Hi, Readers!  We’ll be chatting today about one of my favorite subjects:  romance.  I’m betting at least a few of you will be able to relate.

Sometimes I think we read romance to fall in love with *love*.  Know what I mean?

When we’ve had a hard day, a spat with our partner, a tough time with the kids, or added stress at the day job, escaping into a story can be just the thing we need.  Watching the hero and heroine deal with life’s troubles, large or small, gives us hope we can overcome our problems, too.  And seeing them work their way to a happy ever after reinforces the power of love.

Sometimes, I think we also read romance to fall in love with the *hero*.  At least, I know I do!

For me, that usually means a cowboy because, hey, what’s not to like about a down-to-earth, rugged rancher in form-fitting jeans?  LOL  But if you’re not that into cowboys, feel free to substitute the hunk hero of your choice.

Whether the guy’s a cowboy or cop, doctor, baseball player, or rich playboy, he’ll be easy to love if he’s an all-star kisser who turns us inside-out with one long, soulful glance from his smoldering eyes.

Easy for *us* to love, that is.  The heroine…not so much.

The heroine can’t just give in and fall for our hero.  She’s got to face the fire because *we* need to be kept guessing.  And, like us, she’s got to solve those large and small life problems before she arrives at her happy ending…before she seals the deal with a kiss from her [insert hero of your choice].  : )

~~

Here’s a quick peek at the hero and heroine from A Rancher of Her Own, which releases next week. Pete and Jane haven’t spoken to each other in years, but their mutual antagonism flares to life the first time they meet again:

“That was my first full-time job,” he told her. “I was trying to make an impression.”

“Oh, you did that, all right. I’m glad you didn’t say ‘a good impression,’ because you didn’t come close to one. I don’t like men—people—who think they can order others around. And you definitely had a case of that back then.”

“I was in charge of the horses—”

“Under my grandpa’s direction.”

“—and watching out for them was part of my job.”

“He’s given you another job now, too, so he tells me.”

“Yeah. Playing nursemaid.”

“Thanks, old man,” she shot back, “but I don’t need that kind of help. An assistant is more like it. What’s the matter? Is the job beneath you?” She shrugged. “If you don’t like the idea, I won’t have a problem getting someone else.”

He’d bet she wouldn’t. As long as she managed to keep that smart yet sexy mouth of hers shut, any of his boys would be happy to assist her. He wouldn’t.

But turning down his boss’s order wasn’t an option.

~~
I’m happy to chat.

Also, I’m giving away an autographed print copy of one of my available backlist titles (US mailing addresses only, please).  To get your name in the hat, tell us:  when you read romance, what type of conflict do you like best and why? 

You have till Friday!  Winner’s name will be posted this weekend.

~~

Barbara White Daille lives with her husband in the sunny Southwest. Though they love the warm winters and the lizards in their front yard, they haven’t gotten used to the scorpions in the bathroom.

Barbara’s new series, The Hitching Post Hotel, features a matchmaking grandpa determined to see his three granddaughters wed. The series began in April 2015 with The Cowboy’s Little Surprise and continues with A Rancher of Her Own in July and The Lawman’s Christmas Proposal in December.

Find Barbara at the following locations:

Facebook ~ Twitter ~ Newsletter ~ Blog ~ Amazon ~ Harlequin ~ Goodreads

A Rancher of Her Own

A REASON TO STAY

Ranch manager Pete Brannigan has no interest in playing tour guide to a city slicker like Jane Garland. But spending a few days with the headstrong photographer is a small price to pay for everything her grandfather has given the single dad. Though Pete’s drawn to Jane’s sharp wit and striking beauty, he won’t hurt his young children by falling for another woman who puts her career before family.

Jane’s seen the world through her camera…and used it to shield her emotions. With Pete, she can finally let her guard down. If only he could do the same. Despite their powerful bond, Pete still can’t trust Jane with his kids or his heart. But if he keeps pushing her away, he may ruin any chance their relationship has to develop.

Amazon ~ Barnes & Noble ~ Books-A-Million ~ Harlequin ~ IndieBound ~ Kobo

It’s Written In The Stars

Have you ever heard that line? Or, how about one of these…

Star-crossed lovers

Born under an unlucky star

Thank your lucky stars

As authors, we create stories around these themes every day.

Everyone has heard of astrology, but often people equate it with a sun sign column in a magazine or newspaper, or on a website. We ask, ‘what’s your sign?’ at a party as a social icebreaker even though we don’t know much about what it means to have your Sun in Leo or Libra.

This sun sign type of astrology is the tip of a vast iceberg. There are countless forms of astrology, many of which originated in ancient Eurasia, India, China and Egypt. In the western world, Tropical Astrology is the system most commonly used nowadays.

Long ago, astronomy and astrology were considered two aspects of one sacred science, the study of stars and planets, and their effects on humanity and earthly events. Johannes Kepler, Benjamin Franklin, and Aristotle are just a few famous names. It is rarely mentioned that they were astrologers. In more recent times, J.P. Morgan had a personal astrologer, as did Nancy and Ronald Reagan.

Along came the dark ages, and suddenly astrology was treated as unworthy of being considered a science. It was relegated to the questionable category of fortune-telling and was discouraged by many in both church and government.

Astrology empowers us. It is a science built on symmetry, geometry and precision. It is a snapshot in time of where the planets and fixed stars were at the time and place we were born. It helps us understand our personal cycles. Just think of the power at our fingertips from just knowing our strengths and weaknesses by knowing our cycles. We can know when to tap into our cycles of good fortune and when it’s best to lie low during times of turbulence.

Each planet has a cycle for one full revolution around the sun. Take Saturn, for instance. It takes 29 ½ years for Saturn to circle the sun. So, when a person is 29 or 30 years old, one Saturn cycle is complete. Saturn represents responsibility, discipline, and learning life lessons. We evaluate our lives at this time. If the decisions we have made are working well, it can be a smooth transition to the next thirty year cycle. If we are no longer in synch with our choices, this is the time we will change course. This cycle breaks down further into quarters; we are affected by Saturn every 7 years. Might this be tied in with the common saying, “seven year itch”?

I’m currently writing a fantasy paranormal romance where the heroine uses astrology to solve the dilemma she is in. I have recently outlined a line of mysteries where astrology features as a major tool for solving murders.

In my novella, The Sheikh’s Spy, there is a beautiful scene where Arabella and Adnan gaze at a beautiful fixed star constellation from an isolated desert landscape.

Have you ever had your astrology charted drawn up and interpreted by an astrologer? Do you have a sun-sign story to share with us?

GEMMA JULIANA is a multi-published author who lives in an enchanted cottage in north Texas with her handsome hero, teen son and a comical dog. She loves making new friends and hearing from readers. Exotic coffee and chocolate fuel her creativity. You can buy Gemma’s books on Amazon.

You can visit Gemma’s website https://www.gemmajuliana.com and follow @Gemma_Juliana on Twitter: https://twitter.com/gemma_juliana

Connect with Gemma

GemmaJuliana.com | Twitter | facebook

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Where do I get my ideas? The voices tell me.

Okay, so now you think I’m insane, but honestly, there are three ways a story starts to gel for me. It can be setting, like the fictional town of South Cove where my tourist trap mysteries are set. I visited a small tourist town on the coast and fell in love with a house for sale. The house kept me thinking about the area, and Guidebook to Murder started to form after that.

Another way I get ideas is from a situation. What would happen if? In the tourist trap series, my situational question is what would happen to a Type A personality who after spending a week on vacation, decides to chuck it all and open a coffee shop.

But the final place I get ideas from is the voices. Once I’ve got an idea in mind, the voices start to populate my new imaginary world. Jill needs a BFF, and Amy Newman walks on the page, all surfer girl with a nerdy brain. Jill’s got a lot on her plate, so she asks her Aunt Jackie to come and help with the coffee shop/bookstore for a week or two. First day running the joint, and her aunt hires Toby Killion, the hot, hunky part time police detective. And it goes on and on.

I love meeting the new characters, finding out who they are, and where they fit into the story. The thing I don’t like is naming them. I like characters with ‘s’ names. Sarah, Sally, Seth, Shauna. I also apparently really like the name Derek as a secondary character since I had a guy by that name in two different series. I went through a ‘j’ stage – Jill, James, Jesse, Jake. But I think I’ve broken my same name habit. Or at least I hope.

Don’t get me wrong, I kind of plot. I do bullet points of each of the chapters and then work my way through the story as I write. However, most times, I don’t have the points in the right chapter. The characters have taken over the story.

I had one story where I had a love scene in the wrong place. My characters when right up to the edge, then balked. Kind of like a horse with a jump and the rider, me, gets thrown off. When I dusted off my jeans, I asked what the heck just happened, and my heroine said, “I’m not ready yet.”

So my hot love scene got moved and the hero stole a good night kiss instead.

Some writers don’t agree with the voices argument. They swear they are in total control of their creative process. I think the girls in the attic are keeping them from seeing the true magic.

Now it’s time for you to chime in. Do you believe in the voices? Or as a reader do you really not care where the stories come from, as long as they keep coming?

Lynn

Dressed to Kill

Jill Gardner—owner of Coffee, Books, and More in the tucked-away town of South Cove, California—is not particularly thrilled to be portraying a twenties flapper for the dinner theater murder mystery. Though it is for charity…
Of course everyone is expecting a “dead” body at the dress rehearsal…but this one isn’t acting! It turns out the main suspect is the late actor’s conniving girlfriend Sherry…who also happens to be the ex-wife of Jill’s main squeeze. Sherry is definitely a master manipulator…but is she a killer? Jill may discover the truth only when the curtain comes up on the final act…and by then, it may be far too late.

“Murder, dirty politics, pirate lore, and a hot police detective: Guidebook to Murder has it all! A cozy lover’s dream come true.” –Susan McBride, author of The Debutante Dropout Mysteries

Buy at: Amazon | Nook

About the Author
New York Times and USA Today best-selling author, Lynn Cahoon is an Idaho native. If you’d visit the town where she grew up, you’d understand why her mysteries and romance novels focus around the depth and experience of small town life. Currently, she’s living in a small historic town on the banks of the Mississippi river where her imagination tends to wander. She lives with her husband and two fur babies.

Links –
Goodreads –https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5857424.Lynn_Cahoon
Twitter – https://twitter.com/LynnCahoon
Facebook –https://www.facebook.com/LynnCahoonAuthor
website – https://lynncahoon.com/
Amazon author page – https://www.amazon.com/Lynn-Cahoon/e/B0082PWOAO/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_pop_1

My husband said today that he didn’t see the importance of history. Excuse him, he’s an engineer. This was an immediate red flag for me, a lover of history and writer of Highlander stories set in the 1300’s. His statement was somewhat ironic given we were in Sicily driving up the side of a smoking Mount Etna to see the land his people owned. What was fascinating about tracing his family’s history was how the actions of one person, in this case, his grandfather, changed the family history of so many future generations.

In the 1920’s my husband’s grandfather, Salvatore, wooed his sweetheart by singing love songs to her under her veranda. She was from a wealthy landowning family and his family was poor. According to my mother-in-law this was not a good match. What hadn’t come out in the telling was that he was a handsome young man with a sweet face who’d gone out of his way to woo a woman. I’d always heard how difficult he was and many other negative things, so I’d never understood why she had married him. But history is more than memory or the recount of a story by  one family member. Going to Sicily, meeting other family members, seeing family photos brings so much more to the picture. What I saw in this picture was the handsome face that has features  so like other family members, men I love.This is the type of research we need to do as writers to understand what really was there in the past. It’s not enough to go to one source. We have to trace the routes and read every source we can uncover.

Sicily is an island struggling through a recession. It’s poor and tired and in serious need of a good paint job. If my husband’s grandfather hadn’t decided to go to Australia, a place far from anything in 1936, the whole history of my husband’s family would have been different. His young family of wife and three children joined him in Australia, selling up most of the land they owned in Sicily under Etna’s steaming volcano.

They’re a family of wealthy professionals enjoying a terrific existence in Australia. For my husband who spent the day exploring his family’s history, it struck him that the family black sheep, the one that wooed the heiress and left her for years when he went to settle in Australia was in fact the family salvation. He’d changed the existence of future generations for the better.

I very gently led him back to his previous statement of the unimportance of history in his eyes. He has a better appreciation for my passion for history as he comes to know his own.

Is there anything in your family history that has changed your life for the worse or better?

*~*~*~*

Cathleen Ross is passionate about history and is the writer of Highlander, Highlander in her Bed and In Her Wild Highlander’s Bed. Highlander is FREE.

Dying is easy. Comedy is difficult.

Does this saying have the ring of truth? Hell yeah! But I haven’t died (yet), so it’s subjective.

I dabble in humor writing the way a minimalist dips their brush into paint. As a rule, less is more. A smattering works, but a heavy hand can overwhelm the artistic aesthetic.

My humor articles appear on my blog, The Snarkology, at infrequent intervals. Imagine Erma Bombeck Uncensored. (Yes, I talk about SEX.)

I try to bring The Funny to all of my books, but the potential for humor being lost in translation is vast. For instance, my current Work in Progress is an erotic space opera called Viking Love Slave.

The logline sums it up:  Viking gods getting it on with nubile love slaves… In Space.

The story contains a lot of lighthearted elements, but I’m discovering those must be presented thoughtfully or I risk my true intention (getting laughs) of being lost in translation. This has been especially evident as the book entered its first developmental editing round. I’m working with a new editor who has identified a purposefully humorous scene as being too melodramatic.

One of the hardest things an author does in the pursuit of good storytelling is balancing their editor’s advice against gut instinct.  Writers have big egos so accepting guidance can be difficult.  This creates conflict, which is great between protagonists and their counterparts. Maybe not so much in a professional relationship that depends upon cooperation for productivity.

Allow me to divert into a cautionary tale to illustrate…

I have an editor-friend who is a reformed Langolier. (She has pointy teeth but only eats kittens on Thursdays.) When we talk, she sometimes brings up a problematic author at her job that consistently reduces the editorial staff to ripping their hair out at the roots. We shall call this special needs author “Debby Diva” for the sake of discretion.

Debby Diva has “a voice” which is utterly unique to her. She is a special snowflake in the literary blizzard. It doesn’t matter whether her editor says her prose sucks or can’t be understood. Obviously, it’s on the reader to invest the time and effort to decipher Debby’s intent. If they fail, they aren’t trying hard enough.

I don’t want to be Debby Diva, and neither do you.

So what am I to say to my VLS editor when I don’t agree with her assessment? Yes, the prose is purple but it’s deliberately purple. And no, the entire story isn’t written in that style, because that would be too much. The joke is only funny to a point, and then you’ve taken it too far.

My best defense, perhaps, is the Are Readers Laughing? Test. The assessment pivots upon whether I can show the scene to a reader and get a good laugh. A giggle allows me to justify the style to my editor as genuinely humorous. A groan sends me back to the drawing board.

So you tell me. Does the scene below make you giggle or groan?

I’ll provide a free ebook copy of any title from my backlist to a randomly chosen commenter. (Excluding the Alphas Gone Wild box set.)

Viking Love Slave

The day she planned to kill a man, she wore an underbust corset that lifted her full breasts so high her nipples threatened to burst from the neckline of her servant’s frock. Prior to assuming her assassin’s duties, she spent hours bathing, polishing, and preparing every square inch of her body in anticipation of her first murder, as nervous as a bride on her wedding night. Even having been warned not to do anything to attract undo attention, Tierwyn couldn’t stand the thought that she wouldn’t look spectacular.

Better to risk arrest and execution.

Hefting a platinum tray of raw oysters, Tierwyn edged closer to the table. King Methedon of Alfheim dined with his guests at a long, rectangular table that ran through the center of the grand room. Prime Minister Seniormost Fussi Pantaloons sat to the king’s left. Crown Prince Thor of the Asgard Star Empire occupied the place of honor to the king’s right, and to Thor’s right was his advisor, Loki.

Word of the Asgard space fleet’s arrival had spread like quicksilver through the capitol. Nobles bedecked in jewels and finery filled the great hall to capacity. They represented the wealthiest and most prestigious members of the peerage.

Nervous tremors ran through her slender frame as she lowered the platter, aiming for an empty area between the visiting dignitaries. As she extended her arms, black-haired Loki tilted his head toward her. He bestowed a flirtatious wink and a smile upon the elf maiden, followed by a sharp pinch upon her posterior.

“Oh!” An indignant cry escaped her startled lips. Tierwyn fumbled and the tray of shellfish tilted perilously toward the royal lap.

“I’ll take those before you wind up wearing them.” Loki smoothly reached across Thor and removed the tray before the oysters completed their journey. In the process of helping, Loki’s elbow just happened to collide with Tierwyn’s hip, destroying what remained of her balance.

“Oh no!” Flapping her arms, Tierwyn tilted off-balance so her face descended toward the Crown Prince’s crotch. Gasping in shock, her eyes widened and her breath exploded from her lungs in a gust as she caught her first glimpse of the epic protuberance. His skin-taut stretchy pants appeared prepared to burst.

Great Gonads! The crown jewels must be enormous! Could the Asgard prince be wearing an insert? Sweet Goddess, she quivered with ecstatic giddiness, torn between curiosity and terror of the truth.

Swooning eagerly toward her dire fate, Tierwyn uttered a groan of disappointment when strong hands caught her at the last moment. Her thighs quivered in primal reaction to the powerful fingers encircling her upper limbs. Sighing, she gazed with longing and disappointment after the destiny denied her. To her great sorrow, his bulge receded from proximity with her face as he lifted her.

*~*~*~*

Viking Love Slave will be released in Spring 2016. To receive notification of Melissa Snark’s new releases, subscribe to her newsletter at: https://www.melissasnark.com/mailing-list/  You’ll receive a free ebook just for joining.

Author Bio:

Author Melissa Snark lives in the San Francisco bay area with her husband, three children, and a glaring of litigious felines. She reads and writes fantasy and romance, and is published with The Wild Rose Press & Nordic Lights Press. She is a coffeeoholic, chocoholic, and a serious geek girl. Her Loki’s Wolves series stems from her fascination with wolves and mythology.

• She blogs about books and writing on https://www.thesnarkology.com/.
  Visit her website at https://www.melissasnark.com/.
• Follow her on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MelissaSnark
• Follow her on Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0076EEQIU
• Follow her on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/MelissaSnark
• Email: MelissaSnark at gmail.com

• Subscribe to her newsletter: https://www.melissasnark.com/mailing-list/

UPDATE: The winner of this contest is…Elaine Swinney!

* * * * *

That’s right. You read that title correctly. I’ve officially popped my paranormal cherry. Woo Hoo!!!

And I did it in style too!! In a paranormal boxed set with 9 other authors who I adore!!!

Violet’s Shadow is my first toe dipping novella into the paranormal pond and I’ll admit it. I was nervous. Paranormal to me has to be impeccable to be good and I didn’t just want it to be good, I wanted it to be great!!!

So here’s a tiny taste of Violet and her journey to be Alpha of a pack of Shadows she didn’t even know existed…

Two weeks alone in a secluded cabin is music to Violet’s ears. Until she sees a shadow in the forest with red glowing eyes. Red eyes she’s seen in her dreams for as long as she can remember. Eyes that make her want to forget the rest of the world. But she doesn’t believe in fairy tales anymore.

Rayden was sent to protect her.  To keep her safe.  Nothing more than to guide her as she transitions into a Shadow and takes her rightful place in the pack.  What he finds instead is the mate he’s been unwilling to search for and a passion so fierce he’ll never be able to walk away.

Violet’s spent her entire life aching to belong and she finally finds it in the pack of Shadows she is destined to join.  Everything she’s ever wanted in life and love is finally at her fingertips if she’s brave enough to embrace…her Shadow.

And what do I want to do to celebrate? Have a contest of course!!

So comment below and tell me what you love about paranormal
and who your favorite paranormal authors are???

I’ll pick a random winner who will win an e-book of their choice and maybe some extra swag too cause it’s awesome and shiny!!!

Happy commenting!!!

 Available for PreOrder now!!!

 Coming out on June 30th 2015!!!!

Romancing the Wolf

Sexy and we know it! They’re on the hunt after your heart. Discover 11 brand new passionate tales of friendship, desire, wolves, survival, and redemption. Escape to another world, another place, and another romance…

Warning: Contains wild heroes and heroines, tempestuous passion, old secrets, new discoveries, and pack ties binding them together. Sometimes love’s greatest challenge is romancing the wolf…

Jennifer Kacey – Violet’s Shadow (Shadow Mates) 

Violet’s spent her whole life searching for where she belongs. Two weeks alone in a secluded cabin is music to her ears, until she sees a shadow in the forest with red glowing eyes. Rayden was sent to protect and guide her. Instead, he finds the mate he’s been unwilling to search for and a passion so fierce he’ll never be able to walk away. Everything she’s ever wanted in life and love is finally at her fingertips if she’s brave enough to embrace…her Shadow

Desiree Holt- Heart of the Wolf (The Devora)

Saranna DeWylde The Ardennes Curse (Woolven Secret)

Virginia Nelson – Odd Mate (The Odd Series)

Gayle Donnelly – Running with the Wolf (The Cascadia Wolves)

Cara Carnes – Redemption’s Forgiveness (The Rending)

Brandy Walker – Under Her Spell (Keystone Predators)

Rebecca Royce – Always (Dragon Wars)

Heather Long – Wolf with Benefits (Wolves of Willow Bend)

Melissa Schroeder – The Alpha’s Saving Grace (Lonestar Wolf Pack)

*~*~*~*~*

Need something to wet your whistle?

May I suggest a delicious bite out of the Members Only series…….. 😛

The books in the Members Only Series can be found here…
Together In Cyn
Haleigh’s Ink
A Very Ménage Christmas
Duke’s Valentine
Orgasm University
Accidental Voyeur
Roman’s To-Do List
Jenna’s Consent
Laila’s Lies

Stand Alone
Buried Permission
Beneath the Pages
Nico’s Curse
Elite Metal
Final Surrender
Violet’s Shadow in Romancing the Wolf – Coming 6/30/2015

Jennifer Kacey is a writer, mother, and business owner living with her family in Texas. She sings in the shower, plays piano in her dreams, and has to have a different color of nail polish every week. The best advice she’s ever been given? Find the real you and never settle for anything less.

Website – https://www.jenniferkacey.com/
Newsletter – https://jenniferkacey.us7.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=f09bd32b8c279cebcc930950e&id=2a45c210e8
Blog – The Decadent Divas – https://www.thedecadentdivas.blogspot.com/
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/jennifer.kacey.7
Facebook Author Page – https://www.facebook.com/jenniferkaceyauthor
Twitter – https://twitter.com/JenniferKacey
Amazon Page – https://www.amazon.com/Jennifer-Kacey/e/B00GXHUB30/ref=s9_simh_gw_p351_d9_al1?_encoding=UTF8&refinementId=618073011&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=0G8ZPDQJVKJPKXNBRY10&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=1688200382&pf_rd_i=507846
Goodreads – https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6941549.Jennifer_Kacey
Pinterest – https://pinterest.com/jenniferkacey/

I want to thank the uber talented and extremely generous, Delilah Devlin, for hosting me today. Leave a comment for the chance to win one of my digital titles.

We probably all remember the old saying: To error is human—forgive divine. As human beings, it’s in our nature to make mistakes. It’s called being human. I think it’s also in our nature to try and correct our mistakes whenever possible. This is what I had to do with the second novella, KIRA, from my BDSM series, Heartache and Hopeful.

I originally wrote KIRA back in late 2012/early 2013. At that time, I hadn’t done my due diligence in researching BDSM so I went with the preconceptions (and misconceptions!) that society held about this alternative lifestyle.

The story centers around Kira and her spanking needs. Instead of having Kira embrace her urges as healthy and normal, I wrote her as being ashamed of her innate desires. Why? Because I personally don’t like pain and thus couldn’t conceive of anyone who would. Big mistake…luckily one that was easy to correct. All I had to change the blurb and tweak a couple of the loves scenes.

Here’s part of the old blurb:

When Kira Schafer’s mega-millionaire—and seriously controlling—father insists she marry one of his company’s junior executives or get cut out of the will, her decisions is an easy one. As much as she loves her dad, she won’t be bullied into a marriage where her needs aren’t met. So she leaves the big city to settle in the small Nebraskan town. And maybe, just maybe the quiet, country life will calm the deep-seated spanking urges which have plagued her for years.

And the new and improved one:

When Kira Schafer’s mega-millionaire—and seriously controlling—father insists she marry one of his company’s junior executives or get cut out of the will, her decision is an easy one. As much as she loves her dad, she won’t be bullied into a marriage where her needs aren’t met. So she leaves the big city to settle in a small farming town. The only drawback to her plan is the lack of bondage clubs in rural Nebraska. But Kira knows abstaining from her spanking urges is but a small price to pay in exchange for her freedom.

In the old version, I also created an inconsistency in Kira’s character… She won’t marry a man who can’t satisfy her, yet she wants to calm her spanking urges. In hindsight, it doesn’t make a lot of sense. Duh, right? <grin> It’s my hope that my revised edition is a truer account of what a practitioner in the leather community might actually think and feel.

So what mistakes have you made and what did you do to correct them? Leave a comment for the chance to win any one of my digital titles. Thanks again to the awesome Delilah Devlin for letting me hang out with her today.

Now please enjoy this excerpt from KIRA:

Hunter wrestled with the wildly thrashing bundle. Kira might not be bigger than a minute, but she had a lot of fight in her. Of course, being frightened usually gave a person extra strength. And by the way Kira was twisting, she had to be scared out of her mind.

He forced his mind to ignore the fact she was clad only in a towel. A towel that was fast slipping to the ground with each torque of her body. Sweat trickled into his eyes from the exertion. That and the wool ski mask he wore to ensure if she did get free, she wouldn’t recognize him. Finally, he wrapped her in a bear hug with her arms pinned to her sides. He took care not to hurt her, just get her attention. He mentally groaned at the soft feel of her curves.

“Settle down,” he mumbled in his best menacing voice. He didn’t need her identifying his voice either. He shook her once when she maintained her resistance. “I won’t hurt you.”

The clean, cotton bag over her head bellowed in and out, clearly distinguishing the outline of her nose and mouth. By the rapid movement, she was probably going to hyperventilate, maybe even pass out. Not at all what he wanted, but having her conked out would make the four hour drive to Omaha that much easier.

“Why should I believe you?”

Though her voice was muffled, she nonetheless sounded pissed. At least she’d stopped struggling. He lessened his hold.

Big mistake.

The instant his arms relaxed, Kira leaped from his grasp. Her bare foot connected to his leg just above the kneecap. He grunted at the impact and went down hard on his other knee. He reached for her, only managing to snag the towel as she danced away. For a long moment Hunter forgot to breathe. He was too distracted by her glorious nakedness for such a trivial concern.

A rosy flush covered her skin, whether from fighting him or her shower, he didn’t know. Sleek legs, with a delectable mesh of hair at the apex, flared to hourglass hips then a slender waist. Two perfectly proportioned breasts, neither too big nor too small, jutted forward, their pink centers puckered tight.

Almost too late, Hunter saw her pull back one supple leg. He only just dodged the kick blindly aimed at his head. Kira snatched the bag from her head. Unmindful of her nudity, she lunged for the small bed against the far wall and retrieved a wooden baseball bat from underneath. She wielded it with the power and confidence of Babe Ruth.

Great job, Rice. She’s seriously pissed and now she has a weapon. Fucking great.

She swung right at his skull. If he’d moved a nanosecond slower, his brains would have landed in next week. He vaulted to his feet and got into a fighting stance, his hands up. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

She swung again. “Really? Is that why you broke into my place? Because you don’t want to hurt me?” Another swing.

Hunter stumbled backwards to avoid her bludgeon and tripped over his feet, losing his balance and tumbling to the floor in a heap. She towered over him, the bat raised high above her head.

Under any different circumstances, he’d take the time to admire Kira’s exquisitely naked beauty. But with the imminent threat of her bashing in his cranium, he thrust his hands up in complete surrender. “Kira, wait! It’s me, Hunter!”

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KIRA is also part of the Hot Summer Nights, Third Collection, to be released on July 7th. Twenty-two authors with some smokin’ hot romances to heat up your summer nights. Pre-order your copy here: Pre-Order. Please note that Hot Summer Nights cannot be claimed as the giveaway prize.

ABOUT LYNDA

Lynda has no doubt she’s a born storyteller.

She remembers her first “story” when she informed her kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Downing, that her mom had just had a baby boy. Her mother hadn’t, of course, and while Lynda got thoroughly admonished for her “storytelling,” she wasn’t deterred from what would become a lifelong passion.

From made-up tales centering around her favorite TV shows as a kid to today, Lynda love telling stories! Stories with handsome guys and spunky gals, that always…always end with a happily-ever-after.

Her romances are full of passion, with heat levels that range from hot to sizzling! She’d been a finalist in numerous writing contests, including RWA’s® prestigious Golden Heart® in 2010. Please join her for laughter, love and that all important HEA.

Lynda live in Reno, NV with her electrician husband of thirty (and counting) years and our two pampered pooches. Feel free to visit her at www.lyndabailey.net. Or drop her an email at lynda@lyndabailey.net

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