Crossing Out The List

First post of the year! //hanging head

I've been busy in RL, doing the roofing thing, which is good. The writing thing, not so good, because I was kind of disappointed that I didn't accomplished all my goals for 2012. Here was my list:

1) Protector--Edit, find new cover, add back missing stuff, publish as Ebook first                     DONE
2) Hunter--Edit, find new cover, publish Ebook first           DONE
3) Into Danger--Edit, find new cover, publish Ebook first    DONE
4) (Her Secret Pirate)--Edit, add new paragraphs, find new cover, Ebook only since it's a short story                                       DONE
5) Dangerously Hot--NEW, write (half), edit, find new cover (done), coordinate with Sylvia Day, look at tax stuff to do with this antho, work at new accounts, open new accts to do with partnership
                                                                                      SO NOT DONE
6) Miki's Book 2--NEW, sort through photos, change DPI of selected, work out story board, try to get my friend Jax Cassidy (busy, wonderful author) to help with cover and Photoshop, write (almost finished).
                                                                                       SO NOT DONE
7) Put the above, except Pirate, out as PRINT book (format, get front and back cover, look at print jobs, reformat???       ARGHHHH STATUS
8) Put the above in aRe, a romance ebook distributor to get ready for Romantic Times Convention. I looked at all the formats they wanted. DIED ABOUT 6 TIMES.                                              ARGGHHH STATUS

So, I feel somewhat dejected. Not all...I know I did a lot but I'm not truly happy with myself. And then I bumped my head on the door frame and got myself a black eye--teach me to think of writing and work all the time and give myself a migraine :P.

In short, I'm playing catchup. As soon as I get at least Dangerous Hot done and do #7 and #8 before Feb is over, I'll feel a little more relaxed. Right now--got to get motivated! Got to do it!!!!!!!!!! (If only exclamation marks help motivation....)

I hope y'all are having a better January than me. And thank you for being so patient. I don't think I do that enough.

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All I Want For Christmas Is PeriOrbital Hematoma....

Want to hear something funny? Okay, not funny maybe from your point of view. I had a horrible migraine last night, took a nap that lasted 6 hours and woke up with the headache still bothering me. After an hour of messing around the house (and Internet), I decided to try to sleep again but the migraine had worsened and my head felt like exploding.

Needing a visit to the bathroom, I did what I have done 1,000,000 times before when I had a headache--I stumbled, with my eyes half-closed, toward my bathroom. This time, I somehow missed the doorway, stumbled to the right too far and HULKsmashed the right eyebrow area against the door frame. I swear I saw lights. I finally managed to turn on the lights and lo and behold, the area above my right eye had swollen up into a soft goose egg in a matter off seconds. I looked like one of the Walking Dead. It hurt. Yet it didn't. Because the migraine was gone! I could see!!!

I put an ice pack over the bump and it's now gone down except over the right eyelid. But this is how to cure a migraine! Smash your face on the door or wall, folks!

Update: The swelling is gone but as I became vertical this morning, the area around my eye is getting more and more purple and black. Oh, the ribbing I'm going to get on the roof all day....

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TEMPTING TROUBLE IS TOP PICK in RT!

Soooo excited! RT Book Club magazine reviewed and gave Tempting Trouble 4.5 stars Top Pick rating!

Fans of über-talented Low
will be thrilled to have a
new COS Command novel
from her — and to learn it is Grace
O’Connor’s story. First introduced as the
secret teenage daughter of legendary
assassin Jed McNeil, Grace is now a
young woman with serious skills. As with
all Low novels, the story is intricately
plotted and filled with fascinating technology,
not to mention breathtaking suspense
and fiery passion.

Cool, huh? ;)

Besides Amazon and BN.com, TEMPTING TROUBLE is now available on Smashwords for those who use other kinds of reading devices (Kobo, iTunes, HTML, text). International readers who can't buy from Amazon or BN.com can download the book from Smashwords too! Below is the link:
TEMPTING TROUBLE ON SMASHWORDS

I'd appreciate your help with letting your reading pals know this. Thank you!

For those looking for Print versions, I hope to get to them next year. Print versions of Protector, Sleeper, Tempting Trouble and second Miki Book!
o-O
I think I just scared myself.

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The First Time I Ever Saw Your Face, or Romance through a Man's Eyes

Go on, click on the link below:

http://goodmenproject.com/good-is-good/shes-the-one/

What you'll read will make your heart glow and put a smile on your face. Romance...mmmmmm!

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The Next Big Thing Blog Hop!

WEEK 24!

There are the books everyone has heard about: Twilight, Hunger Games, Fifty Shades of Gray. But what about all those books written by people you’ve never heard of? Some of them are treasures, just waiting to be found, and that’s what this blog hop is all about: the books you might not have heard about, but that you might end up loving.

This blog hop is like a game of tag. One author posts and tags five other authors who link back to their website the next week and tag five new authors. If you follow the blog hop long enough, you’re bound to find some books you’ll love! Maybe you’ll even discover a book that ends up being the next big thing.

I was tagged by Niecey Roy. You can learn more about her book Fender Bender Blues on her website www.nieceyroy.com. 

This blog hop includes ten questions to help you learn more about an author’s current work in progress, so here’s a little info about my current project:

1: What is the title of your book?

Tempting Trouble. Here is the cover:

Buy at AMAZON Kindle

Buy at Barnes & Noble NOOK

2: Where did the idea come from for the book?

I’ve always been interested in spy stories and I read all kinds of stuff whenever I can. Hot mysterious assassins. Covert wars. Gadgets and weapons. Secret identities. Underground networks. They all go into my Whirlpool of Big Ideas.

3: What genre does your book fall under?

Romantic Suspense, although mine is more on the thriller side. I coin my sub-genre Spy-fy ;). I have a series called Super Soldier Spy that plays with the idea of CIA remote-viewing and virtual reality portals. Researching for those books were fun!

4: Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

Don’t know. I’m sure Gerard Butler is in the cast ;). He and his cast of 300 warriors with their abs of steel can all play my Navy SEAL characters ;).

5: What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

Nuns on the run, odd Chinese words, double agents, non-aligned ghosts, dangerous daddy, three grains of rice, plus an assortment of spy games--falling in love would just be tempting trouble.

6: Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

This book is self-published. My previous books have been published by Avon Harper Collins and Mira Books.

7: How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

I don’t really write in draft. The story sort of puke itself out and I have no story line, just go with the flow and making edits as I write.

8: What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

Tempting Trouble is a spy caper, with lots of romance and action. I don’t have an exact comparison but my writing teachers are Linda Howard and Anne Stuart and hopefully, I learned a thing or two from them about sexual tension and sexy bad boys. My series can also be compared to Cindy Gerard’s spec. ops. Books.

9: Who or What inspired you to write this book?

Not the book, per se, but I always think about the late and great Colonel David Hackworth, an American hero, when I write about military stuff in general. I would like to think my heroes have Col. Hackworth’s sense of duty and bravery. Also, James Bond remains the ultimate inspiration J. I want my heroines to be Jane Bond, intelligent, kickass, and always sexy!

10: What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

If you like hot romance with your suspense plot, give Tempting Trouble a try. Grace McNeil, the heroine, has appeared in several of my books, including Big Bad Wolf and Facing Fear. Her father, Jed McNeil, is a fan favorite and yes, he makes an appearance in this book too. And yeah, totally hot assassin with a daughter he nicknamed Trouble. Poor hero, Lance, has his hands full, I tell ya.

Here is a list of authors who will be joining the hop for week 25 on December 12th. I hope you’ll visit their blogs next week and learn more about their books. Maybe one of them will become your new favorite author!

1  Lucienne Diver

2  Rebecca Paisley

3   Jax Cassidy

4  Caridad Pineiro
5  Sharon Hamilton

You can read excerpts from Tempting Trouble at my blog right now (yesterday's post)!

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Tempting Trouble Excerpt #2

Here is another excerpt scene from Tempting Trouble, when Lance decides to get more personal with his methods of finding out more about the mysterious Grace ;).

***********************

Lance caught glimpses of Grace throughout the evening. She appeared hard at work; constantly the mouthpiece for some senator or key aide who had been instructed to discuss with certain Chinese aides.
In those clothes, she looked the part, earnest and perfectly conservative, but Lance remembered the curves underneath. She checked out on the guest list, so she was who she’d said she was. However, the coincidence of her being here was still suspicious.
At least, that was what Lance told himself, as he followed her movements whenever she was in the vicinity. There was something about her that drew him to her—that surprising tart sense of humor, the liquid brown eyes that could light up with anger or laughter, the fluid grace. He wanted to know who this young woman was, and he was determined to see her without her current disguise. He quirked his lips. She couldn’t keep running away every time, not when he intended to catch her by surprise.
 
It was long past her bedtime when Grace unlocked the door to her apartment, humming her favorite group’s latest hit. Whew. Home. Translation was more work than she’d anticipated. Throwing her satchel on the armchair, she strolled into her dark bedroom, impatiently unbuttoning her jacket blouse and shrugging it off. She sat down on the vanity stool and unstrapped her heels, giving a moan of pleasure after discarding the tortuous things. Ugh, how did anyone wear these things for more than three hours? Closing her eyes, she grumbled softly as she rubbed her arches, savoring the feel of her thumbs. Oh, what she wouldn’t give to have Tim there to give her a foot rub.
 
She arched her back like a cat, yawned and blinked sleepily as she went over the events of the night. Lazily, she unhooked the back of her bra. So much to think about—what with debriefing and then trying to understand that mysterious—
 
Grace froze. Slowly, she turned her head toward the direction of her bed. Her heart started thudding hard when she confirmed the slight movement she’d caught in the darkness. Someone was in her bed. Someone big, lying there with his hands clasped behind his head. She could pick out his outline from the stream of light coming from her living room.
 
“Pity. I’d hoped to see more of you before you caught me.”
Lance had been lying there for at least half an hour, after walking around her apartment and picking things up here and there to clue himself in about the woman’s personality. He’d enjoyed being in her bed, taking in her slightly fruity scent, imagining her curling up where he was. He refused to picture her there with that boy in the photo on one of the dressers, the one with his arm casually across her shoulders.
Lance hadn’t expected her to drop her top so quickly, and the whole spectacle of her sitting there in the half-darkness with only her bra and skirt, rubbing her feet, her eyes closed, making throaty moans, had kept him silent. Here was Grace O’Connor without her disguise, all sensuous and sexy, with the shadows and light adding an intimacy to her movements. His quick arousal—fierce and sudden—took him by surprise. He’d watched more intimate revelations in his line of business and very little elicited this kind of reaction any more.
 
But she appeared to have breached that part of him too. He’d silently willed her to take her bra off and when she’d reached back to comply, he was all but ready to stride off the bed and drag her back into it with him. It was both a relief and a disappointment when she finally realized she wasn’t alone.
 
Grace heard the voice of the very devil she’d been thinking about, and half-naked as she was, she pivoted to make a mad dash out of her bedroom. Her intruder was faster than she’d thought. One moment, he was lounging there on her sheets, all heavy with indolence, and the next he leapt like a big hunting cat and pounced.
 
She gasped as he gave her a linebacker’s tackle, and as his weight came down, she shrieked in furious protest, pulling herself back enough to try to land a punch into his solar plexus. She didn’t miss her target by much and it was a solid enough punch that produced a grunt from her assailant. Fear and panic gave her the strength to push him off enough so she could roll over to get up. His hand grasped her right ankle as she got to her knees, pulling her off balance. She landed on her front, sprawled every which way. Desperately, she reached down with one hand and pried his third finger out, pulling it back cruelly. He yelped, cursing loud and strong, and let her ankle go.
 
Breathlessly gasping for air now, Grace made another attempt to stand up, her tight skirt restricting her movements. The door was just a scant few yards away, and if she could just get to it.Lance rolled over like a log against the back of her feet, flipping her backwards as she made her frantic flight. She landed on her posterior, legs flailing as his limbs and hers tangled together in a ball of flesh and clothing.
 
The next few minutes were a furious rugby-like grapple. In the darkness, Grace wasn’t even sure which part of him she was punching and biting, and she didn’t particularly care. A part of her registered her attacker wasn’t trying to kill her, just subdue her, and her fear turned into anger as she felt him hold her down limb by limb until she lay panting and perspiring under his male heat.
 
To her humiliation, she realized that they were upside down to each other: his knees held down her arms, his body lay between her legs, his hands were bands of steel around her calves, while his arms gripped her thighs. She was trapped in a classic wrestling pin down, unable to move. She didn’t want to know where his head was.
 
Her skirt had ridden up during their struggle and she could feel his rasped breathing against the inside of her naked thighs. Oh…shit.
“You little hellcat,” Lance muttered, soft and grim, after he caught his breath. “You just betrayed your training with those moves.” She’d stunned him with her agility. Although he knew she fought him out of panic, part of him refused to allay her fears. She’d almost got him where it hurt. If it hadn’t been for his superb reflexes, he’d be lying flat on his back right now. “So, little Miss Intern, care to tell me what agency you work for?”

***************************

Click HERE to order from AMAZON

Click HERE to order from Barnes & Noble

Still working to get it on Smashwords for other devices.

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Your Tempting Trouble Discussion Thread

Someone asked for a discussion thread for the newest GLow book. Here it is!

You may talk about Lance and Grace, Jed, and all the other characters in the story, as well as ask me questions. As this book has some ties with Big Bad Wolf, you're welcomed to bring in questions about that story too.

I hope you enjoyed Grace's crazy daringness as much as I did. She was fun to write because she's such a youthful, devil-may-care character, especially with her upbringing. And I hope you enjoyed Lance too, who started a track-mission five years ago and ends it in this book, with the "capture" of Grace ;).

Thank you, everyone, for all your support of my inde venture. It's fun bringing all these stories to live without going through years of rejection!

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