Okay, I’m still drooling over the UK cover for Her Warrior King. Here’s another, for fun. This is the cover of “The Viking’s Forbidden Love-Slave.”
The Viking's Forbidden Love-Slave
I seem to have a thing for shirtless men. Not that I’m complaining, mind you, oh no. Nice chests are a good thing.
But I still loooove the UK cover. Mmm. Mmmm. Good.
Onto another topic…I met a super cool librarian at RWA this summer, and I read her blog because it’s really quite a hoot. If you love romance like I do, you really should read Wendy’s reviews. I decided to gird my loins and send her a review copy of Her Warrior Slave and she has the review up here. All in all, she made me laugh in several places, and I think it’s a good review. You can see what she thought.
I believe she’s also going to review my Viking love-slave book, and see this is the one that scares me a bit. I’m a big girl, and I can handle that some people are going to like my books, and some aren’t. I’m okay with this. Really.
But I’m very curious as to how the Viking one will pan out. See, in the space of 50-60 pages, you don’t have a lot of room for a sweeping love story. I went for all-out fantasy and escapist reading. Who wouldn’t want to be carried off by a hot Viking man? Think–beach read.
It’s meant to be fun, something to make your waiting room time go by quickly if you’re reading it on a PDA. I’m hoping it comes off that way, and fair warning–this story is definitely the hottest one I’ve written so far. (Vikings are pretty steamy guys, so you have to watch out for them.)
Anyway, here’s a link to an excerpt. This was the story that Missie helped me title “Sweet Savage Sven.” I really think the editorial team should have gone for it. Can’t imagine why not. But I now have a title with Love-Slave in it. It really doesn’t get much better than that.
My family came into town last night and today we spent the entire day going through baby paraphenalia. I’m not planning to have ANY MORE kids, so I’m getting rid of a ton of infant gear. It’s amazing how much stuff piles up from having a baby. You have clothing that’s 0-3 months, 3-6, 6-9, 12 months, 18 months, 2T–and every possible season. It’s truly frightening and overwhelming. And each time a child outgrows something, I have to do a wardrobe purge and either put the clothes in the attic for the next child or donate them to charity. The entire process of going through every single clothing item is so daunting that I avoid it for as long as humanly possible.
But it’s getting there…slowly…
Still, there are some nostalgic moments, particularly with my daughter’s clothing. I look at her first Christmas dress, her first Easter dress, and I can hardly believe she was ever that small. Sometimes it’s hard to let go of those moments. Many outfits have a memory.
As a kid, I loved picking out the perfect jack o’lantern. It had to be nice and fat, with a good surface area for carving. I wanted my pumpkin round, and without any green, spotty parts.
We usually wait until October to buy our pumpkins, and this weekend, my kids informed me that it was TIME to buy them. There is a local pumpkin patch that sells about two hundred different pumpkins of every size and shape. I took the kids there, prepared for a nice debate about which one to get. The deal was, they had to carry whichever pumpkin they selected (I figured that would keep things reasonable).
My son trotted over to the section with large pumpkins. I was prepared for a debate over which one to buy. Should we get a twisty stem pumpkin? A tall narrow one? A fat wide one?
My dear boy picked out his pumpkin in thirty seconds. The boy is clearly a male shopper. My daughter had hers in about the same timeframe.
Me: Don’t you want to look around some more, see if there’s another one you like better?
Son: No, this is fine.
Me (to daughter): What about you? Are you sure this is what you want?
Her: Yep, it’s fine.
I have a confession to make. I’ve never read an e-book. I am a traditional, book-loving person, and there’s nothing like the feel of pages. I love my books to death, and I had the horrible habit of earmarking pages as a kid. I would often have 2 or 3 books going at the same time.
But in the next few weeks, I am about to have my very first e-book only release. All of my books are available in electronic form already, as well as print, but “The Viking’s Forbidden Love-Slave” will only be electronic. The idea behind these short stories is that you can download them to your PDA, cell phone, or electronic reader, and take them on the road with you. You can read “Love-Slave” in your doctor’s waiting room, on the subway, or anywhere, really.
While this sounds very cool to me, I’ve never actually done this. I don’t own an electronic reader, and on my laptop, I’ll probably have to use Adobe Reader to access the story. I’m thinking of doing a series of blog adventures for those folks who have never downloaded a story. Sort of a How-To series. But that means I’ll have to actually learn How To Download it, myself.
For those of you who ARE e-book savvy, Penni forwarded a link to me, that Her Warrior Slave is one of this week’s electronic picks! It’s on sale at eHarlequin here for 25% off (scroll down). If you’re looking for electronic copies of my other books, those are also available.
So, quick survey. Am I in the minority? Does everyone else read e-books regularly, or are you like me and have never tried one? If you have read e-books, want to share what you know?
We had major drama this morning. The outside temperature hit 51 degrees, which I thought was too cold for shorts. I sent my son back to his room to change clothes. That’s when the tears and begging started.
I’m not sure when it happened, but sometime after my son hit the age of four, he decided he didn’t like jeans. He would whine and complain that they weren’t comfortable. Fair enough. I shopped around and found some that had a little more elastic, but each morning when it was time to get dressed, we had a knock down, drag out fight. He wouldn’t wear the jeans without sobbing.
To make matters even stranger, he loved a pair of black jeans that he had. They were identical in every way to his other jeans…they were just black. He wanted to wear those every day.
So this morning, when I ordered him to put on jeans, he cried and moaned and told me that everyone was going to make fun of him.
Son: NO ONE wear jeans in first grade, Mom. They’ll laugh at me.
Me: No, they won’t. Get dressed.
Son: Everyone else gets to wear jogging pants. Why can’t I wear jogging pants?
Me: Because their moms are nicer than yours. Poor you. You have a really mean Mommy. Now put the jeans on.
Son: I’ll never wear them! I’ll just wear shorts!
Me: No, you won’t. But you will lose all television and desserts for the rest of the week if you keep arguing with me.
Son: (bawling) I hate jeans! They don’t make me comfortable. Please let me wear jogging pants!
Me: You’ll be fine.
I’m really not sure where all of this came from. Did your kids, or did you, go through any fashion trends where they wouldn’t wear certain clothes? What’s up with that?
In other news, here’s a fun book cover. This is The Warrior’s Touch, out in Germany this month. I’ll admit, I get such a kick out of foreign covers. They retitled it “The Irish Healer.” I love the woman on the cover–she’s a great model for Aileen. The hero? Um, Connor has a bit more jewelry than I’d like. Those bracelets…woo. And the necklace…. Notice the halo around his head. :)The other thing that made me wonder was the mountains in the background. My fictional location is in central Ireland, so rolling hills is about the best you’ll get. I do think they’re pretty though. All in all, it’s fun to see what the art department came up with.
I stumbled across this advertisement at Forbes originally (They had an article about the world’s richest authors…hey, a girl can dream, can’t she??). It made me laugh, so I thought I’d share it with you for when your computer goes down and you call the help line.
I never played soccer as a kid. However, I was traumatized by being picked last for nearly every sport, so it is my sacred duty to be sure my kids never experience that. Thus, I’ve enrolled my six-year-old son in baseball and soccer. My husband, bless him, took the boy shopping for shin guards and other necessities.
Me? I know nothing about shin guards. They um..protect your shins? They come in all different brands and prices, and you cover them with socks. That’s about all I can figure. So yesterday, when my husband sent me back to the store to return a pair of shin guards that didn’t fit, I was a bit overwhelmed with all the equipment, needless to say.
The boy needed a new pair of soccer shorts and hubby told me to buy Umbros, in a size larger. I could not find that brand to save my life. So I opted to use my store credit (incidentally–new pet peeve. The credit card companies, in their quest to protect your card, are issuing cards to spouses with different numbers. It means you can’t return things to the store for your spouse and have it credited back to the card. Pain. In. The. Tuckus.)
But, I digress. I had a card of store credit and not a thing to spend it on. So I thought–hey! Soccer socks! How hard can that be? I don’t want to be washing those mammoth-sized socks every day (since he has practice and games 3 times a week).
They had pink. And red. And royal blue socks. Which might not have been so bad, except his team shirt is red. Kinda clashes. So I dug around and finally found black, hidden among the adult socks. When I got home, I mentioned my purchase to my husband, and he responded, “Oh, those. I didn’t like the socks they had there.”
You mean, there are regulations for socks now? Plain black socks won’t work?
I have much to learn, clearly.
Do any of you have kids who play soccer? Or did you play soccer as a kid? Anything else I should know about?
Incidentally, Her Warrior Slave is on sale now! I’m stoked!
Today, I’m blogging over at eHarlequin on my favorite Harlequin Moment. Click here to join in on the discussion and enter a comment to win a copy of a book of your choice OR a download of “The Viking’s Forbidden Love-Slave”!
By the way, Her Warrior Slave goes on sale at eHarlequin exclusively tomorrow! It will be in by the end of October. Thanks for stopping by!
I’m working on the new medieval (Ewan’s book) now, and one of the things that makes it interesting for me, is digging up new bits of history. His book takes place in 1180, and the Norman invaders were most definitely making a place for themselves in Ulster, Ireland. I was trying to connect Ewan’s bride to events happening at the time, and I stumbled upon an interesting fellow named John de Courcy.
John de Courcy built the castle of Carrickfergus in northern Ireland, after he led a campaign there in 1177. The castle was built and finished by 1180. I visited Carrickfergus in 2006 and despite the cheesy medieval statues hanging around, it’s a good example of twelfth century castle architecture. Ewan’s book, incidentally, takes place in 1180.
Interior gathering space in Carrickfergus Castle
This is an upstairs chamber within Carrickfergus, possibly a bedchamber or solar, from my best guess. They tried to make it child-friendly by putting a large chess set and a few other items in the room. One thing that impressed me was how much natural light there was in the chamber.
There were also many interesting things to see, like this salt cellar. I imagine John de Courcy must have had a fairly good income, to afford fun little decorative pieces like this. Not bad for a Norman knight.
salt cellar
Anyway, for me, part of the fun in researching a book is looking for the little details like these.
But I now have a title with Love-Slave in it. It really doesn’t get much better than that. 
That is one HOT cover. 
You mean, there are regulations for socks now? Plain black socks won’t work? 
I’m stoked!
