Patricia Preston & Company !

So I invited Patricia Preston, my fellow Carina Press author, Twitter buddy and indie writer to visit the blog as guest hostess today.

Instead, some of Pat's main characters have seized control of the asylum.

Please welcome Darcy Branson from Almost An Outlaw, Jennifer Riley from “The Yard Sale,” and Darlene Higginbottom from “Laid to Rest.”

Please introduce yourselves and tell us a little about your story situation.

DARCY: My story is set in April 1874 and I’m a romance heroine.

DARLENE: Oh my God.

Please wait your turn, Darlene. Go on.

DARCY: I’m widowed dressmaker. I found out my husband was unfaithful and I live with the guilt that it was my fault he was killed.

DARLENE: Why didn’t you shoot him yourself? I would have.

Darlene, wait until we get to you. Jennifer, what about you?

JENNIFER: Hi there! I’m from 2012, and I have a yard sale because I’m broke. My yard sale is so totally awesome that it changes my life.

DARCY: You are selling your yard? I have never heard of that.

DARLENE: Me neither.

JENNIFER: Duh. In 2012, there are a lot of things you haven’t heard of. They didn’t even have penicillin back then.

DARCY: Hold on, sister. I’m from 1957 and we did have penicillin. That’s what you take when you get the clap. You listening, romance heroine?

Girls, please.

DARLENE: Honey, I haven’t been a girl since I was sixteen.

Go ahead and tell us about yourself.


DARLENE:  I’m from the same town as Jennifer, only it is 1957. It’s a boring, hick town and I sell tickets at the movie theater downtown. And, if you’re a sexy blonde who wears tight blouses and pedal pushers, you’re called a bad girl. That’s me. I’m saving my money to get to Hollywood because I know I’m destined to be a movie star. And, everything was going my way until that old fart, the mayor, died in my bedroom.

DARCY: What is a movie star?


DARLENE:  Sweetie, it would take too long to explain. But, there’s a girl like me in every small, dusty town in 1957 wanting to escape. I want to make it big like Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley. I adore Rock Hudson. He’s so handsome.

JENNIFER: I hate to tell you this but they came to a sad end. Marilyn Monroe either committed suicide or was murdered in 1962. Poor Elvis died bloated and alone on his toilet in 1977, and Rock Hudson was a homosexual who contracted a virus that killed him in 1985.

DARCY: Oh, dear, I think Darlene has fainted!

We’ll give her minute. So, why should a reader want to read your story?

DARCY:  My story is one of second chances. My hero, Austin Cade, knows a lot about second chances. He came of age during the Border War in Missouri. He rode under a black flag with my cousin, Frank James, and Cole Younger during the Civil War. He’s come to terms with his dark past and I have to decide if I can do the same. It’s a story of love and self-forgiveness. It is short romantic read if you have a couple of hours to spare.


JENNIFER: Mine is a fun short story called “The Yard Sale.” I’m seriously down-on-my-luck as I’ve lost my job due to downsizing, my husband’s ran off with another woman, and the bank has foreclosed on the house. I enlist the help of my aunt, Gail, and her husband, Buddy, to help me with the sale. The fun starts at dawn and lasts through the day as Early Birds, Tightwads, and Packrats arrive. You’ll love Bucky Sue. There’s a happy ending, of course. And, I get to meet Prince Charming. (By the way, he looks a lot like Sam on Supernatural! Woo Hoo!)

Darlene,  are you back with us?


DARLENE:  Sorry about the sniffing. I ain’t never gonna be right again. Oh, God, now I sound just like Richie.

Why should a reader want to read your story?


DARLENE: Does anyone have a hankie?


DARCY:  I have a linen handkerchief. I crocheted the lace edging and embroidered the roses on it myself.


JENNIFER:  You wouldn’t have time to do that in 2012. You couldn’t text and like embroider, too.

Darlene?

DARLENE: I’m all right now. Everyone says my story is comedy. They think me and my accomplices, Richie and Tommy Ray, are funny. But, my story is about more than just us hauling the mayor’s corpse around. It’s about a girl who wants to make something of her life. It’s about thinking positive in the worst situations. About never giving up hope or giving up on yourself regardless of what people think of you. It’s about having a dream and holding onto that dream. It’s about the people, like Richie and Tommy Ray, who don’t think they deserve a dream, and about Mrs. Stroud, who gave up on her dream a long time ago. It’s about how the most unexpected twists, like a dead man, can help make your dream come true.


JENNIFER:  We’ve got to have a group hug now.

Thank you for talking with me today. I wish every one of you the best of luck in the future. Speaking of the future, what is in store for you?


DARCY: My best friend, Emma, has a romance coming one of these days. It features her and Pinkerton agent, Jude Darling, who was a Union officer during the war and ordered the burning of Emma’s home.

JENNIFER:  The gang from “The Yard Sale” is going to reappear in “The Doctor’s Office,” and “The Estate Sale.”

DARLENE: We may be back in October in “Haints in Hollywood.” (Not Hollywood, California) We end up in Hollywood, Mississippi where there are more dead bodies, ghosts, and comedy. See y'all then!

For more information about the books, excerpts, and buy links, please go to Patricia Ann Preston’s webpage. Click here: www.patriciaannpreston.com

Sleepy Hollow Dreams &Healing Hearts BOTH Final!

SQUEE!

Both HEALING HEARTS and SLEEPY HOLLOW DREAMS have finaled in the Oklahoma Romance Writers of America's International Digital Awards contest!

HEALING HEARTS (from Carina Press) finalled in the short historical category.

And SLEEPY HOLLOW DREAMS (from the Scarlet Rose
line of The Wild Rose Press) finalled in the short erotic category!

Both available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other online ebook sites. Check them out on the "Books" pages of this blog!        

                                      

November Novella Sale!

Carina Press is having a November Novella sale.

Select novellas, including my sensual Regency romance, HEALING HEARTS, are only $1.99, now through December 1 at 8:59 pm EST.

Don't miss out!

Want to read more about HEALING HEARTS? Reviews, blurb, excerpt and Romance Trading Cards are here.

Carina Press Discount!

In honor of NY Comic Con, all Carina Press ebooks -- including HEALING HEARTS -- are 40 % off now through October 16 with coupon code NYCOMICCON.

Great books at rock bottom prices.

Adam & Emma nearly half price.

What's better than that?

HEALING HEARTS : 2012 EPIC Awards Finalist!

Isn't this pretty? 
  (Just got the official e-mail.)














You can read more about Healing Hearts here: http://dreamvoyagers.blogspot.com/p/healing-hearts.html

Available now at Carina Press.

And nearly everywhere else digital books are sold!

Six Sentence Sunday 3/27/11

Was thinking about trying out my squeaky new Kitchen Sink WIP this week but...it may need to percolate,  not to mention progress...

And Stacey Kennedy gave HEALING HEARTS a review on Paranormal Romantics last week that absolutely made me sniffle. She plucked seven sentences that, she said, made her fall in love with Adam and "get all giddy over the man." I've never excerpted those before. 

So...in honor of Stacey's review and Adam's new Romance Trading Card designed by Angela Waters, the artist who created the Healing Hearts cover for Carina Press -- and egged on by @Stacey_Kennedy and @LisaFoxRomance on Twitter, here they are, magically condensed to 6:


Emma stared from one man to the other as if a bolt of lightning had riveted her to her place behind the large piece of furniture, revulsion filling her eyes when she looked at Farraday—shame when she gazed upon Adam.

Damn it to bloody blue blazes, he thought. The hell with her stiff-backed pride. He would have leapt to her side and knocked the other man senseless if he could. But he’d left his agility in a Spanish ditch.

“To me, Emma,” Adam repeated, his voice calm but forceful.



Want a chance to take Adam home with you? Visit Romancing the Past and leave a comment about your favorite type of hero!

Visit the other Six Sentence Sunday participants.

Romance Trading Cards

You've all heard about Jeannie Lin's awesome idea of Romance Trading Cards by now, haven't ya?

If not... you can read all about 'em here: http://romancetradingcards.com/.

I wanted some of these desperately.  'Cause hell knows, I can't get enough of seeing Adam (my delectable swoon-worthy hero) and the cover of HEALING HEARTS plastered all over the place!

I prevailed upon the brilliant Angela Waters, the cover artist who created the HEALING HEARTS cover for Carina Press, to design some for me. Angela went to work and came up with designs for both HEALING HEARTS and  SLEEPY HOLLOW DREAMS!

And here they are! 

         

Just when I thought Adam couldn't possibly get any more swoon-worthy...he did! Thank you, Angela. (And cover-model Jimmy Thomas)

And here's Emma:

            (She's most definitely Adam-worthy...don'tcha think?)

And...SLEEPY HOLLOW DREAMS, from the original cover by Angela Anderson for The Wild Rose Press (which today provided my first royalty check ever!)

So what do you think?  Aren't they gorgeous? Personally, I can't wait to get 'em printed up and hand 'em out at RWA #11!

(You can read blurbs, excerpts & reviews by clicking on the Books pages above.)

Six Sentence Sunday 2/27/2011 Anniversary Edition

It's time. No more waiting. HEALING HEARTS releases from Carina Press tomorrow. To say I'm excited would be understating it!

And to make it even better, it's the one-year anniversary of Six Sentence Sunday, my favorite Sunday addiction!

To celebrate, the Six Sentence Sunday participants are donating fabulous prizes, from gift cards to books, including a digital e-copy of HEALING HEARTS from me. Just comment on one of the participants' blogs (like, you know, here!) to be eligible to win.

 My Six Sentence Sunday snippet this week is from...wait for it...

HEALING HEARTS

Despite all he’d been through on the Peninsula, despite his present inelegant position and the pain that still tightened his brow and skewed his smile, despite her certainty that he had gotten very unused to the habit of smiling at all—the wry humor she remembered from that long-ago garden party somehow managed to seep out.


Deep within she felt a steady drip, drip, drip and knew this virile man was melting the ice around her heart. Could he hear the thunder of its erratic beat over the roar of the waves crashing on the rocks below? She was so close to him she could see the thin, jagged white scar edging the line of his jaw--another souvenir of the war, no doubt.

“Did you hear me accept your ‘proposal’?” she murmured, nearly swallowing her words.

"You will.”

Happy Anniversary, Six Sentence Sunday!

Don't forget to check out other awesome Six Sentence Sunday authors.

                              

Yadda Yadda Yadda

No Friend Friday today.

On the one hand, I forgot.  On the other hand I've been a little busy.

HEALING HEARTS (in case I haven't said it often enough) releases from Carina Press on Monday. Tuesday is Carina Press promo day on the Carina Press blog, on Twitter and Facebook. Because I am totally addlepated, I took off from work on Monday, instead of Tuesday.  Will see what I can do about that tomorrow, but considering the state of my work calendar, I'm not too hopeful about that.

Anyway, I'll be in a number of places.

Catch me now at Jennifer Jakes' blog, Warm Days, Cool Nights and Hot Guys. (I especially like that last part, don't you?

I'll be popping in for an interview with Liz Lipperman at Mysteries & Margaritas on Monday.

In addition to Carina Press on March 1, I'll also be with Rachel Leigh   at her blog on Tuesday and at Nicole North's  "Fierce Romance" blog on March 3. And possibly showing off my "Writer's Lair" at Eileen Andrews' place.

A little farther down the road, I'll be guest blogging at Dear Author on March 14,   the RWA Fantasy, Futuristic & Paranormal chapter blog on March 16, and the Carina Press historical author's blog, Romancing the Past, also on March 16.

In the interim, I'll still be doing Six Sentence Sunday snippets here.

And, oh yeah, going quietly insane.

Six Sentence Sunday 2-20-2011: HEALING HEARTS

HEALING HEARTS releases from Carina Press one week from tomorrow!

So...of course we are going there for Six Sentence Sunday.

     “You must marry me,” he insisted.

     Her ready indignation sparked and she returned her gaze to him, sharp as a lance. “Why? Because you kissed me?”

     “Because you liked it. And want more."

                          Read reviews and an excerpt
                                   Pre-Order Now!

And be sure to visit the other Six Sentence Sunday authors!

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY

              HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

                                       

Today, on this day of love and romance, my HEALING HEARTS  heroine, Emma, gets a little frisky and runs a little wild over at multi-published author Amber Leigh Williams' Cozy Page blog.

In her guest blog interview with "Tink,"  Emma spills the beans on her sexy love, Viscount Riverton,  answers such intimate questions about Adam as "boxers or briefs," "bubble bath or hot shower," and ponders such modern-day fascinations as "karaoke"  and "Twitter."

She had a splendid time.

You will too.

Come and play!

Emma, Amber Leigh and I will be giving away a copy of HEALING HEARTS to one random commenter! The winner will be announced on Thursday on the Cozy Page blog.

             Have a Happy Valentine's Day!

Six Sentence Sunday 2/13/2011

Happy almost Valentine's Day!

Another six sentences from HEALING HEARTS, releasing February 28 from Carina Press. Thought about giving you all a taste of Adam & Emma's first kiss...but sometimes passion can't be confined to six sentences. So here's a peek at what happens next...

“Let me go, Riverton,” she said, several heady moments too late, utterly breathless, her face aflame.

“I’m not quite ready to do that, Miss Whiteside.”

 She paused a beat and he felt her shiver. He loosened his fierce grip.

 “When might you be?”

 Never.

And be sure to visit all the other Six Sentence Sunday writers.

Six Sentence Sunday 2/6/2011

           Six more sentences from Healing Hearts, my Regency romance, releasing February 28 from Carina Press!

The corporal’s hair had been light, not this astonishing claret color. And the finely whittled features that seemed to resemble Michael’s at first blush were far different, indeed.

His gaze rested upon cheeks, soft and rounded as plums, that invited the touch of a man’s lips, and then lingered on a sultry mouth shaped for more wicked delights.

The willful, unruly little chit had grown into a diamond of the first water.Her intriguing gray eyes, silver as a saber, fairly snapped at him, the battle waging in them as intense and wrenching as any Adam had experienced on the Peninsula.

Sparks flew as they stared at each other, like those borne by the clash of Toledo steel.

                Read a longer excerpt from Healing Hearts and reviews.


         And be sure to visit the other great Six Sentence Sunday participants

Six Sentence Sunday 1/30/11

Here's another six for Six Sentence Sunday from Healing Hearts, my Regency releasing from Carina Press on February 28. 


 As if she sensed the direction his thoughts had taken, her gaze travelled to his mouth, making him burn. Mixed emotions marched across her face, ragged as raw recruits.

Adam swallowed, trying to squelch his feverish attraction by recalling a long ago tea—a lifetime ago, it seemed to him—and a young lady’s impertinent proposal. But the feisty woman confronting him was decidedly a woman, all of twenty now, not an impetuous eight-year-old suffering a bout of puppy love.

Her eyes flayed him as if only by stripping the skin from his bones would she know any respite from her grief. The starch that straightened her spine held her rigid as the chalk that formed the cliffs upon which they stood.
 

                                 Read an excerpt!

Healing Hearts is available on pre-order now, from Carina Press and Amazon.com

And be sure to check out all the other Six Sentence Sunday participating authors!

FRIEND FRIDAY: JENNY SCHWARTZ

             Djinn and angels, angels and djinn. My guest today is Carina Press author, Jenny Schwartz, author of delightful paranormal novellas and master world-builder. Check out her "Out of the Bottle" series for Carina Press: The Price of Freedom, Angel Thief and, coming May 23, Three Wishes.

             Jenny is also a thoughtful blogger with great ideas.  You can read her take on the Gothic Romance Heroine updated at eHarlequin.com Community. It's well worth it!

             Jenny's got some ideas about the next great thing. I'm pleased to have her as today's blog guest, so you can hear all about them!

             Here's Jenny:


I predict disaster.

No, don’t head for the hills yet. You haven’t heard why I’m making this grand prediction.

As a long-time romance and fantasy reader, I’m very happy writing paranormal romance, but I can’t help wondering what the next-big-thing will be in the romance genre. Vampires might be immortal, but they can’t lead the hit parade forever. So what, or who, will take their place?

*crystal ball gazing*

It all begins with the alpha hero.

Alpha heroes have to be lassoed and tamed by love. Now, what situation would put an alpha hero on a pedestal of unattainability (which is great for story conflict!)?

Vampires have immortality, blood-sucking and that inconvenient habit of turning to dust in sunlight. Soldiers go to war. Surgeons are busy saving lives. With all these traditional romance alpha heroes, love has to battle for their attention.

So here’s my prediction of the new battle: DISASTERS

Ahem. I apologise for shouting.

Who else remembers the Mad Max movies of the 1980s. They were made at a time of economic gloominess. Sound familiar?

Currently we have the hangover of the great financial crisis. We have climate change and its associated increased-intensity weather events. We have wars and dictatorships. And lurking at the end of the calendar, we have 2012, the End of Time according to the Mayans.

We are in a situation where people/readers have expectations of disaster. The romance genre will pick up and reflect back those fears, and do what it does best: Provide a happy ending.

Because in a disaster situation, alpha heroes rock.

A disaster subgenre in romance will sell because it promises that when the worst happens, survival and happiness are possible. Love still triumphs. Values are starkly revealed: loyalty to friends, personal honour, self-sacrifice.

Samhain Publishing currently has a call out for Post-Apocalyptic novellas (http://www.samhainpublishing.com/submissions), but I imagine other publishing houses will pick up the disaster theme and run with it in different forms. It doesn’t have to be science fiction or tinged with the paranormal. I could see a medical slant with disaster response units or romantic suspense in the chaos of military disaster.

So there you go. Taryn nicely lets me come and visit, and I start screaming, “disaster”. Sorry, Taryn. But you heard it here first: I predict disaster.

I wonder what they’ll call the new subgenre?

***

Angel Thief is available from Carina Press

She’s breaking the rules. Again.

An archivist in the heavenly library, Sara must follow protocol when it comes to curating the knowledge of the universe. But "liberating" an ancient text from the collection of a human—an Australian drug lord—could save a boy’s life. Sara has no way of knowing that one of the man’s other treasures is a sexy-as-sin djinni, bound by a wish to guard the estate.

He’s only following orders.

Filip is compelled to turn over intruders, even celestial ones, to his master. When he catches Sara in the library, he isn’t above indulging in some sensual kisses with her, or using her to trick the mobster into wasting a wish. It’s what he must do to preserve his facade of freedom and protect his heart.

But the kidnapping of the drug lord’s daughter forces Sara and Filip to work together—bringing out the hero that lurks within the soul of the djinni, and the passion within the angel.

***

You can find Jenny:

At her website http://www.blogger.com/goog_988730720

Blogging at  http://www.acquiring-magic.blogspot.com/

Or on Twitter: http://twitter.com/jenny_schwartz

Six Sentence Sunday: 1/23/2011

Six more from Healing Hearts, releasing February 28 from Carina Press:

“No doubt the war has robbed you of many things, my lord. As it has me.” Her gaze slid to his leg, the walking stick upon which he leaned, the edge of his jaw, where a thin, white scar crawled like a worm. “But despite the depths to which I may have fallen, I have managed to retain my manners.”

He deserved nothing less than such a chiding, but he heard only half her rebuke.

“What depths?” he demanded, stepping forward and seizing her chin in his hand.

        Be sure to stop by and visit the other amazing Six Sentence Sunday authors!

Six Sentence Sunday: 1/16/2011

Today's Six Sentence Sunday excerpt comes from my Regency novella, Healing Hearts, releasing on February 28 from Carina Press:

Anger burned within her breast, bright as her love for the viscount once had.

And yet…her gaze swept him again, lingering on the trousers that molded his muscular thighs, the loose shirt that emphasized the breadth of his shoulders. ’Twas but the vicious wind that stole her breath, she told herself.

Why was he here? Why had he come now? What was he doing marching about the windswept cliffs so close to the manor when he had not had the decency to call upon her family?

           My blog post, "Juicy Bits of Agony," is up today at http://romancingthepast.blogspot.com/ and I hope you'll pop by there and visit.

          And check out the other Six Sentence Sunday authors! Our numbers are growing!

                                     

Six Sentence Sunday 1-9-2011

   Today's Six Sentence Sunday excerpt is from my Regency romance, Healing Hearts, releasing from Carina Press on February 28th. You can read a longer excerpt and the back cover copy blurb here.                                  

   Emma studied Riverton’s grim, determined face, experienced etched upon the angles like the engraved lines on a printmaker’s plate, and stifled the sigh that threatened to escape her.

What would it be like to be held in this man’s powerful arms, crushed against his hard body? Odd tingles raced down her spine. Nightmares of war may have chased her girlhood dreams but her fascination with Riverton persisted, despite the world-weary air that now settled over him like a cloak.

The viscount planted one booted foot in front of the other and trudged across the rock-strewn ledge mottled with dying chalkgrass and choked with brambles. He clenched his jaw, as if grinding his teeth to bite back the pain.

And be sure to check out the other Six Sentence Sunday authors!

Friend Friday: Tia Nevitt

          Kicking off the blog's new feature, Friend Friday (and remember, I am not promising we'll be doing this every Friday), I'm happy to introduce my fellow Carina Press author, Tia Nevitt, whose The Sevenfold Spell puts a new "spin" on the Sleeping Beauty story.

Isn't that a gorgeous cover?  Come on, show her some love!

Some of you know I have a special fondness for new spins on old stories.

Tia took the concept--not to mention the word--to a whole new level, exploring what happens to the other people in the fairy tale.

Not a retelling, exactly. More like a what if. A fun and intriguing what if.

Here's a little sumpin' sumpin' to whet your appetite:

Things look grim for Talia and her mother. By royal proclamation, the constables and those annoying “good” fairies have taken away their livelihood by confiscating their spinning wheel. Something to do with a curse on the princess, they said.

Not every young lady has a fairy godmother rushing to her rescue.

Without the promise of an income from spinning, Talia’s prospects for marriage disappear, and she and her mother face destitution. Past caring about breaking an arbitrary and cruel law, rebellious Talia determines to build a new spinning wheel, the only one in the nation, which plays right into the evil fairy’s diabolical plan. Talia discovers that finding a happy ending requires sacrifice. But is it a sacrifice she’s willing to make?

But I'll shut up now.  Here's Tia:

My Road to Carina Press

By Tia Nevitt

Taryn suggested I write about how I ended up as an author for Carina Press.


It started, of course, with a story. I wrote this little story called “Spin” that I hoped to market to short fiction magazines. However, it had a problem—it didn’t want to be a short story. When I finished it, it was edging close to 8000 words, which is the point where many magazines stop considering it a short story and start considering it a novelette. Since I knew it would be hard to sell that way, I trimmed a thousand words.


However, it still wanted to be longer.


I sent it to Realms of Fantasy, my top choice market because they would consider a short story with sexual content. The rejection came in, as expected. I sent it to a couple more places, and then I was looking at semipro online ‘zines. I sent it to a new online magazine that specialized in fairy tales. No response. After a very long time, I emailed the editor. She wrote back saying that it was on her table of contents, but she had not yet filled out the rest of the magazine. After a few months, I sent a polite note withdrawing it from consideration. As far as I know, that magazine never put out another issue.


I sent it to one or two more places and looked around some more, but could find no other magazines that would consider sensual content. So I went back to the story, saved off the original file, and ripped out the sexy stuff. It was like I ripped the guts out of the story. Its soul was gone.


I didn’t bother sending it anywhere.


I ran the original through a writing group for critique. I got enthusiastic response. One girl called it “marvelous”. If it was marvelous, why couldn’t I sell it? Some other writer friends helped me tighten it up.


Then, I got an email from one of those writer friends. She had sold one of her novellas to an erotic epublisher, and encouraged me to expand “Spin” to novella length and send it to an epublisher.


Wow, I thought. I get to make it longer! Just what it needs!


I knew about Samhain Publishing from my friend Joely Sue Burkhart, author of the fabulous erotic fantasy Survive My Fire. I noticed they had a Red Hot fairy tale anthology going. I didn’t know how erotic my story would turn out, but I saw enough there and elsewhere to realize that epublishing didn’t necessarily mean erotic anymore. So I decided to write it the way I wanted to write it and see how it turned out.


My muse was unleashed. “Spin” was soon double its original size, then triple. And at last, it was happy. While I was rewriting it, I came up with the concept of the Sevenfold Spell, and so I renamed the story. While I was writing, I heard about Carina Press. Right away, it became my top choice market. It was backed by Harlequin, a major publisher, and was open to my level of sensuality.


I sent it to my friend, revised and polished it until I couldn’t stand it, and then I polished it one more time. And then I sent it off to Carina Press.

Three weeks later, long before I started fantasizing about it, I got The Call!

Not even a stint in the military as an aircraft mechanic could erase Tia Nevitt’s love of fairy tales. To this day, she loves to read (and write) books that take her to another place, or another time, or both. Tia has also worked on an assembly line, as a computer programmer, a technical writer and a business analyst. When she’s not writing, she keeps a book blog called Debuts & Reviews, where she focuses on debut novels. She lives in the southeast with her husband and daughter.

Follow Tia on Twitter,
Facebook, Facebook Author Page, Goodreads, and at the
eHarlequin.com Community!

And be sure to check out Tia's great advice on how to read e-books without an e-reader!

Looking Back

      My year started out this way:
      Highlight of every Sunday night was visiting the New York State Department of Labor web site to claim unemployment benefits.
      Went for lots of looooooong walks.
      During the course of which...the muse was fully exercised. (Not to mention exorcised.)
      Finished the full-length book of my heart at long last. Totally in love with the hero. Started writing the sequel, the next brother's story.  In love with him too.
      The book of my heart began meeting its water-torture-fate-worse-than-death. Drip-Drip-Drip-Teeth-Kick-Repeat.
      Started writing a little Halloweeny story that turned into a paranormal novella, Dream Voyager. Totally fell in love with the hero, Rafe.
      Started a blog with the same name. (Dream Voyagers, not Rafe.)
      Finished Dream Voyager and sent it out into the wide world.
      Started a Regency novella, entitled Healing Hearts. Totally fell in love with the hero, a viscount and Peninsula War veteran named Adam.
      Tried my hand at copyediting. (Failed miserably, since I wanted to rewrite, like, everything. Instead of, you know, just insert/delete commas.)
      Finished Healing Hearts, the Regency novella and sent it out into the wide world.
      Temporarily abandoned the sequel to the doomed book of my heart and started writing a romantic suspense, Cole in Her Stocking. Totally fell in love with the hero: Cole. (Well, you know, duh. Did you really think I spelled that badly?)
      Became president of my RWA chapter.
      Returned to work at the occupation for which I actually have been schooled and trained.
      Put in looooooooong hours.
      No more walking.
      Stopped going to meetings of my longtime critique group.
      Contracted Healing Hearts with Carina Press.
      Acquired a nom de plume. (Which occasionally feels more like a nom de guerre.)  Oh, what? You thought it said Taryn Kincaid on my birth certificate?
      Was asked by another publisher to heat up the already steamy Dream Voyager.
      Acquired my wonderful, funny, knowledgable, patient Wild Rose Press editor who guided me through the scarlet world of writing erotic romance.
      Was asked to change Rafe's name. Oh, okay. Eventually settled on Ryck. In hindsight, Ryck Van Winkle works much, much better! (And I'm still totally in love with him.)
      Contracted Dream Voyager, now an erotic paranormal novella entitled Sleepy Hollow Dreams, to The Wild Rose Press.
      (So much for the blog!)     
      Acquired my wonderful Carina Press editor who, like Mark Twain,  knows "The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug."
      Got involved with publishers' loops, writers' loops, blogs-blogs-and-more-blogs.
      Also, Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads. (What else ya got?)
      Got cover art for Sleepy Hollow Dreams and squeeeeed all over the place.
      Saw Sleepy Hollow Dreams published! (Rushed out in time for Halloween.)
      Resigned the presidency of my RWA chapter. (The chapter does not seem fully cognizant of this fact.)
     Got cover art for Healing Hearts.  More squeeeeeeeeing. Well? Isn't it pretty?
     Saw first non-friend Goodreads rating of Sleepy Hollow Dreams and was perplexed, since there was no comment. Rater "friended" me.
    Saw first non-friend review of Sleepy Hollow Dreams and was confused by the reviewer's confusion.
    Surprised, pleased, thrilled, shocked when someone says they loved Sleepy Hollow Dreams. Nervous when they are silent.
    Decided to own Brendan Behan's notion that "there is no such thing as bad publicity except your own obituary." 
    True dat.
    Lost some longtime real-life friends. Reconnected with others. Acquired some shiny new internet friends. Had hopes raised, then dashed, then raised, then dashed. Then raised.
    The yin.
    The yang.
    The good, the bad, the ugly, the serendipitous.


    Spent much of the year running around like a headless chicken.
   
    Healing Hearts comes out in February.

    And also for next year:  Will try to do better.
    Will try to have a plan.
    Job One: Finish Cole in Her Stocking.