I’m behind–as always–but this time I did have a good excuse, a death in the family.
But I’ve finally picked winners for my fall blog hops. The following people should be getting an email from me concerning their prizes.
Autumn Harvest Blog Hop: miriam roman
Black Friday Blog Hop:donnas
This post is part of the Black Friday Blog Hop. Click on the image to the left for details.
There are lots of prizes up for grabs, including a Kindle and a huge swag pack.
Comment here for your chance to win one of many great prizes.
I don’t know about all of you, but personally I’d much rather spend Black Friday reading at home rather than tackling the retail rat race. I prefer to do the bulk of my shopping online in any case. I love having the postman deliver all my things to my door.
So for those who prefer to stay at home and read…
By a lovely coincidence, my first new story in a long time debuts today from Ellora’s Cave. Better yet, it’s a Christmas-themed story. I know you can’t tell that from the cover, which is a pity, but it really is a Christmas story, with strong BDSM elements.
It’s kind of Twelve Days of Christmas meeds Fifty Shades of Gray, but with more mature characters in a more consensual situation.
Here’s the blurb for SECRET SANTA SIR:
When Maggie gets a note from a very unofficial Secret Santa during the office’s holiday gift exchange, she’s surprised to be tempted by it. This Secret Santa offers to help fulfill her wilder sexual fantasies, those fantasies she’s never admitted to anyone else. Normally the very professional, uptight Maggie wouldn’t consider doing anything so risky. She wants a husband and family, but she also has kinky sexual fantasies and no man has ever moved her.
Maggie agrees to Santa’s proposal, and her first few anonymous encounters with him are a revelation, showing her levels of sensuality she’s never experienced before. But when she meets the man behind the gifts and the glorious kisses, her life gets seriously complicated.
As Maggie begins to fall in love with him, she faces two choices—longing for husband and family, and continuing a relationship that fulfills her in ways she never believed possible.
Here’s the first note Maggie Marino gets from her very secret Secret Santa:
I saw the magazine you had hidden in your purse, and it confirmed what I already suspected about you. Yet I also suspect that you’re too inhibited to do anything about it. Are you ready to try stepping out of that ultra-proper, straitlaced persona you wear as gracefully as your expensive clothes, and give your wild side a little freedom?
This is an offer to help you discover the possibilities of your wilder fantasies. You’re not obliged to accept it, and even if you do, you can call a halt at any time. This is for fun and games. I promise you won’t get hurt any more than you actually want.
If you’re interested in doing this, put on the ring and wear it for the rest of the day. You’ll get additional instructions.
If you have questions or concerns, write them down and put the paper in the box. Leave the box on a corner of your desk with a paper clip sitting on it.
Live a little. Have an adventure. No promises, no commitments, no harm to anyone, no names, even, if you don’t want. But I’ll tell you this much. I’m male, single, responsible, law-abiding, gainfully employed, over twenty one and under forty, and I find you attractive and intriguing. That’s all you should need to know about me.
Should you decide not to wear the ring, you’ll hear nothing more from me.
Your Adventurous Secret Admirer
And here’s the second one:
On the first day of Christmas, my Master gave to me, an adventure for the holidays.
Maggie –
I’m thrilled that you’ve decided to go along with my proposal. I know it was a difficult decision for you. As I said before, you can stop this at any time if you’re not happy or comfortable with it.
I’m giving you safe words to use. If you say “Yellow light” at any time, it means you need a break or a breather. If you say, “Red light,” that means whatever we’re doing stops, right then and there, and we talk about it. I promise to respect your wishes if you use those words.
Now that we’ve got that out of the way, here’s what I want you to do next.
Tonight I want you to go to the Redwood Hotel and present yourself at room 344 at precisely seven-thirty. Before you knock on the door, I want you to put on the enclosed. Put on the blindfold first, then wind the scarf around your head over the blindfold. There will be no peeking. Once you have those on, knock on the door. From then until you leave that room, you will follow all directions I give you.
If you have another commitment tonight and cannot make it, put a note in this bag and leave it on the corner of your desk this afternoon.
Otherwise I’ll see you tonight.
Your Secret Admirer
Remember to comment to be eligible for the prize drawings!
I’m taking part in the Autumn Harvest Blog Hop!
For more information on the hop, including the other authors participating, click here.
For years now, I’ve recycled my Halloween pumpkins into pumpkin bread, muffins, and cookies. When my kids were younger I had to be sneaky about it. It upset them to see Mom carve up that jack o’lantern into pieces with the largest carving knife I had.
They soon learned to appreciate the results, however. There’s just something special about pumpkin bread made from real pumpkin—the one that sat on the front porch a few days ago, particularly.
It’s not hard to turn the pumpkin into a mash that works great for baking.
The day after Halloween I bring in the pumpkin, rinse it off in the sink, then cut it into pieces, either four or eight, depending on the size. I put the pieces skin-side down on a foil-lined pan and put them in a hot (450 degree) oven for about an hour or however long it takes for them to get soft enough that you can insert a fork with no trouble. You’ll usually see little puddles of liquid pooling the pieces when they’re ready.
I take out the pan, let it cool off, then slice off the top layer and the crispy edges. Slice the meat off the hard rind, discard the rind and crisp edges. Put the meat into a blender and mash it for a few seconds, as long as it takes to get fairly smooth. I measure it into one and two cup containers and store in refrigerator or freezer until I’m ready to use it. It freezes nicely and can be used for several months.
Here’s my favorite recipe for pumpkin bread:
Pumpkin Bread
3 cups self-rising flour (or 3 cup plain flour + 4-5 tsp. baking powder and 1 tsp. salt)
3 tsp cinnamon
Pinch of nutmeg
2 cups sugar
4 eggs, beaten
2 cups cooked, mashed pumpkin
1 cup melted butter
Sift dry ingredients into a large mixing bowl.
Form a well in the center and eggs, pumpkin, and butter.
Stir until moistened.
Pour into 2 well-greased loaf pans.
Bake at 350 degrees, 45 – 50 minutes.
What’s your favorite fall food?
Since this post is part of Carrie Ann’s Autumn Harvest Blog Hop, I’ll choose a winner from among the commenters here, who’ll receive their choice of one of my books, plus a few other goodies.
Kate Hill was kind enough to invite my character Averic from A GARGOYLE’S CHRISTMAS, to her masquerade party. If you’d like to find out what costumes he and Tricia would wear to the party, go to:
Here is the cover:
Release date is November 23rd. I’ll post an excerpt soon.
I did a guest post on Lissa Matthews’ blog to discuss writing dialogue. See my post, “Five Suggestions to Make Your Dialogue Sparkle” here:
I’m visiting Ann Jacob’s blog today to talk about how the story magic happens. Stop by and say hello:
For the next couple of months I’ll be participating in a series of special promotions featuring the “bad girls of romance,” a group of authors who’ve been publishing with EC for more than 10 years.
In the Appearances box on the side, I’ve listed some places I’ll be doing guest blogs and appearances, but this got me thinking and looking back. I’ll talk more later about the experience of being with EC for ten years, but to kick it off I wanted to look back at my first book and the series of covers it’s had.
It still has different covers for the ebook and paperback editions, and then there’s that lovely cover for the Japanese edition!
From left to right, top to bottom, the very first cover of RULING PASSION when it first released in June, 2002, the current paperback cover was also the ebook cover for a while; the current ebook cover, the Japanese cover.
Welcome to the revised version of my blog. This isn’t quite finished yet, but I liked it so much I couldn’t wait to make it live, so my webmistress indulged me and set it up before everything was done. Some features are still being developed.
Please come in and look around and let me know what you think!