MEXICO!

Hola! Bill & I are back from our (too short) vacation in Cancun. Some pictures are up on my MySpace page, plus new pics of Aubrey. (Because you can NEVER have too many pictures of your granddaughter!)

As you can probably tell from the pictures, we had a great time in Mexico. Here's one tip, though: NEVER go for your regular treadmill workout in heat that can fry an egg. I lost one whole day due to heat exhaustion and spent hours and hours in our hotel room. As you can imagine, yep, that WAS kinda scary. Other than that, though, it was a memorable, terrific time.

More scribbling soon on my new project, but in the meantime, FASCINATION should be coming out very soon from Awe-Struck Publishing. Check back for news, plus another excerpt.

And sorry I haven't blogged lately. Besides our vacation, I've been biking, hiking, entertaining friends and family, but I've got some thoughts coming up next month, hopefully in between our trip up North to see our older son Joey and his lovable girlfriend, Iris.

Catch ya later!

Besides the big cookout we had with the family...and playing with my granddaughter...and sunbathing in the backyard with my daughter-in-law Yesica...and going to church...and working on the edited version of Fascination, here's what I did on my long 4th of July weekend: I went shopping for one of THESE babies with my husband!

We walked out of our local Harley Davidson store without actually buying one, much to my dismay. But like Arnold said in Terminator, I'll be back! :D Well, we're just researching it right now. Bill isn't as excited about it as I am. He says if he can hold me off for a couple months, summer will be over and I'll (hopefully) forget all about it.

That's a switch for us. HE'S the more daredevil-y one between us, the one who always rode every roller coaster in Jersey's Six Flags Great Adventure with our boys while I, the scaredy-cat, was the one who chilled out on a bench nearby and waited for them.

Maybe it's getting closer to the big 5-0? Maybe it's middle-aged bravado? Who knows? I do know that ever since we moved here to North Carolina I've been slowly falling in love with those machines that are thunder on wheels.

This is coming from a woman who's been on a motorcycle ONCE in her whole life. That was when I was 18 and on vacation with my best friend Linda in Hawaii. We happened to meet a couple of young guys from Vegas on the plane who later met us for dinner. My date was a sweet guy named Henry, who, with his friend, escorted us there on their rented motorcycles. That's a lot more memorable than being driven in a stretch limo--riding on the back of a blue Honda 650 that's flying down a main in Oahu, with the wind whipping up your hair and Waikiki Beach on your right.

That same thrill came to me when my husband and I hopped onto one of the softail models in the showroom. Even though it wasn't moving, we weren't going anywhere, but his hands were on the handlebars and my arms were around his waist. I wasn't thinking about things grownups typically think of, i.e. DANGER. Listen, that bike wasn't scary, it was sexy. And it was romantic being on it, how it whispered adventure and fun, with room just enough for two.

The heroine in Fascination, Candy Norwood, rides a motorcycle. She eventually brings out the biker in the hero, Alex Reinhard. I'd forgotten that aspect of the book (yes, we writers forget stuff sometimes!) because Fascination was written shortly before The Cop and the Mermaid, and that's going back a couple of years. So maybe I've had this itch for a lot longer than I realize.

So we WILL be back to that shop. Because maybe getting to this age makes your desire for adventure, as well as your acceptance of who you really are, stronger than your fears. And life really does go by in a heartbeat, doesn't it?

Yay for E-BOOK PUBLISHING!

Yet ANOTHER article, this one from romance author and literary agent Deirdre Knight. This one deals specifically with a call to Romance Writers of America to recognize ebook authors. Good read--drop by for a look, if you haven't already!

Excerpt from FASCINATION

Here's an excerpt from Fascination, my newest release from Awe-Struck Publishing, a sweet contemporary romance that will be out this July! Enjoy!

“Alex, before you go, there’s something I . . . something I want to say.”

“What’s that?”

At the door, Alex had pulled on his coat. He stood, watching as Candy zippered it for him. Then, slowly, almost seductively, she trailed the palms of her hands up both sides of that zipper. Clutching handfuls of his coat’s collar, she looked up at him, a coy smiling playing on her lips.
The look she gave him, alone, made his breath catch at the back of his throat.

“I’m so glad it was you, Alex.” Her voice was barely above a whisper. A sultry whisper.

“Uh-huh.”

“I mean, of all the people who could have been there that night, of all the people who could have pulled us from the plane, or what was left of it . . . ” She grinned, bringing her face within an inch—maybe less—of his. “I’m glad that it was you. I’m glad it was you there. No one else.”

“Me, too, Candy. Me, too.”

Alex knew the kiss was coming, but he’d expected another of those harmless, sweet-as-sugar pecks on the cheek. He didn’t expect her mouth to capture his, then basically set it and his whole being on fire.

That was a woman on the other end of that kiss. A woman who was perhaps the most womanly who’d ever kissed him.

It wasn’t just one kiss, either. That kiss evolved into another kiss. Alex accepted both with the hunger of a man who’d just tasted what a real, fiery kiss was supposed to taste like.

“Good night, my hero,” she teased.

He didn’t correct her. He was too wrapped up in yearning for a third kiss, though it wouldn’t be happening.

“ ’Night, Candy. Can’t wait till next week.”

“Same here, honey. Same here.”

What did he have to lose? He’d already committed himself. Next week, he’d be volunteering to make a fool of himself in front of her. So what harm was there in reaching forward . . . and stealing that third kiss?

And she let it be stolen. Wholeheartedly.

Maybe the fumes from her brother’s plan had messed with both their heads.

More on the Changing Face of Publishing

News about the upcoming BookExpo America in New York, which directly relates to an early entry of mine in this blog where I wrote about the changing face of publishing. It's an interesting piece with a lot to say about not only the staying power of the ebook market, but how it's actually done better than other mediums. Check it out!

FASCINATION

Seconds.


That’s all the time Alex Reinhard has to rescue a pilot and his passenger before their crashed plane explodes. He’s no hero—yet that’s what everyone’s calling him. That’s especially what he seems to be in the eyes of Candy Norwood, the woman whose life he saved. The mild-mannered bachelor, who happens to be more Clark Kent than Superman, can’t deny the sparks flaring up between him and the pretty investment executive. Make that former exec, since Candy left her glamorous Wall Street life behind to find what she considers true success: a peaceful life right there in Alex’s hometown.


And she’s making room in that life for him. What Candy has for her hero, the hunky but shy owner of the local diner, is more than attraction, it’s fascination. That troubles Alex, because isn’t this lady way out of his league? Is she just grateful to him for having pulled her from the wreckage? In any case, the man’s in trouble, because that fascination is mutual. And the more time he spends in her arms, the more he kisses her, the more powerful her spell over him.
One thing’s for certain: There’s a short distance between fascination and a deep love that can last forever. And that’s a distance about to be crossed by two people brought together by fate.

FASCINATION is my newest book, a sweet contemporary romance due out July 2009 from Awe-Struck Publishing! Check back for more news & an excerpt, which I'll be posting here next month!

Website vs. Blog

Before I begin, I want to take the time to send out a shout of thanks to the wonderful heroes and heroines, the men and women in the United States Armed Forces, and to revere those who gave the supreme sacrifice in their service on this Memorial Day. The American soldier will always be, first and foremost, the ORIGINAL American Idol!

And now on to the subject of this looooooooooong overdue entry...

I'm losing my Geocities website. :( Yeah, yeah, I know--mostly everybody else who writes professionally has their own cool site with their name in the URL and their own little dot-com. Me, I had a Geocities. What can I say? It was free *and* it was fun and creative, being my own webmistress.

But now my website will be going away when Geocities goes away. What do I do now? Get another website? Do I need a website? From my searching around on Google, I'm finding there's a whole debate on the website versus blog thingy. And from visiting this site (which I'm happy to be listed on), it looks like authors are making their blogs lively, warm places to visit, maybe even more so than a slick website.

Not to mention MySpace. That, I DO update pretty regularly. Gotta love a site where you can add a song, pictures galore, and connect with readers, other writers, friends, coworkers, relatives, pretty much everybody on the planet! Ditto for Facebook, though I find MySpace easier to use and more versatile. And Twitter. (Haven't figured that one out yet. Maybe some Tweeters can fill me in???)

So for now, I think I'll hold off on my website. But I'm going to be better about updating this blog.

But many thanks to you, Geocities. You were fun to create & update with. And I really did learn a lot from you.

Next up: News on my upcoming book, FASCINATION, which will be out in July!