Delilah Devlin's Blog, page 458
April 3, 2013
Guest Blogger: Phoebe Conn (Contest)
A friend recently suggested I read FOREIGNER by C.J. Cherryh, a popular sci/fi writer. It’s the first book in a series and has a fascinating premise. A spaceship from Earth has gone off course into an alien universe. A colony is sent down to live on a planet populated by the atevi, an intelligent group that resembles humans, but are taller, stronger, and have black skin and yellow eyes. The hero, Bren Cameron, is a human translator who has learned the atevi language and culture. He wants desperately to maintain the peace between the two diverse groups, but things never run smoothly. By the end of the book, he’s so badly injured he’s on his way to the hospital for surgery, but for the moment, he’s out of danger. The second book, INVADER, begins with Bren leaving the hospital and right back into deep trouble. I don’t usually read sci/fi, but this series is so fast-paced and exciting, it drew me right in. Bren is such a sympathetic character, I couldn’t stop after the first book!
Having one continuing character works well not only in sci/fi, but also in mysteries and thrillers. Sue Grafton has pushed Kinsey Millhone through the alphabet. Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum humorous mystery series is on NOTORIOUS NINETEEN. Fans know they won’t be disappointed when they read the next book in a popular series.
When a family friend married a bullfighter’s daughter, I thought it a great premise for a book, but I hadn’t anticipated a series when I began. Wealthy men often have multiple wives and create new families, and a matador was a perfect fit for the role. My goal in FIERCE LOVE was to tell the story of Magdalena Aragon, a young woman in her twenties who’s meeting her famous father for the first time. She’s the daughter born of his brief marriage to an American woman, and this is her first visit to Spain. That she has half brothers and half sisters she’d also never met added near endless complications to her reunion with her father. When she falls for a matador herself, he’s the very last man she wants to love. The story is set in Barcelona, a city I love, and the book was a joy to write.
When I sent the finished the book to my editor at Samhain, it proved impossible to leave Maggie’s eldest brother, Santos, behind. He’s the bullfighter’s son, and deserved a book of his own. FIERCE PRIDE is an entirely different story. He’s a matador himself and someone wants him dead. That he falls for Maggie’s half sister, Libby, strengthens the ties created in the first book and gives characters I’d grown to love a chance to come back for an encore.
You can probably see this coming, but Maggie’s father had a mistress, a super-model with an independent spirit, who demanded a book of her own, FIERCE PASSION. This series grew from the characters and their complicated relationships, and I had to run to keep up with them. I do believe the FIERCE series is complete as a trilogy, but Maggie has twin half sisters who may someday get a book of their own.
Do you love to read books in a series? I’ll be happy to send pdf copies of FIERCE LOVE and FIERCE PRIDE to someone who comments.
FIERCE LOVE is available in both ebook and print from Samhain. FIERCE PRIDE, a February 2013 ebook, and will be in print in February 2014. The beautiful mistress’s story, FIERCE PASSION will be a November 2013 release. Rest assured, no bulls were harmed in any way in the writing of these books.
April 2, 2013
It’s All Smokin’ Hot!
So, I’m always experimenting, trying to figure out how to find readers and introduce them to what I do. My latest project is my “Collections” website. If you look up at the scrolly-orangey thing just beneath the pretty picture in the header of this page, you will see “Collections” to the far right. Click on it. Every anthology I have edited for Cleis Press has its own page, and it’s own life, I hope. If you click on the book covers, you will head to a site that describes the book, tells you about the wonderful authors involved, and there’s a blog that you can sift through for excerpts and reviews.
The next book coming, Smokin’ Hot Firemen, has its own page now too!
http://smokinhotfiremen.delilahscollections.com/
So far, I’ve only posted a welcome, but today, I’ll invite you to “like” the accompanying Facebook page, and in another couple of days, I’ll run the first of many contests from the Smokin’ Hot website. My suggestion to you, if you don’t want to miss a thing, is to subscribe to the blog. Look in the left sidebar on the Smokin’ Hot webpage for the button. It’s easy and painless. And you won’t be inundated because we won’t be posting every day, just a couple of times a week.
I was up early this morning—wonderful nightmares plagued my dreams. Remember that Nic Cage movie, The Wicker Man? Well that big bundle of twigs was chasing me most of the night. I’ll have to check my dream dictionary to see what it means. Anyway, I was up early, so I put together a new Facebook page. One just for Smokin’ Hot. I’d love it if you ”liked” the page. Again, I’ll be hosting some contests there as well, so you’ll want to be aware of what’s happening. Here’s the link: Smokin’ Hot Facebook Page
If you collect trading cards, be sure to check out the Smokin’ Hot trading card on the freebies page!
And that’s all I’ve got! Remember, there’s one week left on the Two Signed Books Contest! Be sure to post those comments! How do you like that Smokin’ Hot cover, huh? And how many times did I say Smokin’ Hot is this post? 
April 1, 2013
Guest Blogger: Meg Benjamin
People who have read my Konigsburg series may notice there’s a lot of cooking and food there. Chefs are involved in almost all my books, either as heroes/heroines (Fearless Love) or as supporting characters (Venus In Blue Jeans, Brand New Me, Don’t Forget Me). There are a couple of reasons for this—I love to cook and I love to eat, one reason I have a treadmill in my basement. My newest book, Bolted (released by Samhain on April 2), has a pastry chef heroine who ends up as the chef de cuisine at the Hotel Grand, Tompkins Corners, MA. But just for a week.
My heroine, Greta Brewster, is the matron of honor at her brother Josh’s wedding. Just before the bride and groom exchange their vows, however, the bride’s ex shows up and spirits her away. Bolted is part of the Promise Harbor Wedding series, so you can find out more about that wedding and its aftermath from my coauthors Kelly Jamieson (Jilted), Sydney Somers (Busted), and Erin Nicholas (Hitched). The disastrous wedding leaves Greta with some time to kill and a big problem—her own marriage has just ended in divorce and she hasn’t yet figured out a way to tell her mother about it. She’s committed a lot of impulsive acts in her life that haven’t turned out well, and her broken marriage seems to be one more link in the chain. She decides to take a drive and stumbles across a hunky archaeologist who needs help getting free from a collapsed wall in his dig (don’t you hate it when that happens?). One thing leads to another and Greta ends up offering her services as a cook at the local hotel in exchange for a week’s vacation so that she can try to figure out what to do with herself.
Since Greta spends the week cooking—when she isn’t having a good time with that hunky archaeologist, Hank Mitchell—I needed to come up with a few menus. A lot of the cooking scenes happen at breakfast, so I searched up some recipes for applesauce muffins, sour cream pancakes, and French toast. But Greta’s a pastry chef, and I needed a couple of show pieces for her to bake. Cookies were easy enough, but I wanted something that would show you Greta knows her stuff.
Around that time, I saw an old episode of “Best Thing I Ever Made” on Food Network where Anne Burrell made a rose geranium cake. Bingo! I already had a herb garden in back of the hotel (one of the eccentric hotel owners makes organic hand creams and lotions), so I let Greta do her thing, courtesy of Anne. If you’re curious, the recipe can be found here.
The other cooking Greta does was less unique. She makes chicken Marengo one night because it has an interesting backstory—Napoleon’s cook made it by foraging the countryside after the battle of Marengo. Another time she makes chicken in sherry mushroom sauce because that happened to be what I was cooking the night I wrote the scene. Hank, being one of those well-nigh perfect heroes, loves everything she makes, but then he comes to love Greta too, and not just because her cookies really rock.
Greta’s cooking actually becomes a way for her to break out of her cycle of impulsive-act-followed-by-grief, but it requires her to make one more, really major impulsive decision. She makes the right choice. But first she makes lunch. Hey, nobody said HEA can’t be accompanied by a BLT.
Here’s the blurb for Bolted:
Sometimes you have to get lost before you can find yourself.
The Promise Harbor Wedding, Book 2
Greta Brewster McBain in a bind. Two, if she’s really counting. First there’s the can-barely-breathe, bridesmaid’s dress from hell. Second, the stranger who just carried her “perfect” brother’s fiancée out the church door has made it impossible to tell her own mother about her own divorce.
Rather than confirm her reputation as the family screw-up, Greta takes a drive to clear her head.
Trapped in a hole and unable to reach his cell phone, Hank Mitchell is resigned to becoming a permanent part of his own archeological dig when help arrives—in the form of a woman who looks like a Gone With The Wind refugee. Behind the ruffles and lace, though, is something he appreciates: a woman who isn’t afraid of a little dirt.
Their instant connection draws Greta into the eccentric world of the Hotel Grand, where she impulsively trades her hoopskirts for an apron. Soon things are getting hot, not only in the hotel kitchen, but in Hank’s arms…
Warning: Contains hot moonlit sex, a melancholy turtle, two wisecracking seniors, and the world’s ugliest bridesmaid dress.
March 31, 2013
Guest Blogger: Suzan Butler
Thanks, Delilah, for having me here today! One of the most basic reasons people read stories is to connect and relate to the characters. There can be a great premise, a fantastic setting… but if the characters suck, then we the readers are left unfulfilled and cheated.
Our characters, particularly in romance, drive the story. We need them to be memorable.
As a writer, we have many tools available to us to make that happen.
For Off Her Game, I had a hard time figuring out Darren, my hockey playing hunk of a hero. And somewhere during that process of drafting the story, I realized I wasn’t going deep enough into the character interviews to really feel out who they are. And then a friend suggested that I have Darren tell me his story. I had nothing to lose at that point, so I said, “What the hell?”
So I sat down with a blank document and pretty soon, Darren was pouring his little heart out to me. I started with age, physical description and then he started talking to me about his life. How was his relationship with his parents? What was his education like? How did he get into hockey? When did he think marriage was a good idea when his wife was a harpy? What kind of wounds does Darren carry? And the hardest question ever: What does the character want most of all?
It takes a while to get him or any character to answer that question. They might say something but then I need to dig deeper, ask him why and force him to give me his real secret desire.
For Darren, his life is hockey. He eats, lives, breathes the game. A bad marriage nearly killed that for him. So when it came time to ask what he’d be willing to sacrifice to reach that goal… well, I’ll save that for the book. The point is that letting him talk to me made him a real, live character that any woman could love.
Doing this with Darren opened my eyes to who he really was. It streamlined the drafting process, because as soon as I knew who he was, the words flowed on the page of the book. So naturally, I had to do it with Valerie too. As the heroine, Off Her Game strongly favors her story. She’s coming into her own in the story, figuring out that the job wasn’t what defined her. I never would have realized that if it weren’t for me sitting down and letting her tell me her story.
As a reader, have you ever read that book that had such a brilliantly alive character you wondered if they really existed? Or, on the flip side, read a book with a character that had yet to tell their story?
~~~
Penalty Number One: Men
Making time for men and relationships doesn’t fit into Valerie Chase’s game plan. This crisis-counselor-turned-cocktail-waitress knows the score—Men are a distraction. But when a certain hockey player tempts her wild side, part of her wants to indulge in a little harmless fun.
Penalty Number Two: Desire
As the star center for the Texas Highlanders, Darren Moran’s good looks and deadly determination make him a fan favorite. But after the previous season’s disaster, the last thing he needs is to let some woman crawl under his skin. But… Valerie is different. She brings out the best in him—both on and off the ice—and he’s not about to lose her.
Penalty Number Three: Passion
When the game moves to the next level, Darren and Val have got to call timeout. An unplanned romance is a game-thrower, a sinful temptation that neither of them can afford. After all, there’s no way to have order in matters of the heart when the penalties tally up to an ejection from the game.
Off Her Game is now available at all major retailers!
Buy Links:
Amazon | B&N | iTunes | Kobo | All Romance
~~~
Suzan Butler is a romance author with a penchant for Dr. Pepper, ice hockey, and world domination. She lives in Texas under a not-so-secret identity with two monsters, writing books and planning the next step in her evil plans into the twilight hours of the night because that’s when it’s quiet in the house. Visit her online at her website, suzanbutler.com, on Twitter (@SuzanButler) or come join the conversation on Facebook. To keep up to date on new releases, subscribe to the Fabulous, her mailing list.
March 30, 2013
Saturday Snippet: My Choice (Contest)
I’ve written quite a few short stories. I like the fact I can write one in just a couple of days. When I’m experimenting with a genre, a quick 4,000-words is enough to let me move inside another world and try it on. Some of them I sell to publishers who need short stories like Cleis Press or for one of the Mammoth Books. Not everyone will run to buy a collection of short stories just to see what I have written, so I am starting to pull those shorties together into their own collections. This was my first collection. I’ll release another, hopefully next month. Enjoy this snippet from another of my ”experiments.” Can you guess what my naked man from the sea really is?
If you post a comment today, you’ll be entered to win
a free .pdf of this book!
From National Bestselling Author, Delilah Devlin, comes a naughty collection of seven bedtime stories for a week’s worth of nighttime reading pleasure —a little “som-som” to inspire sexy dreams or a one-handed orgasm, or to be read to a partner and enjoyed together.
Witness one woman’s desperate attempt to seduce her busy husband in “Lily’s Last Stand”. In “Nip ‘n’ Tuck” follow a shy seamstress’s adventures with an online suitor that doesn’t go quite as planned. Dive into “Dreaming by the Sea” where a woman with a mysterious past is surprised by a lover who strides naked from the ocean to claim her. An adventurous Victorian nurse learns the pleasures of steam-driven technology in “Dr.Mullaley’s Cure”. A New York commuter shares lustful daydreams of with another subway passenger in “The Morning Ride”. A woman finds the limits of her inhibitions tested in a one-night stand in “All About Me”. In “The Obedient Wife”, find out what really happened between The Beauty and the Beast. Hint: It’s not your children’s fairytale!
From “Dreaming By The Sea” from Strokes
Sea foam lathered the jagged rocks along the shore, each lap sounding like a soapy caress. A sensual sound that fired my imagination to think about things I hadn’t since…well, in a very long time.
Frustrated with the elusive memory, I turned my face into the wind and enjoyed the way it whipped at my hair and the nightgown I’d thrown on over my underwear before making the trek down to the beach. The way the light played at the edge of the horizon had proved too much temptation for me to stay inside the cabin hugging the side of the cliff.
The air was cool with an underlying note of humid heat. Cloying enough to make the silk stick to my skin, but I didn’t care. No one was there to see my slinky nightgown mold my body. I hadn’t wanted to dress since I rose from bed that morning. One of the perks of being a writer. I’d worked without a break all day, but now needed to clear the cobwebs before I headed back into my story.
I strode beside the water, jumping back to avoid the tidal fingers that seeped between the rocks lining the shore to rush across the sand. I headed to the small pool the ebbing tide left every day to see the treasures the sea deposited for me to admire.
Or so I liked to think. Not that I ever took them home. I hadn’t the courage to wet my fingers in the brine. An old phobia—one I wasn’t sure where it started.
Tall, sharp-edged boulders framed the opening where the water rushed into the pool. Peering into the water, I lay on my stomach on a flat rock above the pool. I edged closer and closer, tempted to trail my fingers in the silky saltwater. An orange starfish, bits of broken shell, a long thin strand of seaweed were all that filled the pool. Still, I stared, wishing I were braver.
“Do you always whimper when you stare at starfish?”
I jerked back, my gaze flying to a man, his hands braced between the two sentinel rocks and his body completely nude. “You startled me,” I blurted, scrambling to my knees. Then I narrowed my eyes. “What are doing here? This beach is private. And why the hell are you naked?”
“Don’t you have you any pity for a man washed up on your shore?”
I didn’t believe him. A quick glance showed his skin hadn’t been torn or bruised by the force of water crashing against the rocks. But how had he come here? And why hadn’t he worn a swimsuit?
I didn’t want to know. No matter how handsome he was. And gods, he was. His hair was nearly black and the wet strands grazed the tops of wide shoulders. His eyes were a startling blue, like a calm sea. However, staring into them was anything but calming.
The longer the moment stretched, the harder I fought to ignore the dark hair matted to his chest or the hollows that outlined the muscles stretched over his abdomen.
I tried to keep my gaze glued to his crooked smile, but I knew the attempt was a battle I’d lose. I glanced down, thinking I’d hide it with a blink, but found myself ensnared by the sight of his erection. Thick and alert, without a curve, it pointed slightly to the side. In that second while my gaze lingered, I felt a deep pang of loneliness echo through me.
He cupped his cock. Was he hiding it? Or making sure I’d continue to stare?
My nipples tightened and poked against the silk. I hunched my shoulders to disguise my body’s reaction. “I’m asking you to leave,” I said, forcing a hard tone. “Now.”
“Are you afraid of me?”
I should have been. He’d appeared out of nowhere, invading my personal haven.
However, I’d been alone for nearly a month. This conversation, as strange as it was, was the most thrilling thing that happened since my arrival. “I’m not afraid.” Just feeling horny and stupid. My cheeks began a slow burn.
His shoulders relaxed and he dropped his arms, striding forward into the tidal pool. He bent and picked up a shell, then wiped it off on his belly and held it out.
I didn’t want to take it his gift. The way he looked at me, his stare so intense, set off tingles of alarm that lifted the hairs on the back of my neck.
Still, I raised my hand, accepting it, and then cradled it in my palm as I met the stranger’s steady gaze.
His mouth curved into a half-smile tentative enough not to alarm me. “If I join you on your rock, will you run?”
Damn. I wanted him here, even though he’d be near enough I couldn’t escape. “Should I run?” I asked, tilting my chin.
His smile widened. “Only if you worry about your gown getting wet.” His gaze studied my expression, and then he gripped the ledge and hauled himself up beside me.
I made more room for him to sprawl backward on his elbows. Eyeing him, sitting this close to his nude body, disturbed me more than I wanted to admit. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction—him, with his masculine frame stretched beside me, so close I could sweep a hand over his hard belly or bend to take his cock inside my mouth…
At the direction of my thoughts, my heart pounded like a sledgehammer.
“The sun’s setting,” he murmured, turning to catch me staring again.
I really couldn’t resist. His cock lay against the thigh nearest me. And disappointingly, it had softened. I wondered how that could be when my own body was reacting so wildly to his proximity.
“Really, did you park along the cliff?” I blurted, wanting to talk about anything to fill the silence that made me more nervous and embarrassed by the second. He had to know how he affected me, my breaths were coming faster. My cheeks heated.
He arched a dark brow, and the fading sunlight glinted in his mysterious, sea-blue eyes. His white teeth flashed. “I swam here.”
Our gazes were locked, making the moment feel more intimate, as though a promise was made. My body leaned toward him, but I resisted. He was a complication I didn’t need. No matter how handsome. I shook my head to clear it. “Do you have a house farther down the beach?”
“My home is farther along than that.”
Growing annoyed with his evasiveness, I frowned and rose on my knees. “I have to get back.”
“Is someone waiting for you? Will you be missed?”
The way he asked, as though my answer would determine his reaction, made those warning tingles clamor. I tried to stand, but he gripped my wrist and held me.
His thumb stroked my thudding pulse. “I can’t let you leave.”
“I’ll scream.”
“Do it. No one will hear.”
Since he was right, I bit my tongue and glared.
“Say you’ll stay, and I’ll let go of you.”
I nodded slowly. “I’ll stay.”
He eased his grip, and I glanced down to rub my wrist, waiting for him to lower his guard. The moment he offered me a smile, I shoved his chest, pushing him off the rock into the pool. Then I scrambled up the rocky pathway.
In moments, I was halfway up the narrow, uneven rock steps that ran from the beach to the cabin porch, forty feet above. However, I heard no sounds behind me and I slowed, worrying that maybe he’d hit his head against a rock and lay bleeding or drowned in the water. Huffing a bit, I halted, gripping the handrail in my indecision, and then glanced back. I gave a startled yelp because he was only two steps behind me. And smiling.
Naked and smiling, I revised. I couldn’t get past the naked part, not when his cock was filling again. I backed up a step.
* * * * *
Be sure to check out the snippets on these other authors’ blogs:
Leah Braemel
Caris Roane
Eliza Gayle
McKenna Jeffries
Taige Crenshaw
Felicity Heaton
TJ Michaels
Shiloh Walker
Myla Jackson
Shelli Stevens
Mari Carr
Jody Wallace
Lauren Dane
March 29, 2013
Guest Blogger: Jenna Bayley-Burke
Sometimes, when you finish a story, there is a character just begging to have their story told too. Harm, the overbearing big brother from Caribbean Christmas, really deserved to have someone turn his world upside down. It wasn’t his romance, so the best I could give him was an oh-so satisfying slap across the face.
But telling Caribbean Casanova from Harm’s point of view meant an interesting dilemma. Harm sees Saskia, the heroine (and slapper) from Caribbean Christmas, as an annoying spoiled brat. This time around we see her through his lens, instead of from her own perspective. So from this angle, he’s right. I didn’t tie up their issues with a pretty bow because a lifetime of dislike doesn’t go away because someone is dating your brother or best friend.
There is a real power struggle going on between his controlling big brother tendencies and her free-spirited new adulthood. They managed to call a truce in Caribbean Crush (Under the Caribbean Sun 3), but I’d bet they bicker whenever in the same room. We’ll have to wait and see if it carries into any more stories.
Do you like seeing characters from different angles?
Jenna Bayley-Burke :: blog| website | Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest | Goodreads
March 28, 2013
Guest Blogger: Jeanette Grey
It started when I was in elementary school. Not many people, but a few, all of them grown-ups I looked up to—they’d sit back and shake their heads and they’d say: “Enjoy this, kid. You’ll look back on this one day as the best time of your life.”
At the time, I imagine I shrugged, not really understanding that kind of bone-deep nostalgia or that faint undertone of regret. In middle school, I openly scoffed. I was miserable, and adults were trying to tell me I’d look back on that time fondly? (Spoiler alert: I don’t.) In high school, more and more people started to repeat the promise to me, that in some distant future I too would wistfully remember my teen years. I was just as skeptical, and not much better at hiding my doubt.
But in college…In college I got that first little shiver of fear. Maybe the people telling me to soak it up were right.
The truth of the matter is, college was one of the best times of my life. I got married pretty young, and I grew up in a pretty strict household, so I remember those first few years when I was on my own with a rush. I experimented with all sorts of things, some of them good ideas and some bad, and all of it was exciting. I tried on a half-dozen different majors. I learned not to drink on an empty stomach. I figured out a little bit about who I was. And I learned a lot about love.
Sitting here in my mid-thirties, I look back on my college days with an undeniable sense of nostalgia. That said, I wouldn’t go back and relive it if I could. Sure, those were thrilling, heady years, but they were crazy, too. I was anguished as often as I was elated, and what I can reminisce on now as harmless experimentation at the time felt like flying on a high wire without a net.
And besides, why relive it when I can write about it?
Some of my very favorite stories to read and write take place in college. There’s so much to explore with characters who are just finding themselves, and when you pair self-discovery with that bright, impossible moment of discovering the heart of another person? Magical. And definitely worth reminiscing on.
She needs an escape…and he’s exactly what she had in mind.
College senior Ellen Price spends every spare minute studying to get into medical school. Until spring break yawns before her, as empty as her wallet.
With no money to hit the beach, she fills her empty to-do list with a plan: for just one week, she will become the kind of take-no-prisoners woman she secretly wishes to be, starting with the hot guy at the bar. It’s a no-risk situation: at the end of break, he’ll head back to his campus, and she’ll go back to hers. No muss, no fuss.
At first, Josh Markley isn’t sure what to think when the quiet, intense beauty from his pre-med classes approaches him for a night of casual sex. Even more mystifying, she doesn’t seem to return his recognition. But if she wants to play “strangers in a bar”, he’s game.
Their passionate night is a welcome respite from life’s stress, but afterward, Josh realizes he wants more—from himself, from life, from Ellen. Except she still thinks he’s a one-off she’ll never see again. Confessing the truth now—before she figures it out on her own—could shatter the fragile beginnings of just what the doctor ordered. A forever love.
Warning: Contains mistaken identities, a sometimes-glasses-wearing hottie, deep questions about figuring out what you want from life, and a red-hot college romance.
Links:
GoodReads | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Samhain
Bio:
Jeanette Grey started out with degrees in physics and painting, which she dutifully applied to stunted careers in teaching, technical support, and advertising. When none of that panned out, she started writing. Her stories include futuristic romances and erotic contemporaries, and almost all of them include hints of either science or art.
When she isn’t writing, Jeanette enjoys making pottery, playing board games, and spending time with her husband and her pet frog. She lives, loves, and writes in upstate New York.
Personal Links:
March 27, 2013
Guest Blogger: Myla Jackson (Contest)
When I started the UGLY STICK SALOON Series, I knew I wanted to build a whole community of characters where I could end one story and start another revisiting some of the same places and same characters. In the Ugly Stick Saloon Series, secondary characters get their stories. This gives the readers a chance to revisit some of their favorite characters like old friends.
In one of my first UGLY STICK SALOON books, SEX ED, I introduced Ed and Kendall’s story. But Lacey Lambert played a big secondary role in that story. She’s finally getting her story in BOOTS AND LACE. The reader gets to learn why Lacey acts the way she does and how Nick McBride wins her over. It’s been over a year since SEX ED came out. It’s about time Lacey got her man!
***Leave a comment for a chance to win a download of Sex Ed ***
Author Bio
Myla Jackson spent twenty years in South Central Texas, ranching horses, cattle, goats, ostriches and emus. A former IT professional, retired Army and Air Force Reservist, she’s proud to be writing full-time, penning intrigues and paranormal adventures that keep her readers on the edge of their seats or laughing out loud. Now, living in northwest Arkansas, she’s given up wrangling cattle and exotic birds to wrangle her muses, a malti-poo and a yorkie. When she’s not at her computer, she’s traveling, out snow skiing, boating, or riding her four-wheeler, dreaming up new stories. Website | Blog | Facebook | Twitter
Welcome back to the Ugly Stick Saloon!
She wants no strings…but he wants it all.
After her philandering husband left her, Lacey Lambert found sanctuary, and a better class of friends, at the Ugly Stick Saloon. Where she learned that the best revenge—against her ex, and the “friends” who kicked her out of the Temptation Garden Club—is to live life to the fullest.
Now that her best friend is moving out of her apartment building, she’s feeling a little lonely. And more than ready for a little commitment-free sex with the hot new downstairs tenant.
Freshly divorced, Nick McBride isn’t looking for another failed relationship. But when the luscious brunette offers no-strings sex—with him and his brother—he can’t come up with a good reason to refuse.
After he gets over the shock that she likes it loud, long, and in front of an open window, he finds himself wanting more time with her. Maybe even on a permanent basis. But it’ll take every ounce of his cowboy charms to convince her to let him sweep her off her feet.
Samhain Publishing
Barnes & Noble Nook
Amazon Kindle
March 25, 2013
Guest Blogger: Cyndi Faria (Contest)
For as long as I can remember, I’ve been a hopeless romantic. Yes, it’s cliché, but I am a dreamy idealist to the core. Fresh picked flowers and slow walks holding hands with my man light up my day. Gentle kisses and endearments whispered while sharing ice cream warm my heart.
Everlasting love…
As a young girl, I lived on a ranch at the outskirts of Elk Grove, California. Nestled along the base of the sierra foothills, our ranch was about five miles out of town. Every once in a while, I’d ride my horse to my girlfriend’s house through acres of wheat fields, past a quince orchard and cat-fish farm, and across two country roads to arrive in town. After securing my horse, we’d walk to Hilltop Cemetery, established in 1878, to explore.
In the 1980’s the cemetery’s cracked earth and summer-dried grass surrounded numerous embedded markers. Some of the upright headstones had fallen over, but many still graced the departed. While exploring, I’d conjure up stories in my mind about the deceased, their struggles and triumphs, marriages and births and love, religious beliefs, and such. I’d pretend their whispers rode the breeze.
One plot in particular drew my attention: the double plot of a husband that had preceded his wife’s death by decades. Now at peace, I would imagine them returned to their youth-filled selves, reuniting, embracing, and skipping off toward the Cosumnes River in the distance bliss-filled.
Everlasting love…
In 2005, the cemetery received a makeover. The headstones are upright again and surrounded by manicured lawns, new trees, and concrete pathways. A wrought iron fence wraps around the site and an archway welcomes guests. Many visitors place balloons and flowers, and stop to pay their respects to people they never knew in life.
Everlasting love…
In my debut short story A Promise Worth Keeping, which hit No.1 in free kindle Short Romance and the Top 100 paid lists, my childhood imagination sprang to life as I explored the irrevocability of lasting love through a newly hired groundskeeper’s predicament.
Clayton has a real mess on his hands. Not only have garden vandals threatened the Remy Estate’s Valentine’s Day celebration, but Clayton’s girlfriend, Sarah, has proposed to him despite knowing he doesn’t believe in lasting love.
By hunkering down in the garden all night, Clayton hopes to at least solve one of his problems and catch the vandals in the act. Instead, will Clayton finally face his fears and become a man worth loving?
Do you believe in everlasting love?
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Happy reading and writing,
Cyndi Faria
Leading the way to happily ever after…
Cyndi Faria is an engineer turned romance writer whose craving for structure is satisfied by plotting emotional and cozy paranormal romance stories about cursed spirits, lost souls, harbingers, and even a haunted coastal town. “Cyndi Faria writes with passion and her stories touch the heart,” says Virna DePaul, Bestselling Author of paranormal romance and romantic suspense. On and off Cyndi’s sexy romance pages, this California country girl isn’t afraid to dirty her hands fighting for the underdog and caretaking rescued pets. Find her helping fellow writers and leading readers to happily ever after at www.cyndifaria.com.
March 24, 2013
Guest Blogger: Gemma Juliana
This is a year of new beginnings for me. In February, I published the first three novellas in the Sheikhs of the Golden Triangle series. March is the month I’m blogging for the first time ever. Thanks for inviting me, Delilah!
Have you ever wondered about the timing of events? Looking back at the crossroads in your past, have you ever wondered how different your life might be if you’d taken the other road? Sometimes life feels orchestrated, other times totally random. Is there any such thing as coincidence?
Life is like story creation for a work of fiction, and we are characters in our own novels.
Writing The Sheikh’s Spy made me reflect on the sequence of how things unfold in our lives.
For example, Olympia is kidnapped by a wealthy sheikh and held as collateral because her brother can’t pay his astronomical gambling debt. One evening she is called from the harem quarters to entertain visiting dignitaries, and overhears a plot to kill Sheikh Adnan in the neighboring kingdom of Zahiria. She breaks free, intent on warning him that his life is in danger.
Get Your Copy | Read Chapter One.
If Olympia’s brother hadn’t gambled in that casino on the Riviera the same night the nefarious Sheikh Mahjub was there… or if the sheikh hadn’t decided impulsively to take Olympia as his chattel until the debt was paid… or if Olympia hadn’t decided to escape and find her way to Zahiria… Adnan may have lost his life. Did his survival truly rest on a series of ‘what if’ events, or would he have been spared in some other way?
Then I reflected on a few major events in my own life. If my parents hadn’t taken me to a particular night club on my twenty-first birthday, I wouldn’t have met the man who became my first husband. When he asked for my phone number, I hesitated and wanted to fake a number, but something compelled me to give him my phone number.
In the series prequel, The Amulet, what if the Prince of Zahiria hadn’t fallen in love with the witch’s daughter? If he’d married the princess his parents had chosen for him, perhaps a long series of misfortunes and wars could have been averted. Oonagh the witch may never have created an amulet to protect his kingdom, and the intrigues that plagued the region for centuries may never have happened.
I like to think we have some control over our lives, but sometimes in hindsight it seems life’s pivotal moments came about like the toss of a coin, or the spin of the wheel at a roulette table.
Maybe we are all characters in a gigantic work of fiction some cosmic being out there is writing. I find such thoughts fascinating. When we make everyday decisions, it doesn’t feel like we’re taking a gamble, at least not most of the time.
Does it all end at death, or does the saga continue on the other side of the veil? In Christmas Spirits, the ghost of Anna O’Cleary agrees to give up her right to visit her old Irish castle ever again in exchange for a weekend with her beloved husband, Sheikh Khazan, in the flesh again one last time. Her goal is to entice him to follow her to the spirit world when she leaves. This was such a major gamble, she probably considered the ‘what ifs’ before she sealed the deal.
The universe always fills a void. If I hadn’t met my first husband in that nightclub on my twenty-first birthday, maybe I’d have bumped into him poolside, or in a restaurant the next day. Or maybe I’d have met and married an entirely different man instead.
The two things we do seem to have control over are our minds and hearts. We magnetize people, places and things to ourselves based on the thoughts we put out, and the intentions we hold in our hearts. So, are we the ones writing our own novel?
Have you ever pondered, “What if I’d done this instead of that?”
Thanks for reading this post and pondering the “what ifs” with me. If you have any thoughts about this, or crossroad experiences to share, I’d love to hear them.
If you enjoy sizzling desert princes and passionate heroines in exotic settings, check out my website.
Delilah, thanks again for having me!
Follow me as my writing journey unfolds ~~ I love hearing from readers and making new friends in the world of book lovers!
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