Maya Banks's Blog, page 5

Carly Phillips giveaway!

So guys, here's the deal. Carly and I both have books releasing on the same day. Destiny and Whispers in the Dark. And we thought it would be fun to give you guys a chance to win an advance EARLY copy of our books. I'm going to give away an ARC of Destiny right here on the blog and to accompany it, a 25.00 gift certificate to your choice of BN or Amazon just so you can do a little book shopping on the big Black Friday weekend from the comfort of your own home, in your jammies, on your couch :) Who needs crowds to shop anyway?

Here's more about Destiny!

From New York Times bestselling author Carly Phillips comes her second novel set in Serendipity, the quaint upstate New York town where love, fate, and fortune are intertwined…

Nash Barron may be cynical about love, yet even he likes a good wedding. But the only good thing about his brother's wedding is Kelly Moss. Nash can't help but admire her confidence and beauty, but he's forced to keep his distance because getting involved with Kelly could destroy his relationship with his newly discovered half sister, Tess…

Kelly came to Serendipity to give Tess–her half sibling as well, thanks to an illicit affair–a second chance at life. She learned long ago not to rely on anyone but herself. Besides, she doesn't want to upset Tess's life by pushing for a fling with Nash. Except the more she gets to know him, the more vulnerable she becomes to the kindness beneath his gruff exterior, and the less she's able to stay away. But she has other reasons for keeping her distance. Like the secret from her past she knows Nash will never forgive…

AND as a special treat for you guys, here is an exclusive excerpt you won't see anywhere else!

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Kelly couldn't get out of the bar fast enough. No sooner had she found out that her new best friend had once been married to Nash, than she'd had to watch him fawn over Annie and worry about her welfare. The jealousy had bitten her hard and she hated everything about the situation she suddenly found herself in. Kelly had had enough of awkward triangles to last her a lifetime.

Once in the parking lot, she looked for her Ford Fiesta and realized she had the bad luck to be parked beneath a broken light. Instead of emitting a steady glow, the light flickered and she fumbled for her car keys inside her purse. Finally she pulled them from her bag.

"Kelly!"

Startled, she dropped the key chain on the floor, Nash's voice taking her off guard.

"Why did you run out?" he asked, coming up beside her.

"I already told you. I needed air."

"Why?" Little lines of disbelief crinkled around his eyes, making him even more sexy than usual.

She tipped her head to one side, wondering why he was questioning her over something so trivial. "Because it was hot in there. Why else?"

"Because you just found out that Annie and I had once been married."

"Well you don't pull any punches, do you?" she asked, embarrassed.

He propped an arm on top of her car. "Not when it comes to something … or someone I want." His hot, serious gaze bore into hers.

At his words, the air left her lungs in a rush, his implication clear. "And since when do you want me?"

He laughed suddenly. Not a light chuckle, but a deep laugh that came from someplace inside him she'd never seen before.

"Since when I have I not wanted you?" He reached out and grabbed a strand of her hair, twirling it between his fingers.

The pull was strangely erotic and she felt the tug low in her belly. She swallowed hard and licked her dry lips. "Maybe I should rephrase. Since when have you wanted to act on it? Just last night we agreed we can't go anywhere because of Tess."

He nodded. "And I've done nothing but think about Tess since." He paused. "But this thing between us. It's electric and undeniable."

His husky voice sent tremors of awareness darting through her veins.

"Are we really going to let a fourteen year old dictate how we act?" he asked.

Kelly blinked, stunned not just by his change of heart but at the rationale behind it. "I hadn't thought of it that way."

"Neither did I until Dare pointed it out." An embarrassed grin lifted his lips.

"You and Dare talked about me?" God, could this night get any more mortifying?

He shook his head. "We talked about us." He gestured between them. "Don't forget Dare's the one who interrupted last night."

"Don't remind me," she said on a groan.

"He's also the one who made me see reason. I mean, what he said about not letting a fourteen year old dictate our decisions makes sense."

Kelly nodded slowly. "It does," she agreed. "Unfortunately it doesn't change the fact that nothing more can happen between us."

He blinked, obviously stunned. "Why not? We're both adults. We can trust ourselves to act like it before, during … and after things end."

Well that was an optimistic summary, she thought. But at least he was honest – he'd be looking for something short term. So would she. If she allowed herself to get involved with him. Which she wouldn't.

"I've already been through a relationship with someone who swore their marriage was over and there is no way I'll put myself through that again." She folded her arms across her chest, protecting herself with her words and her actions.

Nash placed his hand on her shoulder. She tried to step out of reach but her back hit the car. She couldn't go far and he liked having her in his personal space. "Annie and I are divorced. She's the one who initiated the damned thing. Trust me, she won't hold it against you if you're with me," he promised Kelly.

Was the man obtuse? "Exactly my point! She may be over you but you're not over her. All any observant person has to do is watch how you treat her and it's obvious you still have feelings for her."

"Of course I care. She's sick and she needs a friend who's aware and who understands. But that's all we are. Friends," he insisted. "Platonic friends."

"Nash – " Kelly held out a hand to keep a barrier between them.

"Kelly," he mimicked gently. "You and I are nothing like me and Annie." He thread his fingers through hers, slowly raising her body temperature. "Not once did Annie and I ever generate heat like this."

Before Kelly knew what hit her, he'd pulled her forward. Her chest collided with his and their hips pressed together intimately. She found herself locked between his waist and the car, the hard ridge behind his jeans deliciously obvious and her body responded, melting for him. Molten liquid fire flowed through her veins.

Heat exploded between them and he sealed their lips firmly together. He was hungry, his mouth nibbling on hers, tasting, demanding until finally he slipped his tongue between her lips. She moaned and wrapped her arms around his neck, enjoying the sensations. Knowing this was all she could take from him, she eased her fingers through his hair and let him deepen the kiss. After all, how far could they go in a parking lot, but as she wondered, her stomach curled with growing need and an awareness of wanting more.

Which made her regretfully pull back. "You're right. We're explosive," she murmured. "But you're still emotionally connected to your ex which puts you off limits for me."

Still shaking, she knelt down, picked up her keys and over his argument, unlocked the car, opened the door and slid inside.

"I'm stubborn," he told her as he helped her shut the door.

Then she'd just have to be more obstinate than him.

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Here's all the ways you can learn more about Carly and her books!

website – http://www.carlyphillips.com

Facebook – http://www.facebook.com/CarlyPhillipsFanPage

Twitter – https://twitter.com/#!/carlyphillips

Now for the important stuff. How to win! Just leave me a comment to let me know you want the book! To sweeten the pot a little, let me know what book you're currently reading. I'm always looking for book recs! I'll leave the contest open until Tuesday morning. That's November 22. Winner will be posted here on the blog so be sure to check back to see if you win!

And also, Carly is hosting a giveaway on her blog and giving readers a chance to win an advance copy of WHISPERS IN THE DARK, so be sure to hop over, visit her and enter for your chance to win there :))

©2011 Maya Banks: Southern Sin. All Rights Reserved.

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NYT and USA Today!

I warned my readers over at Facebook that you all would be getting a lot of loving from me this month. Just read the post below for some heartfelt thanks. But today I'm weepy again and extremely grateful to have such wonderful, supportive readers. Readers who followed me from contemporary erotic romance, to category romance, to romantic suspense and then to Scottish historical romance.

Because of you, NEVER LOVE A HIGHLANDER is currently #13 on the NYT Bestseller list and #32 on the USA Today bestseller list.

Not because of me. Because of all the wonderfully fabulous readers who supported this trilogy and who gave me the chance to fulfill a dream of mine that has been long held.

So thank you again. From the bottom of my heart. You are the very best part of my job and I hope we enjoy many years and many good books together

©2011 Maya Banks: Southern Sin. All Rights Reserved.

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How time flies

Excuse me while I reflect a little on the past few years and damn how fast they go by! I've often said that March is my month. I don't know, it's just that good things seem to happen in that month!

in March 2008, I made my first sale to Harlequin and I also sold the first three books in my KGI series, effectively pushing my career in a new, exciting direction.

In March 2009 I took a huge leap and fulfilled a dream of mine by selling a Scottish historical trilogy. Now a lot of people were surprised. Some even questioned whether I'd be able to pull off something that wasn't erotic (The same was said about the KGI series too lol and well the Desires and pretty much everything I've written since publishing erotic romance) But the simple truth, as I've said it many times, is that erotic romance was the deviation for me. I started my writing aspirations with historical romance and always hoped/planned to write historicals and contemporary action adventure stuff just like KGI woot!

But you know, selling something in March 2009 and then setting deadlines and such to publish them 2 and a half YEARS later? That may as well be a lifetime. That's two and a half years to stress and worry endlessly over whether I can pull off a kickass historical. Whether I'll be able to switch from contemporary romance to the magical historical story I have dancing around in my head. Thinking it and envisioning it is a far cry from actually putting it on the page and pulling off the execution. That's two and a half years to agonize over whether I'll be a complete and utter failure.

And then suddenly two and a half years have passed and I'm now on the eve of publishing the final book in that first historical trilogy. I shake my head because looking back, I'm still not sure how I managed to pull off those stories and get them down exactly as they were in my head. But I'm happy with the result.

I've had a lot of firsts in the last year and I have so much to be grateful to my readers for. You guys embraced my KGI series when I was terrified you wouldn't. And then you embraced my historicals when again, I was terrified you wouldn't. I wanted so badly to be able to continue my KGI series and to also continue writing fun, romantic, magical Scottish historicals. Thanks to you? I totally get to. I'm even now working on the 5th KGI story and as soon as I finish it, I'll be starting work on my next Scottish historical series and I'm so giddy excited I can hardly stand it.

So I'll be celebrating the release of NEVER LOVE A HIGHLANDER but not just as another book release but rather as the culmination of a long held dream of mine. A dream I've worked on for nearly ten years now. A dream that my wonderful readers have made possible. Thank you. You guys are the absolute best.

©2011 Maya Banks: Southern Sin. All Rights Reserved.

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More Scottish Historicals? Why yes!

I guess I kind of just assumed that readers would know that I would continue to write Scottish Historicals. No idea why, mind you, it just wasn't something I ever gave thought to explaining. But I've received many emails and questions asking if I'll be writing MORE Scottish Historicals beyond the trilogy releasing this fall and ending with Never Love A Highlander next month.

The answer is absolutely! I love, love, love historicals. I began my writing career aspiring to be a historical romance author. And there is nothing I love more than Scottish Historicals.

Many of the questions have been whether I'll continue writing about the McCabes or about secondary characters in the McCabe clan. While I won't be writing about the McCabes, I will be beginning a new series and I can't wait to dive into the first story. I'm SO excited about it. I adore the hero and heroine.

I don't have an exact release date yet for the next historical after Never Love a Highlander but I believe it'll be in the fall of 2012. Of course as SOON as I know, I'll let you guys know. But you'll have plenty of books to keep you busy in 2012, including two KGI books, two Harlequin Desires, Sweet Addiction, the Colter novella in June and of course a historical in the fall :)

Sound fair?

It is my sincerest hope that in 2012 I'll finally get my schedule just as I want it and then you can look forward to a KGI book every six months. A historical every six months. And one book in the Sweet series spinoff every year in the spring.

In the meantime, know that I'll absolutely be writing more historicals and will be publishing them on a six month schedule after the next one is released sometimes next fall :)

©2011 Maya Banks: Southern Sin. All Rights Reserved.

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Colters' release dates

I promised you guys more info on the Colter novella and the new Colter book as soon as I got it so here it is :) The novella will be released in June 2012 instead of in the fall so not too much of a delay after all. The fourth book in the series will release April 2013. The novella will be retitled and I still have to come up with a title for the fourth book :)

I should have a cover for the novella soon as they're cover conferencing asap.

©2011 Maya Banks: Southern Sin. All Rights Reserved.

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Exciting news about the Colters' Legacy series!

I'm sorry to have made so many of you wait for an update on the Colter novella I was planning. I've been working on this for quite some time and I wanted to hold off until every thing was finalized and set so I could tell you with absolute certainty what was going on with the novella and a little something extra I hope you'll all be excited about :)

I know that many of you were expecting the release of the Colter Christmas novella to be this fall and I realize you may be disappointed that it's being postponed until 2012. I hope you'll be happy about WHY, though.

I wanted not to exclude a large portion of my readership by releasing this digitally, but since it was a novella, there wasn't much way around that. By my agent and my editor, being the geniuses they are, figured a solution that would enable ALL my readers to be able to buy and read the Colter novella.

Berkley is going to publish the Colter novella AND they're going to release it in a special mass market stand alone novella, which means that you the reader aren't buying an anthology with several other stories. You'll be buying the Colter novella in print. Or if you're a digital reader, you can of course purchase it as an ebook.

The print and the digital will release simultaneously, on the same day. No waiting a year between digital and print as you've done with the previous Colter releases.

Since this novella will be released in print/digital simultaneously, we had to delay the release until AFTER Colters' Daughter releases in print in Feb 2012 because the novella spoils Colters' Daughter. The novella takes place over a year after Colters' Daughter and we very much wanted to preserve the timeline and not spoil Colters' Daughter for those of you waiting to get it in print.

We're planning to release the novella in print/digital in Summer/Fall 2012. As SOON as I have an exact date, you all will be the first to know. My editor has promised not to make you wait very long. They're discussing when to publish it now and should have an answer for us soon. Regardless of when, the readers are uppermost in our minds. We wanted to give everyone a chance to have this novella and not just the digital readers out there.

And if this weren't exciting enough, I'm pleased to announce that Berkley will also be publishing a fourth, full length Colters' Legacy novel in April 2013. I don't have a title yet. The heroine is someone briefly mentioned in Colters' Daughter and someone you'll meet in the upcoming Colter novella :)

I hope you're as excited about this as me and my editor are. We talked a long time on the phone this afternoon about how to do this just perfectly for the readers who made this series so successful. We're just thrilled to be able to do the novella in a way that allows everyone to read in their preferred format.

I realize there will be some disappointment in the delay and for that I apologize. I absolutely would not agree to a delay if I didn't think it benefitted the readers, and in this case, I think it certainly does.

Much love and my sincerest thanks for making the Colters such a successful and fun series.

Maya

©2011 Maya Banks: Southern Sin. All Rights Reserved.

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Spin off of the SWEET series

So I've gotten LOTS of emails and FB posts and tweets about Kane from Sweet Possession, and it's not that I was ignoring you guys or purposely trying to torture you, but it wasn't as simple as saying yes or no that I'd write a book about him. Of course I wanted to write about him and his team and delve into their shenanigans, but these things take time!

I'm happy to say that everything is now finalized and I'll be writing a spin off series of the SWEET series involving Kane and his coworkers, boss etc.

As I've explained on FB, this is not a romantic suspense series. It's very much a sexy contemporary series where the focus is on the relationship between the hero and heroine. There may well be elements of suspense on a book by book basis, but it is definitely NOT the focus of the series whatsoever.

I'm still working on scheduling and arranging it so that I have a set release schedule for all my books so that readers know that on X month I'll have a KGI release and on Y month I'll release a book in the new spin off series and on Z month I'll release a historical.

I'm very excited to dive into a new series! I hope you guys will enjoy Kane and his gang as much as I will :) I'll definitely keep you posted on any new developments as I get them!

Love

Maya

©2011 Maya Banks: Southern Sin. All Rights Reserved.

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Winners of In Bed With a Highlander!

Ok guys, here is the list of Kindle and print winners. If you are a winner of a KINDLE copy, please just email me at maya@mayabanks.com so I can get your ebook to you. If you are the winner of a PRINT copy, please email me your mailing address to the same email.

Kindle winners

Kimberly, comment #94

Bobbie, comment #4

Shelly, comment #56

Staci, comment #15

Megan Burton, comment #126

MichelleAB, comment #23

Alisha, comment #70

Amy, comment #33

Suzie Glass comment #85

Alyssa West, comment #34

Jill, comment #104

Teresita, comment #124

Kate Saunders, comment #40

PRINT WINNERS

Zeneida, comment #95

Julie, comment #77

Jordan H, comment #57

Jillian, comment #2

Jeanette Juan, comment #65

Diane, comment #17

Kristie S, comment #86

Penny, comment #25

Kristina in GA, comment #75

Lynn Reynolds, comment #105

Sonali, comment #116

Crystal Coleman, comment #46

Rosie, comment #127

©2011 Maya Banks: Southern Sin. All Rights Reserved.

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In Bed With A Highlander giveaway!

Oh Lordy but when I went to my own website and saw how long it had been since I'd blogged I couldn't believe that summer is already over, the kids are back in school and that I hadn't blogged since returning from Ireland. I'd be ashamed if I didn't know it will happen again lol.

In Bed With A Highlander released two weeks ago and thanks to my amazing readers, it's been on the USA Today bestseller list for two weeks now. So thank you! You guys rock hard. I'm excited for the second book in the trilogy to release, which is coming up soon! So I thought I'd give some of you who hadn't gotten a chance to get In Bed With A Highlander yet an opportunity to win a copy here on the blog :)

I'm going to give away print copies and I'll also give away Kindle copies to you Kindle owners. I apologize to you NON Kindle owners out there. I'd love nothing more than to be able to gift you with digital copies as well but so far Kindle is the only one who makes that possible. I think I heard that Kobo does as well but I haven't figured them out yet *g*

So anyway I'll stop babbling and get to the giveaway.

If you want to be considered for a copy, first tell me what books you're buying this week or last. I know there are releases I wanted but damn if I can remember what they were and I want to go shopping! Then the next really important thing I need you to tell me is what format you'd like. If you want to be considered for a print copy, say you want the print. If you prefer Kindle, just tell me that.

Simple, right?

I'll leave the contest open until this weekend (sometime) I'm not being too specific because Girlie has a softball tournament and I'm not sure when we'll be home so I can't give you a set time that I'll draw winners. I'd like to have all winners posted by Sunday night but definitely by Monday if we end up playing really late. Please check back early in the week to see if you won! I'll be asking all winners to email me so I can get the books out to you ASAP.

Ok let's get this show on the road. Ready, set, go!

©2011 Maya Banks: Southern Sin. All Rights Reserved.

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Back home!

After an endless Sunday of traveling that began at 6 a.m. Dublin time (or midnight back home) I arrived back home after two hours in the Dublin airport, a 7 hour flight to Newark, a five hour layover, a 3 hour flight to Houston and then a two hour drive home from the airport. Needless to say I don't remember much beyond stumbling into bed around 11 last night.

But I'm home and I have SO much catching up to do. I need to blog about the remainder of my adventure in Ireland as well as post some pics now that I'm back in the land of high speed internet.

I finished Sweet Addiction while on vacation but as soon as I got to the end, I knew the ending was all wrong. *sigh* I pondered it for two days including a sleepless night in the hotel in Dublin the night before our early A.M. flight home. And finally pinpointed what was wrong. So I've now deleted the entire last chapter and I'm currently rewriting the ending and already I know I have it right this time.

I have so much to do this week that I'm in meltdown mode. You know sometimes when you have SO much to do that you don't even know where to start so you just sort of sit and stare blankly because you're so overwhelmed? Yeah, that's me right now lol. Of course the smarter thing to do is to make a to do list and start tackling the items on it. That's what most organized people would do….

So I'm back but up to my neck in "stuff" If you've emailed me, contacted me etc please please be patient with me. I have a backlog of emails that is insane!

©2011 Maya Banks: Southern Sin. All Rights Reserved.

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