Uh, yeah. That’s the title of today’s blog, but you’ll have to read it over at Access Romance’s blog! Hope to see you there! ~DD

From Sizzling Romances: “…Frannie and Niall are a lusty couple that will make you laugh out loud. Niall’s patience is continually tested by Frannie’s outrageous actions. The author has created a wonderful couple that will not be forgotten…”

From Hoot Island: “Vampires can have love lives just as screwed up as anybody else’s, and here’s the proof.”

Bent on catching her cheating fiancé in the act, Frannie Valentine got sidetracked by a little thing like dying. When she awakens, Frannie learns her pampered life will never be the same, so she turns to the man responsible for her “undeadness” and demands he take on the responsibility of teaching her the biz—the PI biz. Niall Keegan never intended to make himself a mate, but Frannie’s string of minor disasters, which ended with her dying in his arms, took the decision right out of his hands. While the mating part isn’t bad, making the disaster-prone Frannie a PI may just be the death of him.

First released in 2004 as part of an anthology, Frannie makes her single title debut today. So if you like vamps with lots of action, humor and red hot loving, here’s your second chance to discover life as one of the newly undead through Frannie’s eyes!

“…Frannie and Niall are a lusty couple that will make you laugh out loud. Niall’s patience is continually tested by Frannie’s outrageous actions. The author has created a wonderful couple that will not be forgotten…”
5 Flames, Tewanda, Sizzling Romances on FRANKIE ‘N’ THE PRIVATE DICK

“Vampires can have love lives just as screwed up as anybody else’s, and here’s the proof.”
Hoot Island on FRANKIE ‘N’ THE PRIVATE DICK

Bent on catching her cheating fiancé in the act, Frannie Valentine got sidetracked by a little thing like dying. When she awakens, Frannie learns her pampered “life” will never be the same, so she turns to the man responsible for her “undeadness” and demands he take on the responsibility of teaching her the biz-the PI biz.

Niall Keegan never intended to make himself a mate, but Frannie’s string of minor disasters, which ended with her dying in his arms, took the decision right out of his hands. While the mating part isn’t bad, making the disaster-prone Frannie a PI may just be the death of him.

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

Niall Keegan waited in an anteroom of the funeral home hidden behind a thick velvet curtain as mourners gathered in the parlor. Dusk had fallen an hour ago, and he’d hurried here to continue his vigil.

However, he had taken the precaution of feeding just before entering the building—on a haughty doorman at a hotel he’d passed, and then a woman walking her ferociously growling Pekinese.

His appetite had been off since the night he drank from the fragrantly delicious vessel that was Francesca Valentine. But he’d forced himself to feed anyway. Tonight, he’d need his strength.

Guilt and anticipation made his stomach roil. It wasn’t every day a man took a mate. Not that he’d given the idea much thought before that night outside the Lizards ‘n’ Suds as he’d held her slender, fragile body while her life slipped away. But Frannie’s pale face and large, brown eyes had pleaded with him to end her pain. She lay dying because of him.

He hadn’t any choice. If he had, he might have gone for someone a little less flashy—less obviously high-maintenance. Someone less self-absorbed. But he couldn’t regret the package. He could lose himself for months, maybe years, exploring her sweetly curved body.
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It’s odd that the whole time I was away (nine freaking-awesome days) I kept to my usual schedule despite the time zone change. Which was pretty cool. I rose at 5-ish and had the lake house to myself until the others began to stir.

Yet, when I returned home, my body clock went haywire. Every night since I’ve been back, I’m up past three in the morning, sleeping far too late to get the kind of start this morning girl enjoys. So ever since Wednesday, I’m fighting fatigue. Translation=terrible productivity.

However, since this is my first report card since I returned, I’m going to claim the work I accomplished on the trip! This is my blog, hear me roar.

Gah! How much coffee did I put into this pot? No amount of creamer will turn it the right shade of mud.

Anyway…the day before I left for Seattle, my new editor at Samhain accepted two new cowboy stories—Unbridled and Unforgiven. I completed the contracts and cover art sheets while I was on the lake. The first will be out in November, the second in January.

On the 5th I wrapped up MIK-7, retitled Knight of My Dreams. Ellora’s Cave has already accepted it. Now, I just have to wait for the editor to edit and to get a date for publication that I can share. Readers will be happy to know that Quentin and Darcy are back together, but of course, they have a new set of problems to contend with. I know, I’m mean that way.

I did some brainstorming with the amazing brain trust at the cottage on a story that has been giving me fits for months. It’s a Medieval fantasy and I have about thirty pages written on it, but I couldn’t get to the center of the story. Now I have a new direction and should be able to pull it out of the toilet.

I started another short story at the cottage and am about halfway through it. I added pages to a historical I’m determined to finish this year. It’s a Medieval and has Normans and Saxons and Vikings, a siege and a battle, and assorted swiving. Gots to have sex, ya know.

So lots accomplished; lots planned. I did some sightseeing with Sasha, my cousin and his partner. So plenty of fodder for new books.

In the next few days, I’m going to dive into research since I’m a little burned on writing. I ordered three books from Amazon on castles and castle-building. Was in Books-A-Million yesterday and bought a huge illustrated volume on mythology and can’t wait to dig into those stories.

Until next week… Sure hope I have progress to report!

You’ve suffered long enough. Following are the names of the winners (selected by a random number generator) of my “Flashback” novels. The winner of All Knight Long…is Jeanette Juan! The winner of Sanctuary is…Brandy!

I’m not the greatest photographer, and some of my subjects are reluctant, but here are a few pics from my time at the lake house. If you are viewing this blog from Facebook, then you will probably have to come to the blog to see the pics: My Blog

This was taken my first night there. I couldnt’ wait to get out on the balcony and see something. I saw more than I hoped and snapped this pic. Isn’t it romantic? What a shame that view was shared with five other travel-tired writers. 😉

The next morning, I took a cup of coffee outside and was blown away with this view. That’s Mount Rainier in the distance.
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It’s past noon here. I stayed up until after three last night, couldn’t sleep, kept going through my gazillion emails to see what all I’d missed and owed. Woke up around 10:30 AM, and about had a heart attack, because I was supposed to go to the 5-year-old’s school to eat lunch with her today. That started at 10:50, and I live a good 45 minutes from her.

So, did I blow it off? Could you? I dressed, washed my face, teeth, brushed my hair and was out the door in three minutes. Then I flew like a bat out of hell. Got there ten minutes late, and broke a dozen laws to do it, but it was all worth it.

Now I’m back home and going through my pictures. Wanted to post something quick just to get it up and thought I’d share this.

As always, there’s a story that goes along with this. This was our first day at the lake house. Only Sasha and I were excited about the water. The rest thought it was too cold, but Sasha’s from Canada, and I’m just a plain ole crazy water baby. We took out the paddle boat, although neither of us had ever been in one. We laughed our asses off just dragging it into the water and trying to board. But we made it in and started pedalling.

What we didn’t know, that the girls hanging off the balcony knew, was that there were two fishermen in a motor boat watching us. We started pedalling, but couldn’t figure out how to steer, so we were going in circles and laughing like crazy. One guy elbowed the other and pointed at us, and they started laughing. When I finally figured out there was this little lever I could push forward and back to steer with, we didn’t care so much that I couldn’t seem to steer in a straight line, so we kept making circles until our stomachs hurt.

After that day, the ladies always headed to the balcony whenever we started walking toward the beach.

I promise I have some very nice pictures of the lake and the ladies to share, but I haven’t downloaded them yet to my PC, so I’m sharing something Sasha sent me from our first night there. If you don’t recognize it, that’s the moon, looking very like a space ship. And if you look down and to the right, you’ll see a little green orb. Now, if you remember my blog from a really long time ago when I went on a ghost-hunting expedition, that’s a ghost “orb”—only swear to god, I’ve only seen them white. I’m thinking…moon-ship…that has to be an alien’s ghost!

I’ll be back tomorrow, and I promise I’ll have those winners announcements and more pics!

I’ll be in catchup mode for a couple of days. I arrived home around 9 PM CST last night. Only took me an hour to get from the airport (it’s easily an hour and a half drive)—didn’t know I’d flown. Guess I was eager.

I have tons of email and laundry to do. I want to be able to get back to work quickly because I still have Lora Leigh’s RAW to get ready for at the end of this month. September cannot be all about fun.

I’ll do a recap of everything I accomplished, saw, learned in the coming days. For now, I’m unwinding.

Oh! And tomorrow I’ll announce the winners for the Flashback books. Thanks to everyone who checked in here while I was gone. I did get access to read the comments and appreciated it very much.

To my retreat buddies—beware! Pictures are coming! 😈

Anything else? Yeah, the pool is calling me. We missed each other very much. Until tomorrow!