One contest ends today, and two lucky winners have already been chosen! Don’t miss your last chance to win!
1) The newsletter contest (see September 16th’s blog for the details) continues through today!!
2) See the bottom of this posting for Tuesday’s winner announcment!
3) See yesterday’s post’s comments for Lacy’s winner announcement!

I need a 12-step program. Seriously!

Yesterday, I was updating my 2010 publication list adding things that just crept up. When I’d finished, I took a long look and realized I’m completely nuts. My sister and I teach an annual free class through Rose’s Colored Glasses called Write 50 Books a Year! When we put it together, the title was completely tongue in cheek, but now…?

This is the list. The last few items in red are still to be published this year. The rest are out. Granted, some are short stories (the Cleis stories) and some are repackaged anthologies that didn’t require new pages, but still!

1. 01/12/10 – LONE STAR LOVERS: UNFORGIVEN (Samhain)
2. 02/07/10 – LOVE IN BLOOM (Samhain)
3. 02/17/10 – FUN WITH DICK AND JAYNE (Ellora’s Cave)
4. 03/01/10 – MISS ADDIE’S GARDEN, New Love Stories Magazine
5. 03/24/10 – BAD, BAD GIRLFRIEND (Ellora’s Cave)
6. 04/28/10 – FIRST KNIGHT (Ellora’s Cave)
7. 05/01/10 – STONE’S EMBRACE, Captive Souls anthology (Samhain)
8. 06/01/10 – THE OUT-OF-TOWNER, Girl Crush anthology (Cleis Press)
9. 06/14/10 – WARLORD’S DESTINY, individual reissue (Ellora’s Cave)
10. 06/18/10 – UN,DEUX, TROIS, MENAGE! anthology (Ellora’s Cave)
11. 06/23/10 – VEILED ALLIANCE anthology (Ellora’s Cave)
12. 07/01/10 – THE OBEDIENT WIFE, Fairy Tale Lust anthology (Cleis Press)
13. 08/01/10 – THE WEEKEND, Lesbian Lust anthology (Cleis Press)
14. 08/13/10 – RED STILLETOS anthology (Ellora’s Cave)
15. 08/17/10 – TEXTILE FREE (Smashwords)
16. 08/31/10 – PLEASING SIR (Kindle, Smashwords)
17. 09/07/10 – LONE STAR LOVERS: FOUR SWORN (Samhain)
18. 09/21/10 – DARKNESS CAPTURED (Avon Red)
19. 10/27/10 – A LONG HOWL GOOD NIGHT (Ellora’s Cave)
20. 11/01/10 – COWBOY FEVER anthology (Samhain)
21. 11/01/10 – THE MORNING RIDE, Passion: Erotic Romance for Women anthology (Cleis Press)
22. 11/23/10 – LONE STAR LOVERS: BREAKING LEATHER (Samhain)

And I wonder why I’m tired all the time. Tomorrow, I’ll post a sneak peek of A Long Howl Good Night since I’m pretty sure I haven’t mentioned it here before!

The winner of the free copy of Sleeping With The Enemy is…Lynn M! Lynn, contact me directly to let me know where you want the file emailed!

Two contests end today! Don’t miss your last chances to win!
1) The newsletter contest (see September 16th’s blog for the details) continues until the tomorrow!!
2) Yesterday’s winner will be announced tomorrow!
3) **BONUS! See details about Lacy’s contest below!

Welcome today’s guest, Lacy Danes! ~DD

The new fall TV season is upon us. I have eagerly been awaiting several of my favorite series premieres. I typically don’t watch TV but wait until a well talked about show comes out on DVD and then watch the entire season. If I get hooked, then I continue watching until I am caught up to date. Sometimes I start watching a show at its scheduled time, but usually my life takes over and I have to wait until it comes out on DVD the next fall.

Series I currently am watching on DVD:
Mad Men Season 1
The Vampire Diaries Season 1
Charmed Season 3

Series I have completed the DVDs and have to wait until new DVDs come out or watch live:
Bones
The Good Wife

I have also completed several other past series:
The X files
Buffy
Angel

So I am curious, what are some of your favorite shows? And are you optimistic for any new shows coming out this fall?

To celebrate the Fall and the release of so many great stories, including my short Harlequin SPICE Brief DECENT EXPOSURE, at the end of today I will pick one reply to this post for a chance to win one of my books.

Happy Fall,
Lacy

I prefer some manly fluff—under the arms, across the chest—but the eyes have it here. So what if he shaves everything? Maybe he really is a swimmer and doesn’t want all the fur slowing him down. Maybe his girlfriend doesn’t like the friction against her own skin. Maybe he really is as young as he looks and he hasn’t grown any yet. I’ll forgive him. If he trained those pretty eyes on me, I’d be tongue-tied and blushing. And doesn’t he kinda look a little like a young Tom Cruise—when he was still charmingly cheeky?

Happy Monday! 😉

First, I have to get thank you’s aside. “For what?” you might ask.

My straight-to-Kindle experiment, Pleasing Sir, is a success due entirely to your support. I let you know when the book was out—you bought it, wrote reviews, clicked on tags—and it rose high enough on the erotica chart that others who don’t know me as well took a chance and ordered it too!

Then there’s Four Sworn, which is still on MBaM’s top ten list and is sitting pretty in the Kindle store too!

I’m hoping you will all work some magic for my print book, Darkness Captured, which released this week. Remember, if you’ve read it and are moved to tell somebody about it, please post a review on Amazon’s or Barnes & Noble’s websites. They do matter! You can influence whether some other reader decides to buy it.

So, back to business. I finished Breaking Leather this week! If you liked Four Sworn, you will love this one as well. The Kinzie brothers kidnap their dream girl and there’s tons of sexy persuasion goin’ on to get the girl to say yes! I’ve shared some sneak peeks with the folks on my yahoo group, and they seem eager to read more. 😉

I’m working through the final typeset pages of Ravished by a Viking. I can’t wait to share more of the story with you! And I have some fun things planned that have to do with the launch of that book. So stay tuned!

I’m back to writing the the follow-up story. Chapter One gave me an inordinate amount of grief. But I worked and worked to get it right. What do you think about a proud Viking who’s been sold into sexual slavery? Uh-huh. Thought so.

This next week I’ll have little ones underfoot, but I still hope to blast through Chapter Two and Three. Wish me luck! And thanks again, chicas!

“The requirements of romantic love are difficult to satisfy
in the back seat of a Dodge Dart.”
Lisa Alther

I pulled this from my The Goddess Within mini-book. Seemed like a good jumpstart to a conversation. Agree or disagree? What constitutes romantic love?

The cliche would be chocolate and flowers. A slow, gentle wooing. I have to admit, I’ve never—not once—experienced that sort of love in my life. I think that’s due to my personality. I always preferred to be “handled”, if ya know what I mean. I tend to challenge guys. Even if they’ve been that romantic man with someone else, they’re the rough and ready guy for me, or they don’t last long.

What’s been your experience? What’s the most romantic thing that’s ever happened to you? By your definition!

The newsletter contest (see September 16th’s blog for the details) continues until the 30th!!

Background Work
By Christine Price

So, I probably didn’t have to come up with the Society for In Darkness Bound. (For those who haven’t had a chance to pick up a copy quite yet, I won’t ruin any surprises by telling you that the Society is a shadowy organization that investigates the disappearance of our main character, Chris). But having “a cop” investigate everything just didn’t sit right for me. What do I know about police procedures, besides what I’ve seen on TV? And really, in a paranormal thriller-romance, do “mundane” authorities really work? Are they enough, especially when encountering all of the wonderful, creepy strangeness that can stalk you from the darkness?

Hence, The Society.

Don’t get me wrong, the focus of the book is our main characters, Chris, Vance and Simon, as they try to navigate the dim hallways and deep-seated psychosis of their captor. But I felt like I needed something more. Something to flesh out my world and offer that extra layer of “WTF is going on here?” The Society gave me a chance to do that. I got two very cool secondary characters out of the bargain as well as another way to express myself through a mysterious conglomerate of people that’s not inherently evil (maybe).

I found as I was writing In Darkness Bound that I came up with a lot of background material for the Society. Most of which doesn’t make it into the book. While the romance was forefront in my mind, I had this elaborate background slowly forming. Not including it, but knowing it was there, was like having their extra support net while I was scaling the trapeze of my first novel-length project. I felt like I had a brand new world I’d constructed, though the book was set entirely in New York.

It also gave me the perfect excuse to expand from a single book into a budding series, but I’ll get into that at another time.

Some of my favourite authors seem to have done the same thing, and it’s always drawn me deeper into the world. Take Sherrilyn Kenyon for example. In her first book, Fantasy Lover, you had no idea that she was going to delve into the world of the Dark Hunters, save for the barest hint when Kyrian walked by. Yet, I have a feeling that she had the entire cosmology at least marginally planned out when she was writing it and it made the book so much more interesting for me in retrospect. Or even Frank Herbert in Dune. You learn next-to-nothing about the Bene Gesserit (save that they’re evil old women with precognisance and a serious love of eugenics), but it’s everything left unsaid that makes them appealing and mysterious. By not going into great detail about them, Herbert gives them power, because nothing is more powerful than your reader’s imagination.

What do you think? Can you tell when an author has done the background work, even when it might not go into great detail? Does it entice you? Pull you in? Make you want to learn more? Or is it just a little irritating when they don’t just spill their guts and tell you what’s going on?

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Data Collection by Dalhousie, Dr. Donna L.

Patient 77 Reclassified to staff status. Useful, malleable.

Confined in a sterile research facility and treated like a lab rat, Chris is alone and terrified. His special powers are his only escape, allowing him to psychically connect with other patients.

Alone in his cell for longer than he can remember, Vance is hungry. When newcomer Chris makes a mental connection, Vance is intrigued and soon wants more than just conversation.

Chris and Vance seek comfort with each other, and with Simon—the only staff member who’s shown them a hint of compassion. Their relationships develop during stolen moments, and they turn their thoughts to escape. But as Dr. Dalhousie’s madness spirals, more than cell walls threaten to keep them apart…

BUY HERE

I spent yesterday with my cousin and his partner, walking around downtown Hot Springs. We had lunch at a tea room I hadn’t known existed. Went to an art exhibit in one of the old, converted bath houses. Trailed through a bath house that was converted to a museum, and then went shopping at an antique store. I came home with a lithograph, a print, costume books, and a silver and mother-of-pearl necklace. Lovely day all in all. On our way home, I took them to a catfish restaurant. They’re from Seattle and hadn’t had that southern fried delicacy—if you can imagine that! Then of course, since we were so hot and tired from all the exercise, we turned on the night light and jumped into the pool for a swim.

I was in bed by ten o’clock. And awake and posting this at three!

I’m thinking I must have hit at least three of those “Simple Delights” from my mini-book yesterday. Here’s another: checking the stats of Pleasing Sir.

Thanks to everyone who bought the book and made my “straight-to-Kindle” experiment a success. I’ll be doing that again!

Wynter selected a winner from among yesterday’s posters, and that person is…Brandy W! Brandy, Wynter will send you a book later today! ~DD