Finished Secret Ties by Opal Carew. The way it ended up kind of surprised me, in a good way.

I also read Breaking Midnight by Emma Holly. I’m not so much into vampires but it’s Emma Holly, and it was great! Super hot and several romance stories for the price of one.

And I started Tasting Fear by Shannon McKenna (great week for favourite writers, Emma Holly and Shannon McKenna are two of my top picks!) This is a big fat book (reading it in print) which includes three sisters’ stories. At the moment I’m a little annoyed with Liam, but I’ll probably forgive him (and so will Nancy, LOL).

Meanwhile I have several other non fiction books on the go:
Still reading The House of Mondavi by Julia Flynn Siler
Started: The Hit Charade: Lou Pearlman, Boy Bands and the Biggest Ponzi Scheme in US History (there’s a title for ya) by Tyler Gray
and
At Home in the Vineyard by Susan Sokol Blosser. Lovely.

This week I finished:
A Perfect Match – by Shelley Bradley – a nice light contemporary romance by one of my favorite authors, lots of great sexual tension.

Submission by Cherie Feather – I started this book some time ago, and just picked up it again and finished it. I ended up really enjoying this BDSM story for the most part. I still had problems with some of the "definitions" at the beginning, but once past that, the story was hot and innovative.

The California Directory of Fine Wineries J
Picked this book up in Solvang, California during our recent stay there. It is research for my next story idea…J

And I’m almost finished Dear Sir, I’m Yours by Joely Sue Burkhart – I really enjoyed this BDSM story from a Samhain author I've never read before.

And still keeping up with Greyound Summer by Nara Malone -if you haven't checked this story out, you should. Nara's a brilliant writer and this story is a great summer journey. The Editors at textnovel.com selected Greyhound Summer as an Editor’s Pick and you can read the story there too and vote for Greyhound Summer.

Greyound Summer by Nara Malone is keeping me reading as things heat up for Arie. Good thing I brought my laptop on my holiday!

I finished Strong Silent Type and went right on to Branded as Trouble, both by Lorelei James. Branded as Trouble had a couple both with interesting pasts. I really liked the way they understand each other's struggles.

Now I'm reading Bound by Love by TA Chase...

Will post more later about Vacation Day 5....

10:15 PM
This day was like a dream. I know it would be a better story if everything went wrong, but it was so good. So perfect.

This trip was to be our 25th anniversary celebration. Our kids insisted on coming with us (they're teenagers, 16 and 19) and even though we wanted this to be our trip, we let them come because, hey, we actually like our kids, and strangely enough, our kids like us. I don't know how many teenagers like to spend time with their parents, but ours do and we feel lucky - although sometimes we say "could we just have a couple of hours alone???" Well, today we got it - we left Santa Barbara around noon - left the kids there on their own. We drove through San Marcos pass, through ear-popping ups and downs, into the valley. We passed areas that were burnt during the recent fires. We drove through golden hills, dotted with curly green trees, and spotted at least three eagles soaring above.

We first went to a winery near Santa Ynez, so beautiful, (pix tomorrow - my official photog didn't bring his laptop to convert from raw to JPEG). Then we checked into our stunning boutique hotel in Solvang - French country furniture, dark walls, a fireplace - and the bed was very nice, too. :-) We wandered around town, bought a few Christmas ornaments ( we collect those from everywhere we travel), bought strawberries at the farmers market, then went back to the hotel for dinner.

Included in our hotel package was dinner and it was fabulous - and we got a free bottle of wine! So nice. After dinner we put on our robes from the room and went down to the hot tub. Met a nice couple whose kids were too young to leave alone, but they were getting pretty frisky in the hot tub anyway and ...well, it was hard not to, also. Two fireplaces lit up the hot tub area, so nice, and we had the lovely wine we'd bought earlier, with nice stemless wine glasses from the room.

I'd had an idea for a story kicking around in my head, but I've found I need to combine ideas - and today I got another idea, so I combined the two while I was floating in the hot tub - yes! Great story beginning...I haven't written at all while on this trip, but I'm still thinking about it....