With apologies to Beth Kery, I had to put her book on hold because last week was the release of Old Sins, Long Shadows by PG Forte. I've been waiting for this follow up to In The Dark for a long time and I couldn't wait to read it! I think I was even more eager after reading a little teaser PG sent me last year, a scene that she knew was going to really get me (and it did!).

This story moves from 15th Century Spain to present day San Franciso and back again. I loved reading the beginning of Damien and Conrad's love story and agonized for both of them, for the miscommunications and pride and hurt that keeps them apart when they so clearly love each other.

There are still secrets to be revealed and love to be found. I cried for Marc, near the end, but I love how he is changing and maturing. I sense there is a bigger role for him coming up in this vampire war -- and I can't wait to read more!!

Since I don't have much to talk about in terms of a WIP (I spent the last week polishing some finished mansucripts and doing research for an idea I have) let's talk about hockey. Or rather, hockey players!

I've been watching the Vancouver-Nashville series and the Vancouver player who's really been playing well is Ryan Kesler. So let's have a look at Ryan Kesler.

Alas, Ryan is not a Canadian hockey player, which the majority of NHL player are. He was born August 31, 1984, in Livonia, Michigan. He began his first professional season here in my home city Winnipeg with the Manitoba Moose, the Canuck's AHL farm team, but not for long, as he was recalled by the Canucks in November and made his NHL debut on November 24, 2003.

Holding his daughter...aw!

In this series against Nashville, two goals on Saturday, and five goals and four assists in the last four games have people talking Conn Symthe trophy.

If you didn't see this earlier this week, check out the review I got for my book Love Me at Dear Author. The review sparked a little discussion there, which is always good! Love Me was the first book I sold and the first book I published so it's a thrill to get such a good review for it at Dear Author!

AND...this week is the launch of the next serial story from Nine Naughty Novelists!! Check out Love's Savage Whiplash...warning! Do not consume beverages while reading! Spew alert!

There's a contest, too! Find out more here!

This week I finished Sweet Possession by Maya Banks. Great characters in this story. I liked how Connor has things pretty together and Lyric is the one with "issues". He's so steady and solid for her.

I just started reading Explosive by Beth Kery. I've wanted to get my hands on this book ever since it came out but it wasn't available to me at the Sony Store. But when I recently discovered the Kobo store, this was on my list!

After struggling with the spin off story I'd been working on, I set it aside and tried to figure out something else to work on. I have so many ideas, and some of them are spin off stories of books I've written but which haven't sold yet and I have to admit that I wonder if I should bother working on them until the first story sells. What if it never does sell? Spending all that time working on a spin off story would then be a total waste.

Of course I shouldn't have the idea in my head that my stories will never sell. But realistically that is a possibility.

So I started working on some ideas for completely new stories. I got a couple of flashes of inspriation, like for one example, I have the basic story idea but I needed careers for my hero and heroine, and they had to be just the right career - and then the idea hit me! It's going to take some research, and I have 3 books at the library to pick up to get started on that, but that's okay, I really love this idea!

Then as I was sitting on my deck in the sun Friday afternoon drinking a glass of wine, the idea hit me for the spin off story I'd been struggling with - the perfect solution! Why didn't I see that sooner! So now I have a few projects I'm excited about and want to work on and I have to narrow it down to one to focus on...which one will it be?

Hello Monday, and time to blog about my progress on my "work in progress" or rather, this week, LACK of progress. Actually I don't even have a WIP, unless you count the two manuscripts I started months ago and haven't gone back to.

I started working on a story idea for a spin-off story of a recently completed manuscript. I really want to write this story, I do, but...it's giving me a hard time. The funny thing is, I tried to do this once before - write a spin off story for a character who appeared in one of my books. The last time I did this, it was the story of Gabe, who appears in Power Struggle - the Master Dom who helps Tori and Dev figure things out. Many readers asked for his story, and I did plan to write it, but when I sat down to actually do it, it was really hard.

I wonder if it was hard because I had some parts of the story already predetermined, and also the character, so I may have felt a little constrained by the things already in place. For example, with Gabe - I knew he was a Master Dom who belonged to the club Le Chateau. I knew he had developed feelings for his play partner there, Tori, but he had to let her go when she fell in love with another man. I knew that Gabe had a difficult past and had tried to live a lie...but I didn't know exactly what that difficult past was.

I also had a hard time finding the right woman for Gabe. I went through several characters, developing them and then rejecting them as they weren't right for him. At one point, I envisioned him becoming involved with another couple and the story being a menage story...but that didn't work out either. I finally had to put Gabe's story aside for several months while I worked on other things, and then when I went back to it, I think I at last got it right.

Now I'm having the same problems with this story - I know some things about my character (his name is Dylan). I know he's been hurt by a woman and feels betrayed by his best friend. I know he's recently had an experience that threatens his career, which is all important to him. But as with Gabe's story, I can't seem to find quite the right woman for Dylan. And I can't seem to find the right reason to bring him home again after leaving, hurt and in pain.

So, as with Gabe's story, I may have to put this one aside for a while and work on something else. But this time I feel more confident that the perfect woman for Dylan will come to me, and so will Dylan's story.

Just saw this today! Thank you to Marika from Night Owl Reviews for reading and reviewing Breakaway!

4 3/4 STARS

"I love hockey and I really felt like I was there, experiencing everything that Remi and Jason were experiencing."
"The chemistry between Jason and Remi is off the charts. I was expecting the sex to be numerous and graphic, well, it’s more loving, touching and real. You can feel the emotions, feel the touches, taste the kisses and see the tears...I highly recommend Breakaway to any reader that wants a loving, touching and emotional rich story between two opposites that realize what they want and need in their lives is the complete opposite of what they thought they wanted or needed."

I finished Animal Magnetism by Jill Shalvis - loved this story, as I do all hers.

Now I'm reading Saddled and Spurred by Lorelei James - hot! I wanted a smokin' hot book and her always work for me!

Before I talk about my WIP I just want to note that I'm blogging at Long and Short Reviews Whipped Cream today  - find out one of my favourite things about spring!

Nobody told me that it was going to take me a week to recover from RT!

I haven't exactly done a lot of writing this week, and in fact have been in a fog all week, falling asleep in meetings at work, in my chair at my computer, on my couch. All I've really been able to do is some editing and polishing on the manuscript I finished just before RT. I also did write a blurb for that story and am now working on the synopsis, which isn't so much fun but unfortunately must be done. So I am accomplishing something!

Also worked on a trailer for the next Nine Naughty Novelists serial story. It will be unveiled later this week, so be sure to keep an eye out for it! It's pretty awesome if I do say so myself (and I  can't take all the credit for it, it's certainly a group effort, with the text written by the amazing PG Forte, who also helped located many of the images we used).

Happy Friday everyone!  I'm so glad it's the weekend because seriously, I'm still in a fog after RT last week. I had no idea a few nights of sleep deprivation could mess with my mind so badly!

Here's a little peek at a recently completed manuscript of which I will soon have news to share!! This is an unedited excerpt from Power Shift:

She scraped her fingernails across his scalp, eliciting a groan, and then she lifted her mouth from his, kissed her way over his scratchy cheek and jaw and bent her head to his shoulder. She opened her mouth on the fleshy part, sucked a little and then gently bit down.


His body twitched hard. “Christ,” he gasped, his hands tightening on her. “Reagan.”

She smiled, licked the spot and moved her mouth, using her teeth again, a little harder, driven by some unknown force, some unknown need to do this to him. He jerked and shivered and then his hand fisted in her hair and he yanked her head back. The sharp bite of pain on her scalp sent thrilling sensations right to her core. Another secret trigger.

She gazed back at him, their eyes meeting in the dim light, meeting and holding...and holding. She smiled a little, almost challenging him. His eyes flickered, his lips parted...she couldn’t read the expression on his face but a tiny frisson of alarm worked its way through her. He was big and strong and dominant, and she was playing a risky game with a man she barely knew. And yet...she felt safe.

Sort of.

It wasn’t Gabe she was afraid of but rather the intensity of the feelings he’d excited in her, a sharp arousal like she’d never experienced, a fierce lust, an almost protective tenderness. It was all kind of...confusing.

His eyelids lowered, so sexy, his mouth softened. “I’m not sure if I like that,” he said.

“What are you going to do about it?” God, where did that come from?

His eyes darkened, the long dark lashes sweeping back up. “Behave, Reagan. You don’t know what you’re getting into.”

He was right. But whatever it was, she wanted it. Her mouth softened and pouted a little, wanting more kissing. “I’m a big girl,” she said. “I can handle whatever you dish out.”

He studied her, assessing her, and she held his gaze as long as she could before she had to drop her eyes, just briefly, blinking at his chest.

As I said on Monday, do you really think I got any reading done while I was at RT? Really? I started a new book on my flight home - Animal Magnetism by Jill Shalvis. I always love Jill Shalvis. Brought home a few new books to read, several historicals by authors I haven't read before, just to add to my TBR pile.

Do you really think I got any writing done while I was at RT Booklovers Convention? Not a chance. I had thought I might do some editing/polishing on the manuscript I just finished but, not a chance of that either! Those five days at RT were a crazy whirlwind of activity!

It was SO much fun meeting people in person - the six other Naughty Novelists who were there, Meg Benjamin, PG Forte, Erin Nicholas (my roomie!), Juniper Bell, Kinsey Holley, and Skylar Kade. We were all wondering if the others were going to be the same in person as they are on line. Check out the Nine Naughty Novelists blog this week to find out!

I also met so many other great authors and we had tons of fun at the parties and workshops and, okay, I'll admit it, I spent a little time in the bar. I also met lots of people from my publishers Ellora's Cave and Samhain. I met my agent, the fabulous Laura Bradford, for the first time in person as well as some of the other incredible Bradford Bunch authors. And I met readers who love to read, which is always so awesome. I also did my first book signings, the e-book Expo and the print book fair.

I'm writing this from the airport in Calgary on my way home. I'm REALLY tired and I have no voice left, and I'm missing my Naughty Nine friends already but we had a great time and have great memories that will make me laugh every time I think about  them.

Hey, I'm posting this from the airport in Calgary! I'm about halfway on my journey to Los Angeles for the RT Booklovers Convention. So excited!

On the plan I was reading A Lot Like Love by Julie James. It totally distracted me from my fear of flying.

I also finished this week Yours, Mine and Howls by Kinsey W. Holley. A great story!  Kinsey writes awesome dialogue. I loved Becca.

Before I talk about my WIP I'm thrilled to announce that my book LOST AND FOUND is a finalist in the Passionate Plume!  Yay! Congrats to all the other awesome finalists!

I'm feeling great about my WIP this week because IT'S FINISHED! Well, first draft anyway. Although my first drafts are lot less rough (is that good grammar?) than they used to be, I do a lot more editing as I go than I did when I first started writing. Not sure if that's good or bad. Anyway, it's a 40,000 word novella and it was fun to write something short again and get that quicker gratification. But as with most of my recent projects, I felt this one could have been a lot longer. I could have taken more time to explore different facets of my characters' personalities and their problems. But I planned this to be a novella for a specific call for submissions, so it had to be short.

Now I'm off to Los Angeles early Wednesday morning for the RT Booklovers Convention and I can feel relaxed with a completed manuscript just finished. If I have time to do a little work, I can edit and revise and polish, which is much easiser to do when I just have a few minutes here and there than actual writing.


 

Still a "new release", here's a little excerpt from "Breakaway":

They’d just finished a dinner full of talk and laughter, teasing and flirting, when three women appeared beside their table. “Jase Heller!” one of them said with a big smile. “Can we get your autograph?”


“Uh...” Hell, he did not want to do this, but he was never rude to the fans. “Sure.” He cast an apologetic glance across the table at Remi.

“Here.” The woman dug in her purse and pulled out a pen. “I don’t have anything for you to sign, so you can do it right here.” And she pulled down her low cut top so Jason could sign her chest, just above her left breast.

He gulped and tightened his jaw as he tried to sign without really touching her. It probably was no accident when she moved and her breast brushed against his arm.

“I saw you play against the Bruins last week,” one of the other women said, stepping up for her autograph. In the same place. “You got two goals.”

“Um, yeah.” He signed again and turned to the third woman, and when he’d finished signing her chest, she took the pen from him, took his hand, turned it palm up and wrote a phone number on it. Jesus.

“I love watching you play,” she purred, making intense eye contact, making her words sound dirty.

Jason swallowed, forced a smile and shot Remi a look. She sat there, stone-faced, mouth tight, hands clasped around her drink. She lifted one eyebrow at him.

The three women seemed in no hurry to leave and kept chatting until he finally said, “Sorry, ladies, but my girlfriend and I are just finishing dinner.”

The three women shot baleful looks at Remi, as if they hadn’t even noticed her sitting there until that moment, and finally left.

“Sorry,” he muttered, reaching across the table for her hand. “That never happens.”

“Really.”

She didn’t sound convinced.

“Well, it happens sometimes. I’m sorry, Remi.”

“Don’t apologize. It’s not your fault.” But she looked pissed. “And I’m not your girlfriend.”

“I had to get rid of them somehow. Let’s go,” he said, getting up from the table and holding out a hand to help her up. They emerged from the restaurant to a flash bursting in front of their eyes.

Oh, no. Not again.

“It’s okay,” Jason said, turning her from the photographers. He muttered under his breath. Jesus. What were they doing hanging around Navy Pier, for God’s sake? He never would have anticipated they’d be there, looking for someone to photograph. And Remi was already annoyed.

“I guess we’re done here,” he said. Damn. They’d been having such a great day.

“Yeah. I guess.”

He shot her a sideways glance, walking down the sidewalk, holding her hand, remembering the last time he’d tried to take her back to his place. “Will you come home with me?”

She stopped. They faced each other. She looked so pretty with that big scarf wrapped around her neck. “Will the paparazzi follow us there?” she asked.

“I don’t know.” He glanced over his shoulder. They seemed to have dispersed. “I don’t think so.”

“Will you wash that phone number off your hand?”

After a blink of his eyes, he burst out laughing. “Yes.”

She inhaled a long slow breath, then nodded and relief slid through him. “Okay.”

Not much to report on the reading front!  Still working on Yours, Mine and Howls by Kinsey Holley. I'm loading up my ereader for the trip to LA next week, anticipating reading time on the plane. I probably won't get much reading done while I'm there though!

The WIP is progressing nicely albeit slowly the last few days because...I'm working on a sex scene.

I'm generally a very fast and prolific writer, overall, but I have to say that sex scenes slow me down considerably. Why is that?

I've heard of readers who skip over the sex scenes in racy romance novels and I recall hearing about an author (I WISH I could remember who) who said, please don't do that, I spend a lot of time on my sex scenes.

I agree.

Even for those readers who aren't comfortable with the bedrooom door open sex scenes (who probably aren't reading my books, aside from possibly my MIL) I would really appreciate if you read them in my books. In my books, the sex scenes are pivotal. They're important turning points in the book, often, points where the characters are at their most vulnerable, when they share things they otherwise wouldn't. I want these scenes to be emotional, moving, and yes, erotic - because arousal is another emotion.

I spend a lot of time not only on the mechanics of the scene - who touches whom, where, and how - but the emotions involved, the visceral feeling, the thoughts each person is having while this is going on. I spend a lot of time describing their deepest fears, their most intense emotions. Let's face it, these are often some of the most emotional moments of our lives, especially when it comes to the love stories of our lives. Yes, there are other emotional moments in life - moments of death, betrayal, suffering. But love and sex are definitely up there with those intense emotions and I want readers to experience that along with my characters, which is why I take so much time to make every movement, every word, every emotion the best it can be.

So please don't skip the sex scenes because yes, I spend a lot of time making them the best I can.

Here's a little peek at the manuscript I just sent off to my editor, Power Shift. For those of you following along this is Gabe's story - Gabe the master Dom from Power Struggle:



Reagan stood on Gabe’s deck beneath the moonlight and starlight and the intensity of his gaze, his dark blue eyes as deep and mesmerizing as the night sky. The way he looked at her, the power and compelling strength, made her want to drop to her knees in front of him. Which horrified her.


Clearly Gabe liked to be in control―the tension snapping between them over that had been obvious from the moment they’d met. And she was determined that never again was a man going to tell her what to do, to take over everything, to control her life. Never again was she going to be trapped like that, at someone else’s mercy.

But then―she studied him, the breeze lifting his dark hair just slightly, the moonlight highlighting the silver at his temples, his expression not fierce or forbidding, but rather gentle and warm and intent. And she wanted to laugh at her fears, because this was far from him controlling her life or trapping her. This was one night with one attractive man, which she’d had many times since she’d been divorced. It was her choice to be there, nobody was forcing her, and why did it have to be different than any other time she’d been with a man? Why couldn’t she just enjoy it?

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...”

So despite my excitement at finding out I could buy all the new books I want from the Kobo store, I haven't started reading any of them yet, as I need to get caught up on my Naughty Nine reading list. A few weeks ago I read a couple of Juniper Bell books, and this week I'm reading Yours, Mine and Howls by Kinsey Holley. I believe I have one by Kate Davies and a fairly new one by Erin Nicholas I need to read also! Those'll be next!

I've been making great progress on this WIP! Right now I'm working on another hockey hero story. The hero of this story is Tag Heller, the brother of Jase Heller in Breakaway. I plan to submit this story as part of the O Canada theme at Ellora's Cave. Unfortunately I didn't check the submission guidelines closely enough when I started it and only discovered yesterday that these stories should have a maximum word count of 45,000 words. I'd planned this story to be 60,000! So now at 13,000 words, I'm realizing I need to pick up the pace a bit!  But that's okay. It's kind of funny that a while back I was struggling to write longer stories and now I seem to have no trouble with that!

On the weekend I heard back from my critique partner about a manuscript she was looking at for me, and was so happy and relieved to hear that she loved it. That manuscript will be with my editor shortly!  That was another one that I started out trying to write a little shorter - aiming for the 60,000 words and it ended up 70,000! Oh well. It had to be that to tell the story. I've mentioned before that I'd done a couple of workshops and read some books to try to help me write longer stories. I think the result of this is that my characters have improved a lot. I think the last few books I've writte that have turned out longer, have had more complex, three-dimensional characters with many more layers than I used to write. I think. I'm often not the best judge of my own writing!