A New Release, A Contest, and A Book Giveaway

Thank you, Delilah, for hosting me today. Hi, I’m Randi Alexander and I write cowboy erotic romance. I’m published with The Wild Rose Press. My newest release, Turn Up the Heat, is available today!

It’s always a pleasure to be here and spend time chatting with Delilah’s awesome readers. She’s always got something new and innovative going on with her writing.

My new release is something different. There’s a cowgirl who’s also a chef, who falls for the host of the reality TV show she’s competing in. The host…is a woman! Yep, I’ve written my first female/female story.

It started as a scene in my first erotic romance. My editor at The Wild Rose Press encouraged me to take it out of that book and give Mackenzie and Gina their own story. Of course, I took my editor’s advice.

While cooking and food have a strong place in the story, so do the formidable differences between the two women. A cowgirl from Wyoming and an actress from California. Conservative vs. liberal – in this election year, could they be any more polarized?

But the one area they’re very much in sync is in bed. It was so much fun to write the sex scenes. A little bit of BDSM, some sex toys, lots of sensual, kinky talk. I’ve included the first sex scene as an excerpt, and I hope you enjoy it.

What is your favorite part of a romance? Is it when they first realize they’re falling for each other? Is it the first time they have sex? Is it the conflict that drives them apart, or the happily ever after ending where that mean author 😉 makes your cry happy tears? Leave a comment for a chance to win an ebook.

Mackenzie Jarvis has never slept with a woman. So why has she fallen madly in lust with Gina Volto, host of the reality cooking show Mackenzie is competing in? Mackenzie’s wild desire to live out her fantasy, battles with her conservative Wyoming values. Then Gina pours on the seduction, Mackenzie runs–home to her ranch, her horses, and her busy career as the owner and chef of a restaurant. But Gina shows up at her ranch in a snowstorm, and Mackenzie allows herself one weekend of forbidden, kinky pleasure.

When Gina admits she wants more than just a few days, can Mackenzie ignore her upbringing and her plans for a traditional life with a husband and children? Or will she give in and turn up the heat?

EXCERPT:  Over 18 only, please.

The magnitude of this moment struck Mackenzie. She blurted, “I’ve never done this before.” It sounded stupid, but she didn’t want to make a mistake and hurt her.

“Honey.” Gina reached between her legs and took Mackenzie’s middle finger, sliding it upward. “I’m exactly like you.” She pushed her finger into the cleft at the top and used it to circle her clit. “Does that feel familiar?”

Gina’s wet pussy gave off an irresistible musky scent. Mackenzie breathed deep, an answering, pull tightening deep in her pussy. She wanted more. “God, yes. And perfect. Gina.” Her words slurred, not from the alcohol, but from overpowering desire. “This is so sexy.”

Gina pushed her hand back and closed her legs. “You first, Mackenzie. Pay attention…” Her grin curved sinfully. “Because I’ve perfected this technique. Once you’ve learned from the mistress, you will be allowed to attend her.”

She bit her lip. “Kinky.”

Gina settled Mackenzie back on the pillows, propping one under her but. “We’ll start with extraordinary and move on to kinky later.” She ran a hand up Mackenzie’s leg, another hand up the other one, and at her knees, bent and lifted them, exposing Mackenzie completely.

Gina stared, her face flushed bright red. “Ah, honey, you are beautiful.” She looked into Mackenzie’s eyes.

Tremors of desire shook through her as she gazed at the lust on her friend’s face. “Touch me.”

Gina closed her eyes for a second, shuddering. She slid her hands gently up Mackenzie’s thighs to her apex. “Your hair is so curly.” She ran her fingers through it, gently plucking at the hairs.

Mackenzie wanted release from the sensual torture. She tipped her pelvis up.

“Be patient, sweet girl.” Gina smiled. “You’re going to have the best sex of your life.”

To celebrate my new release, I’m giving away, to one *commenter, an e-copy of my erotic romance anthology Cowboy Bad Boys. Just leave a comment today and we’ll choose a winner tomorrow. *Commenter must be 18 years of age or older to win.

Because Turn up the Heat is about a chef, I’m giving away a really cute custom-made apron and potholder set to one lucky person who joins my mailing list between now and August 8. Click here to enter.

Good luck, and thank you!

Randi  “Rode Hard and Put Up Satisfied”
RandiAlexander.com
Wild and Wicked Cowboys Blog
69 Shades of Smut Blog

-Turn Up the Heat and all my TWRP books are available at The Wild Rose Press and all my books are available at Amazon

For the next seven days, it’s going to be an adventure in babysitting…dogs and cats. My daughter’s to be exact.

While she’s off enjoying a family vacation in DC, I’m staying at her place to look after the critters. Did I mention she’s an animal activist and rescues dogs and cats in need of fostering? *sigh*

At the moment, I have four dogs and four cats to look after. All of them were either rescued from the pound’s death row or found beside a highway. One of the dogs, Millie, was a hit-and-run victim that dd took to the vet to treat her injuries. One of her hind legs was amputated. Not that missing a limb keeps her from doing anything.

Where does the retreat come in, you ask? I will have limited web access. Will be away from my land line phone. And checking my email’s a pain the ass, so I won’t be bouncing back to it constantly to see what’s up. Which means, I have time to write.

I wrapped one project yesterday and shipped it to my editor at Cleis Press. Now I have to put the final touches on my next Western for Samhain and ship the sucker! After that, I have days and days to do nothing by write (and walk dogs and clean litter boxes…).

Which brings me to today’s question. Do you have pets? How many and what species?

I’m blogging today at Wild & Wicked Cowboys, so if you post here and post there, you have two entries in The Pretty Pendant Contest!

I don’t have big plans. Write, take a break and swim in the pool, write… I should wrap up Smokin’ Hot Firemen today! And no, I can’t tell you whether you’re in the book yet. My publisher has final approval, and they may well yank your story.

Y’all have a happy 4th! And if you have time, tell me what your plans are…

Sunday Report Card/June Recap

The things swirling in my brain. You have no idea, but then again, if you’ve been following along, maybe you do.

June was Hell Month. Rather a nice place to be for a writer. So often we work with the HOPE of selling a story. Then along come the contracts, and suddenly, we have DEADLINES! I much prefer having them than not. However, I could have used longer lead times for the stories I have to spit out, one after the other.

I had hoped to complete three biggish projects in June. I managed to completely close on the most important one, am very nearly done with the second biggest priority, and am in spitting distance of wrapping up the third. So, I count June as a success!

* Shattered Souls, my first full-length novel for Montlake, went out the door on Thursday!

* I have the short stories for Smokin’ Hot Firemen selected (this is tentative, because Cleis has final approval), placed in a manuscript template, and I’ve started editing the stories. I hope to have them completed and ready to go by Tuesday. My own entry is 1/3 written, but I should finish tomorrow. Shorts are easy for me to zap through once I have the story in my head.

*  My next Western for Samhain is just a couple of chapters away from being done. I HAVE to finish by Wednesday or my name will be “mud” with my editor. So no pressure there. 🙂

Coming July

Two exciting releases I can’t wait for you to savor!

FOURNICOPIA

Coming July 10th, and ready for pre-order now…

Gus Taggert knows a setup when he sees one. When one of his police officer buddies sends him on a doughnut run to one particular doughnut shop, Cornucopia, he hesitates. It’s too frilly and pink. However, the woman behind the counter serves him more than a couple dozen gourmet doughnuts, she gives him a mini-lesson in submission%mdash;something he’s eager to learn more about. When she orders him to see her that night at the BDSM club, La Forge, he’s more than eager to obey.

Newly vetted Domme, Aislinn Darby, has a sub she’s eager to take for a test run. The large, burly cop is the kind of alpha guy she’s been dying to tie up and spank. However, after she takes him through his paces, she finds herself more than willing to let him take control, something she hasn’t enjoyed with a man before. Gus’s brand of loving is addictive, but now she’s doubting herself and her own ability to control a scene. She has to have him back for one more go, only this time, she’s going to do it with a crowd around them to ensure he doesn’t forget who’s in charge. She bribes him into submission. Accept her dictates, and he can have her any way he wants as reward.

What Gus wants is Aislinn in the middle of a scene he orchestrates himself with the help of three of his best friends.

~*~

SHE SHIFTERS

Coming to a bookstore near you on July 10th, although Amazon is shipping now…

Following the success of her ground-breaking GIRLS WHO BITE: LESBIAN VAMPIRE EROTICA, best-selling author Delilah Devlin and her contributors deliver another stunning collection.

Shapeshifters—beings both human and animal—ignite our imaginations with visions of primal passions and insatiable hungers. Most commonly seen as dark, masculine demons, these sixteen stories investigate shapeshifter myths from around the world, and add fur and claws to a fresh girl-on-girl blending of physical power and inescapable desires.

Embrace your wild child as you journey through worlds of unexpected delights with some of today’s hottest erotic romance authors, including Sacchi Green, Christine d’Abo, Adele Dubois and Myla Jackson. Fly atop the Tower of London in Paisley Smith’s “The Night Crow.” In Anna Meadows’ “Verde,” feel the burn of a hot Mexican summer. Experience the raw lash of a dragon’s tail in “Scorched Retribution,” then linger in the sensual delights of a furry convention in “She’s Furry Yiffy”.

Prepare to be embraced inside the warm, feathered wings of a phoenix, race through a rain forest morphing from tiger to kingfisher, and watch your lover surrender her seal’s pelt to walk hand-in-hand with you along a cold and lonely shore. In She Shifters, love comes running, slithering, flying—in all shapes of desire.

Delilah Devlin’s one-of-a-kind She Shifters unleashes the wild creature inside us all!

Yes, I’ve been crazy busy, and July will be just as bad, but I love hearing from you. And Tuesday, I’ll post a brand new contest with a very fun prize, so be sure to check back! ~DD

Hi everyone,

Thank you for asking me to be a guest on your blog today, Delilah, and speak to your many fans.  I’m Meg Lacey, and I have a new series Million Dollar Men, with the first book, Million Dollar Mistake, coming October 23, 2012 from Samhain Publishing.  I’ve previously written for Harlequin/Silhouette and am really excited to join the Samhain Family.

It’s a rainy day where I live, the perfect day to forget about everything and sit down with a good book and have a “Me” Day. I can hear some of you thinking, “Yeah, right, never going to happen! I have too much to do.”

As women, we come with guilt programmed into our DNA. Work, family, school, etc.—got it! I don’t relax well.I wrote my first novel in the sixth grade, but my writing career didn’t last. Instead I went into theatre before ending up in television as a writer-producer.

Over the years, I’ve been an actress, director, producer, copywriter, creative director, college instructor, creative dramatics teacher, author, mime, mom, and a school bus driver—wow, are there stories in that experience!  I’ve started two creative marketing companies and worked in all media from network cable programming to games and corporate initiatives; but always returned to writing. I have children, a husband and tons of obligations, so I understand busy. But lately I’ve been forcing myself to haul out my inner diva and say, “Screw it. I’m taking time for me!”

Knowing how busy most of us are got me wondering what it would be like to have no obligations, and have the time and money to do anything I wanted to do when I wanted to do it. That thought translated into Million Dollar Mistake.

Warning: Million Dollar Mistake contains a tabloid sweetheart who loves to be bad, a sexy hero with little patience for mind games, and a game of strip pool that will make you rethink your weekend plans.   

In addition to overseeing the financial affairs of the wealthy Kristoff family, Nicholas Demetrious specializes in hauling its rambunctious members out of trouble. Especially his distant cousin, Raven Rutledge.

The tabloids love her bad-girl antics, sexy pout, and body made for sin. Nicholas would love to spank the bejesus out of her, but this time the situation is too serious to entertain such a fantasy. A lucrative business deal with the Exeters is in jeopardy, and Jackson Exeter Sr.’s ultimatum is clear: Remove this man-eater from my country house, or the deal is off.

Raven is in way over her head. She accepted the invitation to the Exeters’ Adirondack house party as a refreshing change from her jet-setting lifestyle—until she learns the guest list includes his entire family. His ex-girlfriend. And the junior Exeter’s intention to propose.

If ever she needed suave, sophisticated Nicholas’s persuasive powers, it’s now. Then he’s there with a plan to get her out of this tangle: sweep her off her feet. But their pretend passion turns all too real. And what started out as a weekend of fun threatens to shatter into betrayal and heartbreak.

I had a great time writing this book. There’s a lot of hot sex, but there is also a lot of humor in my writing, with the result that this book is a fun, sexy read. Million Dollar Mistake is actually a continuation of a minor character introduced in my novel, Million Dollar Stud from Harlequin (available in ebook.) You might want to check it out to get some background on Nicholas. Meanwhile, I can’t wait to bring you more stories about Million Dollar Men and the women who love them.

Oh yeah, one more thing before I go. I also have a paranormal series coming out from Imajinn Books this fall—Tales of the Sparrow.  The first book is The Sparrow and The Hawk. As the book is still in production, I can’t share the cover with you yet, but I can tell you a little bit about the story that will also come out in Autumn, 2012.

Tales of the Sparrow is a humorous, paranormal romantic adventure series set one week into the future—a time when magic, myths, shapeshifters and other mystical creatures were all possible because the veil between this world and the next had been stripped away.

In the first book, The Sparrow and The Hawk, Jillie Harte, the Sparrow, is a documentary filmmaker who also works undercover for the “NAS (Normal, Abnormal & Strange) Agency”, a secret private agency sponsored by an eccentric billionaire and run by her uncle whose mission is to protect the world from evil in any form—from that done by ordinary humans to that done through mystical direction.  Under the guise of creating a TV documentary on “Fashion and Decoration throughout history,” Jillie is sent undercover to recover an ancient necklace with the power to unleash evil on the world if it falls into the wrong hands. A lot of people want the necklace, including her new cameraman, Griff Ryland. Griff, The Hawk, is actually from an alternative dimension and as a shapechanger is able to change to a cougar and a hawk when circumstances demand. Magic, witchcraft, alternative dimensions and dragging around a cameraman who looks like ‘sex-on-a-stick’ makes the team’s chase after the necklace dangerous, exciting, sexy and fun.  From San Francisco, to New Mexico to New Orleans, and finally to San Diego, CA.  Sparrow and Hawk must overcome each obstacle until they finally find the ‘manipulator’, the ultimate evil whom they must defeat to recover the necklace and eliminate the curse that surrounds it. That’s not all happening though—Jillie and Griff must also face their developing relationship and decide what to do about it. And they thought saving the world from evil and chaos was hard!!!!

Thanks again, Delilah, for inviting me to share news with all of your fans about my forthcoming books. If you want to know more, or read excerpts, please visit my new website: www.meglacey.com or send an email to: meg@meglacey.com.

Be sure to register for the contests that will accompany the release dates of Million Dollar Mistake and The Sparrow and the Hawk.

So today, or sometime soon make time for the Me in You. Forget the guilt and just go for it. Grab a glass of wine, a book and take a bubble bath, find a corner and indulge in yoga followed by dark chocolate, watch a sad movie and cry your eyes out, or do what I’m going to do today—go for a long walk in the rain.

Take care and smile.

Meg

What does Time Magazine have to do with me? I’ll tell ya.

This is a picture of the July 2d issue of Time. I know. It’s not July 2d just yet, but they go out ahead of the date to bookstores and grocery stores.

Next week, for the July 9th issue, they will include a special feature—their summer reading list. And I’m told that COWBOY LUST is on it! Yes, my lovely, smutty anthology will be mentioned in the TIME!

Here’s what I’d love. If you are out and about in the next few days and happen to see that July 9th issue, take a pic. Email me that pic, because I’d love to post it on my site here and the Cowboy Lust website!

That’s your mission should you choose to accept it!

On to today’s burning question!

If you could be the spokesperson for any product on the market, what product would you choose to enthusiastically represent?

Oh! And Happy Birthday to me! 🙂

The best laid plans…

Thanks so much for having me here, Delilah!

I’m perked to be here with you all today. As a matter of fact, I’m pretty hyped-up over all. This is a very exciting time in my life. You see, my kids are grown and stepping out into the world, and that means my husband and I are empty-nesters for the time in our marriage… Uh-huh. Life is good.

But all these changes have me thinking about plans in general. At last, my husband and I are making plans for just the two of us. We chuckle because it seems our children’s plans change with the wind, but that’s to be expected at their age. When I think back on who I was and what I thought I wanted when I was in my early twenties, I marvel at how far I strayed from my plan.

Here are a couple examples:

The plan: Marry somewhere around twenty-five, first kid by twenty-eight, done having kids by my early thirties.

The reality: At the age of thirty-two, I married a man with two children from his previous marriage and raised them as my own.

The plan: To become super-business-woman like Tess McGill in Working Girl and live the big city dream with Harrison Ford.

The reality: I stumbled into a career I didn’t even know existed when I was in my twenties and married a small-town guy from the south who bears a striking resemblance to Sheriff Woody from Toy Story.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not complaining. At. All. Although my life has taken a different path than the one I envisioned when I was a young adult, I have no regrets. So far, it’s been pretty darn awesome. That realization got me thinking about how lucky I was to have the nerve to jump out of line.

By letting go of “The Plan”, I lived my life instead of programming it.

The conflict between dreams and reality is a central theme in most of my novels. In Contentment, Tracy Sullivan almost flushes her idyllic life down the toilet because she can’t let go of her old dreams. Commitment was the story of Maggie McCann, a woman who discovers unanticipated happiness in a change of plan. Spring Chickens focuses on a couple brave enough to take a chance on a second chance at happiness. Even my paranormal romances, Paramour and its sequel Inamorata, feature characters who must learn to let go of the past in order to move forward.

Was it my plan to weave a common theme through every novel I’ve written thus far? *snort* Not at all. As a matter of fact, I didn’t even realize that I had until I was explaining the premise of one of the books to an acquaintance this past weekend. How cool is that?

Tell me, what plans have you changed when the prospect for something different came along?

I’d be happy to give one commenter their choice of any story from my backlist (including the steamier stuff I write as Maggie Wells,
but you have to promise not to tell my mom).

If you’d like to check them out, here are the links to my webpages:
www.margaretethridge.com
https://maggiewells.weebly.com/