I hope all you mothers out there had a fantastic Mother’s Day!

What a great response I had to the “Freebies Contest”! Congrats to Gina T. from Minnesota, who won a signed copy of A HINT OF WICKED! I’ll send out the freebies packets sometime this week.

Thanks so much to everyone who stopped by the blog and to everyone who signed up for freebies! The freebies are still available, so if you haven’t already signed up, go on over to my Bonus Features page and check them out!

Thanks again, everyone.

It’s Mother’s Day weekend, right? Which means surely, surely, I can take a few hours off to finish Jackie Barbosa’s upcoming release, BEHIND THE RED DOOR! Jackie was kind enough to send me an early copy of the book. I’ve read the first novella, and let me tell you, this is one steamy, romantic, and beautifully written anthology! I hope to have Jackie as a guest here on my blog sometime this month, and I’m hoping she’ll give away a copy of her book, too, so make sure to keep an eye out for that.

In the meantime, I’ve gotten a list of 15 more stops on my blog tour from my publicist. Yikes! I don’t think I’ve ever been so social (even internet social!) in my entire life!

AND…last but not least, I received a wonderful early Mother’s Day present from my publisher. Real, beautiful copies of A HINT OF WICKED! Wait…I have to go take a picture of myself holding one of these new and shiny books…be right back…

Here it is:

Because I’m so excited, I’m going to give away a free copy to a random person who signs up for Freebies! Just go to my Bonus Features page, and sign up to receive some freebie promo items from me and a bunch of my favorite authors (Anna Campbell, Kris Kennedy, Christine Wells, Emma Wildes, and Dawn Halliday), and one person who signs up before Sunday at midnight will receive a shiny new copy of A HINT OF WICKED!

HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY WEEKEND, everyone!

In my two visits to London since I started writing A HINT OF WICKED, I spent lots of time staring at the Saudi Arabian Embassy. Only slightly intimidated by the guards bearing gigantic automatic weapons and casting suspicious looks in my direction, I’ve paced back and forth in front of the place for hours, studying it from all angles. The embassy is located at Crewe House, built in 1730 and one of the few remaining old mansions standing in Mayfair.

The Saudi government purchased Crewe House for 37 million pounds in 1984, but in my imagination, it’s the home of Sophie, Garrett, and Tristan from A HINT OF WICKED.

If it was worth 37 million pounds in 1984, I wonder how much it’s worth now? I’d sure like to make the Saudis an offer…

Here it is on a dreary London day. Sigh. Pretty, no?

I’m studying the 18th-century economy of Scotland (a topic I find fascinating–yes I am a nerd!). I came across this interesting snipped from a book written in 1715. According to this book, whales were one of Scotland’s primary trade products. Huh!

(Whale meat) is better boiled than roast’d to be eat with Vinegar, Wine, Parsly, Hyssop, Savoiry, Fennel, Organy, Anet, Onions, Leeks, and Pepper. The Fat is good against the Itch. The Liver smells like Violets, tastes pleasantly, and is very nourishing being salted.

–The present state of Great-Britain and Ireland In three parts.
By Guy Miege

All I can say is that it’s no wonder the Scottish economy suffered during that time period…

And who knew whale liver smelled like violets!

I can’t believe A HINT OF WICKED is set to release in just three weeks’ time! My schedule is crazyinsane for the next few weeks. Not only do I have a book due soon & expecting edits on another & copyedits on yet another, I have a full blog tour schedule planned as well. (Not to mention baseball playoffs, end of school madness, my mom flying into town, and everything else…oh, my blood pressure is rising just thinking about it all!). But I did want to share with you some of the stops I’ll be making on my “tour” because there are going to be TONS of opportunities to win signed books and lots of other goodies. Ready? Okay, here we go:

5/9: Grand Central Cafe
5/18: Visiting with Jackie Barbosa
5/25: Lust in Time
5/28: I Do Not Want to Wait, I Want the Book Now!
5/29: RR&H Novel Thoughts & Book Talk
6/1: Fran Lee’s Romance Blog
6/1: Visiting with Beverley Kendall
6/2: Romance Bandits
6/3: Reading Romance Books
6/5: Feature at Single Minded Women
First Week in June: The Good, The Bad, The Unread
6/7: Risky Regencies
6/9: Grand Central Cafe
6/13: Signing IN PERSON at Orange County RWA
6/14: Signing IN PERSON at Encino Barnes & Noble (12 noon)
6/19: Spotlight at Dark Diva Reviews

Yes…a little busy!

Hey, everyone! Please head on over to my bonus features page, where I’m giving away a free historical authors’ pack. This will include goodies (bookmarks, excerpt booklets, and more…) from myself, Dawn Halliday, Christine Wells, Anna Campbell, Kris Kennedy, and Emma Wildes.

The winner of the ARC is…Lilah Rune! Congrats…I hope you enjoy the book!
Thanks to everyone for commenting on my new cover! I’m so excited…two month until release day!

Now off to deal with the whimpering, whiny (sick) 4-year-old…

I received a new cover for A Hint of Wicked today, with some changes! Can you see them? The old cover is the one on the left, and the new cover is the one on the right. What do you think? (Click on the image if you’d like to see a bigger version.)

I’m in the mood to give something away…so how about one of the very last advance copies (ARCs) of A Hint of Wicked (old cover, by the way!)? Just let me know what you think about one (or more) of the changes to a cover and I’ll enter you in a random drawing to win an ARC. I’ll draw the winner on Monday and post the results here!

Okay, so this is fun. Goodreads, where people can list and share the books they’ve read and post reviews on all of them. I just joined a couple of days ago, and lo and behold, someone has already read an advance copy of my book and posted a review of it! I’m gobsmacked!

Jennifer Haymore at Goodreads

A Hint of Wicked

reviews: 1
ratings: 10 (avg rating 4.50)

Anyway, I’m thrilled to be on Goodreads, and it seems like a very cool place to connect with other readers and authors, and learn more about the books I’m interested in reading.

Do you ever get paranoid? I tell you, the internet can do that to a person. I don’t know what’s going on, but there’s currently a whole list of things I’m paranoid about!

(1) I get a blunt-sounding email from a friend, and I wonder why she’s angry with me (even though logically I know that it’s impossible to determine tone from email).

(2) My writing critique partner didn’t ask me to critique her latest book. What does it mean? Was my last critique useless? Did I make her angry about something? Did I do something wrong?

(3) Someone on a chat board I’m on posted that she’s ignoring the posts of a certain other poster. I immediately assume it must be me, even though there’s no logical reason for me to think so. We’ve never had a run-in (that I know of!). We’ve always been friendly. But have I said something? Does my personality annoy or offend her? Is it me?! Argh.

I wish there was a pill to take to eliminate paranoia. I don’t need it in my life. But to my friend, my critique partner, and my board-mate: If I upset you, please forgive me! I didn’t mean to! I really like all three of you and don’t want to cause discord! Hugs and chocolate all around! I’ll even splurge on a cafe-mocha-vodka-valium latte (nonfat and sugar free!) for all of us.

Okay, I feel a little better now. Back to writing. I have a deadline in…3 days!