol­i­cy. He may be an unre­pen­tant con­nois­seur of one-night stands, but he’s not going to dis­ap­point a sweet kid like Aaron by giv­ing him a hot night and then leav­ing while the sheets are still warm.

Search Term of the week aka How Peo­ple Found My Web­sites ~ I love typos. Some­times they make great new words. Here’s what found me last week: “the sis­ter found my eroth­ic books”

Book Snip­pet ~ From Cov­er Sto­ry, my short con­tem­po­rary cougar sto­ry about a cov­er mod­el and the old­er woman play­ing the part of his lover:

Click.

“I’m just going to unbut­ton your shirt. We’ll leave it on as long as you’d like.” Anoth­er but­ton slipped free.

“Okay.”

“Stop me if you start to feel uncomfortable.”

Click.

He released anoth­er but­ton. Then two. “Touch me Cate. Let me feel your hands all over me.”

Those clicks were from the cam­era, if you could­n’t tell. Some­times it’s hard to get the full effect in a short excerpt. Okay folks, I’m back to writ­ing. See you next week!

Howdy! What a week! News is focused–as it should be–on the dis­as­ter that Hur­ri­cane Sandy wreaked. My thoughts are with all still affect­ed. For every sad and depress­ing sto­ry that I read though, I find at least one more that renews my faith in human­i­ty. Keep up the good work, East Coast.

Work in Progress News ~ I’m get­ting back in the groove. The book I was writ­ing for a new pub won’t be com­plete in time for the dead­line, but it’s going so well, I’ll fin­ish it any­way. Since it has a Christ­mas theme, I’m not sure I want to send it to a pub­lish­er, that would take too long. If (I mean WHEN!) I fin­ish this, I’ll prob­a­bly pub­lish via Dark Moun­tain Books.

Favorite Song of the Week ~ This is a cou­ple years old, but I do like it. Here is OneRe­pub­lic per­form­ing Say (All I Need)

Tweet of the Week ~ There were sev­er­al Sandy relat­ed tweets that warmed my heart, but most had to be read in con­text to real­ly get the full effect. So here’s one with a lighter message:

You want to win the argu­ment, guys? Pull her in by her belt loops and smile. That’s our kryptonite.Sorry, girls. Some­one had to tell them.

– I Hate Kate (@SuperApple8) Octo­ber 30, 2012

Indus­try News ~ Ran­dom House and Pen­guin have merged, cre­at­ing what should be the largest pub­lish­ing com­pa­ny in the world when the merg­er clos­es in the sec­ond half of 2013 (sub­ject to reg­u­la­to­ry approval). This should cut oper­at­ing costs as well as increase lever­age with Ama­zon. So the big six become the big five, and the inter­net goes wild with Ran­dom Pen­guin and Pen­guin House logos.

What I’m read­ing ~ On Hal­loween night I read a short lit­tle haunt­ed house/serial killer romance by Josh Lany­on. Just the right mix of scary and roman­tic in a nice pack­age. I hope Josh writes a fol­low up book though, I did­n’t quite get enough of these characters.

Search Term of the week aka How Peo­ple Found My Web­sites ~ Not much excit­ing this week. But I hope I was on page fif­teen or so for this result: “play­boy erotic”

Book Snip­pet ~ From the book I’m work­ing on now, with Andre the limo dri­ver and his boss Ange­line, a snot­ty Hol­ly­wood diva.

“I’m your dri­ver. When I’m behind that wheel, and when you’re in the back seat, you can send me in what­ev­er direc­tion you want, and I’ll take you there. But if you think about it…that still puts me in charge.”

And I’m learn­ing that he real­ly does like being in charge. Okay, that’s it for this week. Be sure to get out and vote by Tuesday!

Well, I’ve had a week of snow, ice, and wind. I guess it was bound to hap­pen. Pic­tures like this make it look nice, but really…it’s not. The only good thing about cold weath­er? Com­fort food! Like…chocolate.

Work in Progress News ~ I’ve done some writ­ing in the bad girl sto­ry. I actu­al­ly found a name for my hero, so thanks for the hun­dreds of thou­sands of respons­es on last week’s sta­tus with sug­ges­tions, I just went ahead and picked my own name: Andre. I hope no one gets the men­tal pic­ture of a sea lion. I also have a ten­ta­tive title, since Andre is my hero­ine’s limo dri­ver, I thought Take the Wheel sound­ed pret­ty good. We’ll see if it still fits when I finish.

Favorite Song of the Week ~ Some­one local tweet­ed that Don Williams will be play­ing two shows in Wyoming, and while I’d love to see him live, the weath­er is nev­er trust­wor­thy to actu­al­ly sched­ule a trip any­where between Sep­tem­ber and May. But it did remind me how much I love his voice, so I give you Don Williams, cir­ca 1977:

Notice this is a live per­for­mance, and the guy sounds just like he does on his records.

Also notice the muttonchops.

Indus­try News ~ Novem­ber is Nation­al Nov­el Writ­ing Month, or NaNoW­riMo. The month where many authors pledge to write a 50K word nov­el in 30 days. I tried this once, I was­n’t suc­cess­ful and I end­ed up writ­ing just to be writ­ing. I guess I’m just not good with struc­ture, but you’ll be hear­ing lots of NANO talk around the web.

This week I’m adding a new fea­ture, since I spend [too much] time on Twit­ter, I find some real­ly great one lin­ers. I won’t post polit­i­cal ones, though some­times those are real­ly the best, and I’ll try to keep them PG-13. Ish. So I give you, my inau­gur­al Tweet of the Week~

If women came with instruc­tions, most men would still be too daz­zled by the pack­ag­ing to read the warn­ing label.

– Jen­nifer Fos­ter (@hipchkk) Octo­ber 25, 2012

What I’m read­ing ~ A Chip in his Shoul­der by L.A. Witt is a dystopi­an/­para­nor­mal/s­ci-fi/ro­mance. Can one real­ly fit all those things into a sin­gle book?  Appar­ent­ly so.  A vam­pire hit­man who’s had robot­ic mod­i­fi­ca­tions is sent to kill his for­mer lover. This is a short sto­ry, but as with every­thing L.A. does, it’s well written.

Search Term of the week aka How Peo­ple Found My Web­sites ~ This week, some­one found me by search­ing for “lima ten­der­touch”. That kind of sounds like an apple device.

Book Snip­pet ~ From Com­pa­ny Ink:

After push­ing the phone to the far end, he set her on the edge of the desk and leaned over until she was flat on her back. “You’ll have to tell me all about this fan­ta­sy you have about my office. I’d like to recre­ate it someday.”

“You already are.”

Aaandd that’s where it gets inter­est­ing.  Okay folks, have a great Hal­loween! Stay safe!

Ok first of all, base­ball is over for me for the year. I don’t want to talk about it. In bet­ter news, I’m in the mid­dle of a blog hop host­ed by JustRomance.Me.  You could win a Kin­dle Paper­white! I love mine… Just click the ban­ner above to join in the fun.

Favorite Song of the Week ~  This Is War by Thir­ty Sec­onds To Mars. A very pow­er­ful song and video. Yeah, it’s six min­utes, but total­ly worth it. Plus it includes the eye can­dy in uniform…

Work in Progress News ~So I start­ed a new book. I know, I know. This one is for a spe­cial call, with a dead­line of Novem­ber 3rd, so I have to kin­da hur­ry up on it. I’ve writ­ten the first 2K, and I do like how it’s com­ing along. I still need a hero name, so if you guys would­n’t mind leav­ing sug­ges­tions in the com­ments. He looks like this guy only not so wet.

Back­list News ~ I noticed the oth­er day that With a View, my free­bie com­pan­ion read to Pre­View has more reviews  on Ama­zon than any oth­er book I’ve writ­ten. The major­i­ty are very good. This week some­one men­tioned that maybe my blurb could be a bit bet­ter (and my title, but the title stays). I real­ly stink at blurb-writ­ing, and that read­er total­ly called me out on the amount of time I spent on that par­tic­u­lar blurb. Well played, read­er. So now I’ll be revising.

Indus­try News ~ This is just too good. An eread­er for under $15. No, there’s no zero miss­ing. The ‘txtr Bea­gle is a wifi free, back­light free basic every­day eink read­er that runs on AAA bat­ter­ies and syncs with blue­tooth. Talk about a great stock­ing stuffer!

What I’m read­ing ~ I just start­ed this one. Drag­on Actu­al­ly by GA Aiken. So far I’m lov­ing the dia­logue and the premise (Female war­rior being trained by a man she does­n’t want to desire and kept com­pa­ny by a drag­on she loves. I think you see where this is going…) GA Aiken is real­ly talented.

Search Term of the week aka How Peo­ple Found My Web­sites ~ This week some­one found me by search­ing “check the sta­tus on sat­ur­day pay”.  I always feel like such a dis­ap­point­ment when peo­ple look for impor­tant things and find my ram­blings instead. Sorry!!

Hero Quote ~ Actu­al­ly we’re going to go with “Book Quote” from now on. Some of my heroes are the strong silent type and they just don’t give me enough mate­r­i­al. So here we have a snip­pet from At Ease. This is Jaycee sit­ting in class right behind Tyler:

If she wig­gled her toes, she would brush the crisp shoul­der seam on his uni­form. She wouldn’t dare, but it was tempt­ing. She licked her lips, and stuffed down a groan.

Okay, I think that’s it for me. Along with the blog hop above, I’ll be in the chat room on Sun­day 10/21/12 at 7pm EST along with oth­er authors and read­ers from the hop. We always have a great time, I hope you’ll join us there. It’s easy to click into the room, noth­ing to sign up for or any­thing. Hope to see you there!