Can I get a woot-woot?

Clicky-click HERE to read the first chapter and grab your own copy!

Happy book birthday to Making Waves!

Aloha! This 100-page novella was tons of fun to write! And I'm so very excited to release her into the world today. Happy reading!

Amazon
B&N

Pre-party MAKING WAVES party

It's almost time for the party of all parties. Who will we see there?

Teaser Tuesday - Making Waves

Less than one week 'til the release of MAKING WAVES.

I think this is cause for a celebration!

Have you added MAKING WAVES to your Goodreads list?

so much bliss!

Guess what, guys...

PLAYING AT LOVE is part of a 3-book bundle...all sweet Bliss novels and all about finding true love in your home town. This awesome bundle is available for a short time and is only 99 cents. Grab it now, right HERE!

Romance is in the Air - blog hop

Hi guys! I'm so excited to be a part of the Romance is in the Air blog hop again. It's one of my favorites, because who doesn't love romance? Now for the fun part...the prize(s)!

Because I'm all about the love, I'll have TWO winners and will be giving away two copies of any of the ebooks in my Perfect Kisses series. 

Feel free to check out the MY BOOKS tab to see which one strikes your fancy.

To enter, all you gotta do is either follow me on Twitter, tweet about my giveaway and/or follow me on Facebook. Easy, right?

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Now lets get hoppin!

Teaser Tuesday - Falling for her Soldier

Let's call this...THE TANGO LESSON

 “My hand…goes here.” She rested her left hand behind his right bicep, their elbows overlapping. Finally, they were touching for real. “This is the position. Lock it in.”

“Locked and loaded.”

“The basic pattern is slow-slow-quick-quick-slow.”

“I’ve never been a slow kind of guy,” he couldn’t help saying.

She arched an eyebrow. “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that. Let’s start with the eight-count basic. The first two steps we walk slowly, then close on the three. You’ll lead eventually, but for now, just follow and hold on to me.”

Charlie did not need a second invitation. He moved his hand to the small of her back and pulled her close, smiling when she didn’t resist. When he leaned forward to touch his

forehead to hers, her hand behind his shoulder slid down and curled around his bicep. He swayed them back and forth, though their feet didn’t move.

“You’re not…locking your frame,” Ellie said, her voice a ragged whisper.

“I can’t do what I want to do with a locked frame.”

 

Grab it on Amazon HERE

 

Happy Release Day to Me!

Have you seen the pretty?

Release days are always stressful and exciting and I feel like barfing, laughing, cheering and crying all day.

Grab your copy HERE! Now let's meet for ice cream!

Teaser Tuesday

Today I'm sharing my first teaser from FALLING FOR HER SOLDIER, releasing in January. (meep!) Here we see a bit of a communication breakdown between Charlie the soldier and Ellie the ballerina. Enjoy!

She moved to the mirror, her eyes giving him a sly up-down before she turned to her reflection, combing her fingers through her long hair.

“Before we begin…” she added. But Charlie was doing his own up-down, his gaze getting hung up where her bodysuit curved in at the waist. “I guess I need to know your previous experiences.”

Charlie glanced at her face in the mirror, doing a double take. “E-experiences?”

“Yeah.” She was adjusting the skinny strap of her top. “Do you want to show me?”

His jaw went slack as he stared at her reflection. “You…want me to…”

“Or you can tell me about it. I need to know.”

He shook his head, incredulous, but when her steady gaze didn’t waver, he exhaled a groan of confused surrender. “Well, uh, okay.” He rubbed his chin. “My first time was when I was fifteen, she was seventeen, it was after a football game in the—” The words stopped mid-sentence when Ellie whirled around.

“Your experience with dancing.”

Oh, Charlie

Goodreads it HERE

Entangled Bliss's One Year Anniversary!

Ain't no party like a Bliss party!

It’s been an amazing year as Bliss released over 20 titles and have plenty in store for everyone going forward.  Bliss couldn’t have gotten to where it is without all of the wonderful readers out there.

To say thank you and welcome to new readers, August will be filled with special events.  Here is the lowdown for the #BlissBall celebration:

·         #BlissBall Twitter Party: Wednesday, August 7, 9-10pm EST: Join 10 Bliss authors for a Twitter party and be ready to win some #BlissBall bling!

·         Pin It to Win It Pinterest giveaway: Sunday, August 11: Showcase which Bliss books you can’t wait to read.  Follow BlissEntangled and stop by to find out how to win a $25 Amazon gift card on Sunday.

·         Blogger Love: August 19-30: Of course we think Bliss books are so sweet and sassy that readers can’t help but love ‘em, but don’t just take our word for it. Fans will be posting why they love Bliss books and readers will have a chance to win a “Sweet” grand prize package. Follow Bliss on Facebook for each stop.

·         Bliss Ball Facebook Parties: Join Bliss for not one but two Facebook parties with the lovely Bliss authors. August 27 and August 29 from 8-10pm EST we will be chatting with Bliss authors, readers and there will be more great prizes to win!

Check out our full list of Bliss books and come ready to party and win!

(Thank you to the Bliss publicity team for all the great info!)

Speaking of Love - cover & launch

Did you read PLAYING AT LOVE? Did you love Mac? Me too! And now, she has her own story.

SPEAKING OF LOVE 

is H E R E ! ! !

Speech teacher and successful matchmaker Mackenzie Simms decides to find a woman for her friend, handsome newspaper tycoon Rick Duffy. Though they’ve been each other’s go-to dates for the past month, Mac and Rick couldn't be more different: she is outspoken, sarcastic, and completely loathes his privileged lifestyle. He's laid-back, unassuming, and seems comfortable at an upper-class charity function. So why can't she stop thinking about him? 

Rick knows he and the opinionated-though-adorable Mackenzie are better off as friends, so he agrees to the double-date getaway Mac plans at his family cabin. But seeing Mac cuddle up with her “friendly” date rankles Rick beyond reason, and Mac regrets her matchmaking scheme the minute she sees the way her beauty-queen cousin looks at Rick. Can Mac 'fess up to what's really in her heart, when speaking her mind puts everything at risk?

Want to read her?

check it out: Amazon and B&N

Oh! and stock your GoodReads

Romance is in the Air - blog hop giveaway

Welcome to this pretty blog hop!

My giveaway is a digital copy of the recently released GREAT AND THE GOBLIN KING by the fantabulous Chloe Jacobs. This gem has been on my to-read list for months, so my winner and I just might be reading it at the same time! 

 

While trying to save her brother from a witch’s fire four years ago, Greta was thrown in herself, falling through a portal to Mylena, a dangerous world where humans are the enemy and every ogre, ghoul, and goblin has a dark side that comes out with the eclipse.

To survive, Greta has hidden her humanity and taken the job of bounty hunter—and she’s good at what she does. So good, she’s caught the attention of Mylena’s young goblin king, the darkly enticing Isaac, who invades her dreams and undermines her will to escape.

But Greta’s not the only one looking to get out of Mylena. An ancient evil knows she’s the key to opening the portal, and with the next eclipse mere days away, every bloodthirsty creature in the realm is after her—including Isaac. If Greta fails, she and the lost boys of Mylena will die. If she succeeds, no world will be safe from what follows her back...

AND....since I feel like celebrating Monday's release of SPEAKING OF LOVE (the second book in my Perfect Kisses blissful e-series), I'm also throwing in an digital copy of book one PLAYING AT LOVE. Hooray! 

 

This is how you enter to win all the stuff..... a Rafflecopter giveaway


 

Hop away!

Thankful, a year later

November 30, 2011 - THE DEADLINE

Exactly one year ago, I completed my first NaNoWriMo project. (Well, it was one year ago, minus 3 days, actually, but I didn't want to brag.) What a wonderful experience that was: creating a brand new story of 50,000 words in one month. I was petrified at the time, though energized and excited. All in all, it was major blast. 

From day one, I was in love with my story (that I named "Maren's Big Scoop") along with the funny, big-hearted characters that played around inside my head for a solid month. Recently, I went sifting through my Facebook posts from last November, to kind of relive when I'd been writing about Maren and Patrick and all their tomfoolery. What an amazing time that was for me, and what a perfect way to prepare for my future writing projects. Of course, last November, I had no idea that I would soon be under contract to write two more stories for the fabulous Entangled Publishing's Bliss cat-rom imprint--namely, "Playing at Love" (you remember her?) and her upcoming spin-off "Speaking of Love." I wrote each new story in about three weeks. Without my NaNo experience, I probably wouldn't have been able to tackle such an ambitious goal.

Color me grateful.

And what is even more thrilling is that--a year later--I am currently editing my sweet "Maren's Big Scoop," preparing her for submission. And, ya know what, I'm just as head-over-heels in love with my characters and story as I was a year ago. I can't wait for the world to meet these people and follow them on their ride.

So, cheers to you, NaNo. Thank you. You almost killed me, but I am forever grateful. 

And an extra cheers to all the fab writers out there who are winding down on this years' NaNo. Congrats and let the celebrating begin!

Play this:

Music has always been my muse when it comes to writing. Sometimes, I've created a playlist after the story is written. Sometimes, songs come to me organically. And sometimes, I build a list before much of the story is on paper. . . . which helps me along when it comes to plotting.

My newest story "Playing at Love" is about a high school choir teacher and the school's new football coach. (Smexy, right?) After the initial "thunder-struck" attraction, these two people are sitting on opposite sides of an issue--which was really fun to write. 

Without giving tooooo much away, here are the songs that helped me write this fun little love story.

Playing at Love - playlist

(clicky-click to take a listen)

Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps - Cake
My Romance - Carly Simon

The Last Worthless Evening - Don Henley

Hollaback Girl - Gwen Stefani

Harder to Breathe - Maroon 5

This Grudge - Alanis Morissette

Smells Like Teen Spirit - Nirvana

Fallin' For You - Colbie Caillat

Faster - Matt Nathanson

When He's Not Around - The Corrs

Your Body is a Wonderland - John Mayer

Desperately - Michelle Branch

What Kind of Man Would I Be? - Chicago

I Want it That Way - Backstreet Boys

Tootles!

I'm going to be away from this pretty blog for a while. But I'll be back soon, I promise! 

Some of you already know the very exiting WHY I'm going to be occupied elsewhere. 

Oh, you haven't heard? Well, read on. . . .

See you later, gators!

It's pretty exciting, actually. Here's the journey so far:
A couple of months ago, Stacy, my fab editor at Entangled Publishing came up with an idea that--while waiting on the second round of ABBY ROAD edits (coming to a bookstore near you in March 2013) that I should submit a story to the  new ebook category-romance line that she was going be heading. 
It's called BLISS and it's all about sweet romances. She said the stories that she was looking for were very similar in voice in my contemporary romance novel, ABBY ROAD. She sent me a list of cat-rom tropes to see if anything sounded fun to write about. Oh, you don't know what a "trope" is? Neither did I. So, first I had to learn about those, and then came the research: I read my first cat-rom. I was a little confused at first, because what I read was really not the kind of thing that I write. But the more I read, and the more I translated in my writerly brain what I DO write with what my editor had in mind for the new BLISS sweet line, things started to make sense. And one night I came up with a story idea.

The next day, I scribbled out a few paragraphs of what I had in mind and shot it to editor Stacy. She said I was on the right track but she offered some suggestions and let me in on the rules of cat-rom. Oh, there are rules? You bet. And they're unwavering. Who knew? Oh, the things I'm learning! So, I did some reworking then started in on the actual manuscript, banging out the first 3 chapters. I send those extremely rough pages to a  very trusted readers (hollah, sister!) and she liked what she read. So I prettied them up a bit and sent them off to Stacy. She was very excited about my submission, gave me some more cat-rom rules (really? more rules??), asked that I polish up those 3 chapters, write a 1-2 page synopsis and then shoot the whole lot back to her so she could submit it to the "new acquisitions" editor at Entangled. 
Wow! Really? That was easy, right? 
Not so fast. 
If you're not familiar with a synopsis, it's the high-level telling of the story from beginning to end in just a few pages; sometimes only 1. First of all, as any other long-winded novelist will tell you, synopses is the bane of our existences. Second, writing a synopsis of a book I haven't even written yet? Yeah, that's a problem. Nonetheless, it took me 2 days, but I did it, and I joked with my critique partner--when we both thought the synopsis ran a little long--that 24 hours before, I didn't even have a story. And now I have a too-long synopsis! Hooray! 

After making sure everything was as perfect as could be, I sent off the official submission to Stacy. The next day she told me she loved it and was subbing it to go under contract. 
A few days went by....no word. And I was sweating. 

Then one night, while I was out to dinner with a big group from work, I got the email. My cat-rom was going to be picked up. AND, editor wanted a blurb about the NEXT book. (SIDE NOTE: cat-roms usually come in sets: 1 book with 2 or 3 (sometimes more!) spin-offs.) So, after celebrating with my work team, I dashed home and made up a couple of paragraphs about my next story. Remember, I'd still yet to write more that a few chapters of the FIRST story! 

The next day, I got the exciting news: My new contract would be a multi-book deal! Woo-hoo! 

But, hold on. Stacy wants book 1 of the series to come out in October. 
Uh, what? 
"But..." I said, "my first book, ABBY, isn't slanted until March! So...how can that be?" 

Some more things I've learned: ebooks come out much, MUCH faster than traditional paperbacks. So, actually, I will probably have 2 ebooks out before the grand release of ABBY. Which is great, right? Super exciting!

In order to keep to this timeline, however, Stacy and I set a very ambitious due date for my first draft. We're talking weeks, less than a month. At first I freaked out a little. Okay, a lot. It took me years to get ABBY polished and perfect. And my other complete novels took months and months to even get on paper.

But then I calmed down, ate a cupcake and considered. Some of you may remember when I participated in NaNoWriMo back in November '11. If I could write a brand new, 50K-word story back then, surely I can do it again. Of course I can!

So, if you've been wondering, that's where I've been. I've been writing. And I will be writing for the foreseeable future. My personal reading, TV, movies, this lovely blog....all of that is going to have to move to the back burner. 

Best email from Stacy: "You're going to be very busy in 2013."
My reply: "Bring it on!"