I woke up to a very nice review on Amazon for True Heart: “…I found True Heart to be full of characterization and complete with an emotionally driven plot….I was unprepared for the empathy that I felt towards Honey, and the tears that came to my eyes when she makes love to True for the first time. Her anxiety was heartfelt and Trues’ reaction made me fall a bit in love with him myself.”

That was nice enough to give a bounce to my step as I headed to the coffee pot for my first cup.

Did I mention I’m making two trips this month? Next weekend, Sis and I are heading to Jackson, Mississippi to lead a weekend plotting bootcamp for the local RWA chapter. And then January 19, I’ll head to Miami to board a cruise ship headed to Key West and Cozumel! It’s a conference, so it’s really work (wink-wink, Mr. Tax-man). I don’t know about you, but when it gets cold, I want to get the hell out of Dodge. Last year, I took a long cruise to the Caribbean and found it therapeutic for my writing.

Had a dream about Ryan Reynolds last night—you know, the guy in the The Proposal? Anyway, he was my boyfriend, and I don’t remember much, except he turned my desk chair around because I wouldn’t stop typing. He squatted in front of me, grabbed my hands and gave me that pretty, soulful look of his. Then he asked me what it would take to convince me to come away with him. I remember thinking, “Am I stupid? Ask for sex!” Instead, I pulled my hands away from his and whined, “But I’ve got a deadline, Ryan.” WTF? But I’ve got a deadline? Yeah, a completely wasted opportunity for dream sex.

Thank you to Delilah for inviting me to pop in today and thanks to all of you for stopping by during what is a very busy holiday season. This year the season has been a bit different for me. While most people are making plans for New Years Eve and penning their soon to be broken resolutions for 2011, I find myself anticipating something else—the start of a new PBR season (that’s Professional Bull Riders not Pabst Blue Ribbon for you non-fans. LOL)

Perhaps it’s that my Twitter follow list over the past year has become filled with bull riders, stock contractors, ropin’ rodeo cowboys, and fellow cowboy-lovers from all over the world. And in this world, which a few years ago was quite foreign to a New York girl like me, we (me included) are counting down not to New Years, but instead to the opening day of the 2011 season which kicks off at Madison Square Garden in NYC on Friday, January 7th. I’ve got my tickets and am waiting as anxiously as the rest.

How did I, a born and bred suburbanite, get hooked on bull riding and cowboys? It started out of necessity. I was writing a book about rodeo cowboys a few years ago and was forced (ha, real hardship there!) to consult with real live cowboys for research as well as watch anything I could find about the sport on TV. It’s apparently addicting, both the cowboys and the sport, and now I’m hooked on both, book research or not. But it’s not just me who is easily addicted. A reviewer recently wrote that reading one of my Studs in Spurs series books made her want to watch bull riding and one of my readers bought tickets to a PBR event after reading my book. The love of cowboys proves universal!

Anyway, Friday night, January 7th, when my friends join me at MSG (they got me and themselves tix as my Christmas gift), we’ll see if I can get them hooked as well. There will be lots of questions because they are more suburban that I—at least I own horses while all they own are prints of horses for their walls—but I’m ready for them. After all these years of research for my bull rider series, I can quote the announcers and analyze the rides with the best of them.

I’ve included a short blurb from my newest bull riding cowboy book. I dare you not to fall in love with him!

Happy New Year and Happy Reading to you all and Let’s Buck!
Cat Johnson

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

What happens in Vegas…sometimes follows you home.

Studs in Spurs, Book 3

Pro bull rider Chase Reese knew things move faster than an eight-second ride in Las Vegas. He just never expected to be driving home with a national championship under his belt and a wedding band on his left hand with no clue how it got there.

Yet he can’t complain about the stripper bride beside him. From the moment his buddies bought him a lap dance from her, her trembles told him there was more to her than stiletto heels.

Leesa Santiago has met the perfect guy. Her timing couldn’t be worse though. If it was just their explosive sex, she could walk away. But from the moment her lap dance brought her this close to his baby blues, she was hooked. She can’t lie that she couldn’t be happier to bear his name—or guiltier that she’s using it and his Oklahoma farm to hide out from mob hit men.

That’s before Chase’s family gets involved. And his determination to do the right thing pushes her to do the one thing that will keep him safe. Break his heart.
Do cowboy boots mix with stripper heels? And can a love that started out on the wrong foot end up on the right one? That’s the risk you take waking up in Vegas.

Warning: Contains one happy-ending lap dance that will make you squirm, some pretty hot sex between two strangers who also happen to be married to each other, and a huge surprise conclusion.

Find more information about Cat’s other Studs in Spurs series eBook and paperbacks featuring hot bull riding cowboys at: Cat’s Website and Samhain Publishing

What’s going on through your walls?

By Keri Ford

Nothing overly exciting leaks through the sheetrock for me. When I was younger my room was against the living room. I got to listen to episodes of Cheers and Seinfeld when I was supposed to be sleeping. When we moved my only wall share was with the bathroom…. Yeah, a few breaks from Sister through the night (something I could have done without!) was it.

And that’s it. I married and we moved into a rental house. The bedroom was in the back and butted against the laundry room. I got to hear the dryer. *whoo-hoo*. I’ve again moved into a single-wide and let me tell you, the walls are so thin on these puppies I can hear my son playing with cars in his room. On the opposite end of the trailer. Nothing more exciting than that.

I know other people get some pretty cool eavesdropping through their walls. Shortly before my book was to release, I set up an alert for “Through The Wall”. Sixty-plus hits were rolling in everyday. None of those about my book, mind you, but about people just hearing crap through their walls. Sex, TV, some kid’s music practice (eek!), singing (most likely another, eek!), fighting—you name it and somebody somewhere is hearing about it right now.

My heroine, Stephanie, gets some pretty freaking cool eavesdropping. Instead of sleeping, she stays up late and listens to her neighbor’s headboard banging against her bedroom wall. And where there’s headboard knocking, you know there is other awesome stuff to be heard!

What’s the most memorable thing you’ve heard through a wall?

~~~~~~~~~~

She doesn’t want wild and raunchy, just a little spice…

Stephanie Faulkner listens to her neighbor’s nightly sexcapades through her bedroom wall. What used to make her blush now has her reaching for her vibrator. But she’s had enough self-fulfillment and now wants the real thing.

He wants commitment and long-term, not a quick roll…

The only woman Parker Madison ever wanted for long-term was Stephanie…but she’s off-limits. He’s tried to find a substitute but there just isn’t another woman like her. Now that she’s available, if he gives her time to get over her ex-husband…will he finally get his long-desired chance?

Short-term doesn’t lead to long term. Or does it…?

Read Chapter One HERE!!

~~~~~~~~~~

Visit Keri At:
Website
Twitter
Facebook

Through The Wall is now available in ebook format for only $1.99 from Amazon Kindle | Smashwords

Thanks so much Delilah for having me today!

For those who don’t know, my sister and I co-founded a website for writers called Rose’s Colored Glasses. From that site, we run a critique group, issue a quarterly writerly newsletter and provide workshops—some for free and some for pay. In January, we will be leading a month-long online plotting bootcamp. How’s our workshop different from every other one out there? We provide feedback and brainstorming every step of the way. We are so good at it that we have many authors return again and again for help with their new Works-in-Progress.

Here’s a description of the class. January is a great time to take on a new challenge and a new book. Join us if you can!

Your DIs (Drill Instructors): Elle James and Delilah Devlin

Dates: January 3—January 30, 2010

Cost: $35.00—cheap, considering everything you get!

What you can look forward to during Plotting Bootcamp?

Learn a methodical approach to harness your creativity in order to produce an in-depth plot for your next novel! Sound scary? It is-when you’re staring at an empty page without a compass and a map to guide you through the novelistic jungle. Your DIs will lead you through four weeks of activities that will help strengthen your abilities to: capture the conflicts, the major plot line and subplots; deepen your knowledge of your characters; and conceive of and develop an in-depth, by-chapter description of your book. Elle and Delilah will accomplish this with weekly lessons, bi-weekly chats and daily online communication. Be ready for bivouac!

Interested? Follow this link to sign up: Rose’s Plotting Bootcamp

Okay, that’s the end of my promo. The bootcamp is intense and fun. And you will learn something new or reinforce knowledge you already have! Guaranteed!

Our mom drew the picture for our site, morphing my sister and I into “Rose”.

I’m there talking about holiday plans. Drop by, if you can, to share yours! ~DD
The link: Access Romance

I’m late posting, but the drama’s done for the day.

This morning we buried little Karmen.

My daughter, who’s as much of a night owl as I am, called me over for a cup of Barry’s tea last night. We sat on the stoop and watched the little dog as she did her business. We lost sight of her in the shadows next to the fence. When we got up to call her back, I saw her in front of the gate at the driveway. As I headed back into the house for my shoes to chase after her, I heard a truck barreling down the road. It was midnight. I’m sure we woke the neighbors calling after our little dog who had never, ever approached the road before. My daughter checked around the house while I headed straight for the road with a flashlight, heart in my mouth. I saw a shadow. Hoped that was all it was. But the closer I got, I recognized her little bat ears (she was half French Bulldog, half chihuahua) and the pretty little purple sweater she wore. She lay on her side in the center of the road, her belly split. Entrails spilling out. I know. TMI. But I can’t get the sight out of my head. I wanted to spare my daughter, but she was right behind me as I kept saying, “No, no, no.”

I picked up the remains, grasping Karmen at the scruff of the neck. She’d died instantly. That much was a blessing. We placed her in a box until this morning. Then my father dug a grave. A very small grave.

Karmen was a rescue dog. She’d been found in a shed with two hundred other dogs, living in a small cage with a foot of feces pushed against the sides. She’d been in four rescue homes before she found my daughter who had the patience to potty train her. She was the happiest, sweetest dog. We’ll miss her. I don’t think either of us could feel more regret, more guilt. Nor can we stop crying.

Very quickly, let me close out the last of the Cat Tails contests. The winner is announced at the bottom of this post.

I have my marching orders. I know what has to happen next in the story. Thanks for all your help! ~DD

Five days until Bottoms Up!

Coming from Samhain Publishing on December 28th
Pre-order at Amazon
Or Barnes and Noble

Whip me, beat me… feed me!

What’s my kink? Heroes who cook. Give me an alpha in the bedroom who can also serve it up in the kitchen, and I am a happy woman. And a generous woman. I let Destiny Blake, my heroine in Bottoms Up experience this special joy, too. As a sexual Dominant, Destiny isn’t used to letting a man call the shots, but when Dominant bartender Johnny Delcorral challenges her to submit to him for one night, she discovers he’s got skills to spare—and share—in the kitchen, the bedroom and the playroom. One night with him has her begging for more.

Excerpt:

“Sit down.” He pulled her down next to him on the couch, settling her so that her side was pressed against the length of his body. They faced the huge wall screen, now dark. It felt right to be sitting next to him while he fed her bites of cheese and bread with butter. Bizarrely date-like.

“Comic books, huh?” she teased.

“We all have our thing.” His smile was brief. “I need a minute to get dinner on the table.”

He stood and she watched him go into the kitchen, admiring the stretch of his tight black T-shirt across the breadth of his shoulders and the way his slightly frayed black jeans fit his ass. His feet were bare. He seemed comfortable cooking, comfortable having her there.

Perversely, she was uncomfortable. The food smelled great, garlicky and cheesy, but she’d been a walking orgasm waiting to happen since she woke up this afternoon and the ride downtown on her motorcycle had been…interesting, to say the least. Now he was making her wait, and that was making her cranky.

She followed him into the kitchen. “Johnny?”

“Yes?” He stirred the boiling pot of pasta.

“I want to come.”

“How bad?” He didn’t turn around.

“What, like on a scale of one to ten?”

“Sure.”

“About a seven.” She put her hands on her hips.

“You can wait.” He drained the pasta into a colander in the sink and put a large frying pan onto the stove. Fresh tomatoes, basil and a pile of grated Parmesan waited on a cutting board next to the sink.

“I could have taken care of myself at home, you know,” Destiny said.

“Now that would have been a shame.” Heady garlic filled the kitchen as he sautéed it in oil. He added wine to the pan and let it simmer, then added a big chunk of butter. Her mouth began to water again. Next came the pasta, then the basil, tomatoes and cheese.

“I didn’t know you were planning on playing hard to get.” Maybe she would masturbate right here, standing in the middle of his kitchen. That would show him. She fingered the button of her jeans.

His sly glance intercepted her gesture. “Don’t even think about it. I like thinking about you soaking your panties while we’re eating dinner. Are you wet for me, Destiny?”

“Maybe.”

“Show me.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
I have a confession to make: I married a chef. Gotta keep my kink well fed, right? *giggle* Do you have a thing for heroes who cook, too? Or have you ever had a memorable meal with a lover? Please share!

If you need some inspiration, I’ve been posting aphrodisiac recipes on my blog (http://mirandabaker.wordpress.com) the entire month of December. Perhaps a little Naughty Hottie Chocolate will hit your spot. Let me know how it works out…

For a chance to win the first author copy of Bottoms Up, enter my contest at (www.mirandabaker.com/Lucky_Pick.html).
Or find me on Facebook or Twitter (@Miranda_Baker) if you just want to chat.

Big thanks to Delilah for letting me kick off my blog tour on her site! Bottoms Up is my first ever release, and I’m really excited about it. It’s the first in a series, appropriately titled Come Again. The second story, SoloPlay, will be released in the spring. I plan to keep the party going for a while, so Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and Bottoms Up!

The winner of the Cat Tails poll #3 contest is…Susan R! Susan R, congratulations and email me the email address where you would like the certificate sent!