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I hope someday to write more cowboy stories set around the Palo Duro Canyon. If you’ve never been, it’s the second largest canyon in the U.S., and you can’t miss an amazing good time—cowboys and one big natural phenomenon.

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Tough and rough, tall and dark, these are men a woman never forgets. Experience pleasure like no other in the arms of a cowboy…

Mustang Man by Vonna Harper
Acclaimed horse trainer Miguel Perez is used to the unexpected from his work with wild mustangs. But nothing prepares him for the bolt of desire he feels when he meets Dawn Glass, as he’s eager to work his sexual healing on her in every possible way.

Long Hard Ride by Melissa MacNeal
Rodeo rider Michael White House is grateful when Diana Grant stops to pick him up in the middle of a rainstorm. But with one touch his gratitude quickly turns to lust and an uncontrollable desire to lay her down and ride her hard all night long. “Hot Blooded” – Rancher Adam Youngblood is always happy to help a damsel in distress. But before he’ll pull the sweetly curvaceous and fiercely independent Cass McIntyre to safety, he demands promises of unconditional sexual surrender.

Hot Blooded by Delilah Devlin
Rancher Adam Youngblood is always happy to help a damsel in distress. But before he’ll pull the sweetly curvaceous and fiercely independent Cass McIntyre to safety, he demands promises of unconditional sexual surrender…

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When the first small drops began to fall, Cass McIntyre welcomed the light shower the forecasters had predicted. Already halfway up the route she’d chosen, she’d worked up a nice sweat.

The rain quickly cooled her skin, which was caked in a thick, itchy layer of canyon dirt and chalk. The lazy breeze accompanying the rain fanned the burning cuts on her bare legs and arms, giving her a mental boost of energy.

After another fifteen feet into her ascent—chilled and achy now and getting a little impatient with the worsening conditions—she found a narrow ledge. She unhooked her biner from the rope, and decided to wait out the cloudburst, a rare occurrence in the Panhandle and extremely deadly because the rock face she climbed had become as slippery as mud.

She took small comfort in the phrase she’d heard over and over since she’d first moved to Canyon, Texas that ran like a mantra through her head. If you don’t like the weather, wait a minute.

Her mistake had been believing that piece of homespun advice.

Not that she was anything more than mildly annoyed at this point. The awe-inspiring view from her perch above the canyon floor placated her restless nature and soothed the deep ache in her chest that had choked her at the start of the climb.

Low-hanging clouds obscured the sunlight and provided an unexpected cooling to a hot spring day. Soft, gray mist filled the Palo Duro Canyon, softening the light and air, the moisture causing a burst of brilliant color to erupt from the fading wildflowers carpeting the rough terrain—bright orange from Mexican hat and Indian blanket, and a cheery yellow daisy-like flower whose name escaped her at the moment.

Determined to salvage some enjoyment from her adventure, she settled on the ledge, dangling her legs over the side, and ignored the water soaking through her thin tee and shorts.

Half an hour into the storm that had grown steadily more insistent, she kissed off making the summit and planned a quick rappel to the distant hollow below.

However, as she unwound her long rope from the straps of her backpack for a hasty descent, her narrow perch disintegrated. Rock made fragile by the water splintered into rough shards and gravel that tumbled down the sheer precipice.

Cass dropped the rope and jammed her hand into a crevice in the rock to anchor herself while she reached beside her for her pack. But she was too late.

More of the ledge crumbled. The backpack slid away, leaving her stranded with only the shorter rope she’d used between cams—not nearly long enough to attempt a descent.
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It’s 5 AM and I’m bleary-eyed at the moment. I brought the 5-year-old home for an overnight. She decided that sleep was a waste of good Nina-time so we’re curled up on the couch watching Shark Tale. Will Smith at this hour is damned annoying.

Not a stellar week. All right, so I did finish a rough draft of a short novella, but it was a really ugly first draft and that stopped me in my tracks. I put it aside and played with family for a couple of days. I’m hoping tomorrow morning I’ll be able to start afresh and finish the thing.

With my sister, Elle James, I taught a class for my Diamond State Romance Authors group on World Building. While I was talking, I got the itch to write another paranormal. Have to give it a little more thought. I think I want to go back to another medieval vampire book or maybe do a succubus. Blood-sucking or soul-sucking—either way it looks like I want to write about someome doing some sucking.

This next week, I have to wrap up that short novella. It’s half of a duet that Sasha White and I intend to publish on Kindle all by our little selves. Sasha just started her story, so she’ll probably be done days before I finish revising my horribly flawed little lump of coal into a glittering diamond.

Sis reminded me yesterday that we are on the hook to teach another Plotting Bootcamp online May 31 through June 26. I completely forgot about it. Now I have to get into the mindset, review our material, and start to talk about it so that folks know they can jump in and begin planning their summer project.

Since I will be on the road today heading to Little Rock for my RWA chapter meeting, I will leave you with a question…

What was the most interesting course you ever had in school?
On the other hand, what was the most boring?

I will be back later to see your answers. Enjoy your Saturday! ~DD

Some authors love the revision process, but I have to think they love it like people love exercise or spinach—they have to do it, so why not make the best of it? I’ll admit right up front, I HATE revisions.

I’m in the middle of that process right now with a short novella. I don’t often get to the end of a novella unsatisfied with what I’ve done, but this time I attempted to write something a little more hardcore erotica than my usual fare. Okay, so some of you will be asking how the hell can she do that? Do you remember the scene in Saddled?!

Well, this one is more hardcore (even if the sex is still my smutty brand of unrepentent porn) because it’s more heavily invested in BDSM. While I slammed away pages of what my main couple were doing, I failed to show their growth as people and their growing affection for each other. I may write some raunchy stuff, but I don’t ever forget that these characters have to feel real and most real people have emotions that complicate their individual journeys.

I’m trying to go about this methodically so that I don’t get overwhelmed or discouraged by the work needed to spank this puppy into shape.

1) I handed the story off to Beta Readers (test readers) who know how I flow. These readers knew I needed them to be very honest about whether they liked it or not, and the fact that I knew there was a problem. I asked for them to tell me if they could put their finger on what was missing because at that point I was too close to the work and couldn’t see it .

2) I took their comments, ruminated on them for a while, then passed the story to my crit partner for her thoughts. She came back with “a Dom wouldn’t do this” and “this was too much narrative” along with some very clever suggestions for rewrites.

3) I opened a fresh document, starting again with that pristine white page, and cut and pasted what I felt could stay in the that first scene, and then began to craft new words around that flawed bit of narrative, working at layering in more dialogue, more of the emotional reactions of the characters, and looking for the humor I’d sadly forgotten completely.

I have a very long way to go to make this one publishable, but I will take one chapter at a time through this process until I get to the end. Then I will send it once again to my Betas for a sanity check, and to my critique partner for her thoughts. Who said writing had to be a solitary effort. For me, it often works better if I have that frigging awesome village at my back.

I zipped through the end of the rough draft of a new novella yesterday. I asked for beta readers for this one because I knew something was off, but was too close to it to see how to fix it. Between Heather, Masha, Virginia and Renee, I got some great feedback. My puzzle today is how to implement changes without a complete rewrite. The parts of the story that are there are good, it’s the glue between the scenes that needs to be applied because I rushed my couple and the ultimate four-ple (my word) into bed. It’s days like these I really wish I hadn’t quit smoking.

Last night I rewarded myself with a TIVO’d episode of one of my favorite shows, In Plain Sight. Yeah, I miss the adorable Rafael in Mary’s life, but the older, and more flawed, FBI agent Faber is completely right for Mary. All through the episode, I was silently nudging Mary to give him a chance. I think last night she finally succumbed to his charm. That awkward little peck he gave her at the end made me smile.

However, as much as I loved the show, I miss the drama of her dysfunctional family. Her sister Brandy is off to New Jersey blowing her boyfriend’s $20,000 doing who knows what, and we’re only getting an occasional phone call to remind us she exists? Really? Her mom is working in a dance studio, but has she also moved out of Mary’s home? Nooooooo! I need Jinx to fall off the wagon, to fall in love and fall apart. I need Mary to wallow a little more in family-made disasters because when shit hits the fan that’s when she shines.

Okay, so I’d much rather be thinking about Mary and the letter I want to send to the show’s writers than thinking about how to fix my own messy manuscript. It’s time to shut up, pull up my big girl’s panties and get to work.

You hear a lot of complaints from authors about their publishers and you know? That’s understandable. My husband works for an amazing company, but there are days he wants to sit upper management down for “a talk”. 🙂 The entities with so much control over our livelihoods are bound to inspire both positive and negative feelings at times. Right now? I’m just truly loving Harlequin.

For such a behemoth company, they are incredibly innovative. They’re always trying new things, looking for ways to reach more readers and opening doors for their authors. I’m sure you know they were the first major publisher to put their books out in digital format en masse. And I’m betting you’ve heard of their new electronic-only publishing venture, Carina Press. But I wonder if you know about all the print alternatives they continue to provide beyond their regular lines and imprints. The Manga versions of popular books and most recently their new venture—the Harlequin Showcase. Showcase is a single title venture (shelved with all the romance books, not the Harlequin series) that brings back previously released series books in a 2-in-1 format for readers who missed the books the first time around.

As an author, I’m thrilled by this new venture. Why? Because I get tons of letters weekly asking where readers can find my now out-of-print and often unavailable even in used venues Presents. So, when I was told one such story, “The Sicilian’s Marriage Arrangement” would be in the May launch, I was over the moon! I have a lot of readers who have asked about this story and where to get it and now, it’s available again in a 2-in-1 with Julia James’ “The Greek’s Virgin Bride.” How cool is that?

It’s your turn: If you could sit the publishers down and talk to them, what would you ask for as a reader?

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The Sicilian’s Marriage Arrangement
Harlequin Showcase: Reissue
ISBN-10: 0373688024
ISBN-13: 978-0373688029

Hope Bishop is stunned when darkly sexy Sicilian tycoon Luciana di Valerio proposes marriage. Brought up by her wealthy but distant grandfather, she is used to fading into the background. But Luciano’s sensual lovemaking makes her feel vibrantly alive. Hope falls in love with her husband and is blissfully happy—until she discovers that Luciano married her to fulfill his own ruthless agenda…!

The book also includes the fabulous “The Greek’s Virgin Bride” by Julia James.
Look for Showcases in the single title romance section of your favorite bookstores!

Read an Excerpt

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Book Trailer:

Award winning author Lucy Monroe published her first book in September of 2003. Since then she has sold more than 50 books to four publishers and hit national bestsellers lists in the US and England. Whether it’s a passionate Harlequin Presents, a sexy action adventure, or a steamy paranormal historical, Lucy’s books transport her readers to a special place where the heart rules and love conquers all.

You can find Lucy on the web at:

Lucy’s Website
Lucy’s Blog
Lucy’s Facebook

Don’t go to your stack to talk about the best books you’ve read recently! What will you be curling up with today?

Because I’ve been napping so much lately, I chose a short story collection to read. And I must say, I’m enjoying it very much! This is the book:

Yes, Sir: Erotic Stories of Female Submission
by Rachel Kramer Bussel (Editor)
Pub. Date: March 2008
Trade Paperback, 210 pp

Okay, so I didn’t select it for enjoyment but because I’m working on a short novella with D/s flavorings and wanted to immerse myself in the language and lifestyle before charging forward. But collections like these are addictive—like boxed chocolates. Can you really stop at just one bite? The stories are sometimes strange but always stimulating. Since they are written in first person (at least those I’ve read so far), I feel as though I’m taking a glimpse inside someone else’s bedroom. Very, very stimulating…

Your turn.

Tell me what you are reading and what it’s doing for you.