Coming Soon to Orange County: Put on your big girl panties!

On October 12th, the Embassy Suites in Brea, CA is being overtaken by the most awesome group of women in Orange County. The OCC RWA chapter is holding their annual Birthday Bash, with speakers Victoria Dahl and Heather Bennet during the day, and crazy pajama parties at night.

A bunch of authors are holding mini classes and workshops--a writerly pajama party--in their hotel rooms. Snacks, drinks, and maybe even some wine will complement the lessons.

This year, I decided to host a workshop on getting over fears in writing, and--lucky me--the incredible Jennifer Bernard will be co-hosting!

You still have a chance to register for the conference. And if you need additional incentive, head over to the blog of OCC President Louisa Bacio for more pajama parties being hosted!

I hope to see some local readers and writers at this celebration in just a couple weeks. You can get more info and register here.

First BOOK Friday-- Kinsey Holley

It's First BOOK Friday!  For the next few months, we're going to highlight the first book from each of the Nine Naughties.  Sometimes people find us further down our backlist, sometimes readers think they're picking up our first book when really it's number 3 or so, sometimes our first book was so long ago even we've forgotten!  (just kidding... it's true that you never forget your first!).  So we thought it would be fun to revisit the books that started it all for each of us!


This month we're featuring the first book from Kinsey Holley, Kiss and Kin.


A note from Kinsey:

Actually third book I ever wrote, first sold. I was in the middle of Yours Mine and Howls and having fits coming up with a coherent plot. Then Samhain did an anthology call for a shifter anthology and I figured - I've already got this world set up, with werewolves and everything, so why not take a break? At that point 30K sounded like a piece of cake compared to what I was trying to do. And the story kind of fell out of my head - I finished it in like two months. CAN YOU BELIEVE I WROTE A WHOLE NOVELLA IN TWO MONTHS?

I knew it was a good story when my sister - the queen of Eh, It's Okay I Guess - emailed me the day after I submitted it to tell me she LOVED it, didn't want it to end, thought it was awesome and adored my hero. And my sister, back then (2009) didn't even read paranormal.

Still, when I got an email from Angie James telling me she'd picked it I absolutely freaked. I'll never forget how my hands shook as I opened the email.

Blurb: 

Brotherly love? Oh hell no...

EXCERPT:

“What are you doing here?” he growled softly.

Those words, that voice, just hours after the dream, freaked Lark right the hell out. She started so violently her perfectly chilled Cosmopolitan sloshed the front of her dress. Her nipples stood at attention. 

He didn’t even notice.

She grabbed a handful of napkins. “Damn it, Taran, what—”

“Quiet,” he said fiercely as he stole her breath with a smile. He never smiled at her like that. He rarely smiled at her at all. She stared up at him, dumbfounded. He clamped a meaty paw on her elbow and dragged her away from the bar toward an empty table.

The dark blue pinstriped suit, a fitted European cut, and the custom-tailored, crisp white dress shirt looked great on his long, muscular frame. Taran didn’t live on his detective salary alone.

“Act like we’re having fun.” Irritable as always, he still wore that stutter-inducing smile. It stopped short of his luminescent green eyes. “Why are you here, and who are those wolves?”

“None of your business…” she grinned gaily, “…and I don’t know.”

A few golden strands of hair drifted across his eyes. He wore it halfway to his shoulders; HPD grooming regulations exempted werewolves. She always itched to brush his hair aside. One day she’d do it, just to watch him react.

”I’m serious, Lark.”

“You’re hurting me, Taran.”

He let go instantly but continued to stare at her, knowing she’d answer him.

She heaved a dramatic sigh. “I’m here with my friend Eloise, who’s into some Euro werewolf whose name I don’t remember, and he’s with his bros, and they’re all creepy and boring, and one of them keeps trying to pick me up, and after you replace the Cosmo you made me spill, I’m going home. This just is not my night.”

“Are you driving?”

“No, I’m talking to you. Why? Do I look like I’m driving?”

He didn’t laugh. He never laughed.

“El drove. I’ll take a cab home. Where’s my cosmo?”

Add it to your library here! 

9 Things...you can say to your dog, but not your husband.

Skylar's obviously been watching too much "Who's Line is it Anyway?"

1. "Who's my good boy? Who's my pretty boy?" In baby talk voice, of course. (Kate)
2. "Get your nose out of that porcupine's butt." (Juniper)
3. "Stop licking your balls, seriously." (Skylar)
4. " No humping the mailman!" (Sydney)
5. "If you bite me like that again, you're sleeping outside" (Erin)
6. "Behave or I'll make you scoop your own poop." (Juniper)
7. "Down boy, down!!" Oh wait... (Kelly)
8. "If you so much as touch that wine, blood will flow." (Meg)
9. "Get OFF me! Now!" (Kinsey)  

Your turn! What do you tell your dog (or cat) that you can't yell at your hubby? 

Bad Boyfriends and Why I Can Suddenly Write Again





Five years ago I was a size 6-8. Two years ago, a 10-12. Today, 14-16. And for a while there, the 16 was tight. I'm finally starting to lose again, because I'm finally "in the zone," that head space you have to achieve before you can make the lifestyle choices necessary for losing weight.

I'll be 50 in two months. I've been in and out of the zone for 35 years, and I still haven't figured out what puts me in the zone or what takes me out of it.  I've been gaining and losing the same 30-40 pounds since I was fifteen. They say it's very unhealthy to yo-yo like that, but I can't resign myself to remaining 40 pounds overweight, so I keep losing it. Then gaining it again.

Do you watch Doctor Who? If so, do you recall the Adipose episode ("Partners in Crime")? If not -- the Adipose are aliens made of human body fat.  For a long time I've thought of my disappearing/recurring 30-40 pounds as a bad boyfriend; after I saw the Adipose episode the first time, I finally had a image to go with the metaphor:

Don't let the cuteness fool you: the Adipose Boyfriend is an insidiously evil mofo. It takes you months, sometimes years, to kick him out of your life. You have to do it incrementally: You see him less and less often; you try to spend time with other guys, guys who are better for you; you avoid places where you expect him to show up. The less time you spend with him, the better you feel about yourself. Friends tell you how much happier and healthier you look now that you've dumped him.

But somehow, some way, the little bastard always figures out how to get back in.

At first, you only see him occasionally. You can flirt a little, maybe a peck on the cheek, then wave bye bye and go back to the Good Boyfriend. Then he shows up on a Saturday night when Good Boyfriend is out of town. Then you start to get bored with Good Boyfriend, and Adipose Boyfriend comes around more often. He "forgets" his wallet, or his car keys, or his phone or his dog.

Next thing you know, he's taking his mail at your place and he's falling asleep on the couch every night and you don't know quite how he got back in.

So. Operation Break Up has commenced for the umpteenth time and I'm feeling really good. I've even managed to kick Diet Coke, which I've done more often than Charlie Sheen has fucked hookers or Keith Richards has overdosed.

I bet Nora Roberts doesn't have an Adipose Boyfriend. Nora doesn't need to get in the zone to write and I bet she doesn't need to get in the zone to lose weight--she's got enough self-discipline to avoid falling out of the zone in the first place.

I've always aspired to Nora's Theory of Writing: There is no muse, there is only the work. Hands on keyboard, butt in chair, just get to it.

But just like when losing weight--for me, at least--I have to get in the zone to write. At the moment, I'm in the zone. I need to figure out how to stay there--for writing, for weight loss, for everything.

Guest Blogger Joann Ainsworth - Romance Changes as We Age

When mature protagonists find love, there is a different "tone" to the experience from when young heroines and heroes discover love for the first time. My historical western romance, POLITE ENEMIES, released this month from Whiskey Creek Press. Its theme is “love strikes when you least expect it.” The novel was conceived from my desire to write about “mature” love.

I don't know about you, but I find that relationships change as I age. By acquiring more experience about people and the world, there’s an interplay between my inner needs and my outer experiences that causes a different reaction to - or outcome for - relationships than when I was young. I wanted my novel to explore the sense of "knowing" and "practicality" that comes from living and gaining knowledge about the world and its peoples. The novel’s protagonists are approaching middle age for that era. The heroine is late 30’s and the hero early 40’s.

The setting is Buffalo, Wyoming, in 1895. This territory had recently gone through range wars and there was an unsettled feeling between ranchers and farmers. My heroine, Ida Osterbach, is a farmer. The hero, Jared Buell, is a rancher. An added complication is that both Ida and Jared had happy first marriages with spouses now deceased. Neither wants nor needs a new relationship. In the novel, I try to express the practical considerations that inch them toward a relationship until chemistry can take hold and take over.

As I wrote their story, I had to remember that the exciting, “first discovery of true love” was over for both of them. They needed a different foundation on which to build a relationship and a marriage. I added a tone of earthiness that I do not add to my novels with younger protagonists.

From their first marriages, Ida and Jared were both comfortable with sharing their bodies and found no embarrassment in revealing them (despite the remnants of Queen Victoria’s prudish dictums for those times). The thrill that comes with the first experience of physical love is over for them. Their lovemaking is a means to exact the full measure of pleasure for themselves and for their partner. The "discovery" in POLITE ENEMIES is that even people who are at odds with one another over their properties and their social standings are not immune when love comes knocking.

We are constantly changing and evolving, whether for the better or for the worse. Life doesn’t stand still. As we evolve, our approach to this world -- including love -- changes. To have a novel mirror life, change must transform the lovers. Ida and Jared transition from polite enemy neighbors into lovers committed to marriage and a future together.

Have you noticed that your attitude toward relationships changes over time? It is this changed attitude I tried to capture in POLITE ENEMIES.

Let us know your experiences. What changed for you as you matured?

When JoAnn Smith Ainsworth carried wood as a pre-teen so her Great Aunt Martha could stoke up the iron stove to prepare dinner, she wasn’t thinking, “I could use this in a novel someday.” Yet, the skills she learned from her horse-and-buggy ancestors translate into backdrops for her historical romance and paranormal suspense novels.

MATILDA'S SONG (ISBN: 978-1-60504-195-7)

OUT OF THE DARK (ISBN: 978-1-60504-277-0)

POLITE ENEMIES (ebook ISBN: 978-1-61160-636-2; trade paperback: 978-1-61160-590-7)

THE FARMER AND THE WOOD NYMPH (ebook ISBN: 978-1-61160-660-7) release Dec. 2013

EXPECT TROUBLE (print ISBN: 978-1-61009-074-2) release 2014

Her debut medieval romantic suspense novels published by Samhain received 4 stars from RT Book Reviews.

To learn more, visit http://www.joannsmithainsworth.com, Twitter @JoAnnAinsworth or Facebook’s JoAnn Smith Ainsworth Fan Page.

Contact her at joannparanormal@gmail.com.

Visit @JoAnnAinsworth on Twitter and Facebook’s JoAnn Smith Ainsworth Fan Page.

Cover Love - Happy Medium

Today I’m doing a cover reveal for the third book in my Ramos Family/Medium Trilogy for Berkley InterMix, Happy Medium. Like the other books in the trilogy, Medium Well and Medium Rare, this give you a sort of idealized version of San Antonio's King William District. But the man and woman here are staring at that house for a good reason—it's got one nasty ghost inside.

This one was a lot of fun to write because the possibilities were wide open. All I knew about my hero was that he renovated houses in the Hill Country. Clearly I had to get him down to King William so that he could share the adventures of the Riordan clan (and so that he could meet a few familiar faces), but beyond that I had a blank slate.

The hero of Happy Medium is the youngest Ramos sibling, Ray. At the beginning of his story, he’s got a big problem—the King William mansion he and his partner have purchased for flipping turns out to need a lot more work (and thus a lot more money) than either of them anticipated. Where to find the cash? Well as it turns out, a reality show, American Medium, is looking for suitably spooky San Antonio houses for their séance locations. And Ray’s got a really spooky house for their consideration.

My heroine, Emma Shea, is the assistant to the medium in the show, one Gabrielle DeVere. Neither Emma nor Ray really believes in ghosts. That is, neither of them believes until Gabrielle pressures them into taking part in a test séance to see if Ray’s mansion will work for her purposes. Something unseen molests both Emma and Ray, although Gabrielle seems totally unaffected.

Of course, the house is haunted, this time by a ghost who’s both sexy and very, very dangerous. And of course Ray, descendant of the Riordan family of mediums, turns out to have the same mediumistic powers as his brother and sister (see Medium Well and Medium Rare). Emma turns out to have a few powers of her own, which Ray is more than willing to help her exercise, both in séances and elsewhere.

After their test séance awakens this particular restless spirit, Emma and Ray are faced with a new problem—how to get rid of a particularly nasty ghost before Gabrielle holds her televised séance and all hell breaks loose, perhaps literally!

Happy Medium will be released on January 20, but it’s available for preorder

Erin Nicholas releases It Takes Two!

Congratulations to Erin Nicholas!

It Takes Two, book two in her Counting on Love series, releases on Tuesday, September 17th!!

How do you fall out of love with a man who’s all in?

Counting on Love, Book 2

Isabelle Dixon never should have said yes to that first date, but she couldn’t resist Shane Kelley’s larger-than-life personality. Except now Shane seems determined to make their no-strings fling into something more.

If she thought dating Shane was hard work, breaking up is proving to be much harder. Especially since she’s planning on making some major life changes that don’t include staying out all night, Jell-O shots, and a sex toy shop punch card. She needs a restful cabin getaway—alone—to gather her thoughts. And the strength to finally end things for good.

Shane has always prided himself on being the good-time guy. Exactly Isabelle’s type…or so he thought. Yet ever since he suggested her moving in, she’s been pulling back. Thing is, Shane does everything with gusto—including falling in love.

He’s not about to let her get away that easily. Even if it means chasing her heart down a crazy road to prove that no matter what life throws at them, they make a damned good team. 

Warning:  Contains a strange road trip with several weird tourist stops, some hot sex in a car wash, and two people who are just crazy enough to be perfect for one another.  

Buy links:

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Samhain