Lots of Congratulations!!!

I'm a bit late with this, but that's because the last two weeks have somehow bypassed me completely! Anyway, I am beyond thrilled and proud to announce my fabulous CP, Amanda Ashby, has made the New York Public Library's Stuff for the Teen Age 2010 with her brilliant YA, Zombie Queen of Newbury High! This honour was also awarded to my other CP, Sara Hantz, for her amazing debut, The Second Virginity of Suzy Green a couple of years ago. I have a lot to live up to!!!

In other fantastic news, talented Aussie Kylie Griffin has been having a truly breathtaking week! First of all she finalled in the paranormal section of RWA Golden Heart contest, and then today found out her entry in the Emily had been judged Best of the Best of the entire contest! Woot! Way to go, Kylie!

Bare-Chested Gerard Butler

It's been a while since I posted pics of hot guys and seriously, they don't come much hotter than Clive Owen and Gerard Butler, do they? Lovely black hair, massive weapons and cool protection. What more could a girl want from her ancient historical hero?

(OK I'll answer that - a bare-chested pic of Clive Owen!!!)

I am Tagged

The very lovely Suzanne Brandyn has tagged me - I haven't been tagged in ages!!! I have to answer five questions with five answers and then tag five others. The only thing is there are only four questions!!! I think this is a trick question!

Here we go:

Where were you five years ago:

In Australia.

Realising that chick lit had died a horrible death and I really should change genres!

Reminiscing on the previous year when I'd met my CPs for the very first time at the UK's RNA conference

errr....

moving on....

What is (was) on your to-do list today?

Starting my agent's revisions.

Researching next book.

Shopping.

Tidying up.

I managed to start #1. Next on my list is to make dinner but... do I really have to...

What five snacks do you enjoy?

I love plain crisps, and no matter how long I live in Australia I refuse to call them chips!!!

I also love salted peanuts. This is weird because I really hate any other kind of nut even if it's in chocolate!

Chocolate. Well, duh!

Fudge. But it has to be nice fudge and preferably with a yummy alcoholic side-kick!

Freshly baked bread

What five things would you do if you were a billionaire?

Make my husband a kept man. He would enjoy that. A LOT!

Build our own house.

Have all the rellies from the UK out for Christmas

Cruise to Antarctica

Have lots of fun!!!

If you haven't been tagged then consider yourself... tagged!

Celebrations

Had a lovely weekend down south in Margaret River celebrating my hubby's birthday. The house was fabulous, the weather was gorgeous and he absolutely did not expect the white limo to pick us up for the wine tour on the Saturday!! I'll sort out some pics of the beautiful countryside and wildlife and post them up later in the week.

Also heard back from my wonderful agent over the weekend on Captive. She had a few small notes for me but thankfully nothing too major so I'll be working on them for the rest of the week.

And finally, I just hopped over to Amazon and Forbidden is on a special offer!!! Even though the book isn't released until 7th September, the trade paperback is up for pre-order on a sale price of $10.20 (as opposed to the usual trade price of $15) How cool is that!

Delicious Debuts #4

It's been a while since I've done a Delicious! So here are another couple of debut books I read earlier this year and thoroughly enjoyed.

First up is Erica Hayes's Shadowfae, the first book in her Shadowfae Chronicles.



Imagine a secret world veiled in fairy glamour and brimming with unearthly delights. A city swarming with half-mad fairies, where thieving spriggans rob you blind, beautiful banshees mesmerize you with their song, and big green trolls bust heads at nightclubs. And once you’re in, there’s no escape…

Enslaved by a demon lord, Jade is forced to spend her nights seducing vampire gangsters and shapeshifting thugs. After two hundred years as a succubus, she burns for freedom and longs to escape her brutal life as a trophy girl for hell’s minions. Then she meets Rajah, an incubus who touches her heart and intoxicates her senses. Rajah shares the same bleak fate as she, and yearns just as desperately for freedom. But the only way for Jade to break her bonds is to betray Rajah—and doom the only man she’s ever loved to a lifetime in hell.

This book is blazing h-o-t! With fairies as you've never seen them before (roll over Tinkerbell!) and a heroine who has no choice but to have sex with whoever her demon lord demands (yes Kane, I'm looking at you!) I was hooked. And cheering Jade on to reach her very own HEA... and you'll have to read the book to discover how she achieves that!!!

And now for Cathryn Brunet's Ritual Passion

Ritual Passion is an erotic fantasy romance containing jungle-hardened warriors, a capricious goddess, corrupt priests and some seriously hot sex.

RITUAL PASSION

A passion to appease the gods…or call down their vengeance.

The jungle-wrapped city of Challas is dying, crumbling under the weight of its corrupt priesthood and degenerate new gods. But an even greater threat looms on the horizon. Outside the city walls, a pestilence breeds. Unless stopped, it will crawl through the city’s decaying streets and destroy everyone.

Phalandria wants to see her magnificent city reborn and freed from the perversion of the priests who murdered her father. And she wants Massilis, the man who has stood by her side since childhood. The man who’s developed into a magnificent, jungle-hardened warrior…and ignites her unquenchable desire. Although Massilis has always protected her, only once has he allowed his hunger for her to show.

Now the water oracle has called for Phalandria and Massilis to perform the Concubitia, a sexual rite to propitiate the gods. But the priests suspect a conspiracy and will do anything to protect themselves. And Phalandria realizes that the priests are not the only ones sabotaging the ritual.

The man she loves has an agenda of his own.

This is another scorching read! The steamy heat of the jungle is the perfect backdrop to this sensually charged story. I love how Cathryn entwines the past and the present until the final erotic showdown when, quite literally, I needed to put the air conditioning on to cool down!!

Erotic Passion...

I just heard from Amanda Ashby that Forbidden is up on Amazon for pre-order! Much squealing ensued!! And the release date, according to Amazon, is 7th September ~ less than six months away!!

Here's the official back cover copy:

Between a warrior and a princess comes an erotic passion as all-consuming as the hatred between their warring worlds…

Carys knew from the moment she first spied on Maximus in his naked barbarian glory that he was a dangerous Roman centurion—his taut, battle-scarred flesh marking him as a fearless warrior. But her desire for him was as undeniable as it was illicit.

Charged by his emperor to eliminate a clan of powerful Druids in Britain, Maximus never expects his mission to be thwarted by the clan’s ethereal princess, Carys, his daring voyeur. Falling under her spell, he doesn’t realize her true heritage--until he captures her heart as well as her body.

As Carys’s loyalties are twisted, and freedom is no longer her single-minded obsession, an avenging former lover threatens to crush Maximus’ people into oblivion. Now Carys and Maximus must overcome the devastation of war and face the ultimate sacrifice if their forbidden love is to survive.

FORBIDDEN ~ The Cover!!!

At last I can show off the gorgeous cover for FORBIDDEN! It absolutely captures the essence of the book and I'm madly in love with it! The fabulous art department at Berkley incorporated all the suggestions my agent and I made - and although it's difficult to see with the smaller version even the heroine's eyes are the exact colours I requested.

I'd love to know - what do you think?

Lots of Vampire Goodness!!!

Today we're doing something a little bit different! Mel Teshco's first Nocturne Bites, Her Dark Lord, is released this month and Anna Hackett's Hunter's Surrender is releasing in April. So please welcome both Mel and Anna as they chat about some of their favourite heroes - vampires!

As Anna's Nocturne Bite isn't out until next month, I've linked to her latest Bites release, Taken by the South Wind

Mel and Anna, thanks for stopping by! And... it's over to you!

Mel: When Anna Hackett and I decided to join forces to promote our March/April Nocturne Bites, we wanted to showcase our love for our vampire characters. Oddly enough, my first published book with Ellora’s Cave, STONE-COLD LOVER had a gargoyle hero. Anna’s first published works for Nocturne Bites, SAVAGE DRAGON featured a dragon hero.

So why a Bites story featuring vampires? Apart from the fact they are one of Nocturne’s most popular characters, I think most of us would agree there is something primal, dark and mysterious (and yes, dangerous!) about a vampire hero – or heroine – that attracts us. And there’d be few who wouldn’t love, just a little, the bad-boy alpha male.

Anna: Mel, you hit on it when you said dangerous…I think that’s why I love reading and writing paranormal stories. That edge of danger enhances everything for me—the action and the romance! And a bad-boy alpha makes me happy any time.

However, the hero in my vampire Bites, HUNTER’S SURRENDER isn’t a vampire. He’s a battle-scarred vampire hunter. It’s my heroine who’s the vampire. For me, I love stepping into my heroine’s shoes and imagining what it’s like to be unearthly beautiful, super strong, able to command others with my voice and addictively attractive to the hero.

Here’s a small taste of our Bites:

Mel: A snipped from HER DARK LORD. First chapter.

“It isn’t over between us. Not by a long shot.”

Kia Montana hid a smile as she rolled up her sheer stockings and clipped them to her lace suspenders. Pushing her feet into the heeled shoes she’d tossed aside so carelessly the night before, she glanced over at the gorgeous man sprawled out on her hotel bed.

Passion emanated from him, scorching and hot. She gave him a cool smile, resisting an impulse to sashay over, lean forward and trace her tongue along the salty warmth of his collarbone, and down over the hardened buds of his dusky nipples.

Even harder to withstand was the urge to sink her fangs into his delectable throat, taste the pulsating warmth of his essence while he brought her to climax just once more.

She breathed slow and deep, and his glittering, gun-metal eyes held her gaze when she said, “Sorry, I don’t do relationships.”

“Don’t apologize,” he drawled. And as she slipped into her crimson lace bra, a savage light sparked deep in his stare. “I know just how to change your mind.”

Her breasts, still tingling from his mouth, his clever hands, hardened under his scrutiny as she clipped the bra into place. Her pulses jumped, but it was his declaration that kick-started her heart into high speed.

She inhaled slowly, gaining control. “Oh?” she queried with an Oscar winning note of boredom.

“You want access to all of Sydney’s underworld places. As your escort, I can offer you that.” He smiled at her silence. “A ticket to where only an exclusive few have been.”

Her heartbeat surged into a frantic gallop as excitement writhed deep inside. When she’d seen him at last night’s shindig, moving through the crème de le crème of the Sydney crowd like he owned each and every party-goer there, her instincts had clamored.

He held the key.

Anna: A snippet from HUNTER’S SURRENDER when the hero, Rand first meets the heroine, Dominique. She rescues him from some cops intent on arresting him:

“Now, you don’t want to do that, chéri.”

The female voice floated through the night like an angel’s song. It stroked over Rand ’s nerve endings like caressing fingers, setting his body aflame.

She came out of the darkness like an underworld goddess. Tall, slender, pale skin glowing in the dark. She wore a white leather catsuit, which should have looked ridiculous, but only accented slim curves and feminine limbs. A fall of raven hair reached her waist.

Light in the darkness. Rand blinked, unable to look away.

She stopped, pressed a hand to her hip and looked at the cops. “I believe you were leaving. You saw nothing here that concerns you.” Strains of France were threaded through her modulated tones.

The older cop nodded. “Yes, ma’am. You’re right. Let’s go, Johnson.”

The younger man stared at her with glazed eyes. “We were leaving. Nothing here that concerns us.”

Rand fought his body’s instinctive urge to follow the men.

The woman sauntered forward, moving with a liquid grace that mesmerized. She patted Johnson’s cheek, then watched them get in their car and drive away.

Then she turned to Rand .

A searing pain hit him between the eyes. Her unearthly beauty struck him like a blow to the head and his body hardened. Her features were perfect—slim nose, sharp cheekbones, sensual lips and eyes the color of amethysts.

Eyes that held an impossible blend of experience and innocence.

To celebrate the release of HER DARK LORD and HUNTER’S SURRENDER, we’re having a Vampire Bites Giveaway—we’re giving away a different vampire Bites each week for the whole of March and April! Check out our blogs for a chance to win!

Anna Hackett has always been a reader and her favorite books are romance, action-adventure or both. When the urge to write got too strong to ignore, it was no surprise she combined romance, action and her love of ancient history in her stories.

Australian Anna and her English-American husband currently live in an isolated mining town in northern Australia. When she’s not wearing her boots and hard hat, she’s at her computer dreaming up deliciously dark heroes, strong heroines and action-packed, emotionally-charged paranormal romance.

Website	http://annahackettbooks.com/
Blog	http://annahackett.blogspot.com/
Newsletter	http://annahackettbooks.com/contact.php
Twitter	http://twitter.com/AnnaHackett
Facebook	N/A
MySpace	N/A

Mel Teshco grew up in Australia, where her seemingly gypsy dad and ever patient mother saw her living in many areas of the East Coast, along with her sister and two brothers.

Each new home stimulated an already over-active imagination, where she spent as much time dreaming about fantasy worlds as the real world - the fantasy sometimes being much better.
Now living on a small rural property with three horses and a handful or two of cats, she is happily married with three children of wide-spread ages and a stepson.

Not only does she adore writing darker-style paranormals, she also enjoys writing paranormal erotica and has some published works with Ellora's Cave.

Website	http://www.melteshco.com/
Blog	http://melteshco.blogspot.com/
Newsletter	n/a
Twitter	http://twitter.com/melteshco
Facebook	http://facebook.com/melteshco
MySpace	n/a

Going Viral

There are so many fabulous book trailers around, and I do love watching them. But how many of them are really standout "different"?

Well I watched one yesterday that was doing the rounds on the Twitterverse and OMG! It's beyond awesome. Now I realise that might be because I'm incurably nosy and find the entire process of developing a book cover from scratch fascinating, but I showed it to my husband and he thought it pretty cool too. So here is the YouTube for The Making of a Book Cover - Blameless by Gail Carriger:

Writers Quirks

I'm not a night owl, but last night I pulled a late one because I was determined to finish the polishing on Captive and send it to my agent. This is because I know myself too well, and if I hadn't done that, then I would have spent most of today reading through the entire manuscript - again! It's like a weird superstition, I can't hit Send unless I've just read through the attachment. I'm trying to overcome it because it's a bit annoying especially when I'm strapped for time, but so far no luck!

I'm also getting ready to post my registration for the RWAus conference in August. Of course this involves another of my strange quirks which is known as The Envelope Phobia!!! Back in the day it could take me weeks between printing out a partial for Mills and Boon and actually getting the thing in the post. So much easier with email!

MIA

I've hardly poked my head above the parapet this week as I've been madly trying to finish CAPTIVE. And late last night I finally sent it off to my CPs for their verdict. What a relief it was to type THE END, although as always it's a kind of bittersweet relief - am quite choked to say goodbye to Bren and Morwyn!

Anyway, I'm not even going to think about it now until I get the crits back, so this morning I informed my daughter I was going to clear up the house as I'd finished my book. She obviously saw the manic gleam in my eye as she told me to go and start the next one instead. Huh?

Fancy Winning a Nocturne Bite?

To celebrate the release of her first Nocturne Bite, Her Dark Lord, my lovely writing friend Mel Teshco is holding a rather fabulous contest. She and Anna Hackett, whose Noctune Bite, Hunter's Surrender is also released this month, are giving away a different vampire Bite every week during March and April.

For a chance to win, hop over to Mel and Anna's blogs and answer an easy-peasy question (hint: it has something to do with sexy heroes!!!)