That Fatal Kiss is HERE!

OK, well, not right here, but, you know,
available for sale on the following sites:

E-Books

Amazon.com (for Kindle)

Barnes and Noble (for Nook)

Smashwords
(for most other e-readers,
including those by Apple, Sony, and Kobo)

Print Version Coming Soon!

For a chance to win a free e-copy, simply enter a comment, below*.
Three winners will be chosen at random.

*Edited to add: comments left up to/including Sunday, September 29, will be entered in the drawing. Winners will be announced the following week.

And just in case you need a reminder of what the story's all about:

Feared by mortals for his inexorable power, and loathed by his fellow Greek gods for the same, Hades rules the Underworld alone.  A stark eternity looms before him until he discovers Persephone. Struck by the youthful goddess’ beauty, kindness, and spirit, he must have her. But Hades believes Persephone could never love him, and so he conspires with his powerful brother, Zeus, to take her by force.

Persephone too seeks a mate but her possessive mother, the goddess Demeter, frustrates her husband hunting. Then Hades abducts Persephone, tearing her away from the Upperworld she loves to reign with him in the dank depths below. Though outraged, Persephone cannot deny the desire ignited within her by the dark lord’s touch. And even as she hopes that Demeter will unearth her, Persephone aches to surrender to the heat in Hades’ immortal soul.

And don't forget to visit all the stops along my blog tour this week!

Monday, September 23, 2013

Defending the Pen (Yolanda Renée)

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Daily (w)rite (Damyanti)

Thursday, September 26, 2013

Melissa's Imaginarium (Melissa Bradley)

Friday, September 27, 2013

Mina Burrows

Sunday, September 29, 2013

Word + Stuff (Trisha F)

24 Hours Till Release Day!

Don't...don't you want me?

And so the countdown begins. Tomorrow, I unleash my debut novel upon the world.

Can you say butterflies in the stomach? 'Cause I sure can.

To lend me their support, these ginchy blogging gals are hosting my That Fatal Kiss blog tour, as follows:

Monday, September 23, 2013
Defending the Pen (Yolanda Renée)

Tuesday, September 24, 2013
Word + Stuff (Trisha F)

Wednesday, September 25, 2013
Daily (w)rite (Damyanti)

Thursday, September 26, 2013
Melissa's Imaginarium (Melissa Bradley)

Friday, September 27, 2013
Mina Burrows

Please visit these groovy gurls on their respective hosting days, and be sure to come back to my blog TOMORROW for my release day giveaway!

My Entry for the 50 Shades of Sexy Blog Tour!

Click here to read my excerpt!

Y'all, RWA NYC (the New York City chapter of Romance Writers of America) is running a blog tour in which members offer up a (brief!) sexy (but not too graphic!) excerpt from their books (or WIPs).

Today's post features a snippet from my debut novel, That Fatal Kiss (coming September 24!). (Probably!) (God willing!) So, like, please take a look/leave a comment/spread the word!

(I adore writing parenthetically!)

(You may have noticed.)

Writerly Things ~ Revediting

*Expletives were not deleted from this post.*

A marked-up-for-editing snippet from my book, That Fatal Kiss, coming this September!
Lord willing and the police permitting, as my Portuguese forebears would say.

I've been on "stay-cation" since Tuesday, June 18. I had a bunch of revisions/editing to do (hence, "revediting"), based on the notes of the super gal* I employed to copy-edit That Fatal Kiss (TFK). Spent the first couple weeks mostly catching up with Facebook and the Twitter, futzing with my blog's font and text color (as you may already know), and watching lotsa Bones re-runs on the tee-vee. So, you know, I was super productive.

Knowing full well that I needed to get my ass in gear if I wanted to release my book on time, I pushed myself as hard as I could to get through my revediting during my last week off. Nearly every waking hour, for the past 7 days, were spent working on my manuscript.

Please understand that I'm in love with my main characters, Hades and Persephone. I adore them. I lust after them in a quasi-incestuous way. (OK, I lust after Hades, but I think Persephone's a super cool chick.) I've enjoyed tagging along on their courtship journey, immensely.

But I swear, if I have to:

• do one more damned "Find and Replace" because, somehow, I missed getting rid of a word the first hundred times I edited this book;
• pore through this manuscript, looking for quotation marks that are in a font different from the text (how the fuck did that happen???);
• "...delete one more goddamn adverb!" she typed vexedly;

just one more motherfucking time, I may have to cut my own throat.

I am so heartily tired of working on this bitch. SO. TIRED. I'm more than ready to hire someone to do a final post-revediting proofread, format this shit for e-readers, and make this fucker available for purchase online. TFK, I am DONE with you! DONE, DONE, DONE!!!!!

::sighs::

OK, I know I'm not done with you. I know we still have some matters to sort out before I can unleash you upon an unsuspecting world. And you know I heart you, baby, right? Right??? I just need a little breakie-woo. And then I'm-a polish you off, dress you up real purty-like, and put you up on them virtual bookshelves so others can fall in love with you too. XOXOX

*The super gal I hired to edit TFK is Jena O'Connor. Jena has a B.S. and M.A. in English, teaches English at the high school level and has taught writing at the college level, and has released her own romance novel, Mixing Up a Memory. She's friendly, prompt, highly skilled, and has extensive knowledge of the romance genre. Also, her rates are amazingly affordable and she does great work. If you need an editor, I highly recommend you check out her Web site, Practical Proofing.

OMG, Now what???*

...so, I created this bloggy-blog in an effort to build an author's platform because I've got: one complete romance novel, one novel I need to romancify a bit more (really, I need to completely revise it to show the romance between the protagonist and her main squeeze), a coupla short stories, and a coupla projects on the back-burner - all of which, I fervently hope, will achieve a respectable measure of commercial success. (Or a disreputable measure of commercial success - I got a kid to put through college next year, I can't be choosy.) (It hurts my brain that I'm old enough to have a kid to put through college.) (Luckily, there's wine.)

Starting this blog freaked me out a bit, and knowing I have to maintain it ravages any remaining peace of mind because:

...OMG, what to write about?...
...OMG, when do I have time to write this thing??
...OMG, who the hell's gonna read this???

As to content, I reckon I'll write about quirky life stuff, my quirky kid (aka, The Kid), and my quirky experiences as a single mom who works full time and writes...well, who sometimes writes (I suppose I wouldn't have stuff burning on the back of the stove if I wrote more regular-like). I believe I'll figure it all out as I go along, but I've learned one definite rule of thumb: I can't wait to find time for important things, I have to make it.

With regard to the "who" aspect - I thank you, Dear Readers, for popping by to check my stuff out. Your interest and support mean a lot to me. Please keep checking back and, if you have any suggestions for content, I'd love to know about 'em!

*I realize this isn't a very exciting blog, so I peppered the text with links to random sexiness. See if you can find all 8. NB: My idea of sexy's a bit twisted, so be warned.  ;-)