Delilah Devlin's Blog, page 544

Snippet Saturday: Dark Moment (Contest)

I promised a contest! Be sure to leave a comment today, and you'll be entered to win a free download of ANY of my Samhain or Ellora's Cave ebooks! In the meantime, enjoy the excerpt. I had an amazing time writing Ravished by a Viking and it's sequel (coming this Fall), Enslaved by a Viking. I hope you enjoy the excerpt, even though some of the aspects may feel unfamiliar because you haven't been deep into the story and learned about the rich world I built. ~DD

"Clash of cultures, clash of myths, clash of powerful personalities…how many authors can bring out on paper the excitement and more-than-willing suspension of disbelief that old fashioned adventure stories once brought us?…a wonderful, action-packed, emotional roller-coaster of a read."

Alien Places on RAVISHED BY A VIKING

What a Viking wants, a Viking takes.

When his younger brother goes missing, Dagr, Viking warrior and Lord of the Wolfskin Clan, will do whatever it takes to get him back. But nothing could have prepared him for Honora—a feisty, intelligent woman who is nothing like the women of his world—women who are content to serve their men in all things. Drawn to her despite her recalcitrant nature, Dagr is determined to show her who's boss both in bed and out.

When the two enemies-turned-lovers join forces to find Dagr's brother they are thrown into a rousing adventure full of danger, intrigue and erotic abandon. Can their passion truly unite them or will their different worlds lead to destruction for them both?

Just as his skiff crunched against the rough edge of the beach, Dagr jumped to the ground, then spun to see how the battle fared. What there was left of a battle, anyway. The action was mostly a retreat—an ignominious run for safety. He counted heads quickly, assuring himself that every one of the men who had accompanied him had made it.

Frakki ran to his side. "Shall we save the bastards?" he said, disgust flavoring his tone. He nodded toward the Consortium soldiers doomed to die if the Vikings didn't mount a concerted rescue.

Odvarr loped toward him, his chest heaving, his face creased with worry. "Dagr, your woman!" he shouted, pointing toward the open waters.

A woman was on the ice! Dagr turned in time to see a slender figure pitch over the side of a skiff and slide on her belly perilously close to the edge. He didn't bother asking what Honora was doing there, or, more precisely, what she was doing on the frozen water. He broke into a run, heading for the closest boat, Frakki on his heels.

They both swung up, Frakki taking the steering ropes, and Dagr balanced on his feet at the raised nose of the small craft. He cupped his hands around his mouth. "Stay still, Honora," he shouted, although the wind, the hollow roars of the beasts, and the screams from the remaining soldiers drowned out his voice.

He ignored the slashes of laser light that pounded the ice around him, dared the soldiers sure to die a gruesome death to kill him because he wasn't turning back. If the goddess Hel herself reached up from her frozen kingdom to drag him down, he'd fight her.

"Dagr . . ." Frakki said quietly, dread in his voice.

"I know."

Beneath them, a dozen sea serpents, blue, green, and orange, swam, tracking them like prey, spiraling, shooting away for a few feet, then circling in closer.

One tapped beneath the hull of their small craft, and the ice groaned and crackled.

Behind them, came the scraping sound of more skiffs joining them on the ice. His men were skilled with the boats, often skimming just off shore. Just far enough to drill into the ice to fish, but close enough to the keep that the guard on the wallwalk could give them fair warning. None of his men were was as skilled as he at escaping the beasts because none dared travel the open seas.

Still they followed him, shouting and hitting the ice with the points of their pikes to draw the beasts away.

In the distance, Arikan's men continued to fire, shredding the solid surface beneath their feet in their panic, drawing the creatures who banged their heads from below to crack the ice, then shoot upwards, mouths agape to catch the men before diving deep to devour them.

Dagr could worry about only one Consortium officer, who now lay on her belly on the ice, her face turned toward him, her eyes beseeching. That she was terrified was evident by the paleness of her skin and the roundness of her eyes. And by her silence. Honora was rarely silent.

When their skiff drew near, Frakki slowed only a fraction, just enough for Dagr to jump off the boat. He rolled, leapt to his feet, and ran for his woman, brandishing his sword and hoping that another of the boats was close enough to retrieve them once he had her before the dragons burst through the ice.

He prayed as never before—to Thor, who'd blessed his fathers' sword. Prayed that just like Thor, who'd felled the giant Hrungnir with his mighty hammer, that his sword and his will would be enough to save the only person who'd ever made him feel complete, the woman who held the other half of his heart.

Honora lay flat on the ice, her head raised, watching Dagr draw near. As her muscles contracted with cold, relief and abject fear for him warred inside her.

He threw down his cloak, his furs, never slowing, running full out, his dark hair whipping behind him, his expression so fierce it took her breath away.

A loud thud sounded beneath her.

Honora couldn't hold back a scream as the ice cracked and lifted, splintering into large pieces like a jagged puzzle. She scrambled for a handhold, sliding gloved fingers over one raw edge.

A serpent pushed up, its dark orange head lifting the shard-like section of ice she held tight to, pushing on one edge with the end of its nose and tilting her toward the water. With her arms stretched, her body swinging, she cast a glance toward Dagr, sure he would be the last thing she saw in this life.

Dagr was close, and not slowing, although the ice broke beneath his feet. He took one last step and leapt onto the serpent's head, landing hard, and gripped his knees on either side of its wide skull.

Their gazes met for a moment, Dagr's filled with love and regret. Then the beast pulled down its head, dislodging the icy shard she clung to, and sending it sliding across the ice, away from it and Dagr.

"No!" Honora screamed, watching in horror as the beast shook its head, trying to dislodge Dagr, but he held tight, the hand not holding his sword gripping horny spikes atop the beast's saw-tooth brow.

The creature flung back its head one last time, and then tucked its head down, preparing to dive.

With a roar, Dagr let go of the spikes, turned his blade upside down, gripped the pommel in both hands, and plunged it downward, piercing the beast's translucent blue eye.

The creature let out a loud, hollow squall, then crashed down his its head, slamming the ice and breaking it. Water closed over its head, submerging the beast and taking Dagr down with it.

Desolation clawed at her chest and Honora screamed again, shoving up to her feet and running to the edge of the ice to peer deep into the water, uncaring whether another beast burst from the water. Her heart was already lost in the cold, cold depths.

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

Be sure to check out the snippets on these other authors' blogs:

Eliza Gayle

Leah Braemel

Jody Wallace

Lauren Dane

Lissa Matthews

Mari Carr

McKenna Jeffries

Sasha White

Taige Crenshaw

TJ Michaels

Guest Blogger: Lacy Danes

HOUSE OF SIN is finally out!

My very first Samhain release is finally out. This story took a long time for me to finish. I wrote up until almost the end and then was sidetracked onto another proposal. When I came back to House of Sin I fell in love with it all over again.

This story is not only my first Samhain release but it is also my very first attempt at writing a story set in the Victorian period. I had to do a bit of research not only on the clothing and social aspects, but also on servants during this time period. I love to research and the Victorian period is so fascinating and filled with contradictions.

Here is the blurb:

Her most important duty—serve the master's pleasure.

Emily's dreams are simple: a life of dedicated service at a respectable estate, and a strong marriage filled with love and devotion for one man. Portage Place, the manor where her parents apprenticed, seems the perfect place to start. Though it is whispered that all is not as it seems behind its grand façade.

The rumors, it turns out, ring with truth. The halls are saturated with sensuality, desire and lust. Despite the scandalous duties she is asked to perform, she is determined not to stumble on what could be her first step toward her dreams. Dreams that, lately, have included the manor's fiery haired groomsman.

A promise to watch over his younger half-brother brought Adam to Portage Place. For the first time in five years of enjoying the delights of the manor's unbridled debauchery, Emily's innocence touches the protector that still lives deep in his core. This house of sin may have ruined him, but he will see to it that it doesn't ruin her.

It seems, however, that behind every door lurks a conspiracy to bind Emily in velvet chains of desire. Until the only way out is for Adam to take the biggest risk of all…

You can read a bit of the opening scene here: Read an Excerpt

You can purchase House Of Sin at Samhain, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble.

Hope you enjoy!

Lacy

Guest Blogger: Teresa Noelle Roberts (Contest)

I'll be heading out of town tomorrow for a plotting bootcamp in Jackson, Mississippi. I have fun stuff lined up for you while I'm gone and some great guests! And I started today because I have a million things to do before I leave. Take a look at the line-up—then be sure to drop by and play with my guests. On Saturday, I'll be running a little contest for a free book, so be sure to post for your chance to win! ~DD

Friday: Lacy Danes

Saturday Snippet & contest

Sunday: Katriena Knights

The Accidental Series

By Teresa Noelle Roberts

This week, Phaze released my latest erotic fantasy/paranormal romance, Threshing the Grain: Seasons of Sorania Cycle 3.

Only if you look on my author page at Phaze, you won't see covers that say Seasons of Sorania Cycle 1 and 2. The books are there, all right. Lady Sun Has Risen is Book 1 of the series and Rain at Midsummer is Book 2. If you read the blurbs, you'll see the series mentioned. But I didn't set out with the intention to write a series when I stared Lady Sun Has Risen.

It was supposed to be a one-off, a story written for a particular call that was a homage to Conan the Barbarian and other stories with slightly barbaric alpha heroes and semi-captured heroines. When I ran it by my critique partner, though, she said my world seemed too generic. She knew I'd been reading a lot about Arabic-ruled Spain in the Middle Ages and suggested I incorporate some elements of that rich setting. But that seemed too grounded in a specific monotheistic culture—and it was important to this story that the setting be a pagan one with multiple deities. So I stole some elements from the late Roman Empire and some from pre-Islamic Persia, added a lot of imagination—and being me, a healthy dollop of sex magic—and Sorania was born. In the process, my heroine ended up less ditzy, with real strengths of her own, even if she's out of her depth, and my hero ended up less barbaric and more complex. Oh, and they both ended up kinky.

(Mind you, I missed the call deadline while doing the rewrites, but I ended up with a far better story.)

It seemed natural to return to this setting and elaborate on it for Rain at Midsummer. I'd mentioned that the mother of the Lady Sun hero was an escaped slave from a neighboring country. Her story deserved telling, and thus Rain at Midsummer was born.

Unfortunately I came up with the series title after I turned in Rain at Midsummer and approved the cover. Oops! Maybe someday they'll be reissued with new covers.

But once I came up with the series title, it was obvious that the next book would involve the Harvest Festival and that it would be a much darker book. In the ancient world, harvest festivals were a time of rejoicing, but often had elements of mourning for the vegetation god, cut down so humans might live—and in the very ancient world, the sacrifice made in the god's honor might not have been a barnyard animal, but a young man. Fall pagan holidays also call to mind Samhain, Halloween, Day of the Dead. Threshing the Grain plays on these elements of horror and pits the hero and heroine of Lady Sun has Risen, Adimir and Miryea, against a demonic threat that demands Adimir sacrifice his life in exchange for his people's safety and prosperity.

Adimir's a nobleman, and in the remote province where he was raised, that means he has magical bonds enforcing his responsibility to the land and the people who live on it. In his worldview, sacrificing himself to a demon to save others might be his destiny. Miryea is city-raised, the child of a university-educated doctor and studying medicine herself. Although the events in Lady Sun awakened her own magic, she takes the "modern" (roughly 5th century AD) view that the gods let you shape your own fate—and she's determined to save her husband by any means necessary.

Even means that might undermine the very foundations of their marriage.

Did I mention there are mysterious, sexy satyrs? And kinky sex, of both male-dom and fem-domme varieties? And both blood magic and sex magic?



(The satyrs will be back in the fourth and final book of the series. A Satyr for Midwinter is this pagan world's version of a Christmas romance, so it's all about finding light and love at the darkest time of the year and the darkest point in your life. Watch for it later this year.)

But why don't I stop telling you about Threshing the Grain and give you a taste of it?

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

[Miryea's] first vision—and so far their only shared vision—had followed the ritual spanking on the spring equinox.

"Should I…" he asked, and in answer, she shifted so she presented her ass to him.

"Make it hard," she begged, although she didn't know if that was the gods offering inspiration or her own instinct wanting the sharp, physical pain to offset the pain in her soul.

And he complied.

He used more force than he usually would, and the first few blows simply hurt. Tears filled her eyes and she bit into the bedclothes to keep from crying out in a way that would panic the servants.

She would endure. She owed it to Adimir.

More than endure, she would enjoy. She must enjoy, because she'd gain no visions if she felt no bliss.

As he continued, the throbbing pain began to transmute to reluctant pleasure, but her mind was distracted and her body wasn't cooperating and the tears still threatened to come. She bit her lip to keep them back, although she felt like she was cutting off her desire as well.

Pleasure was there, just out of reach, but fear and despair blocked her. She squirmed, struggled, trying to get away from the pain–and, paradoxically, from the ecstasy that threatened to follow it, because what kind of woman would have orgasms when her husband's life was in jeopardy?

"Let me try something," Adimir took up her abandoned sash. "Put your hands behind your back," he said, in a way that brooked no argument, a way that, despite everything, went straight to her clit.

She complied, and shuddered as he wrapped the embroidered red silk around her wrists, binding them together. She could still move, could still squirm away almost as easily as before, but safe in the silken bonds, she lost her will to do so. The simple binding made her his prisoner, removed her choice—

Let her open herself.

Off balance now, unable to hold herself up, she had no choice but to press herself forward, face among the bed-linens, ass in the air.

"Lovely," he said, and sounded like he meant it.

A few more thwacks and she filled her mouth with wool and linen, trying not to weep, trying not to cry out from the tangled pain and pleasure and love and fear. Adimir pressed his free hand on the back of her neck, and the gentleness and strength behind that touch, the love and the authority, let her break down. Tears flowed as if she'd been holding them back for months rather than days. And as she cried, he stopped spanking her, cupped between her legs. His fingers found her clit, worked their magic as they always did.

It shouldn't have been enough—enough to give her pleasure, certainly, but not enough to send her into the spirit world. But this time as the world started to shatter into bright shards of ecstasy, Miryea remembered something of her lessons in magic and sent a little of herself between those shards deliberately, for the first time ever.

The room blurred and spun. She closed her eyes and saw the harvest moon and the stars heavy above Thermanae, and felt a cool breeze scented with wild thyme and goat dung and smoke from an olive-wood fire, although it was still warm and humid in Arlind.

And when she opened them again, the harvest moon hung huge and red in the star-studded night sky, staining the harsh beauty of the hills not with blood, but wine. Never mind the full moon was still over a fortnight away, past the time of the Harvest Festival this year, and the hills of Thermanae were a day's ride, and she was in the satrap's palace in Arlind with her shutters closed and her face pressed into her bed-linens.

To celebrate the new release in my "accidental series," I'm giving a copy of Threshing the Grain at my blog. Stop by before January 15 to comment and be entered to win.

Guest Blogger: Myla Jackson (Contest!)

They're Doing It Everywhere!

by Myla Jackson

Okay, so other authors, even my sister Delilah Devlin, are doing it. They're doing it on their blogs, in their newsletters, on Smashwords, in the closet, under the bed… Oops, I digress. My mind hits the gutter way too easily when I'm anywhere near Delilah. Ah the joy of the older sister rubbing off on me.

And what, might you ask, are they doing?

Free Reads!

Good grief. Who wants free reads? Don't we all want to read books we paid for—spent our hard-earned dollars on to seek a few minutes of escapism? Spew…choke…snort!

Free Reads? Who wants 'em?

We do! We do!

I see your hands up, and finally I'm convinced. So where do I start? What makes a good free read? What does the audience want from a Myla Jackson story? I have to say, I'm stumped and in need of a little help.

Should I write a western with sexy cowboys and strong women, willing to hog-tie their men if that's what it takes? Or should I craft a contemporary comedy sure to tickle a funny bone here and there. Or maybe a dark paranormal story with shady shifters, vicious vampires or ravenous beasts of all shapes and sizes?

The selections are endless, the time is limited and I'm still on the fence about what to write. It's not for lack of an idea, it's drinking from the fire hose of ideas. Sigh…

Such is the nature of the writer's life. So many stories, so little time. So help me please… Help me by choosing a premise that pleases you, a genre that gets you going, characters that you can't let go. Step on over to my web of intrigue (my website and my blog ) and let me know your choice of suggestions and you'll be entered in a drawing for a $20 gift card from Amazon.com. Then join my newsletter to read the installments of the free read you're going to help me build…

And check out my newest western ménage in the Bound and Tied Series: Duty Bound. Also check out the other contests I have going for a chance to win more gift cards and free books!

Swweeeeet!

Between a 14-hour power outage and another day of NO INTERNET, I'm behind on email, blogs, etc. Will be back today with updates. Sorry if you were trying to get hold of me, but we had bigger worries here—like keeping pipes from breaking, staying warm, hooking up generators and getting pets to do their business in the snow! Later! DD

Sunday Report Card

Real quick! You can still vote for Breaking Leather—see yesterday's post just under this one!

First, thanks to everyone who bought True Heart and pushed it to #1 on the MBaM site! Woohoo!

And thanks to everyone who helped me get the word out about Ravished by a Viking. More than one person told me they've seen the book "everywhere"—let's hope that translated to sales.

In the meantime, I'm working. Not as focused as I should be. Working on promoting those two books all week ate my lunch. I only accomplished about half of my goals for the week. But I wasn't idle. When I got bored with one thing, I opened something else.

* I wrote three chapters of a cowboy story.

* I completed a synopsis for the follow-up to True Heart and sent it to my editor for approval.

* I resurrected a story I wrote and sold in 2005 to a publisher no one found. I'm hoping to resell the story, but first I want to do a little revising to make it more "me".

* I pulled out two other half-written projects from under the bed, looking for quick wins.

Not a stellar week, but not a complete bust either. This next week, I will get in as much writing as I can, then on Friday, Sis and I are heading to Jackson, Mississippi to teach a plotting bootcamp, Friday through Sunday. Those are always fun and intense.

The red-headed hellion is no longer working nights, and is in fact looking for a job. In the meantime, we've been enjoying our evenings. We love to watch movies together—scary ones especially. She finds me endlessly entertaining because I grope the pillow and jump at the scary parts. This week we watched:

M.Knight Shaymalan's Devil—too predictable for one of his films. I just love his Ah-Ha! moments, and this one didn't have one you couldn't see from a mile away.

Smoke Signals—my second time seeing this Native American, coming of age story. Still every bit as funny and poignant as I remembered.

Dark City—yeah, did anyone see that one when it came out? I found it in the $5 bucket at Walmart. I loved it. It was dark, and very, very different. Think, 1940′s Hitchcock crossed with Buffy's "Hush" episode crossed again with a mass alien abduction. Yeah, very different.

DVD on Iceland from the Icelandic Tourist Board—did I mention that dd and I want to head there this August?

Go Vote for Breaking Leather!

If you want to, that is. I'm not there twisting your arm.

The Long and Short of It review site, which is associated with Whipped Cream reviews, is hosting their weekly Best Book Honor, and I'm nominated! Head to this webpage to place your vote: Vote for Best Book

A snippet from the review:

"WARNING: Do not attempt to read this book without fire resistance gloves!!!!… Delilah Devlin just makes this type of story such an adventure as well as a hot ride… You will never go wrong with a Delilah Devlin story and you will never be disappointed."

Snippet Saturday: Music

I haven't really written songs into any of my work. The one blatant exception is my free read, a serialized story that my readers help me plot. Early on, when they selected their heroine, they let me base the character on…me! This opening scene is exactly like something that would happen to me, and exactly how I would have handled it. Enjoy the snippet!

On a whim, romance author DiDi Devereaux decides to travel to remote Louisiana bayou country to take possession of a house she inherited from a reclusive relative. But before she reaches her destination, she drives her car into a ditch to avoid a large animal that leaps into her path. Rescue comes in the form of a sexy sheriff, whose gruff demeanor seems to hide a feral attraction. As DiDi settles into her new home she finds herself torn between her attraction to the sheriff and the raw, handsome bad boy whose offer to help her renovate her home is a little too convenient and tempting.

Nothing in Bayou Noir is what it seems. When strange things begin to happen, her natural curiosity leads her into danger…

"Wah-ah-ah-ah!"

DiDi Devereaux bounced her head to David Draiman's gorilla-like chant. She'd popped her Disturbed CD in the player after she'd turned onto the small county road. She liked listening to hard rock when she wrote a fight scene or needed a little courage. Raucous, masculine music rarely failed to rev her engines.

Unfortunately, the music wasn't working its magic now.

Her headlights barely cut through the thick fog, forcing DiDi to slow her car as she peered over the steering wheel at the narrow donkey trail of a road. She'd left the highway twenty minutes ago and knew she'd entered bayou country by the thick forest pressing against the road from both sides and the muggy quality of the air. She'd rolled down her windows because her AC fogged up the windshield, but still had to swipe her palms against the glass to clear it enough to continue.

Why she'd decided to finish the journey at night, she didn't know. But she never questioned an impulse, and never really regretted any of the mishaps she'd fallen into as a result of ignoring good advice. Many of her stories came from those misadventures—and inspiration, of late, was getting pretty thin.

A road trip was just what she needed to "fill the well".

On a whim, she'd removed the deed to the Gauthier House from her safe deposit box on Monday after she'd moved her furniture into storage and let her apartment go. Originally, she'd been torn between seeking a summer rental in the Yukon and heading Down Under.

Then she'd remembered the property she'd inherited three years earlier. A dilapidated house in a section of boggy bayou with a dock that led into the swamps. The lawyer who'd handed her the deed and the keys had told her to sell it—or let it return to the land. No use fighting the age of the place because it would be a money pit.

She'd been satisfied to let the document lay at the bottom of her safety deposit box, beneath her passport and a CD that stored every page of every book she'd ever written, just in case catastrophe hit and she had to start all over again. Nothing was more valuable to her than the dreams she'd created on paper, nothing was more meaningful. She'd sacrificed a lot to be where she was, edging toward the top of the bestsellers' lists and finally getting those contracts that fed her gypsy soul.

Now, she had money to sink into the old plantation house. Enough to pay someone else to do the work while she plunked away at a keyboard with an iPod in her ears as workers sawed and hammered around her.

She could make this work—if she ever found the damn place.



The clerk at the gas station fifteen miles back had told her she'd never find her way in the dark on these back roads, that she'd wind up hopelessly lost and it wouldn't be until some backwoods Cajun found her car in the swamp that the mystery of her death would be solved.

He'd cheered up at that thought, saying he bet 20/20 might pay him for an interview. And the little prick had smirked as he said it. Which only made her mad and even more determined to forge ahead.

But things were looking bleak. She considered pulling to the side of the road at the first rest stop, if she ever found one, or at a widening of the road's shoulder and sleeping in her car until the morning. Wouldn't be the first time.

David D was giving her a headache, so she glanced down to eject the CD.

When she looked back up, something large and black darted into the road in front of her then stood there, caught in the headlights.

She slammed on her brakes, causing her car to swerve onto the soft shoulder. Her tires caught the edge of the road and sank, spinning the rear of the car around. Before she could compensate, her car left the road, crashing into the ditch, water splashing up the hood and drowning her windshield in water and long grass.

The engine sputtered to a halt. The headlights dimmed. Then water seeped through the floorboard.

DiDi lifted her feet, clutched the steering wheel hard and closed her eyes. Just for a moment, just long enough to still the thoughts racing too fast through her mind to process.

The car was stuck. But the water wasn't deep enough to drown her. She had time to react.

She flicked her ignition, but the starter sputtered. Using the battery alone, she lowered her window. She bent and reached to the floor and swung her hand around until she caught the handle of her purse. Straightening, she clutched both sides of her window and climbed out.

She stepped into stagnant, swampy water that filled her shoes and soaked her jeans to the knees. "Shit. I hope the alligators won't like the taste of me," she muttered. "Or that whatever jumped in the road isn't looking for dinner."

In the distance, she heard the roar of an engine. She slung her purse over her shoulder, grabbed handfuls of the grass at the sides of the ditch and crawled up to the side of the road.

Headlights blinded her for a moment, but she lifted her hand, praying she wasn't flagging down a serial killer and hoping if she was that he'd spare her life long enough for him to tell her his story.

A car pulled alongside her, the passenger window whirred downward. An emblem on the side of the car had her sighing with relief. A police car had halted beside her.

"Ma'am, do you need help?"

The soft southern inflections in the deep, rasping voice soothed her fears. She leaned down and braced her hands on the open window to peer inside.

"My car's in the ditch," she said, eyeing the large shadow of the man behind the wheel.

"I can see that," he said calm as could be. "Need a lift?"

"I need a tow. And probably repairs. Water's in the engine."

"Get in. I'm heading into Bayou Noir. Henri's gas station isn't open this late, but you can get a room at the motel for the night and figure things out in the mornin'."

She nodded, hesitated for a second, hoping he wasn't a rapist posing as a cop, and then opened the door to slide onto the bench seat. When she closed the door, she turned to get a better look at her savior. Her mouth dried in an instant.

Even shadowed, she could tell he was handsome. Strong, rugged features, a blunt nose and square chin. A dark full head of hair, cut short and with a slight curl to it.

Probably married. Nothing that delicious wouldn't have been wrestled to the altar long ago.

He studied her while she stared back, his dark gaze flicking over her hair, and she lifted her hand to comb through it, feeling suddenly self-conscious. Then her mind began to click as she inventoried the person beside her, thinking she couldn't have found a better hero for her next novel. "I'm DiDi Devereux," she said holding out her hand.

"Sheriff Mason Breaux." He gave her a quick, impersonal clasp that left her palm burning. "Anything you need from your car?"

Not a flicker of recognition had glinted in his eyes. Good. "Um…my suitcase. It's in the trunk."

He put the squad car in park. "Give me your keys and I'll get it for you."

Handsome and a gentleman. Mmmm. "I left them in the ignition."

He nodded, let himself out of the car, and she watched as he plunged down the bank.

Things were indeed looking up. Already her fingers were itching to tap on keys and capture her first impressions of her backwoods cop. Her mind leapt back to the cause of her current dilemma—the large animal that had stood defiantly in the center of the road.

If she hadn't known it was impossible, she would have sworn it was a panther. A black panther. But they didn't exist in North America outside of folktales, and tawny Florida panthers no longer roamed this part of the south.

No, it was far more likely that she'd spied a large dog. Her imagination had simply traded one prosaic image for the fantasy her artist's soul craved. But what would be the harm in creating a story, wrapped around the tale of a stranded tourist who found a strange enchanted land deep in a Louisiana bayou where black panthers roamed?

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

Be sure to check out the snippets on these other authors' blogs:

Eliza Gayle

Jody Wallace

Lauren Dane

Lissa Matthews

Mari Carr

McKenna Jeffries

Sasha White

Shelli Stevens

Taige Crenshaw

TJ Michaels

I turned down Ryan Reynolds

I woke up to a very nice review on Amazon for True Heart: "…I found True Heart to be full of characterization and complete with an emotionally driven plot….I was unprepared for the empathy that I felt towards Honey, and the tears that came to my eyes when she makes love to True for the first time. Her anxiety was heartfelt and Trues' reaction made me fall a bit in love with him myself."

That was nice enough to give a bounce to my step as I headed to the coffee pot for my first cup.

Did I mention I'm making two trips this month? Next weekend, Sis and I are heading to Jackson, Mississippi to lead a weekend plotting bootcamp for the local RWA chapter. And then January 19, I'll head to Miami to board a cruise ship headed to Key West and Cozumel! It's a conference, so it's really work (wink-wink, Mr. Tax-man). I don't know about you, but when it gets cold, I want to get the hell out of Dodge. Last year, I took a long cruise to the Caribbean and found it therapeutic for my writing.

Had a dream about Ryan Reynolds last night—you know, the guy in the The Proposal? Anyway, he was my boyfriend, and I don't remember much, except he turned my desk chair around because I wouldn't stop typing. He squatted in front of me, grabbed my hands and gave me that pretty, soulful look of his. Then he asked me what it would take to convince me to come away with him. I remember thinking, "Am I stupid? Ask for sex!" Instead, I pulled my hands away from his and whined, "But I've got a deadline, Ryan." WTF? But I've got a deadline? Yeah, a completely wasted opportunity for dream sex.

Just what you wanted–another trailer!

These trailer things are fun. Don't know why I resisted them before. (Maybe because I've seen so many lame ones, huh?). Lexxie did a nice job on this one!

I'm waiting on pins and needles to hear how you like Ravished and True. I'd love your feedback. Thanks again to those of y'all who continue to spread the word. It's not about money. It's about showing the publisher they didn't make a mistake taking me on. And don't you want more Vikings and cowboys?

The past two days have been so filled with email and web stuff, that I haven't been writing much. I hope to remedy that today, but daughter called me at 5 AM. She has the flu, so I have to fly over there to help the 6-year-old get ready for school. It never ends. And I need to clean my bedroom and office. Yech.

Anyway, happy reading! And if you have your copy, I'd love a snap shot of you with your book!