Welcome new readers! This is who I am! This is what I do!

I’m hearing from many of you who’ve read me for the first time with THE SECOND CHANCE CAFE. Amazon is really good at sending out emails with book suggestions, and I know some of you gave the book a try because of that email hitting your inbox. I’ve also heard from several people that the book is a screensaver on their Kindle, so it’s reaching more readers than I ever could on my own through Amazon’s amazing marketing efforts. Yay, Amazon! And yay readers! You’re the ones making this happen, and I thank you! It was certainly not my doing that put the book in the Kindle top twenty! Yes, it’s a good book (if I do say so myself), but word of mouth and discovery are out of my hands. One reader on Twitter told me she baked a batch of brownies using one of the recipes in the book and took them to work, prompting two of her coworkers to buy the book to get the rest of the recipes! I love this so much!

A lot of you are asking about my next book, and are looking into my previous releases, prompting this post. You see, THE SECOND CHANCE CAFE is a bit of a departure for me. My previous books have mostly been sexy, even erotic, and Kaylie and Ten’s story is a much softer one. I would hate for anyone to grab up UNDENIABLE or UNBREAKABLE and be put off by the more explicit nature of those characters’ relationships.

Thing is, their relationships are just as romantic, just as emotional, and possibly even more wrenching. But because those two books in particular are billed as erotic romance, much of the conflict is played out in bed. If you enjoy the sexuality in Sylvia Day’s books, or Lauren Dane’s or Jaci Burton’s, you will most likely enjoy my previous titles. Lauren, Jaci and I all write for Berkley Heat. Sylvia and I both used to write for Kensington Brava, and shared the wonderful Kate Duffy as our editor. That’s not to say the character dynamics or even the plots of our books are similar, but the openness of the sexual encounters are. In fact, Sylvia and I wrote completely different books for Brava. Sylvia wrote lush historical romances, and I wrote gritty romantic suspense.

If you’re not a fan of the spicier reads, you might prefer my Carina Press novella, THIS TIME NEXT YEAR. It’s available digitally now, but will be released in print in the HOLIDAY KISSES anthology later this year. I also have a short story, 21 HOURS, written in the same softer vein as THE SECOND CHANCE CAFE. My earlier books, all available digitally from multiple retailers (LOVE ME TENDER, LOVE IN BLOOM, PLAYING LOVE’S ODDS) are less explicit, but those books are also older, my writing style less … refined, and maybe not as good as it is now, heh.

I love writing books with a sexier tone. I love the vulnerability of a hero whose physical connection to the heroine brings him to his knees. I love the beauty in the expression of emotions through hands on backs, and soles on calves, and mouths measuring heartbeats at the base of a neck. I love the fire in a hero’s eyes as the heroine watches him undress. I love the anticipation between two characters meant for each other who don’t learn that or understand that until their bodies show them.

My Hope Springs series, however, lent itself to a softer feel without the sexual explicitness. Luna’s book, BENEATH THE PATCHWORK MOON, and Indiana Keller’s book, THE SWEETNESS OF HONEY, will both be out sometime next year. My final Dalton Gang book, UNFORGETTABLE, hits shelves in August.

So let me invite you to check out my bookshelf page. There you can find links to all the books and novellas I’ve written, and each book’s page has an excerpt. As always, feel free to use my contact page, The Faqs, to email me with questions, and that page also has a sign-up link for my newsletter which I use only to announce new releases.

Again, thank you so much for enjoying THE SECOND CHANCE CAFE.