Tuesday, 31 December 2013

Happy New Year!



Well here we are, another year drawing to a close, and a time when we take stock of our lives and look toward a New Year.

2013 brought another whirlwind of excitement for me. My first book, Landing the Big Ones, released on January 8 (and nominated for Book of the Year at The Talent Cave Reviews!). It was followed by The Art of Love in February, and Training the Help in April. I had set a goal for myself of releasing one book per quarter and it looked like I'd be able to do that and then some. But another alter ego ran into some trouble with a book that required extensive rewrites and that pulled me out of the headspace I needed to be in to write erotic romance. Getting back on track proved more difficult than I had anticipated. And I found too many stories clamoring to be told, which distracted me a lot! What should have been Hedon Falls 3 got pushed back to #4, and then to #5 when a certain character kept begging me to write his story. In the end, I managed to finish Hedon Falls 4 and get it submitted, and accepted! My scheduled release is February 13. So I met my goal of 4 books last year, but one of them happened to be for a different pen name.

With all the craziness going on in my personal life as well (started a new EDJ, Dad has been diagnosed with cancer, hubby was out of work for a few months, kids are struggling in school) I've become much more withdrawn. I love interacting with readers, but I found myself with less time to devote to blogging and other social media.

So what's next for me?

I submitted a short story to Decadent and was rejected, but I have plans to revise that one and submit to another publisher. In addition, I'm halfway through another short for the same publisher, and I'm overrun with ideas for other shorts. My other self is working on a follow-up, and I have just started what I'm hoping will be a significant work for me (Michelle Graham).

My resolution is to devote more time to my writing career, both the actual writing, and the social media, though I'm going to start small. Here's my 2014 To Do list:


  1. Check in on Facebook at least every other day, even just for a quick peek.
  2. Ditto for Twitter.
  3. Do at least one blog post each week, in addition to blog hops, hosting blog tours, promo blitzes, and doing reviews.
  4. Finish and submit Hedon Falls 5.
  5. Finish and submit 4 short stories for another publisher (Siren doesn't do short ones).
  6. Finish and submit my alter ego's second book.
  7. Finish a first draft of my big, secret project.
That looks like a lot of writing, but I did the math and if I reach my word count targets for all of those writing projects, it's only 727 words every day. When it's put like that, it seems totally doable.

So friends and lovelies, I'd love to hear about your 2013 accomplishments, and plans for 2014. And I wish you all the best!
Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , ,

Friday, 27 December 2013

Quintessentially Q by Pepper Winters: Spotlight and Review


Quintessentially Q 
by Pepper Winters

 "All my life, I battled with the knowledge I was twisted...fucked up to want something so deliciously dark - wrong on so many levels. But then slave fifty-eight entered my world. Hissing, fighting, with a core of iron, she showed me an existence where two wrongs make a right."

 Tess is Q's completely. Q is Tess's irrevocably. But now, they must learn the boundaries of their unconventional relationship while Tess seeks vengence on the men who sold her. Q made a blood-oath to deliver their corpses at Tess's feet, and that's just what he'll do.

 He may be a monster, but he's Tess's monster.

 Buy Links:      Amazon US        Amazon Uk        

Author Bio:
Pepper Winters wears many roles. Some of them include writer, reader, sometimes wife. She loves dark, taboo stories that twist with your head. The more tortured the hero, the better, and she constantly thinks up ways to break and fix her characters. Oh, and sex...her books have sex.

She loves to travel and has an amazing, fabulous hubby who puts up with her love affair with her book boyfriends.

Her debut book, Tears of Tess, will be followed with Quintessentially Q. You didn't think Q could stop so soon, did you? Her other two titles, Last Shadow and Broken Chance will be coming soon.

Connect with Pepper:    Website      Twitter      Facebook     Goodreads      Pinterest 

Tour Giveaways

 Signed paperback of Quintessentially Q and signed swag pack

Two signed paperpacks
My Review
My sincere apologies to Pepper as this review should have been posted last week, but it's such a crazy time of year that I hadn't finished reading the book on time.

I had the pleasure to review Pepper's first book, Tears of Tess, and I loved it. That book could have stood alone, but it left me wondering what would happen with Q and Tess. So when the opportunity to read the sequel came up, I jumped at it. If you haven't read Tears of Tess I recommend you pick that one up before you read Quintessentially Q. It will give you more of the backstory. (Buy links are at the end of the review)

In Quintessentially Q, we get to find out more about the enigmatic Q who Tess falls for. We get to see more clearly into Q's head, to understand his fears and motivations, and it rounds out the character so we can see his internal struggles, despite his cool exterior.

Overall, I'm enjoying the series, but I found myself wanting some threads to be resolved and for a lot more action. Ms. Winters does a great job at giving us a deep understanding of her characters' emotions and as a reader, you will experience everything that they do. I found the first four chapters or so difficult to get into. They're mostly hot sex and inner monologue. The sex was great, but the rest tended to be repetitive. The action really starts to build when Q takes Tess to his corporate offices and she ends up being kidnapped again by those seeking revenge for Q's dealings. What follows is a heartbreaking account of Tess's ordeals and Q's desperate search to find her. The last part of the book focuses on helping Tess to overcome what's happened to her.

Tess and Q's journey isn't over and I'm looking forward to the next book to see how they continue to build their relationship together, while fighting the evil mechanisms that brought them together in the first place.


Buy Links For Tears of Tess:
Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , ,

Friday, 20 December 2013

River Reckoning by Jenny Lyn Blog Tour


Blurb
Bond Mason’s roots run deep in the backwoods hamlet of Trespass, Florida. Nestled against the banks of the Suwannee River, the only home she’s ever known holds bittersweet memories of a family long gone. Except one of her ghosts isn’t dead and possessive ex-lover James Kyle wants her back. 

U.S. Deputy Marshal Nathan Gates sights are set on capturing fugitive Robert Kyle. Wanted for the cold-blooded murder of a DEA agent, Robert is suspected of being hidden away with his moonshine-brewing, marijuana-growing family of fellow lawbreakers, one of which is his brother, James. 

Nathan expected high temperatures when he arrived in Trespass. What he hadn’t counted on is his searing attraction to southern beauty Bond Mason. She winds him around her finger like a tendril of Spanish moss, but his lawman’s intuition tells him she’s hiding secrets too. When he finally convinces her to talk, he’s not prepared for the dark truths she reveals about her hometown. 

The Suwannee is deep, but Trespass’s sins run much deeper. For once, Nathan might be in over his head. 

                Order from Amazon


JennyLynRiverReckoning
River Reckoning takes place in Florida, and as I look outside at the crappy weather in Ontario at the moment, I got to wondering what it would be like in Florida right about now. So Jenny told me!

FLORIDA IN THE WINTER
Thank you to Michelle for hosting me and my new release, River Reckoning.

For the record, I love living in Florida. I’m a born and bred native who has never lived anywhere else. The part of the state I live in, just a little south of the bend, is what I like to call “old Florida”. It’s still very rural, with lots of small towns and even more untouched and unspoiled land. We have tons of natural resources to enjoy. Springs, nature parks, the Gulf Coast, hunting and fishing, and of course, the beautiful Suwannee River.

Now before I start to sound too much like a tourist commercial, let me say that the one thing I envy my northern friends is real seasons. Here in Florida we have two—hot as Hell’s front porch, a/k/a summer, and Fall-ish. We might get a couple of weeks of jacket weather all totaled. Our leaves don’t go through the gorgeous color changes like they do in higher elevations. Most of our foliage is evergreens. If we get any color change at all, it’s a few yellows and drab browns.

If I were to move north, I’d likely freeze to death. My blood is too thin! And forget driving. Once every twenty years or so, we get icy conditions, usually because it rained then the temperatures dropped into the teens. Watching us Floridians drive on ice would be comical if it wasn’t so scary. Lots of folks turn their sprinklers on trees in their yard when we’re about to have freezing temps to create ice sculptures in the yard, plus it also protects the plant, strange as that sounds.

But having said all that, I do love where I live. It’s kind of fun to be able to wear shorts in December a week before Christmas, even if it does still seem weird to someone who should be used to it by now. And there’s always the beach. The sand is so white on some of them you can squint your eyes and pretend its snow.

Enjoy your holidays, everyone. Keep warm and be safe!

~Jenny

Bio
I started reading when I was four, thanks to a babysitter who found out the only way to get me to sit still was to put a book in my hand. By the time I entered kindergarten, I’d blown through just about every Little Golden Book ever printed. Ten years later, much to my mother’s dismay, I found her stash of paperback romance novels. She tried to divert me back to something more chaste by buying me Harlequins, but I still snuck copies of her Kathleen Woodiwiss’s and Johanna Lindsey’s when she wasn’t looking. Shanna, The Flame and the Flower, and Fires of Winter will always hold special places in my heart because they introduced me to roguish heroes, headstrong heroines, and the trouble they could get into together.

I live in a swampy little corner of north-central Florida with my family, both the two-legged and four-legged variety. I love to read, run hot and cold in regards to cooking, and I never miss an episode of Justified, Longmire, or Dexter. I guess I like justice in all its various forms.


Tour Schedule


a Rafflecopter giveaway
Posted by at No comments:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)