A teaser from my WIP

“Prophecy smophecy, Pandora’s jar my arse.” Shaun muttered to herself as she yanked on the old, pitted, sadly-lacking-in-chrome door handle on her car. “I know some Greek mythology and I saw Tomb Raider, Pandora had a box, not a jar, and Pandora let all the evil out into the world. I’m so not all about the evil.” Although, there was a certain sort of piquancy to the Pandora myth and how she was the first woman -- a beautiful evil -- sent down by the gods to punish men.

She had to use her whole hand to press down the button on the handle, and then when it unlatched use both arms to pull the door open. No swift getaways in this baby; the damn door weighs a tonne, let alone the whole car. The car was new -- well, it was a ’58 Edsel Bermuda, so it was new to her -- and since it was definitely a work in progress, she had a lot of kinks to work out, or at least learn to work around.

“Not evil. The jar wasn’t anyway, whether Pandora was evil is still open for debate.”

Having opened with a groaning, metallic creak the car door reached the point in it’s arc where is moved freely. Taken off guard by the words coming from over her right shoulder Shaun wasn’t paying all the attention she should to the heavy door and as she twisted to face the speaker she was jerked around and into the door with an “oof” of stolen breath. Pain shot up her arm from where she’d twisted then fallen on her wrist, and she cried out, pulling her wrist up to her chest to cradle it.

“Hey, are you okay?”

When she looked up, it was into Jak’s concerned face. “Yeah, just sort of landed funny.” Shaun shook her hand out, trying to relieve the sting in her wrist, “Like when you land on your funny bone -- stings a bit like that.”

Fingers, smooth and slightly cook to the touch, wrapped around her wrist and stilled her movement. “Let me feel.”

Jak’s fingers ran over her skin, pressing firmly, yet gently, easing the taut tendons when he came to them. He concentrated on her wrist with intensity, and his touch was oddly the most intimate, sensual single thing she’d experienced in her life. “Nothing broken I don’t think, just a light sprain.”

Caught up in the sparks flooding her system from the vampire’s touch, Shaun was embarrassed to realize she was staring up at him, mouth no doubt wide open, while he patiently waited for a reply. His lips flirted around a smile as Jak watched her back.

“I--It’s--that is, I’m sure you’re right.” She jerked her hand out of his and absently rubbed her fingers over the skin he’d touched, not sure if she was trying to rub the tingles in, or rub them off. Like little butterfly wings they danced along in her blood stream fluttering in her belly… and lower. She tingled in places even she’d not been able to make herself tingle before, let alone one of her loser boyfriends.

“It’s late, I better go.”

Shaun turned, and moved to slide onto the big bench seat only to freeze in place when a growly, rough voice yelled out, “What the hell is that heap of junk?”

She straightened, the fluttering butterfly wings in her belly stuttering to a halt as plain old annoyance took a hold. Trust Rob to ruin a perfectly good moment.

“It’s not a heap of junk, it’s a classic.”

“No it’s not, it’s a rusted out clap trap--”

“No, it’s not. It’s an Edsel.” Shaun moved down the side of the car and ran her hand tenderly along one of the fins that stretched down to the rear. Then turned back to Rob with her hands on her hips. “Clarabell’s in the middle of a bad hair decade, but I plan on fixing that.”

Accidentally Were? - Available Now!

ISBN: 978-1-59632-575-3
Cover Artist: Anne Cain
Erotic Paranormal BBW Romantic Comedy

Available now at Loose Id!

With Murphy’s Law, Magic, and Fate working together, Pearl and Rex don’t stand a chance. When Miss. Priss in pearls meets Mr. Proudly Plaid in flannel, there‘ll be more flying than just blue sparks and fur.

Pearl Gordon wakes up after her first ever one-night-stand to an empty bed, a plethora of love bites, and every stray canine in town serenading her bedroom window? Something’s not right -- neither the dogs, nor the strange canine tooth marks in the middle of all the hickeys she now wears around her neck.

When her pal Shaun can’t come up with any better excuse than she was bitten by a werewolf — seriously, as if! — Shaun suggests Pearl double check with her neighbour, Rex Dixon. After all the handsome, burly, bear of a man might be practicing as a vet, but he also trained as a GP.

Angry that a Were in heat was so stupid as to sit herself down in the middle of his waiting room, Rex reacts. Only there’s a few things he doesn’t know about Pearl, and it seems Magic is about to poke a pin in the side of his confirmed bachelor balloon. There’s a prophecy to fulfil and Fate’s out hunting, and she’s loaded for Were-Bear.

20 days and counting!

Accidentally Were? will be available in 20 days, WAHOO!! Do I sound a little excited? I'm really looking forward to this book because it's got a lot of me in it. Not that I've ever been bitten by a Were-Bear, or had packs of dogs lusting after me, or indeed had my Dad tell me about a mysterious prophecy... though I can say I did come close to hurling on someone's shoes while pregnant.

So make sure to book mark it, put the date on the calendar ... heck sharpie it on the back of your hand, because it's going to be a fun read!

At Loose Id Nov 20th

A new cover...

Hairy, bear of a man? Check
Plus sized woman? Check. Who's wearing her signature pearls? Check
Blue, sparkly magic stuff? Check!

Now I'm off to update some webpages :) since this will be out at the end of November!

A little something from a wip ...

I decided I liked Robbie, who's a side character in Accidentally Were. I also got a giggle out of Shaun, Pearl's younger, goth princess friend. Then, of course, I had this very mean thought that Shaun would bug the shit out of Robbie ... and a new story was born.

So a little bit from the first chapter ...

Robbie Diedrickson cursed the day his friend and Beta had found his mate.
Not because he was unhappy that Rex had found love and had a cub on the way, but because much-to-curious-for-her-gothic-shitkickers Shaun Engelstead was now his problem.
Little gothic riding hood, sitting on a gravestone absently knocking the heels of her red Doc Martins together like she was Dorothy wishing to go home, was giving him grey hairs -- and being just this side of forty, he didn’t need her assistance in that department.
Robbie snuck a look around the other side of the tree he was hidden behind, and looked to see if Jak was in position.
Jakov Pieter was a vampire; a real one, not one of the playing at it types with fake teeth he’d seen hanging with Shaun and the rest of her Goth friends. It hadn’t taken much convincing to get his old friend to help him out with his plan to scare his little gothic princess. Jak was always up for a good practical joke, and getting to act all Bela Lugosi was right up his alley.
It wasn’t that he was angry with her. Much. After all, if she hadn’t sent Pearl to Rex to find out about Pearl’s strange canine shaped love bites, they wouldn’t have found each other and the whole chain of ‘wonderful’ events that led to Rex mated and about to be a daddy wouldn’t have happened. But, and there was always a but when Shaun Engelstead was involved, now that she’d been proved right about Weres existing, she was determined to prove Vampires were real, too.
Wasn't it enough that every time he turned around Shaun he tripped over her -- she was like a kid with candy, and the Pack was her Pop Rocks. Pack meetings, she was there; a Pack party, yup you guessed it, she was there. He had a feeling she probably knew more about the minutiae of his pack than he did, and he was the god damned Alpha!
And that was why, at two am on a Friday morning, he wasn’t tangled up in the sheets with a date, but crouched behind a fucking pine tree waiting to put his ‘scare Shaun shitless and get her to stop poking her nose in’ plan into action.

So many ideas, not enough time

Or at least not enough patience to sit and get them done with out letting my add tendencies get the better of me and start blog surfing.

I've had a couple of ideas on the back burner, yet I looked up a couple of outlines I'd done ages ago and wondered WhyTF I haven't done anything with them? They are good ... but I can't seem to work too well on multiple WIP. WIP and edits are not a problem, but I'm failing at having 2-3 WIP going at the same time.

So at the moment I have this great dark menage story that I really have to sit down and start editing - its going from short story length to novella/novel length. Great twisty stuff where it starts off as a mfm menage but ends up as a mmf menage, tortured type hero, whimsical heroine, hero with the wastrel family. As it stands its a mfm, so I've got lots of work to do.

Then I've always had a plan to follow up AW with another story, one where the pack alpha, gets together with the much younger goth chick. How bad is this: I emailed my editor, who snapped up AW quick, to see if she'd like to see a second story land on her eDesk. Can you tell I'm procrastinating on that editing? To RS,CF's detriment she didn't poo-poo the idea. Bugger. Turns out that its not just Rob and Shauns story, but lookie here theres a studly vampire by the name of Jakov Peter (I resisted I didn't call him Peter Jakov!), hmmm ... and 850 words into my first scene a ghost called Gertruda has just popped up - I think I could really have fun with this story.

Then I have this trio of stories about eBay, and a story of a pair of peeping toms (which might work for the Brava contest if I pull finger), and ... too damn many idea's I tell you!

I forgot the good news ...

I'll soon be able to add another one of these:


to that sidebar over there ------->

I really must get around to making a generic one that fits in with my site. I've got the skillz, must. use. them.

Catch up

No not Ketchup, catch up. Besides it's called tomato sauce anyway :)

I've not been blogging a whole lot this week as I've been working hard on my WIP ... along with actually doing the housework I've been putting off for far too long.

Accidentally Were is a 24k and climbing, I haven't got to the mystical woo-woo part yet so I'm thinking that I'm going to end up around 40-50k before I start editing and cutting and adding. Of course since I'm notorious for not using contractions, there's 1000 words that disappear right there. Tell me, in this little scene that I'm penning this afternoon, have I gone overboard with the euphemisms? (assuming I have that right, euphemism that is, and I have a feeling I am wrong.) :

(this is VERY much unedited at the moment folks)

When he pushed her back up against the side of his truck her little angry growls stopped and a low sexy rumble started up instead. “I wasn’t sure there for a second, but I think you were right, this is a damn good idea.”
Rex barely had time to brace himself before Pearl climbed her way up his body and wrapped her legs around his waist. As he wasn’t quite balanced they fell back against the truck with a panel-popping thud that pressed Pearl up against him like she was a stripper and he was the pole. Quite apt really considering his dick felt like a bloody steel bar.
Pearl’s hands were wound through his hair again; holding him tight as she fairly ate at his lips. Pearl made a cacophony of sound as she mewled and groaned as she rode his cock like a cowboy on a prize bull determined to make it to eight seconds. She tore her mouth away and shouted to the sky, “Yes! More, just like that!” and Rex had to wonder what the hell alien had taken over the woman who was usually so uptight and proper she’d make a Mongrel Mob member quake in his boots for being to loud in a library.

Tea for Three's release is a little over a week away now. We should be getting everything finalized this weekend, so it will be nice to get that out of the way until the Monday before release day when I'll sit up late obsessively refreshing the screen until the new releases are posted -- and don't think I wont!

I've got a release out, a sub being read (do you know hard it is to sit on your fingers and not email "Have you read it yet, whaddya think" to your editor?), and I've been trying to make a decision about a national print ad -- I'm not usually one to stress and obsess, but trying to break my caffeine addiction (I'm failing I might add), has me a little twitchy :).

BUT ... I put that twitchiness to good use and I now have clean floors. Eh, which reminds me I need to go finish off the bathroom, bugger!

NINJA's!

Racy Li's first release has been tempting me for a while. I love watching the epic Chinese movies that have come out in recent years - you know, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon - and I'm a total squee fan girl of Marjorie Liu's Dirk and Steele series - all that Asian mysticisim and paranormal beings...mmmm! So Racy has a definite strike from me in the purchased column of the release day sales tally.

I have been hanging out to see what LI would come up with for her cover art. I was so hoping for no poser rigid eehhh yuck crap; maybe something by Anne Cain. OMG Christine Griffin pulled one out of the hat! Even if I didn't know Racy as a fellow author I would snatch this off the proverbial shelf with an oooooh and an aaaaahhhhh!

Take a gander:

Is that some hot Ninja tastiness or what? That's some Jet Li Hero hotness right there folks!

A Friday teaser

I have been trying out my shapeshifter wings :

The scent was sweeter than any fruit; soaking his senses, calling to him. He shoved his nose into the damp crevice where the glorious smell was strongest. Tasting the treat before him with his nose and his tongue, he edged his way slowly closer to the female that tantalized him so with her perfume.

She was what he had been seeking all these years. None of the other females had felt right, they hadn’t smelt right, but this one…this one was he had been waiting for. He wanted to dip his tongue into the delicious honey, wallow in her fragrance and mark her as his own.

“What the fuck?” Rex fell back onto his ass, pinching at his nose trying to stem the flow of blood as another clenched fist in front of a damn good right hook smashed into his cheek. “What the hell do you think you’re doing lady?”

He managed to get a hold of her wrist before she wound up for another strike and pulled her forward into his chest, landing them both on the floor with an “oomph”. Pearl landed perfectly nestled between his legs and across his chest. Rex flipped them over, his powerful and naked thighs falling either side of her hips holding her hands above her head as she struggled to get free.

“Get off me, you brute!” You brute? The woman was such a contradiction, Miss Manners one moment, then modern attitude and vernacular the next.

“ME? I’m a brute? Lady, I’m the one with a bleeding nose.” It didn’t matter that part of his dual nature was the ability to heal a lot fast than a normal human and his nose was now a slow ooze, not the gushing river it had been when he was shocked into changing back from his bear form. “What did I do to you to make you lash out like that? I might not have been Mr. Congeniality the way I bundled you up here - but I apologized - and I even changed just like you asked, why were you smacking me over the snout?”

Pulling one hand away, he poked at the cartilage running along the ridge of his nose, grimacing in one particularly sore spot. “I don’t think you broke it.”

The struggles had stopped, drawing his attention away from his injury and back to the woman lying supine beneath him. Her face was pale, but bursts of color brushed her cheeks and she panted shallowly. Following her gaze Rex realized he had transformed back sans clothing and now straddled her buck naked with a raging hard on.

“You’re...” Pearl cleared her throat making her breasts jiggle as well as heave from her panting. “…ah…you’re naked.” And turned on went unsaid, but acknowledged anyway.

“Yes, it does seem that way doesn’t it.” Quite an enviable state considering the circumstances, Rex thought to himself.

Pearl’s skirt rode up around her waist and she had lost a couple of buttons in the scuffle from that very puritan blouse she wore. His cock now rested, larger than it had ever been in its life, nestled into the V of Pearl’s legs and hips, framed by pretty blue lace hipster panties.

He wasn’t inclined to make haste and move off the lovely plump bundle who was struggling again. Rubbing her mons up along his dick as she tried to buck him loose, straining the remaining buttons of her blouse until another popped and the bra matching the panties lay exposed.

Like a bear to honey, Rex couldn’t hold back any longer. In both forms she was like nectar, and he wasn’t on any sort of diet. Leaning down he ran the slightly stubbly edge of his cheek along the now exposed nape of her neck, scenting her, marking her with his own. He nipped at the bruise on her shoulder with his canines extended drawing a heated gasp as he ground down with his hips giving pleasure with the pain of the bite.

Despite his brain feebly telling him to stop, nature took a hold, pushing logical thought to the side, letting the instinct to mate with a suitable female prowl his consciousness. The smell of fear was easily overridden as he felt moisture seep through the lace, dampening his skin.

Laving the bite mark he heard small whimpers of pleasure from Pearl, the woman his beast recognized as his mate, the woman who would bear his cubs and be his to protect. Unable to suppress a groan he took her mouth roughly with his kiss. The smooth heat of her lips slid over his as she opened to him, caressing his thrusting tongue with her own as she invited him into her body, mimicking the thrusts of his hips against hers.

Finally!

FB was convinced to read something for me.

Now he has been adamantly refusing to read any of my writing until such time as I could provide him with a lesbian work - just for his reading pleasure (Of course that got my back up, so see if I offer him that manuscript to read if it ever gets written!). So I was most surprised when I asked him to read over a current WIP (no gay sex in this one, he wouldn't touch that with a barge pole), he actually did. Then came back to me and said, "hey, this isn't half bad!". The surprise in his voice was most uncomplimentary, but I decided to be the better person and gracefully said thank you.

I will say that FB does put up with a hell of a lot of my burbling about writing, publishing, and general smack talk about things I want to do, but haven't quite got there yet with. Usually with the same aplomb as I deal with music talk...ahum, yeah, really? wow! that's interesting...so it was quite surprising when FB then says "so now that they have got together, what is going to happen? That is only the start of the story...right?"

Rutt Ro! Only the start of the story? Shit...this was supposed to be halfway through the story. (The original aim had been to submit it for the Amber Heatwave contest, then I thought maybe instead I would submit it for the Elloras 2008 Quickies since the heroine is named Pearl, and wears pearls as she is supposed to be a prissy preppy prude) "Half way through? Oh no, definitely not, there's way more story you can add after this. You need to find a bad guy, or maybe you can give this Grand Dame lady some evil plot - that shes manipulating The Magic somehow because she has secret plans for their offspring or something."

Bloody hell...not only have I got to come up with another 30k+ words I need to figure out a sneaky plot when this was supposed to be a short and sweet story? Did we just jump from lesbian porn to legitimate suggestions in one giant, big leap?

Oh, we didn't...FB is still waiting on the lesbian porn...

OUT!

And proud of it, I guess is supposed to be what comes next. But no, no closet hopping for me, instead Position Vacant is available, OUT you might say, today, right now, like you could click this link and go buy it CLICK ME (doesn't that sound slightly Alice in Wonderland'esque).

I have been furiously emailing, posting, sending to mailing lists last night and tonight. You would be surprised where my name might be popping up today!

If your one of the guys and girls from Borsboards.com (aka GoFistYourself.com - got to love that name Smalto), please, make yourself at home, I have cookies and pie!

Christmas Ornament Contest

Position Vacant, my new Christmas themed novella is due out next week. Since it's all about Santa and the Elves, I am running a Christmas themed contest for everyone who is on my mailing list. Look to the side and you can see where you can join up, to join in.

On the 12th of Dec I will make a random drawing from the list for a variety of Santa / Elf themed tree ornaments (approx value $25). I might even be convinced to throw in a free copy of Position Vacant for the winner! I will get everything off via priority mail so it arrives in plenty of time for Christmas.

I'll add in a photo of the ornaments once I get the battery charged up for the camera. Murphys Law, when ever I want to use it, it's deader than a doornail :(

Reading habits

I will admit it, I am an addict.

But recently I am finding an annoying trend. I read three to four chapters then skip ahead to nearly the end to see if what I think is about to happen, happens. This is only with print books. I havent yet started it with e-books, I wonder why?

Maybe it is because "real" books - in so much as they are printed on paper and bound - are right there, its just a matter of moving a finger, where in an e-book i have to click a few times or type in a number of a page to go to?

Or is it that the standard, formulaic, romance books, are becoming just that. Standard and formulaic ie. boring. I have to admit, in e-books, there is such a wide variety in content; not all of it good. While I might not be skipping the pages yet, I have laughed aloud at bad e-books and print books. Bad is bad in every format!

Is it because a number of reputable e-book publishers aren't afraid to step out of the box and give us the low down nitty gritty - of both sex and real life emotions - rather than a little idyllic world for us to daydream about being real? Of course not all e-books are anywhere near to being based in "reality", but still the authors give us interesting angst, rather than the usual "he's the boss, I'm pregnant with my father twice removed cousins baby woe is me!"?

Although I am a closet fan of mystery baby daddy stories, go figure?

Trying something different

So the first version of Position Vacant sucked, right?
But I really want to attempt something a little more sarcastically whitty, something a little more...like me, I guess. So I am trying my hand at another short story about a Miss Priss, who has a first of a lifetime one night stand, and instead of being left with a hickey gets a love-bite of the Were-folk kind.
Of course she doesn't know that yet - despite the legions of stray dogs following her around.

So how does this catch you?

------

“Come on, Shaun, let me in!” Pearl banged harder on her girlfriends front door. “Wake up you lazy cow and let me in before they eat me…” She turned around to look at the yard full of adoring canines. “…or something…”

She refused to look down to find out if it was something more than slobber on her shoe. Too many of the dogs looked too happy by far. La la la laaaa…don’t think about it, Pearl, just don’t think about it.

“God damn it, Shaun, Let. Me. In!” The door swung open and a short, petite sprite like creature stood in the doorway. Black as coal hair in disarray and raccoon eyes from smearing last nights eye makeup around with her fist as she tried to wake up.

“All right all right all ready. Keep your pants on.”

“Too bloody late for that now, isn’t it.” She shouldered her way past her kooky best friend and into the hallway, shaking off an eager paw so she could cross the threshold. “Hurry up, shut the door!”

Shaun had managed to clear her vision up enough to take in her front lawn. “Hey…what’s with all the dogs?” She took a closer look at Pearls disheveled state and gasped. “What the hell happened to you?”

Usually primly proper and schoolmarm like, she dressed in skirts, blouses and her namesake pearls. But today she had on a ratty old pair of jeans, a T-shirt on backwards, and her jacket was on inside out. Then Shaun spied the big hickey just down from her neck and tried very hard not to giggle. Going so far as to stuff her little fist in her little mouth; but she couldn’t contain her very big roar of laughter.

“Ohmigod! Miss. Prissy got laid last night!”

-----

Or is it just the farmers daughter in me that thinks this is funny?