Check it out. This is the cover for ENSLAVED, Eternal Guardians book #5, which releases in November 2012!

I’m a slacker. I totally admit it. Sorry for the delay on this! I was gone all last weekend, then got sucked into revisions on ENSLAVED and totally spaced this off. Ack!

The WAIT FOR ME winners are:

Comment #23 – Shelley Bagby
Comment #15 – Viki S.
Comment #2 – Rebecca Rainbow

And to make up for being such a slacker, I picked two other winners. These two get to choose any book from my backlist:

Comment #7 -Donna McCabe
Comment #17 – Jeannie Antol

(all winners have been notified via email)

Thanks to all who have bought WAIT FOR ME. Have heard great things from readers and am so happy readers are loving it. And BIG thanks to those of you spreading the word about my latest book!

Stay tuned for release day party fun for ENRAPTURED!

I’m super thrilled to announce that the Stolen Series is finally available in ebook form again! Not only that, but it’s been revamped with new–gorgeous covers–and is available for a great new price. Only $3.99 per book!

Buy STOLEN FURY:
Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords

Buy STOLEN HEAT:
Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords

Buy STOLEN SEDUCTION:
Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords

And if that weren’t enough…it’s also available as a box set. All three books for one low price!

Buy Stolen Box Set:
Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords

(If you’re not an ebook reader, don’t worry, they’ll also be available again in print with new covers soon. More to come on that.)

I absolutely LOVE these books, and I can’t tell you how thrilled I am that they’re finally available to readers once more. For those that haven’t read them, I hope you enjoy!

The winner of Trish McCallan’s FORGED IN FIRE is…

Comment #24 Vanessa N.!

Congrats, Vanessa! I’ve sent you an email with info on how to claim your prize. Thanks to all who entered, and BIG thanks to Trish for stopping by!

I’m kicking off a mini blog tour for WAIT FOR ME this week. Stop by the following locations to learn more about the book. Multiple chances to enter to win a free copy!

Thursday, January 12, 2012 – Novel Thoughts
Tuesday, January 17, 2012 – Kiss and Thrill
Thursday, January 19, 2012 – Long and Short Reviews blog
Friday, January 20, 2012 – Vanessa Kelly’s blog
Thursday, January 26, 2012 – Sizzling Hot Book Reviews
Saturday, January 28, 2012 – Cocktails and Books
Sunday, January 29, 2012 – Night Owl Romance blog
Monday, January 30, 2012 – Books-n-Kisses

And…

To get the party started for this mini-blog tour, I’m giving away THREE copies of WAIT FOR ME right here! To enter, just tell me about your favorite reunion story of all time. (Winners will be drawn on Friday, January 13, 2012.)

Today I’m thrilled to welcome romantic suspense author, Trish McCallan!

Filling the Creative Well

A big THANK YOU to Elisabeth for hosting me today!

I’ve always loved to read.

If I’m waiting somewhere and I’ve forgotten a book, I’ve been known to read the back of a match stick booklet, or every single item on the menu. In high school, college and early in my working life, I’d often read a book a day. I was voracious, devouring authors across almost every genre—romance, suspense, mystery, horror, fantasy, sci-fi, historical fiction—I’d read it all. There was always a book in my hand and two or three in my backpack. When I started to drive they were tucked in the glove box, tossed in the back of the car, or sitting on the passenger seat beside me.

Back then, I couldn’t imagine a time when reading would get lost in the shuffle of a busy life. I couldn’t imagine a life without reading.

This obsession with reading is what compelled me to write, to dwell in my own imagination, and bring my own worlds and characters to life. But as I sank deeper and deeper into writing, I stopped reading.

It happened so slowly I didn’t even notice.

I was working full time, with an hour commute each way. Plus, I was writing on the side. Writing brings with it a host of other time consuming activities, like critiquing, and beta reading. So I guess you could say I was reading, sometimes I even enjoyed what I read. But reading a critique partner’s work, chapter by chapter, isn’t the same as getting lost in a book. It doesn’t fill your creative well. Or at least it didn’t fill mine.

Since there are only so many hours in a day, and those hours were spent working, commuting, sleeping, writing and critiquing—reading evaporated.  I literally didn’t have time to read.

I didn’t notice the affect at first. I was riding high on the drug of writing my first book and involved in several critique groups both online and local. When I realized it had been months since I’d read a book for pure enjoyment, I shrugged the realization aside. Serious writing, required serious sacrifices, I told myself. I couldn’t afford to cut back on the time I spent writing and critiquing, not if I wanted to get published. The reading, however, wasn’t necessary. I could do without the reading.

I was so naïve.

The months turned into a year. And then two and then three. I went from reading a book a day, to reading maybe a book a year.  As that third year without reading bled into a fourth, my creativity dulled. Everything I read from critique partners sounded vacant, and dull. Everything I wrote felt stagnant and boring. All those exciting premises churning through my mind, tarnished. Like wisps of smoke on the wind, they blew away. All the sudden I was left with no interest and no energy for writing. There were no images, no stories, and no characters in my mind. No words demanding their time on the page. My mind felt empty. My creativity gone.

I struggled for months with this strange apathy, forcing myself to write even though the enthusiasm was gone, forcing myself to critique even though every thing about every story irritated me. Because my critique partners’ work couldn’t pierce this mental fatigue, I didn’t think other fiction could either. Instead I turned to television and dulled my mind even further.

The only reason I started reading again was because I lost electricity one day. With no television, I had no way to occupy myself, so I picked up a book for the first time in years. The book was Vanished by T. J. McGregor and it revitalized me. I got lost in that book—lost in an imaginary world, with imaginary people. And when that ride was over, I reached for another book and took another imaginary ride. And then another. What followed was a reading glut like I hadn’t enjoyed in years. Not since I started writing.

And wonder of wonders my creativity surged. Suddenly new ideas and new characters started spinning through my mind. The words that streamed from my fingers onto the computer screen were vibrant and thrilling. My critique partners’ chapters were brilliant.

My creative well was full again.

Since then I’ve made time for reading—allowing myself a major reading glut every couple of months. And with each reading glut my creativity has soared. It was the Black Dagger Brotherhood that inspired Forged in Fire, my paranormal romantic suspense. Without that reading glut, without that inspiration, I would never have written Forged, which means I wouldn’t have been able to quit my day job in order to write full time.

So it’s fitting that my first resolution this year is to read more. At least a book a week. I have a brand new Nook Tablet and I’m filling it with books: Christy Reece’s Last Chance series, the fourth book in Maya Bank’s KGI series, and the first two books in Elisabeth’s Eternal Guardians. Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Linda Howard, Lara Adrian, Caris Roane, they are all either downloaded into my Nook or about to be downloaded.

What do you have on your Kindle or Nook or sitting on your bedside table? Comment for a chance to win a free e-file of Forged in Fire, my paranormal romantic suspense!

Beth Brown doesn’t believe in premonitions until she dreams a sexy stranger is gunned down during the brutal hijacking of a commercial airliner. When events in her dream start coming true, she heads to the flight’s departure gate. To her shock, she recognizes the man she’d watched die the night before.

Lieutenant Commander Zane Winters comes from a bloodline of elite warriors with psychic abilities. When Zane and two of his platoon buddies arrive at Sea-Tac Airport, he has a vision of his teammates’ corpses. Then she arrives—a leggy blonde who sets off a different kind of alarm.

As Beth teams up with Zane, they discover the hijacking is the first step in a secret cartel’s deadly global agenda and that key personnel within the FBI are compromised. To survive the forces mobilizing against them, Beth will need to open herself to a psychic connection with the sexy SEAL who claims to be her soul mate.

“Forged In Fire is a smoking hot adventure with an irresistible alpha hero. Danger, action, suspense, and a steamy romance make a story that’s impossible to put down!”
–Patti O’Shea
National Bestselling Author of Through a Crimson Veil