Usually I say FINALLY on release day but in this case, I just found out MONDAY that today is release day!!! I thought it was a typo and my editor meant MAY 18. But no...it's today! Yay!

You've been hearing me blog and Tweet about Breakaway for ages, and here it is! Read more about pro athlete romance heroes today at Nine Naughty Novelists - do you like them, or not?

I'm giving away a copy at my Facebook page - so come "like me" (I hate saying that!) and leave a comment for a chance to win.
Also if you join my newsletter group, I give away a copy of every new release to one newsletter subscriber




Here's a little excerpt from Breakaway:

“You’re not my type,” Jason said.


Huh? She blinked. “Okay, then.” She started to stand but he grabbed her hand and tugged her back down, almost onto his lap.

“I mean…you didn’t used to be my type. Hell.” The corners of his mouth turned down. “I sound like an idiot. I am an idiot.”

Her heart softened. She relaxed onto the couch, his arm around her waist, and it felt sooooo good.

“You’re not an idiot,” she said with a little laugh.

“Yeah, I am. Bah.” He shook his head, mouth tight. “What I mean is, I’m not normally attracted to cute little blondes.”

Cute little blonde? Yeah, that was her. How she wished she had mile-long legs and big boobs and full lips like Brianne Haskett. Stephanie Seymour. Laetitia Casta. All those other Victoria’s Secret models who looked like that.

No, she was teeny weeny, skinny, flat-chested, with wispy blonde hair.

But Jason seemed to find her attractive.

She tilted her head to one side and regarded him through a rum-and-lust haze. “You’re kidding. Right?”

“No. I mean…” He looked confused. “I’m not kidding about not usually being attracted to cute little blondes. But you’re…cute.”

She laughed. Shook her head. Wished for another drink.

The crazy thing was, he was exactly the type of guy she was attracted to. Not just physically—big guys had always appealed to her, maybe because she was small—but she also liked his smile, his wide mouth and how it tilted up at the corners even when he wasn’t smiling, the fact that he was gorgeous but wasn’t all hung up on himself and the most important thing—he’d dumped a supermodel!

Dammit. What the hell was going on here? She looked around a bit frantically, now hoping Delise would show up and rescue her. But Delise was nowhere in sight. And Jason was right next to her, touching her, his big body radiating heat. He smelled good, like he’d just showered, a fresh masculine scent of shampoo and men’s shower gel, and a faint shadow of beard shaded his jaw. Yum. She wanted to bite him.

Whoa. She blinked. Her mind was in the gutter. What kind of responsible, big sister/school teacher was she?

He put a big hand on her cheek, cupping it, and she melted into a liquid puddle of lust on the red leather banquette. “You’re sweet,” he said, almost sounding surprised. “Okay. We’ll just stay here for a while. We can talk here.”

She nodded.

“You’re a free woman,” he said with a sexy smile. “And I’m a free man. We should both be celebrating. Why not together?”

She took in a long, slow breath. “Why not?” She smiled at him.

“Here’s the deal,” he said. “I’m not ready to settle down. I like you. We could have fun together.”

“We could.” Oh lord. What had she just said? She closed her eyes briefly, then focused on him and firmed her lips. “I’m not ready to settle down either. I just got my freedom. I’ve had enough responsibility. All I want is to have some fun.”

Even as she said the words, a small niggle of guilt wormed its way into her conscience. Was it true? Was that really all she wanted? She’d been mature, responsible, dependable for so long…did she even know how to just have fun?

She wanted to find out.


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If you didn't see my ecstatic Twittering this past week let me just share my joy with you!! I discovered that I can buy books from the Kobo store that work on my Sony reader. And the Kobo store has the books I want to read, that the Sony store doesn't. I still don't entirely understand why that is, apparently some kind of geographical restrictions set by publishers, but can I tell you how much that annoyed me (Grrrrrr) that I could not buy the books I wanted. Favourite authors, new authors...I could go to the bookstore and buy the print book. But why should I have to do that?
I don't know why I never thought of visiting the Kobo store sooner. I have a Chapters membership which gets me a discount off print books in store and online and I've made good use of that in the past. Now...not so much since I buy mainly ebooks. I feel a little bad about that, because I'd like to support my local bookstore and Chapters was awesome about carrying my print book Friends With Benefits when it came out. (It's sold out!! Yay!! Must go see if they've ordered any more...) Anyhoo, I got an email from Chapters about some sale and there was a link to their Kobo store, so I had the idea to check there. I had no idea what format Kobo readers use. Turns out it's EPUB, which totally works on my Sony. Excitedly, I searched for books, and found the ones I've been wanting- Jill Shalvis and Julie James, to name two. Even more excitedly I made my purchase, downloaded it, opened it in Adobe Digital Editions, transferred it onto my reader and opened it up...voila!  I had my book! And it was even cheaper than the Sony store!!!

Well you can imagine how my TBR "pile" has grown!! Will report back next week!

After another one of those weeks wondering if this is it, I'm done as a writer, I'll never write again,  I'm happy to say-  it's back!

I don't have those self-doubts as much as I used to because I've been through this a few times now. That feeling of thinking I should be writing...but I don't want to. I have ideas but none of them excite me. I have a few projects I've started that I could go back to. I did go back to them. They didn't excite me either.

This usually happens when I've been writing like crazy and yes, I've just completed a few manuscripts and I guess somehow my brain just needs to rest and regenerate or something. I wanted to write something fast and easy, something that doesn't take a lot of research or planning, something hot and sexy and fun. Even that seemed beyond me, though I'd started something that I thought fit the bill.

This morning I woke up early (except for the Daylight Savings Time thing - losing an hour REALLY annoys me, but maybe it wasn't so bad because I wasn't writing something and didn't feel that urgent need to GET UP OUT OF BED AND GET WORKING which I usually feel) so I lay in bed for a while and started thinking about the story I'd started and a few hot scenes came to mind and...whoa! I was inspired!

And I wrote nearly 4000 words today on that story. Yay!

Today instead of sharing what I'm reading (which hasn't been much this week due to a very busy week!) I'm sharing my Romance Trading Card with you. This whole Romance Trading Cards got started as a way for authors to help promote their books at the RT Booklovers Convention and I along with my blog companions the Nine Naughty Novelists, got pulled into the fun of it! The fabulous Kim Killion at http://www.hotdamndesigns.com/ designed this one for me and I thought I'd share sneak peek here. Tonight at the Samhain Cafe some of the other Naughty Nine will share their cards too and we're even going to give away a Naughty Nine set (soon as they're printed, that is!) including the much-sought-after (we hope!) The Zillionaire Vampire Cowboy's Secret Werewolf Babies!!


Here's the front and back - this is Jason Heller from my upcoming release BREAKAWAY:

So what do you think?????

Was it last week I said I was going to start work on a new story? Ha! That never happened. This was one of those weeks where the "business" of writing interfered with the actual writing. Preparing for the RT Convention in Los Angeles and all the promotion that goes along with it consumed a lot of time this week. (Are you going to RT? I sure hope to meet with a lot of people there!) I was also consumed by another round of edits on Breakaway, which had to be done by March 2, and by another round of revisions on a manuscript my agent has. So the story idea I was working on last weekend never got off the ground. But as I write this, the promo whirl has slowed, the edits are turned in to my editor, the agent has the revised manuscript and likes it and...maybe today it will happen!

This week I've read two books by author Juniper Bell - first, Go Wild, a super hot book set in a cold location. This book has the best "meet cute" scene I've read in a long time!  A quick but great read.

Then I read Training the Receptionist also by Juniper. I loved this story! It's so different - told in first person which I'm sometimes not fond of, but the narrator's voice was funny and a little snarky. Another hot little read!

Well, there's not much I can say about the WIP because there is no WIP. :-) Okay, not entirely true. I do have a couple of projects I started some time ago that are "in progress". Last week I did do more work on the characters in one of them, using what I've learned recently from the books and workshops I've done. I found that they worked pretty well and my story was on target, which was encouraging. I didn't actually do any writing on the story though, as the week was completely taken up working on promotion materials for the upcoming RT Convention. This topic pretty much took over my life! My goodness, this is a big deal! And being my first time at RT, with no experience to guide me, I'm really just winging it here. But the whole convention will be  learning experience in so many ways, that's how I'm looking at it!
On the weekend, I did manage to snag a few of the ideas tumbling around in my head and put them together into a story idea that I'm now getting anxious to start writing. I've fleshed out my characters, got my basic story idea down, done a little research and I think I'm ready to start writing - today!

To celebrate my upcoming release Breakaway, here's a little teaser excerpt:

Remi was close. So close. Everything inside her pulled up and tightened and twisted in near painful ecstasy.


She heard bells ringing.

She rode Jason, sliding her hands into her hair, her breasts rising, Jason’s fingers working magic on her clit. So close.

The ringing sang in her ears again. “Jesus,” Jason said. “Is that your doorbell?”

“No. Don’t be silly.”

She shifted forward, frowning, trying to pick up that feeling again.

A loud pounding reverberated through the house.

“It is the door,” Jason gasped, hands on her waist. Remi paused, breathing hard.

“No. It’s my heart. Feel it.” She took his hand and pressed it to her left breast and he made a noise deep in his throat.

The hammering sounded again, this time accompanied by shouting voices.

Remi paused again. Dammit! Now it was gone, the elusive orgasm. Although, it was her third of the night.

What was going on?

“There is someone at your door!”

“There can’t be.” She squinted at the clock beside the bed. “It’s three A.M. Who would…?” She clapped a hand to her mouth. “Oh dear god!”

“What?” Jason’s brows snapped together. He was still hard inside her.

Remi’s mind scrambled. She rolled off Jason and off the bed, eyes darting around the room for something to put on. She scooped up Jason’s shirt from the floor. It was so big she couldn’t find the armholes and she started toward the door as she fought her way into it.

“Remi, who is it?” She glanced over her shoulder to see Jason getting out of bed too, and the sight of his body, all bronze skin and incredible muscles, slowed her feet and distracted her for a couple of heartbeats. He grabbed for his pants and started jumping into them as he crossed the room.

Remi hurried down the hall to the front door, which vibrated under intense, rapid percussion again. She heard a feminine voice calling, “Remi! Are you in there? Remi!”

She peeked out the window and saw—oh god—Delise standing there with two uniformed police officers. Blue and red lights flashed from a car parked at the curb in front of her house. Remi thunked her forehead against the door, hand on the deadbolt, and drew in a long breath. This could not be happening. Could. Not.

She twisted the lock and opened the door just as Jason arrived behind her, chest bare, pants undone, hair standing on end.

The police and Delise burst into the small foyer.

First another message about contacting me:  I am still having problems with the info@kellyjamieson.com email address. People are telling me it isn't working. I've tested it myself and sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't; however if you do get a reply from me and try to reply again, the email address is wrong. *Sigh* I will try to get this fixed ASAP. Meanwhile, if you would like to contact me please leave a comment here at my blog, I get all of those and can contact you back. Thank you and my apologies!

I finished Anybody's Baby But Mine by Susan Elizabeth Phillips about a week ago. As with all her books, I really enjoyed it. Great tension between hero and heroine

And last night I finished Pride and Pleasure by Sylvia Day. It's been a while since she'd had a historical romance out. I really enjoyed this one as it was somewhat different from her others. She always writes kick-butt heroines, even for historicals and often heroines who are not innocent virgins, so this one was a change from that and yet, certainly not a wimpy doormat heroine either.

Monday morning and YAY! It's a holiday! So I'm at home today. Am I writing? Er...no. Having finished my WIP last week, including a few passes through it to tidy up some loose ends and add a little layering, it has now been put away to rest. Along with the  NINE other completed manuscripts I have sitting there in my computer.

Well truthfully, most of them aren't just sitting there. Five of them are out on submission at various places.

I did write this week, though, because it was my turn to write my chapter of the next Nine Naughty Novelists serial story. Oh I had so much fun writing it! It was just fun - exciting and exhilarating and energizing. It reminded me why I love writing. And I can't wait until it's ready for everyone to read, I think it's going to be another good one!

I also worked on edits this past week for Breakaway AND I got a print galley for Lost and Found to review so I started that. And I'm mulling a few ideas over in my head, deciding what to work on next.

And since I just got my cover for Breakaway here's a first peek at it:

I quite love it!! That's Jase, pro hockey player, and Remi, sixth grade teacher.

AND...

I have a print anthology out today!! This is the "Wet" series at Ellora's Cave which includes my novella, Sexpresso Night. Here's that cover:

Woo hoo!!

I mean me, I'm the bad blogger, not "Blogger". :-)

I forgot to blog on Wednesday about what I'm reading (Pride and Pleasure by Sylvia Day).

Here's a song I'm loving right now:

Last week I blogged about returning to work on my chef story and I'm happy to report that it is FINISHED!!! Wrapped it up Saturday night, bang on 80,000 words. It still needs quite a bit of work, there are a few things I'm not entirely happy with yet, but I had to put it aside for now as I got the first round of edits for my next Ellora's Cave release, Breakaway.

Did I announce that here? I can't remember!  Just got the signed contract back last week, so probably not! This is the story you may have read about here I referred to as my "hockey story". It's about a sexy pro hockey player. I love hockey and always wanted to write a book about a hockey player and I did and now I finally get to share it!  Here's the unofficial blurb:

Schoolteacher Remi just saw the last of the younger siblings she raised leave the nest and she’s not handling it very well. Pro hockey player Jason just broke up with his girlfriend because she got too serious. Jason isn’t ready for responsibility. Remi’s had enough responsibility. They’re both ready for one hot night of fun.


When Jason finds out Remi’s a school teacher, he wants nothing more to do with her. Remi thinks he’s kind of acting like a jerk who never called her after their one hot night together. He’s rich, famous and plays a game for a living. But as they spend more time together, their feelings for each other change and Jason manages to convince Remi they can still have fun together. And they do. Despite paparazzi and “puck bunnies” asking him to autograph their breasts, and despite disagreements over Remi protecting her siblings too much and bailing them out every time they need something, Jason and Remi continue to see each other—but it’s just for fun.

But somehow fun and games grow into love. Remi has always wanted a family of her own and she’s finally found the man she can have that with. This time Jason isn’t afraid of commitment, not when it’s with Remi. But their happiness is threatened when they both have to get serious, take responsibilty and make some sacrifices.

Stay tuned for new about a release date!

This week I read a couple of long awaited books by two favourite authors:  Loose Ends by Tara Janze and Call Me Irresistable by Susan Elizabeth Phillips.

I have loved Tara Janzen's Steele Street series, sooooo much and I am so sad that it's over, much as I couldn't wait for this book to be out. My only complaint about this book was not enough romance and maybe a bit too much action. Tara's knowledge of weapons has me in awe. A little more JT and Jane would have been nice.

And  also enjoyed Call Me Irresistable. Great characters, including the many secondary characters (and there are lots) some laugh out loud moments and some heartstrings tugged.

I bought a new book to read, Sylvia Day's latest historical, Pride and Pleasure, but when I went to read it I discovered another SEP book loaded onto my reader that I must have bought a while ago and never read - Nobody's Baby But Mine. So that's what I'm reading now!

Back working on my chef story this week. I haven't progressed the story a whole lot, but I have added to the word count. Using some of the things I've learned in the last few months from the books I've read and the workshops I've done, which I've talked about here, I did a lot more work on the characters in this story.

Then I went back through the story and found places where I needed to develop those characters more. Added, lines, added scenes. I'm pretty happy with how it's working out so far. So I've added about 10,000 words to what I had before and wow, I'm ready for a crisis! 

This story is loosely connected to one of my stories I finished a while back, With Strings Attached, and my hero and heroine from that book make an appearance in this one. I would love this to be a series set in my fictional town.

I've mentioned before how motivating it is to get to this point in a story - 3/4 done! But the last scenes are also the hardest to write, at least I find. So, even though it feels close to being done, I know it will take longer to write the last quarter of the book than probably the first three quarters all put together. Wish me luck!

This week from the WIP (Work in Progress) which once again sadly has no title. It will come to me at some point. :-) It's about a chef. And a wacky interior designer. I'm having fun with Bradan and Mirelle!

****

“You hugged Jerick Ellard the other night.”


Her eyes widened. “What!”

“You hugged him.” His jaw tightened. “You obviously were friends with him and he was a client.” Christ, he sounded like a petulant little boy.

She laughed. “What the hell are you talking about?”

He felt his chin jut out. He stepped closer. “You said we could be friends. The other night.”

“You want me to hug you?” she asked incredulously.

Yeah. Oh hell, yeah. But probably best not to answer that one out loud. He stepped closer and reached out to lift a stray golden strand of hair away from her face, moving it behind her shoulder, taking the opportunity to let his fingers stroke over her soft hair and then brush across her shoulder. “I just want to be friends.”

“Friends.” The word came out on a breath.

“Sure.” He was lying. Through his teeth. He dragged his fingertips up the side of her neck, sliding under her hair where she was so warm, her skin peachy-soft, letting his thumb skim over her small chin, then her bottom lip. Her scent drifted toward him, vanilla and lemon and sugar. It made his mouth water, made him want to inhale her, eat her up. Her eyes darkened as she continued to stare at him. He didn’t just want to be friends with her. He wanted to bang her brains out.

He cupped the back of her neck and pulled her closer, still holding her gaze. He looked at her mouth, soft and pink, a buzzing in his ears, blood rushing to his groin with painful heat, and his eyes closed as he bent his head to kiss her, to breathe her in.

And encountered nothing but air.

I usually blog about the books I've read or am reading this week. I finished Tequila Truth by Mari Carr, and really really liked it! As I said last week, just the kind of book I like to read - great likeable characters, lots of heat and an emotional story. So I picked up Mari's book Power Play. Loved it! More great characters. I loved the scenes at the beginning of the story where they're trying to get each other to beg. My only complaint - this could have been a longer story. And as often happens when I get on a kick for a certain author, I bought Any Given Sunday. It's the most recent book in a series, so I'm going to be reading in all the wrong order - oh well! But I will be reading that series!

But this week I'd love to know what YOU'RE reading - give me some great new ideas of books to try out!

Goodness, yesterday I blogged at Nine Naughty Novelists and forgot to blog here!

I did finish the WIP last week! The last few scenes were hard, and then I had this feeling there were a few little things that just weren't working that I went back and fixed. That took a bit more time, but once I'd done that, the ending flowed better and it was done!

Gabe really gave me a hard time on this one! This story was really different for me. For all the readers who said I probably couldn't top Power Struggle...I'm scared! Because I think this turned out pretty good, but what the heck do I know.

I spent a few more days after that, going through the manuscript a few times, fixing details, and now, as I always do, that manuscript is put away to "simmer" - to let the flavours develop, LOL. In a couple of weeks I will send it off to my critique partner - I'm anxious to know what she thinks!

Then I had to decide what to work on next. I have several projects in the works and sometimes bounce around depending on my mood, or inspiration, or - being honest - what I think is more likely to sell. So I decided to go back to my "chef" story. It's questionable whether there's a market for a chef story but I felt pulled back to this one and to the characters. And I'd already written 50,000 words so might as well finish it. So that's my new work in progress.

Love the lyrics...

In celebration of finishing my WIP, which is Gabe's story for anyone who's read Power Struggle, here's a little sneak peak ( and a picture just because it's snowing like crazy here today):

She ignored the faint suspicion inside her that said oh hell yeah, this was different, this man was way different than any other man she’d ever met in her life. This was not the kind of man she should be spending time with, all forceful and overpowering. This was the kind of man she should be staying far, far away from, the kind of man who could be her downfall. She should be with someone like Kevin—kind, gentle...nice. But Kevin didn’t tempt her like Gabe did. And so she focused on her rationale for why she could do this―one night. Hot attraction. That’s all.


“I like it when you laugh,” she said.

His eyes darkened even more. “I don’t laugh very often.”

“I know.”

“You’re saying I’m a bad-tempered son of a bitch.”

She smiled. “If the hardhat fits...”

He laughed again, then closed his eyes briefly as if it almost pained him. “Reagan.”

“Mmm?”

“Come see the rest of the house.”

She hid her smile as she followed him back into the house. His house was not decorated in single-guy, big screen television, stereo and exercise equipment style but rather had a casual, comfortable elegance. She eyed the wall of bookshelves loaded with books, wanted to explore more there. “Did your wife live here with you?” she asked.

He shot her a sideways look. “No. We divorced a long time ago. I just built this house a couple of years ago.”

“Oh.”

“Why?”

“Never mind. I’ve already complimented you enough tonight. I don’t want your head to get too big.”

“Too late for that,” he muttered, tugging on one pant leg.

It took her a second and then she burst out laughing. “You made a joke again.”

He frowned. “Now you’re saying I don’t have a sense of humor? Not much chance of my ego swelling with you around.”

She couldn’t help it. Her eyes dropped to his groin. Speaking of swelling...she looked back up at him and his dark eyes burned with a blue flame. He moved his head from side to side, but his lips twitched and she had to smile too. “I know you have a sense of humor,” she said softly. “You just keep it pretty well hidden behind all that surliness.”

He made a little choking sound. “Just when I think you’re getting nice, you backhand me again.”

When I do this Wednesday post about what I'm reading, I'm always painfully aware that the authors I'm talking about could be reading this. I know how ferocious other authors get when one of their own is criticized. And I'm not a reviewer, I'm just a reader who happens to also be an author. So I try to keep my comments positive and talk about what I liked about the books I read, but the truth is, I don't like everything I read. So sometimes I just don't say very much. This week I want to share my thoughts but I'm not going to name the book, nor will I name the author. I will say this is my first purchase from Carina Press.

I had a lot of problems with this book and ended up mostly skimming it because it just didn't engage me. The point of view jumped from character to character several times within scenes, which may have been part of the problem. Although it was an erotic romance with some very hot scenes, they didn't evoke any kind of emotional response in me and I realized the writing is very cold and sterile. The characters themselves don't feel any visceral reactions, so neither did I. The story itself was hugely disappointing. In the middle of the story a second hero appears, and he has his own point of view, which was a bit jarring. Turns out he's the man heroine has the HEA with, after very little conflict, I have to say - except he's not. He dies. In a completely meaningless, random way. The other thing that was extremely disturbing was one of the BDSM scenes that was so much like a scene from my own book, Rigger, that it really freaked me out. Similar actions, similar words...I still feel really unsettled by reading something so like one of my own scenes. It must be coincidence but, whoa.

I also read Board Resolution by Joey W. Hill. I can see readers having mixed feelings about this story, the heroine spending much of the book restrained and at the mercy of five men. Ultimate fantasy or abuse? It took me aback at first, until bits of back story were filtered in and I realized that the hero and heroine actually knew each other a lot better than I'd first thought. And it was hot!I'm going for ultimate fantasy, with a heroine who learns a lot about herself through the process.

Right now I'm reading Tequila Truth by Mari Carr. I love this book! It's exactly the kind of story like to read.