New Covers!

I'm so excited to show these to you guys! Not only did I get the cover for Chasing Paradise... I also got the cover for the third book in the Alpine Woods Shifter Series, The Wolf Within. I'm so grateful to Renee for all the work that went into them. Aren't they gorgeous?

Chasing Paradise

(coming August from Lyrical Press)

blurb:
He'll do whatever it takes to win her trust.
A vacation is exactly what Ethan needs to escape the mate hungry females in his pack. Determined to have fun, Ethan can't think of a better way to start than sampling all the different flavors the shifter only resort has to offer, and not the food variety. But after he meets Gwen, no one else holds any interest for him. Ethan came on vacation to avoid mating. There's no way he's going to give up his freedom without a fight.

Gwen is devastated when she hears her mate denying everything they are to each other. She can't sit by, watching him fool around with other girls at the resort. Or worse, crawl back, unable to resist the mating pull but not really wanting her. She needs to get away and her own vacation sounds like the perfect plan. But she should have remembered what her mother always taught her, never run from a predator unless you want them to chase you. The hunt is on...

The Wolf Within
(coming November from Lyrical Press)

blurb:

Will his love be enough to keep her safe?Julie doesn’t know what to think when the man she’s had a crush on her entire life --a man she thinks is meant to be mated to her sister-- starts flirting with her after she returns home from college. But the harder she tries to distance herself, the harder he works to win her over. She knows he couldn’t want to mate with her, a freak who was born full human among shifters. So why won’t he accept her rejection?

Brendan has been waiting for his mate to return for years. Now that she’s finally home, there’s nothing that can keep him from her. Not even her three alpha wolf brothers. But he’s not the only one after Julie. Something else wants to use her for its own evil purposes. Her need for protection allows him to get close, but at what cost? When the unthinkable happens, will their love give them the inner strength they need?


Inexcusable Behavior

Madly in Love has been postponed this week due to some really frightening situations I've recently been made aware of. Not just frightening, but disappointing on a whole new level. I've always been a believer in the gray areas. Decisions don't easily fall in the right or wrong categories... except for the decisions that are obviously, without question, as clear as day wrong. Such as the very things that are happening in the publishing world right now.

The first is the current belief by some, and probably a small percentage but a very vocal small percentage of authors that they are always right and readers don't matter. This absolutely baffles me. I recently-- just in the past couple days-- decided to join the Amazon forums. The behavior I saw some authors partaking in over there appalled and shamed me. Some authors are downright hostile to readers. What happened to 'the customer is always right'? As one reader pointed out on those very forums, "authors are producing an inexpensive, non-necessity in saturated market where they're not only competing with other authors, but the media-TV-movies-internet large. You'd think they'd be doing back flips to romance readers and treat them with respect. Instead, it's insults." Every other day I hear a new story about authors behaving badly, either because of a bad review or some other reason. This kind of behavior has got to stop! And it's frightening to consider what will happen if it doesn't.

The next example is something I read about through twitter, being a fan and follower of Cherise Sinclair. I also managed to find this blog post about it as well from Lolita Lopez, Promoting Your Book: The Sleaze Edition. What it boils down to is a self published author was using the names of bestselling authors to gain exposure. He did this by using their names on his book covers and possibly, I'm not quite clear on the details, in the title as well. I didn't see the books by the author but Ms. Lopez did and has the whole sordid story. Truly atrocious and inexcusable behavior.
 
By far the most disturbing is the theft of other authors' work. No, not piracy. I'm talking about out and out plagiarism.  In the past week, I've heard not one, not two, but three separate instances. First, an indie author on a writers forum made a post regarding the theft of a free read he had on Smashwords. The culprit took the work and published it, for money, on Amazon. Luckily, someone recognized it and told the author and Amazon pulled the book before he could make any money. The next time I heard about plagiarism, it was in an article at Interracial Erotica (found HERE) about a woman who has over 65 stories on Amazon, at least five of which have been confirmed plagiarised. This article talks about Amazon not helping, but I'm hesitant to get on the torch burning wagon because the first author praised their quick response time. The last is the most disturbing--not because the other two aren't horrifying, but because the thief is potentially ruining the credibility of an entire publishing house with them. An author publishing through Siren Bookstrand has been accused of plagiarising a well-known M/M author at Samhain. The evidence is pretty damning. You can read about that story at teddypig.com, HERE.

What is going on with the moral compass of the world? How can anyone justify these things to themselves? It absolutely sickens me. Do people really think this behavior is acceptable? Even in school we're taught how wrong plagiarism is. I'm at a loss as to how to combat this kind of behavior and disheartened by the amount of stories coming forward. Hopefully, sooner rather than later, these pariahs will be eliminated and a new era, where all the stories told are about friendly authors, can be born. Until then, a word of caution for authors and readers alike.

Monthly Reading Awards

One of my groups on Goodreads is discussing our favorite reads so far this year and I thought it was such a good idea, I wanted to make a blog post. Since we're 4 months into 2011 (4.5 but who's counting), I thought it would be a good idea to pick the best books for each month. Or in other words the best of the month reading awards!

It wasn't easy to decide. I've read some great books this year, but in the end I settled on my four favorites (with a few honorable mentions at the end).

January:

This one was an easy one. There were a ton of great books I read in January, but I'd been waiting for over a year to learn what became of MacKayla Lane and Jerrico Barrons. And like all Fever fans, I scoured the forums and message boards to try and figure out who the beast was from book four. So when I look back at January, I didn't really have a choice. Shadowfever takes the award for best book. Not only was it highly anticipated, but for me, it lived up to the hype.

February:

Like January, February was an easy pick for me. Although book four of the Shadowlands series didn't end on the cliffhanger book four of the Fever series did, I still counted down the days until this book was released. Cherise Sinclair has long been one of my favorite authors and although normally I wait until I can buy the kindle version of her books (Loose ID has a two month delay to kindle), this one I couldn't wait for and bought the PDF. Well, and my Goodreads group was using this book as a monthly read and I wanted to participate. Make Me, Sir was a fantastic read and quickly became my favorite of the shadowland series, even though my favorite of all her books remains The Dom's Dungeon.

March:

March was a bit more difficult of a choice. There were no highly anticipated releases during the month. Instead, I ended up catching up on my TBR pile--or putting a tiny dent in it at least. There were a couple books I debated between but in the end had to throw the win to the second book in Kresley Cole's IAD series, No Rest for the Wicked. This was such a fun read and I fell in love with the characters from the get go. I haven't gotten to the next few books in the series although I bought up until book five. They're on the ever growing list... But I am very much looking forward to them!

April:

This was another easy one for me. Shelly Laurenston is one of, if not the top of, my favorite authors and her Pride books are just amazing. In my opinion, they really are in a class by themselves. So when the new Pride book came out, I started it immediately and read it in one day. There's just no competing with one of her books, which may be a bit unfair to the other books I read in April but there's no help for it. Big Bad Beast takes the cake and the win for April. And yes, there is cake. It's delicious.

Now, I know it's a bit unfair to have three honorable mentions considering I'm only talking about four months. But it really has been a fantastic reading quarter for me. And since I'm making up the rules, I say there are no rules about how many honorable mentions I can have. So...

Honorable Mentions

Dana Marie Bell's Blood of the Maple

Stacey Kennedy's The Willow (book one of her Magical Sword series)

Karen Marie Moning's Beyond the Highland Mist

Now it's your turn. What were your monthly favorite reads?

Madly in Love Back on Monday

I hope you all have had great weekends. I had a ton of fun this weekend and did something I haven't done in years. I went to the zoo with some girlfriends of mine. It was funny, though...I kept shocking them by knowing random facts about the animals, all of which I learned from shifter books. Or from my own research in the case of the otters and foxes.

The only mar on the weekend, was the fact that I forgot to invite my most important friend. Usually, I don't rank my friends by order of importance, but for this one friend I made the exception. I forgot to invite/bring my friend sunscreen. Which meant that the past day, I've been lathering aloe on my shoulders and cringing whenever I lift my arms. It seems like once a summer I need to relearn the sunscreen lesson since it seems to fall out of my head during the winter months.

But enough about me and my trip to the zoo. It's time for another Madly in Love Monday post! Today's book is:

Making Chase by Lauren Dane. This is the fourth book in the Chase Brothers series and in my opinion far and away the best. While the whole series is endearing and chocked full of 'awww' moments, this story is the one that captured my heart. Matt's attentiveness as he helps Tate overcome her insecurities only makes the reader fall deeper in love with him. And with Tate, Ms. Dane managed to write a heroine who has more than her share of insecurities, yet doesn't seem whiny or needy. There were very few moments where Tate got on my nerves but even those moments just made her more...real. So although I DO recommend reading the entire Chase series, if nothing else, I suggest picking up the fourth book because Making Chase is a love story not to be missed.

blurb:
Matt is an expert and the Chase is on. Tate doesn’t stand a chance.

Tate Murphy is a girl from the wrong side of the tracks. She grew up a million miles away from the easy life Matt Chase has had. She’s spent her life pulling herself and her siblings up and out of that trailer by the railroad tracks and she hasn’t looked back. Matt Chase is a dream of a guy and she’s certainly not going to turn down a short fling with one of the most handsome men she’s ever seen!

Matt Chase has watched each one of his brothers find love and he knows he’s ready for that too. It’s all a matter of finding the woman who captures his heart. He’s certainly sampled his fair share of them but none has moved him the way Tate Murphy does when he goes to her shop to thank her for some cookies and a thank you note. But as Matt gets to know Tate and appreciate her strength and unique beauty, he also realizes she’s got some big self esteem issues about her past. To build a future, he’s got to find a way past some big road blocks.
Warning, this title contains the following: explicit sex, graphic language, some violence.

What book are you Madly in Love with?

Madly in Love on... Tuesday?

That's right, it's a special edition of Madly in Love because it's Tuesday! So happy Tuesday everyone. Just in case you're visiting for the first time or need a reminder about the madly in love segment, here's a breakdown:

Madly in love is a weekly (usually) post I make featuring a book that I've fallen so "madly in love" with, I had to share it with all of you. I usually write the post on Monday but obviously not this week. As a fan of the romance genre, the majority of books I post are romance books. But just about anything and everything can crop up and today is a good example of something different!

On one of the forums I frequent, a woman was asking for reading suggestions for her 4 young sons (early teens). I thought about the books I read at that age but then something else came to me. A series perfect for kids of all ages but one that I read and fell in love with as an adult. No, I'm not talking about Harry Potter, although it would also apply.

I'm talking about my Madly in Love pick this week: David Eddings' epic fantasy series The Belgariad (and the sequel series The Mallorean since I always lump them together in my head).

These books are amazing. They have everything a great quest fantasy needs, a simple farm boy with a heroic destiny, an evil villan, a warrior, a sorceress, and a magical object of power that can be used for good or evil. And that's just scratching the surface. This is the novel that first started my fascination with dryads as well as one of the female leads is one. If you're in the mood for something non-romance or a fan of fantasy books, I highly recommend these.

Blurb for Pawn of Prophecy (book one in the Belgariad):

It all begins with the theft of the Orb that for so long protected the West from an evil god. As long as the Orb was at Riva, the prophecy went, its people would be safe from this corrupting power. Garion, a simple farm boy, is familiar with the legend of the Orb, but skeptical in matters of magic. Until, through a twist of fate, he learns not only that the story of the Orb is true, but that he must set out on a quest of unparalleled magic and danger to help recover it. For Garion is a child of destiny, and fate itself is leading him far from his home, sweeping him irrevocably toward a distant tower—and a cataclysmic confrontation with a master of the darkest magic.

May the 4th Be With You

I know, I know. Today is the fifth of May. But I didn't realize yesterday was known as Star Wars Day until late in the evening! And as a fangirl of Star Wars, I had to make a post, even if it is a day late.

That's right, folks. I've lost some of my obsession with the movies (original three of course) over the years, but Star Wars will always hold a special place in my heart. As a teen girl, I swooned over Mark Hamill-- yeah I was a Luke Skywalker girl. I even kept the VHS box set even after tossing the VCR player because I couldn't bear to part with the original, pre-remastered versions. And, don't repeat this, I had a signed picture of Luke Skywalker over my bed. Yep, I was that girl. The pages of my eighth grade yearbook are filled with "May the force be with you over the summer" messages. And no, I'm not kidding. I was obsessed.

So, in honor of Star Wars Day (a day late), I give you our very special hunks for hump day:

 

That last one is kind of cheating because it's not just Hans Solo. But how sexy was that scene! I couldn't NOT include it. :)

Did you have a crush on Luke Skywalker or Hans Solo?

Where has the time gone?

Salvador Dali's paintings have always fascinated me. In college, I took a theatrical costume design class and one of our projects was to design the play Everyman. The play's characters all personify abstract ideas such as Knowledge, Good Deeds, Beauty, etc. We got to choose our own theme for the play and I based the entire design off of different Dali paintings. For example, Death not only carried around a melted pocket watch, but his face was distorted like the face of the clocks, Goods (as in worldly goods) had actual shelves protruding from her dress (rigged with a rope made to look like pearls) overflowing with "gold" and "jewels".  I actually kept the renderings because I thought they were so cool.

But I'm actually getting off track... The point of this post is that I feel like I'm in the paintings with the melting clocks. Somehow, time has gotten away from me and I have completely neglected this blog, and all of you, for the past two weeks. I truly intended to take a week off and jump back into things immediately but things didn't work out as smoothly as my plans. I got line edits back for Chasing Paradise in addition to the copy edits for The Wolf Within. Let me tell you, I have been holed up in the editing cave with very few breaks. But Chasing Paradise is off to my editor and The Wolf Within is well underway! So, I apologize for taking an extra week, but now I'm back in the swing of things!

What have I missed in the past week?