I almost forgot to post something today! I woke up early this AM with no Internet access. Gah! I live in the boonies, and sometimes, my HughesNet satellite hiccups. So, I got dressed and headed to my dd’s because I had to babysit while she had to run errands. Afterwards, it was back to my place to work on my connectivity issues, which joyfully had resolved themselves. I rarely know WHY—unless there’s dense cloud cover, but not so today. A condition which led to my next distraction—pool time! Hey, it’s 91 degrees outside. How could I resist?
Before I headed back inside, the UPS guy pulls up. He has packages! I check the mail box. I have more! Now, you see why my desktop looks like it does right now.
So, I have a confession to make. I’m addicted to subscriptions and freebies. Not the pirated kinds. The kinds where companies want to give you stuff in return for for you writing honest reviews. Kind of like authors do with their street teams when they are looking to get some reviews out on a new book.
What you see on my desk is a brown box which holds my Graze subscription box—comes with nuts and other snacky foods once a month (or more often, if you want). The black box is my Target Beauty Box—just $7 for several full-sized products, tons of samples, and a coupon. I scored this month! ELF lipstick, Olay Regenerist cream, a Pixi by Petra eyeshadow duo and more! One of the white mailer pouches is a free tool. You know when you need to change the battery in your watch and you have to take it to Walmart for them to pry off the back for you, and they never fail to scratch the shit out of it? Well, I got a free tool to do it myself. Yeah, so I have no one to blame if I scratch the shit out of it. You can’t see under the stack, but I have sample perfumes, a mascara, etc. Oh! And Poise (the adult diaper company) sent me a pretty little pouch to hold my panti-liners. TMI?
The thing I was hoping for most didn’t arrive today—my monthly Ipsy glam bag subscription. I always FB it when it comes, because hey, I can’t contain my excitement, and wow, if someone else follows my link, I get points for guess what? More free shit!
See the Influenster button in the left column of this blog (yeah, I’m so mixing guilty pleasure with biz)? That’s another guilty secret. I get freebies from them because I don’t mind posting reviews. I have a full-sized bag of Rachel Ray’s gourmet cat chow I have to review. Wait! My dd messaged me that she posted a video about the cat food for me (you have to YouTube the opening of their boxes!) Check it out! It’s short, and she does such a good job–she should be a hand model!! My kitty Pumpkin’s gonna eat good this month. Dd’s You Tube
Don’t worry. My guilty pleasure doesn’t take away from my writing time. It’s something my dd and I do last thing in the evening while we’re watching TV. She’ll see something wonderful, then I’ll have to go find it, too. We write our reviews together, because hey, we share our stuff. It’s fun.
Kind of like couponing for the 21st century. And if you love seeing a stack of crap in your mail box every day, you might want to try it, too.
So, now you know my guilty pleasure. What’s yours?
Harland County Series | Book Seven: Jesse
Release date: June 21, 2016
When Lacey Turner’s father contracted AIDs from a transfusion when she was five, her rough childhood made her strong and self-sufficient, so butting heads with the guy her brother leaves in charge of the ranch while he’s away is as inevitable as her attraction to the hot cowboy.
National Guardsman Jesse Briscoe’s word is his bond. Too bad he agrees to watch over his friend’s ranch and sister while his buddy is away. The hellcat is as spoiled and self-serving as she is beautiful. But he’d witnessed firsthand what a woman like that can do to a man when his mother decided she no longer wanted to be a wife and mother and deserted them when he was nine.
Worn down by a desire too strong to ignore, the two give in to their heated attraction, but will they give up control long enough to discover the truth behind their attitudes, or will words get in the way?
Donna Michaels is a NYT & USAT bestselling, award winning author who writes romance through the H’s-Hot, Humorous and Heartwarming. Her heroes are strong alpha cowboys and military men who are equally matched by their heroines. With over twenty books of various lengths and heat levels, she’s published through Entangled Publications, AmazonEncore, The Wild Rose Press, Whimsical Publications, Kindle Worlds, as well as having several self-published titles. Donna lives in northeastern PA with her military husband of 30 years, and a house full of her now adult children, many rescued cats, and even her parents! There’s never a dull moment, which means there’s plenty to write about!
Enjoy learning about Marianne Rice’s new book! Have a great rest of the weekend! ~DD
* * * * *
WILDE FOR YOU by Marianne Rice
The Wilde Sisters, Book 3
Publisher: Limitless Publishing
Release Date: May 31, 2016
||| SYNOPSIS |||
Event planner Sage Wilde has lots of lists and no time for a relationship…Precise to a fault, Sage plans everything—meetings, meals, and sex. But when she learns her youngest sister can’t carry a child, she steps up and commits to the role of a surrogate mother. It’s not out of sentiment, because Sage doesn’t do love or touchy-feely, but out of practicality. She doesn’t plan on marrying or having children, so why not rent out her unused space, right?Luke Riley is a sexy firefighter who’s looking for love in all the wrong places…
Luke’s morning gets a little brighter when he’s called to a clinic and spots a blonde beauty wearing killer red boots. Though she doesn’t seem interested, he manages to introduce himself. It’s unusual for a woman to push away his advances, but Luke is attracted to her confident nature and strong personality. It’s not long before he wears her down, and she finally agrees to a date.
Who says you can’t mix work with pleasure?
Sage blames her growing affections for Luke on pregnancy hormones. But one last hurrah before her belly swells sounds like a well-deserved thrill. After a few passionate nights, the line between love and lust begins to blur—leaving her more confused than ever.
Luke is mesmerized by her keen wit and social charm. She may claim not to want children, but when she befriends his troubled foster sister, it proves there’s a heart inside of Sage waiting to be loved.
Will Sage’s surrogacy unlock her willingness to commit? Or will Luke stand by as the woman he loves plans a future without him?
Marianne Rice writes contemporary romances set in small New England towns. Her heroes are big and strong, yet value family and humor, while her heroines are smart, sexy, sometimes a little bit sassy, and are often battling a strong internal conflict. Together, they deal with real life issues and always, always, find everlasting love. When she’s not writing, Marianne spends her time buying shoes, eating chocolate, chauffeuring her herd of children to their varying sporting events, and when there’s time, cuddling with her husband, a drink in one hand, a romance book in the other.
I closed the Which Stepbrother Story Next? poll. Here are the results. With His Pack was at the top for so long, I had my cover artiste (also known as sister/Elle James) get to work designing it. Who knew With His Seal Team would come in at the end for the steal?
Which Stepbrothers Stepping Out title interests you most?
With His SEAL Team (20%, 25 Votes)
With His Pack (paranormal) (19%, 23 Votes)
With His Wranglers (12%, 15 Votes)
With His Pride (paranormal) (11%, 14 Votes)
With His Warriors (historical) (10%, 13 Votes)
With His Biker Club (8%, 10 Votes)
With His Roommate (6%, 8 Votes)
With His Starship Crew (sci-fi) (6%, 8 Votes)
With His Mistress (6%, 8 Votes)
Total Voters: 47
Loading ...
I’ll keep the order in mind as I go forth, but it really does hinge on whether my muses agree with the ranking. 🙂
In the meantime, I have work to do! I’m wrapping up my story for the next SEALs of Summer collection, working on edits for another author, and I need to step it up with promo for the Rogues authors (anybody up for a Facebook party?). Real life has been intruding on my workdays big time. It’s summer, the pool calls, medical issues with the kids require my involvement. And very soon (NEXT MONDAY), I’ll be starting up my next Rose’s Plotting Bootcamp. BTW, here’s a sneak peek at the cover for that next SEAL book…
So, that’s what’s pulling at my time for the foreseeable future. What’s pulling at yours?
Hello Delilah fans! It’s Lizzie Ashworth here, bringing you another short fiction.
We romance lovers look forward to sexy scenes and heart wrenching love stories. What we don’t like are stories of the downside. But sometimes those stories need to be told.
In this little piece, I explore the moment when a woman has to face reality about the man she loves. It’s a crisis point, perhaps familiar to many of you from similar real-life experiences. The story starts before this scene and ends long after this scene. But we can imagine all the rest just from this part.
~~~
The storm door rattled in its latch. The broken pane trembled and not for the first time Augusta thought the glass would pop out and shatter to the floor. She withdrew her hand from the handle and stepped back.
Branson hadn’t stood up. His muscled frame hovered on the wooden chair as if waiting. As if not firmly caught in the direction he’d taken. As if he might spring up any second, slam his fist into something, shove her against the wall and assault her with his mouth, his body. A tremor ran through her belly. As if.
Calmly, he twisted off the cap on the half pint and emptied the last of the whiskey into his mug. She wanted to challenge him, argue, yell, throw things, stare him down. But her angry gaze caught on the black eye patch, the eye that wasn’t there, the eye that she had never realized was the place her glance went automatically, some habit of engagement with another human when your dominant eye seeks out its counterpart in the other person. She’d never known how that worked. Now, it seemed like the only damn thing that happened consistently with Branson.
Forcing her gaze to focus on his other eye, his only eye, she met his calculating, sardonic gray stare, his expression of contempt, or challenge, or whatever the hell it was that he felt.
“Go on,” he said quietly. “Get the fuck out.”
She stifled the words that sprang to her lips and turned again to the door. The cracks radiating out from the fist-sized hole blurred with the yellow residue of tape that had long since fallen away, victim of hot, cold, wind, rain. She remembered when the last of it peeled away and hung by a thin edge, curled and brittle. Once it fell, he had allowed it to lie on the threshold for weeks.
“You need to fix this glass.” She regretted her words the minute they left her lips.
Why didn’t she just leave? What was it about him that reached into her chest and held her like a fist? She had shed all the tears, tried everything. Except leaving. Maybe that’s what it would take.
“Why?” he questioned, his voice dry and expressionless. “Everything else around here is falling apart.”
He said it like he would comment on the weather to a stranger. On invitation of his words, Augusta looked around the familiar place, the tiny living room where a layer of dust coated the window sill, coffee table, the top of the television. A blanket on the couch where he spent most of his days. And nights. The floors needed cleaning. Prescription bottles, empty crumpled cigarette packs, an Elvis zippo worn to bare metal where the neck should have been, and dirty dishes littered the little table where he sat.
Spring wind hit the glass again, another sharp rattle as the door latch heaved in and out against its little catch. What would happen if she threw it open, let it bang against the outside wall, let the glass fly into glittering shards to cascade over the wet sidewalk and ground? She shook her head slightly. She knew what would happen. The glass would stay where it fell. He’d walk over it like he walked over everything that used to mean something in his life.
Cautiously, she brought her gaze back to his face, his chiseled handsome face with its gritty beard shadow and the scar by his temple and the angry gray eye, watching. His big hands turned the mug in short increments like the minute hand on a clock.
“Okay, damn you.” Her throat choked on the words. But she was right. Her gut told her. She had to leave. She had tried everything else.
She grabbed the door handle, popped the latch, and stepped outside. The wind caught her hair and whirled it into the air. Cold pellets of rain splattered her cheek. She turned briefly to force the fragile storm door closed, surprised to see him standing there like a ghost on the other side of the glass.
A fresh flurry of rain dashed against her face and she hurried toward her car. If she looked one second longer, she would lose any hope of leaving. The car ignition sent its gentle ding-ding into the noise of rain and wind. A crashing sound shattered across the yard, and she knew what she would see before she cast her gaze toward him. He stood there in the open doorway, his arms crossed, his gray stare burning across the distance until she could almost see the bloodshot rim, the slightly puffy lid. The storm door lay flat against the outside wall with one last large section of glass hanging at a forty-five degree angle and the rest of it in a thousand pieces on the ground and concrete walk.
She wanted to cry out, beat his chest with her fists. Tears burned her eyes as she slid into her car seat and closed the door. Methodically, she turned the key in the ignition. With great effort, she did not look at the doorway as she backed down the drive and slowly pulled away.
~~~
I live in the wilds of the Ozark Mountains with my cats, hound dogs, and whichever child has taken up temporary residence between grad school and relocation. I’ve been writing my entire life and can’t express how wonderful it is to share stories with readers like you. Everything I write comes from my heart in the hopes that you’ll find a bit of pleasure within its pages. Thank you for your kind words and appreciation! You make it all worthwhile.
Sign up for my free monthly e-newsletter. Excerpts, pre-release deals, and much more. Sign up at http://eepurl.com/bHOyS9
Follow me for free erotic short works, hot photos, and the occasional rant on my blog at http://lizzieashworth.com/
Stella Stonewall exposed her scaly side to save the man she loves, the soulful and sexy Ewan Bristol. But her troubles have only just begun. A treacherous betrayal at the hands of a trusted confidante leaves her running for her life.
An Impossible Choice
An unlikely savior offers Stella a way out, but it means leaving everything—and everyone—behind. Can she give up the only home, the only friends she’s ever known to save herself?
A Chance to Have It All
Stella learns of an ancient curse that, if lifted, could change everything. To alter the course of history she must trust her former lover Rowan Gresham, and she must trust the machinations of fate: that she may be the key to it all.
Betrayal Foretold is a fast-paced, emotional ride through the mesmerizing world of Thayer. This third book in the Descended of Dragons series, a new adult fantasy romance, is a can’t-put-it-down story of loss and self-invention, of survival, and of the selfless pursuit to secure the happiness of friends.
Excerpt
Time spent alone is precious.
It’s cleansing, it’s rejuvenating, it’s fortifying—until it’s not. I had soul-searched and introspected until my deficiencies clung to me like a throng of specters.
Over the last few days, the people of Thayer had learned dragons were not, in fact, wiped out hundreds of years before, and word had spread like wildfire that I was a member of the notoriously villainous species. My world turned upside down in a flash, and the capricious tide of public sentiment turned against me.
I sat, licking deep emotional wounds in the primitive cabin deserted only days before by the three Drakontos dragons—and my relatives—my Grandmother Bay, my Uncle Eiven, and my cousin Stryde. An official Radix committee and the Thayerian authorities conducted searches and quizzed my known associates to learn both my whereabouts and the extent of their knowledge.
My friends had proved faithful and generous in the days since I’d fled our magical grad school, Radix Citadel for Supernatural Learning, or The Root, as most commonly referred to it. But my friends couldn’t be expected to spend every waking moment at my cabin hideaway. Ewan, Boone and Timbra, and sometimes Layla visited when there was no risk of being followed, but it hadn’t been frequently enough to stave off my loneliness.
My arms hung at my sides as I stood in the center of the cabin, too restless to sit, to read, to think. The absence of sound was so prevalent that every tiny noise seemed to roar in contrast: the scratch of a branch against the roof, the drag-tick of an old clock, the whistle of wind through the dense forest.
“Hello,” a deep voice called from outside. “Stell?”
Ewan. Thank God. I raced through the cabin door and found him standing just beyond the front porch. Ewan Bristol rarely deviated from wearing black, and when he did, it wasn’t far. A dark blue V-neck lent contrast to his skin, which tanned easily and well.
I crashed into him, holding him close, and delighted in the solidness of him. Ewan always smelled of the forest, of juniper or fir, and I inhaled his scent while I had the opportunity; before he could leave again. I closed my eyes and absorbed the comfort of his arms, of his warm body.
It wasn’t just that I was so lonely I’d begun talking to the furniture. I missed the sexy squint his eyes took on, the uneven slide of his lips when he thought I was funny or clever. I missed the way his mouth went slack when my top slipped to reveal too much cleavage. I missed his level-headed advice and unyielding support. I missed the way people stopped and listened when he spoke. I missed Ewan.
“Hi,” I said and beamed up at him. His pleasure mirrored mine. It was there for me to see, completely unguarded in the depths of his dark eyes.
He kissed me high on the cheekbone before finding my mouth. Think me arrogant if you like, but I’ve always considered Ewan and me the best kissers ever to lay lips on one another. My mouth fit perfectly against his, his full lips complementing my smaller ones. With a groan, he pulled me so tightly into him I gasped for breath. He had missed me, too.
My Radix-issued personal interactive assistant, which I’d named Pia, chirped from the cabin just as I felt a buzz through the fabric of Ewan’s shorts.
“Stella,” Pia called, “you have received a message from Dean Livia Miles.” I shot a questioning glance at Ewan, who shrugged and fumbled in his pocket for his own device.
When I didn’t answer right away, Pia repeated the notification. “Stella, you have received a message from Dean Livia Miles.”
I hurried inside to see what Dean Miles could possibly be sending. The last I’d heard, she was on a vicious rampage to condemn and disgrace me.
When I emerged from the cabin, still scrolling to access the message, Ewan’s posture was bunched, coiled. A toy soldier wound too tight.
I dropped my arms to my sides, still clutching Pia in one hand. “Ewan? Ewan, what’s wrong?”
When he looked up, his dark eyes were black holes within his blood-drained face.
Someone died. What else could produce such a severe response?
“She…” Ewan cleared his throat. “She sent the entire school your journal entry.”
“What? Who did? What are you talking about? What journal entry?”
His face held such pity. “Dean Miles. She sent the entire campus a student journal entry you wrote detailing your dragon, your family…everything.” Ewan whispered the last. He walked to the fire pit and slid onto a log seat.
Though she grew up on a working cattle ranch, Jen Crane has been into fantasy and sci-fi since seeing a bootleg tape of The Princess Bride.
Jen has a master’s degree and solid work histories in government and non-profit administration. But just in the nick of time she pronounced life too real for nonfiction. She now creates endearing characters and alternate realms filled with adventure, magic, and love.
Jen is happily living out her dream in The South with her husband and three children, striking that delicate balance between inspiration and frustration.
Book 2 in Jen’s new fantasy romance series, Descended of Dragons, was selected by iTunes/iBooks as “Our Pick” in fantasy/sci-fi.
Quick note: Yesterday’s contest is still open! Be sure to enter to win a free story!
There will be THREE winners!
* * * * *
Delilah kindly posted here about what inspired “An Eye for Love”, the short story that is part of the Rogues anthology , so today I’ll talk a little bit about the importance of costumes.
Breeches or pantaloons? Hoops or petticoats?
Clothing plays an integral role in a story. The garments a character wears aids in setting the time period the story is taking place in as well as showing the character’s social status, how they view themselves, or the image they want to portray to the people in their world. When writing stories set in a historical time period, mentioning a character wearing a garment from a different era can throw a reader out of the story.
As a writer, it’s important to know the era and the clothing worn during the time the story takes place. The more detail you are able to acquire about a particular item the better. Knowing whether buttons were used in a certain garment, the length of a garment and the undergarments worn are details that can enrich a scene. Fortunately, there are many resources available for the person interested in learning about the garments worn during a particular time period.
Historical re-enactment societies are good sources of information. Some members of these organizations use the construction techniques of the respective era, making entire costumes by hand. Historical authors are another source and some are quite knowledgeable about the colors, fabrics and types of articles worn. Historical pattern makers and sewing experts can also provide research material.
I enjoy sewing when I have time. The photo is of a corset I made a few years ago using Simplicity® pattern 1819. It was time-consuming to make even with the use of a sewing machine. This corset is part of a Steampunk costume, and with its modern lines doesn’t fit the Regency time period I set my stories in.
If you’d like to be kept informed of future book releases, sign up for my newsletter at cynthiayoungauthor.com
About the Author
Cynthia Young writes tantalizing, passionate romances set during the Regency era. She enjoys writing stories with strong characters that triumph over challenges to achieve their happily-ever-after. Cynthia lives in the Pacific Northwest where the rain and numerous coffee houses make the perfect writing companions.
Loading ...
The storm door rattled in its latch. The broken pane trembled and not for the first time Augusta thought the glass would pop out and shatter to the floor. She withdrew her hand from the handle and stepped back.
Though she grew up on a working cattle ranch, Jen Crane has been into fantasy and sci-fi since seeing a bootleg tape of The Princess Bride. 
