Tag: paranormal romance vampires

The Big Prince of Power Blogopalooza! Win Stuff (updated now with more prizes)!

And. We. Are. Off!

Happy 2013, everyone! This week marks the official kickoff of my Prince of Power blog tour! Anton and Tyra officially hit shelves and e-readers on January 8th, and the virtual blog tour is ON. Lotsa fabulous giveaways, and I shall attempt to keep you apprised of where I will be and when I will be there. Are you following me on Facebook and the Twitters? I announce the occasional special contest there, as well.

Oh. Awesome news. Right now, get King of Darkness in ebook at B&N, Amazon, and iTunes for only $1.99! 

K! So here we have the list of guest blog / giveaway stops!

  • Jan 1 – Reading Between the Wines – Read in the NewYear with the vampires from King of Darkness and Prince of Power. Siddoh shares his recipe for baked brie! Enter to win a copy of King of Darkness OR Prince of Power! (contest ends 1/18)
  • Jan 2 – Literary Escapism – When Bad Heroes Go Good – Exclusive excerpt with Anton and Siddoh
  • Jan 2 – Reader Confessions – why tortured heroes make better lovers. Win a copy of Prince of Power! (Contest ends 1/9)
  • Jan 3 – Fresh Fiction – how does this romance feel? Check out my playlist for Tyra and Anton, and enter the ONE DAY ONLY GIVEAWAY!
  • Jan 5 – Night Owl Reviews – Unexpected surprises as a debut author. Enter to win a copy of Prince of Power! (contest ends 1/11)
  • Jan 7 – Book Girl of Mur-y-Castell – interview and enter to win a copy of Prince of Power! (contest ends 1/20)
  • Jan 9 – Romancing the Book – Interview and giveaway!
  • Jan 9 – Coffee and Porn – Tes Hilaire and I (and our characters) participate in “Wednesday Whine and Wine”
  • Jan 10 – Novels on the Run – An intensive Q&A! Find out more about me, the series and what’s coming up next! You can also check out the fantastic review they gave King of Darkness, here and the one their review of Prince of Power, HERE.
  • Jan 11 – Coffee and Porn – Enter to win a copy of Deliver Me From Temptation by Tes Hilaire or Prince of Power by me!
  • Jan 11 – The Qwillery– Author interview and Ah-NOTHER giveaway!
  • Jan 16 – Blog swap with NYT/USA Today Best-selling author Caridad Pineiro!
  • Jan 21 – Cocktails and books – Interview and Giveaway (ends 1/26)
  • Jan 23 – Under the Covers Book Blog – Interview and Giveaway, and an exclusive excerpt! (ends 1/29)
  • Jan 25 – Manga Maniac Cafe – Interview and giveaway! (ends 2/4)
  • Jan  28 – Long and Short Reviews

Also, please be sure to swing by on January 16th, when I will be swapping blogs posts with best-selling author Caridad Pineiro, who is doing a wonderful fundraiser for the Jersey Shore.

 Wishing you a joyous and prosperous New Year! Will have more soon!

Wanna check out the new Prince of Power trailer? See it here (many thanks to Rachel Firasek for the awesome trailer):

Get Cozy With Thad & Isabel–Win King of Darkness!

Today the lovely ladies at Darhk Portal are having a rare, exclusive sit-down chat with the King and Queen of King of Darkness. Stop by and leave a comment at their character interview for one of TWO chances to win a copy of King of Darkness, either an ebook or a signed paperback (the paperback giveaway is open internationally)!

Also, I will be doing an in-store signing at the Spectrum Center Barnes & Noble in Reston, VA on May 19th at 2:00pm. Come join me! I may have some insider info about Prince of Power and/or prizes. *wink*

And look, mom, I have a newsletter! Sign up HERE to get occasional updates, sneak-peaks, and maybe even an exclusive subscriber-only contest or two.

Holy #%*t! My Zipper is Down.

 

Been feeling overwhelmed, so I decided to post something lighter today, that I wrote awhile ago and saved for just such an I’m-too-busy-to-blog kind of occasion:


So. I am one of those annoying people who FREAKS when they meet someone famous. They don’t have to be mega famous like the President or Madonna, just someone I respect and admire and do not know personally.

My friend Katie has a saying: “Donald Trump poops too”. Apparently reminding herself that all beings great and small go to the bathroom helps her keep things in perspective when she’s about to encounter somebody famous.

I think it’s a great philosophy.

I have been fortunate enough to meet a reasonably sized handful of well known individuals whom I admire, and with a couple of exceptions I handled them okay. A couple, not so much. When I managed to make my mouth open I walked away going “What the fuck was that, I sounded so stupid!” The times that I didn’t, I think were because I was too drunk to know better. So instead I hugged them, because I am very outgoing when I’m drunk.

Perhaps I should be drunk more often.

Anyhoo, I have mentioned before in previous posts about how much I love JR Ward. I mean, I love many authors (not in the creepy way, mind you), but reading JR Ward’s dark, sexy, and humorous style of storytelling was what opened my eyes and made me want to write my own novel. In my ignorance, I had previously thought that romance novels all involved flowery language and horseback-riding women in very large dresses. It never occurred to me, for example, that a bisexual Dom vampire could be the hero of a love story.

But he can, and that is AWESOME.

So, I decided a few months ago to take a trip to meet JR Ward (she doesn’t fly so we adoring masses come to her). The trip, sadly, was a total clusterfuck. I had to bring my youngest and flying with a 10 month old is no picnic. The airline rescheduled me several times, ultimately putting me on a flight that didn’t leave until AFTER her Lover Mine book signing. Then we bitched and complained until they agree to put me on a flight leaving, oh, RIGHT NOW which resulted in a mad dash to the airport with a migraine in my head and a screaming child in the backseat, only to be told they wouldn’t let me check in because it was too close to departure time. We wound up having to buy another ticket on another airline and pay for an extra hotel night, thus turning a reasonably priced trip into a ridiculously expensive trip.

Geeze.

So, the dust finally settles, and I’m in line at the signing, AND MY ZIPPER IS DOWN. I had chosen to wear a pair of pants that a friend had given to me because “They don’t fit anymore.” Mmmhmm…or maybe she didn’t want them because of the faulty zipper?

So I check and recheck, and I tug at my shirt because I do NOT want to be the sicko fan who approached JR Ward with a gaping hole in their pants. Of course by the time it is my turn to meet her, the freakazoid deer in headlights is back, so when she very graciously smiles at me and says “Hi”, which is generally the thing to say when you meet somebody, I’m stuck in place, too damn worried about that stupid zipper to move, and everyone is staring at me expectantly. Probably thinking “Move, you idiot!”.

I wind up propelling myself forward, and I think I managed to mumble a hello or maybe a thank you. I don’t remember. I spent the whole rest of her Q&A time checking and rechecking my zipper, to the point where I’m reasonably certain her security guard was keeping an eye out to make sure I didn’t do anything freaky. “Better watch that one, she keeps messing with her pants.”

Luckily my mom lived nearby, and had come with to hang onto the baby for me, or someone might have called child services.

So the whole thing was fun, Ms. Ward was gorgeous, charismatic and SO entertaining with her creative use of salty verbiage. Totally worth the trip, and if I can I will do it again in a heartbeat, presuming her security folks don’t have me on a watch list.

And next time, maybe I’ll just wear sweat pants. Or a skirt. Definitely something zipper-less. Which one, do you suppose, would be safer?

(Author note, updated July 4, 2012. I wrote this post before selling King of Darkness. I think perhaps even before I finished writing it. I have since become better at acting normal when I meet authors who are well-known, and I have also since met…JR Ward’s assistant. LOL. She appeared at RT 2012 and as both a good and bad thing, I was too busy promoting a book of my own to be able to wait in line to meet her.  A lot has changed! But it’s kinda cool to read back and remember.)

You Can Cut a Can With It, and STILL Slice a Tomato!

What was it John Lennon wrote? “Life is what happens when you’re making other plans,” or something? Feels especially true this week.

So I had a lot of grandiose plans, like getting caught up on my writing workshops and submitting some query letters (you know, the whole journey toward getting published?), writing about romance, and vampires, and manlove (even all three at the same time!) until my inspired little fingers cramped, and writing some articles, and doing the hokey pokey and turning myself around. Counting and organizing the many bags of marshmallows in my pantry, etc.

I got…well, almost none of it done. Which really pisses me off. Especially given my recent bouts of insomnia, wherein I am JUST awake enough not to be able to sleep, but still tired and lacking in lucidity enough that productivity is elusive. I try to work, but I wind up either just staring at the page and drooling, or…well, usually its the drooling thing. Plus I wrecked the car on Wednesday, at which point I just kind of threw up my hands and gave up on trying to do anything at all, and instead immersed myself in the latest from KA Mitchell.

In fact, I was so the opposite of productive, I wound up slicing apples with this massive Miracle Blade knife of my husband’s – the one where they cut like a piece of lead pipe on the infomercial and THEN they throw a pineapple up in the air and cut it in half with the same knife – because I was SO behind on doing dishes I didn’t even know where any of the other knives were. It was a little like trying to tweeze my eyebrows with a sledgehammer.

The Fantasy, Futuristic and Paranormal chapter of the Romance Writers of America is currently having a “60 days to success” sprint. Kind of a light-the-fire-under-your-ass-and-get-some-stuff-accomplished-for-a-change thing. You know, you set some goals that you’d like to achieve, give ’em a deadline, yaddah, yaddah. So my big one was to get hopping on sending out query letters. I got as far as having someone critique my query letter, I made a couple of changes, then fizzled out. Bah.

Well at least I did SOMETHING, I guess. I made a plan, to have a plan. Or something.

Oh, one teeny bit of good news. I just put on a pair of jeans I haven’t worn since before I was pregnant with my oldest kid. Now, they once upon a time were my baggy jeans and they are NOT baggy now, but it’s progress! W00t!