Friday, December 24, 2010

Holiday Blessings

Just taking a minute from the holiday chaos to post about one of the best gifts of all, the silver lining. Things are relative, aren't they? We can always find something to bitch about, and everyone knows someone who does that. Not the best way to spend time is it? I even find myself falling into a negative attitude at times, it's an easy thing to do. This is wrong, that breaks, someone says something or does something or even worse, my pet peeve, DOESN'T do something.

Thing is no matter what goes wrong, we will get through it. It's how we go about it and what our mindset is while doing it that makes all the difference. There are times when just due to circumstance our heads are not in a good place and time is all it takes to fix that. I had a year like that. I changed something in my life that should have happened a long time ago, but I never had the courage to do before. To be honest I didn't think I had the strength to do it. I discovered I did, and that sometimes it just takes the right person to give you that strength. Still didn't help my head, heheh. I was needy, anxious, negative, just a mess. HATED it. But it took time to get to a new way of thinking even when I knew all along I WOULD get through it.

During that time, I ended up achieving some things that I have been dreaming of forever. I published my first book. I changed how I run my life and how I interact with my kids. On top of that I was lucky enough to find an amazing person that inspires me to keep pushing for more. Now how is that for a silver lining? Things are still tough, being a single Mom who is underemployed is hard, but back to that things being relative, we can always find tough things to deal with, life is hard. Period. My life is amazing and wonderful right now despite any hardships. There are always curve balls, less money than you expected just before Christmas, something breaks down, someone gets sick. These things will always be there. I choose to treat them as the norm and just those daily potholes I step over, not the things to focus on.

I'm focusing on that silver lining, because it's always there too. It's so much more enjoyable to focus on the positive things. My kids who are having a great Christmas despite any issues. My new book cover and the dreams of more to come. The man I love and all the new things we are experiencing together. All the new friends and family I'm gaining, and all those little amazing things that will happen every day of the coming new year. They're there, smile and look for them, and just keep stepping over the obstacles, because we will all keep moving forward one way or the other, whether we choose to look down, or up, is our choice.

Happy Holidays to you all and I hope the coming year is filled with lots of silver linings.

Sunday, December 12, 2010

RELEASE DAY!! Monday, December 13th...



At the Grand Falls Fire Department, brotherhood is the key to everything. It’s the glue that holds firefighters together through thick and thin. When Garrett O’Neal realizes that the brotherhood he shares with his mentor and best friend could be something that fulfills the erotic fantasy he has of sharing his wife Carrie, it begins a journey that none of them will escape without being plunged into the depths of flaming passion. A hot and intense tryst becomes so much more than just a bed time fantasy. As the three begin to navigate the boundaries of love and desire, the fires of passion and their passion to fight fire threatens to tear the three of them apart forever.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Contracted!!!

Well, it finally happened. When you decide to write, if you are realistic one of the first things you do is remember that you will get rejections. Quite a few, probably. You assume your first, second, maybe even tenth submission will come back with hopefully at least a decent reason for refusal. I've been lucky, I had many 'this just isn't what we need right now but please submit other work' rejections. One stint working directly with an editor that still never turned into a contract.

Just don't ever give up! Cliche, sure, but true. You have to believe you can do it, and really want it.

Mainly for me not writing just isn't an option. I journal, write freelance copy to feed myself and my family, and write stacks and stacks of stuff that may never see the light of day. It's not what I do, it's who I am, and I'm so glad to have gotten to this point. I feel like it is really worth all the effort, and now hopefully I get to share what I'm doing with people interested in reading it.

So thanks for visiting me at this particular point in time, it's a pretty exciting one! I'm thoughtful, thankful, sort of in 'oh what the hell do I do NOW?' mode, but loving every minute of it. Been a long tough year, but it looks like the next one is going to be pretty amazing.

EM

Sunday, April 18, 2010

A snippet

Just a bit of a piece I hope to pitch to St. Martins Press at the Lori Foster event in June.

FORD

The longer he waited, the more of them would come. As natural as breathing it was the order of things. The centuries of instinct to fight were already pushed aside. Pushed aside and thrown to the wind because he wanted them to come. All of them, as many as he could get in one place.

He needed them to wipe away the vision. The blond hair and that face, fuck, that face contorted with ecstasy as he touched her. It swam in his brain and all he saw was red. Red and death.

Probably his and that was fine.

And they did come. More and more every minute. He took them as they attacked, his sword moving in an arc cutting bone from bone, flesh, blood, scales and pieces of unnamed things that defied description. His movements came easily with no real thought or effort behind them. He killed in silence, the perfunctory action just mechanics to drag it out a little longer, slaying only enough to not let it end just quite yet. The destruction wielded at his hand felt no more satisfying than knowing his death would neither end his torment, nor change a damn thing.

Pain welled, so long held back, so long denied it flooded him, making him tear away the ironclad control he’d taken centuries to build. Every piece of his body ached, burned. The lie he’d constructed, that he was cold, emotionless, ruthless, burned through him the most. Knowledge that he had no resistance, no real control, that he felt every damn breath of life when it came to her was the final blow to the walls he’d built to preserve his sanity.

As they crumbled, so did he.

Ford lifted his arms open wide. Sword pointed to the heavens, the gun in his other hand silent. Empty and still as he felt. Let them come. This would be a fitting way to die, shredded into nothing, shredded and torn and lost like his soul already was.

Through the grinding pain of teeth and claws he heard a strange buzz, distant, like the whine of a motor. Whatever. If someone had come they were too late and he was glad of it. With one last ragged breath he felt the teeth of a demon at his throat and he smiled, death came more welcome than the burning hell of torment he’d been living.


PHOENIX

She raged.

Brilliant glowing green shot with red, blood red, tinted her eyes.

Steel flashed, gunpowder flared. But most of all, she raged like the Fury within her.

Fangs. The idea of them didn’t repulse her as it should. The uncanny ability of her mind to float freely and consider the idea she had just sprouted fangs at the same time her body continued to fight the horde with deadly accuracy, was not even odd. Just part of the package. One she happened to enjoy. If it hadn’t been for the rage blinding her to everything but the need to destroy every creature in site.

Wrenching flesh from bone, the steel in one hand sliced through whatever it contacted while her Walther pulsed in recoil in the other. Demon skin flayed from the seething creatures. Her eyes glazed with blood lust. Still, she raged.

Ford, lay dying mere feet away. The pain rent her soul, left her bleeding, screaming in her head helpless. It was this and this alone that caused her to move on her own through the gathering crowd of the damned. Those bent on taking Ford down, killing the master hunter now that he was vulnerable. There was no Fury, no quick flash of cleansing. This would be death in all its bloody carnage. Destruction at her hands was a singular desire. Her mate lay dying, and nothing short of tearing flesh from limb with her bare hands would even begin to penetrate the primal rage that came from that.

It didn’t matter whether he loved, or hated. It didn’t matter if she did. They were mated, his pain an instinctual call for her to fight to the death regardless, and she did.

She moved through them like a storm, a blackness, thrashing with lightening that was cold steel and the flash of bullets, and blood. Red, red blood flowed from them all, and she gloried in it, bathed in it. At the last she ripped at them with her hands, her teeth, those damn fangs that she had no idea she possessed until now, until she had needed them. For Ford.

It lasted only minutes. Drenched, muddied, looking for all the world like the creatures she’d ripped limb from limb she dropped at his side. Knees in the dirt, grime covered hair hanging low over her face like curtain she put her hands on him, felt his chest, his blood. Felt for a heartbeat.

His nostrils flared, slightly. The vampire within him scented the blood on her, the blood of many, most of all the blood coursing like a pounding rapids in her veins. He fought it, she could feel him, could feel him trying to gain the energy to bring the necromancer to bear, to control the death that crawled through him like a haze. He didn’t have the strength, she knew it. He knew it.

“Feed, or you die.”

“Never.”

Monday, February 15, 2010

Nothing brilliant...

First off, I suck at this. I need to get seriously better at it, and I have no excuse! So, while waiting for word on the first Firefighter novel at the publisher, here's a tiny, tiny snippet of the second one. And I promise to get better at this blog thing. (Insert eye roll here, if you like.) Oh, and its unedited, of course.


From Flames of Honor;

Damn if that tight little ass picking it’s way through the debris in the cordoned off area of the arson scene didn’t look familiar. Very familiar. That ass had been twitching in his face for days now and unfortunately it didn’t leave his head when it left his sight.
So what the fuck was she doing here? His newest firefighter should not be trailing the arson investigator, talking with him like they were trading notes.
What. The. Fuck.
Hairs on the back of his neck on alert he stood against the brick front of the building, watching. Sure enough, the conversation had no tension. They pointed, picked, examined. In tandem.
He knew Rod well enough that if he talked openly, let her on a fire scene, she was golden in his book and not just the average hose jockey. He’d been right all along there was something more to her and it had to do with the fires that this psycho had been setting that had put his guys in danger. The thought descended on him with all the grace of a load of bricks and started a train of thought headed in only one direction.
What was he going to do with her now?
Keeping out of sight he watched from a distance. Waiting it out might be better than going in and see if he could glean any info out of Rod on who might be doing this. Then, that little ass was his.
So, who the fuck was she? Why was she parked in his Engine company under his nose, and what did she know about the fires being set?
He was damn sure going to find out. And also pretty sure that her not being a straight up firefighter under his command had just put her as fair game in his bed as well. As much as the thought contradicted what he’d been grinding into his head about her for days, it made sense. Get her lying little ass naked and under him. Relieve the ache in his balls she’d caused, and get some questions answered in the process. All good.
She’d been willing to put herself in his face, she would have to deal with the consequences. Those, would be sweet reward for his efforts, too.
He couldn’t help the predatory grin that split his face when she rounded the corner to where her car was parked and caught site of him leaning against it. Relaxed on the exterior, his gut and his balls seethed with raw adrenaline. The shocked look of being caught red handed only served to heighten his state, though he kept himself tight, leaning back casually, arms folded over his chest just watching her walk towards him.
The fifteen lies she could tell to cover being here were evident on her face as she came closer. That was one bonus of working with her these last few days. To most he bet she’d be hard to read, but studying her every move for hours on end had enlightened him to the subtle shifts in her eyes and features that revealed a hell of a lot about what she was thinking.
Right now, she was thinking about how to get out of this.
“Not going to work, sweetheart. Whatever you’re cooking up in that brain of yours I know you aren’t what you say, and I don’t give two shits who Sutty is or about your firefighter family.”
“Rod’s a family friend. I’m going to enter the arson investigation training next year.”
“That’s nice.” He sprung on her the instant she reached the car and her hand moved to the door handle. Pressing his big body into hers he backed her into the car.
“What the hell do you think—“
The last few words he devoured along with her lips. And god the taste was sweeter than he’d imagined. Stiffening and trying to pull back did her no good as he buried his hands in the silk of her hair, wrapping the strands around his fists he kept her mouth right where it was, buried under his as he explore every corner of her lips with his.
Finally pulling back he pressed his forehead into hers, eye to eye.
“Baby you just gave me the break I’ve been waiting for. I’ve known all along something was up, still don’t know what but now, one thing I do know…” He nipped at her bottom lip, tasting her again, loving that she stood stock still, no longer fighting him even if she hadn’t given in yet. “I do know I’m going to love every minute of teasing the truth out of you now that I have free reign to put your sweet, little, ass—“ He punctuated each word with another nip, this time rewarded with her lips parting slightly, making his cock jump against her hip. “—in my bed. Right where it belongs.”
The fury that sparked in her eyes might have pushed some males back. Not him. He watched it, simmering, the resentment that he had just claimed her, loving every second of it, of her strength. Even if it wouldn’t do her a damn bit of good.
“Asshole!” she screeched, and in a surprise move she kicked his left knee. The momentary pain and shock that he’d been so drunk on her kiss that he’d let her get the jump on him nearly made him laugh. If it hadn’t given her the opportunity to wriggle out from under him.
Now she stood, chest heaving with the angry breaths she took, face livid. “Who the hell do you think you are? You have no right to accuse me of lying! And why the hell do you think I’d let you in my bed? You think you’re all that? I don’t give a shit what you look like, you kill it with that pig headed asshole personality!”
He couldn’t help it. Worst possible thing he could have done, and it came out without warning. He laughed.
He was still laughing when her tires screeched on the pavement as she tore away, leaving him standing in a cloud of dust.
Oh, she was his. Game on.

Saturday, January 2, 2010

The mood for 2010...

Ok, I'm loving this song. Just the in your face attitude, the I'm in charge, and you're going to love it agenda! This, THIS is what erotic romance is about. Could NOT have said it better..so go watch the hot vid and enjoy, and here are the lyrics. Tell me this isn't hot? This is my attitude for 2010!

http://www.adamofficial.com/us/videoshttp://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid55856527001?bclid=55831937001&bctid=53718047001

For Your Entertainment - Adam Lambert

So hot
Out the box
Can we pick up the pace?
Turn it up,
Heat it up
I need to be entertained
Push the limit
Are you with it?
Baby, don't be afraid
I'ma hurt 'ya real good, baby

Let's go
It's my show
Baby, do what I say
Don't trip off the glitz
That I'm gonna display
I told ya
I'ma hold ya down until you're amazed
Give it to ya 'til you're screaming my name

No escaping when I start
Once I'm in I own your heart
There's no way you'll ring the alarm
So hold on until it's over

Oh, do you know what you got into?
Can you handle what I'm 'bout to do?
'Cause it's about to get rough for you
I'm here for you entertainment

Oh, I bet you thought that I was soft and sweet
'Ya thought an angel swept you off ya feet
But I'm about to turn up the heat
I'm here for your entertainment

It's alright
You'll be fine
Baby, I'm in control
Take the pain
Take the pleasure
I'm the master of both
Close your eyes
Not your mind
Let me into your soul
I'ma work it 'til you're totally blown

No escaping when I start
Once I'm in I own your heart
There's no way you'll ring the alarm
So hold on until it's over

Oh, do you know what you got into?
Can you handle what I'm 'bout to do?
'Cause it's about to get rough for you
I'm here for you entertainment

Oh, I bet you thought that I was soft and sweet
'Ya thought an angel swept ya off your feet
Well I'm about to turn up the heat
I'm here for your entertainment

Oh oh... mmmm
Entertainment...
Oh oh... Oh entertainment...
I'm here for your entertainment...

Oooohhh...
Do you like what you see?
Wooooaaaahhhh...
Let me entertain 'ya tell you screeaaam

Oh, do you know what you got into?
Can you handle what I'm 'bout to do?
'Cause it's about to get rough for you
I'm here for you entertainment

Oh, I bet you thought that I was soft and sweet (bet ya thought)
'Ya thought an angel swept ya off your feet
Well I'm about to turn up the heat (turn up the heat)
I'm here for your entertainment