Still working my tail off and still have lots more to go (add in a crit for a friend I forgot about - the crit, not the person - ah, whatever, I still suck)!

Anyway, I figured today I’d share with you the story of the two women in the romance aisle at Barnes & Noble with me the other day. Both were slirping on their Starbucks.

They looked around a bit, one of them picked up a historical that was faced out by some author I’d never heard of (and don’t remember though my guess is from where it was on the shelf the last name started with an L). She seemed very excited about this.

The other one couldn’t decide what to read.

The first one suggested a couple historical authors, but the other one didn’t seem to excited. Then she saw a book (which I could have sworn was by Lora Leigh but I can’t seem to find the cover on her website so I must be wrong) with a sexy guy on the cover.

She then went on to find the same guy on 4 different covers. They hypothizied that it might have been the “romance guy contest winner.” 1 - I was very impressed that they knew enough (and apparently read RT) to know about Mr. Romance. 2. It wasn’t (I managed to keep my mouth closed and not tell them this though - I didn’t want to be crazy romance section girl).

Anyway, Girl 1 was like “I can’t believe you’d buy a book just ’cause there’s a hot guy on the front.” I pipped up now and said, “you say that like there’s something wrong with that.” Girl with book in her hand agreed with me, “yeah!”

But then she flipped it over, saw that it cost $13 and walked out of the romance section with nothing in her hands. But the crazy historical with kilts and mantitty got a sale.

Now this is what really worries me. I know erotic romance is huge, but there’s no way a poor shmuck like me can support all the authors I want to. I simply don’t have the funds. Do I hope that there are people out there that do - HELL YEAH!!

But I think there are those out there that would say, “erotica/erotic romance doesn’t sell because of content.” BUT THAT’S NOT TRUE - IT’S TOO EXPENSIVE!!

Are these $13 books really good for the genre in the long run?

My Mom’s coming to visit for the weekend so I’ll probably be a bit scarce. But I hope the Easter Bunny brings everyone lots of chocolate and jelly beans.

Now I’m going to blog about Deep Breath

I read this book as part of Alison’s viral marketing campaign, which I wish I could do, but don’t really think it’d pan out for me quite yet. I can’t quite afford to give away too many books yet.

Anyway, I’ve been putting off blogging about it because everyone else is, and I just feel like other people are better at reviewing than me. But I’m going to bit the bullet and do it!

I’ve read almost all of the SG-5 books now (except for Larger Than Life which I didn’t realize until recently was part of the series - talk about a huge change-up in terms of looks). I read them because once I started the series I didn’t want to stop, BUT I was never a big fan of the format. I could never quite classify them in my brain, they were trade paperback size, but really skinny and I just had trouble telling how long of a book this was supposed to be!

I read them and I liked them but they never really seemed like complete stories to me. I guess I would have either put them all together in an anthology or written longer to be ST. The format really didn’t appeal to me.

I LOVED that Deep Breath was a real, honest to goodness Single Title Book!

It was a great mix of action, suspense and a bit of a love story. The love scenes were hot, but I don’t think I’d consider it an erotic romance. I’d give it - Sexy Romantic Adventure maybe? There’s not a ton of suspense, and actually the big “problem” of the book is solved almost laughingly easily.

The main characters were fun and enjoyable and even though I disagreed with what the heroine was doing at times, I understood her motivation which makes all the difference. The secondary characters I think could have easily overshadowed the main characters at times, but they were rained in quite nicely. And I’m thrilled to know that eventually we will be seeing Finn’s story!

Without giving anything away, I have to say that I was very pleased with the ending, with neither character having to give up too much to stay together. Something that I alway have doubts about when one character has a secret job and the other one doesn’t.

So from me, all in all, 2 thumbs up for Deep Breath! If you like a quick by long, action adventure story with some romance thrown in for good measure and some hot lovin’ click on the picture below to buy Deep Breath.

I’m afraid to say this because it could backfire, but so far, April has been a pretty productive month.

Of course it could have something to do with the fact that the first few weeks are pretty much completely devoid of ANYTHING on my calendar - how exciting is that? (We won’t talk about what the end of April looks like though. Multiple things per day - it’s ugly.)

Anyway, I’ve gotten into this grove of editing, then writing, with some critiquing thrown in there.

It’s actually been nice and relaxing!

But, something else I’ve been doing is trying to catch up on my reading. Mostly I’ve been focusing on ebooks lately, but I’ve got a huge pile of print books to read, too.

The ebook TBR pile is smaller though so it’s easier for me to pick what I want to read.

So, what good books have you been reading lately? Inspire me to pick something off my TBR pile.

So, partly inspired by Aprils post on reading, and a phone call from my mom in which she complained about losing the ebooks she downloads, I took a look at my Reading List on my sidebar.

2 ebooks!?!?!

Now, that’s not entirely true as I’ve read 4 more as a contest judge but probalby shouldn’t post them there, even though they were all quite good.

And then there’s my Ebook TBR pile.

Fortunately it’s not a real pile because if it were, it’d be taking up my whole apartment.

Well, actually that’s not true. For some reason I’m pretty good at only buy ebooks when I’m able to read them (note I said pretty good, not perfect). But my list of ebooks to buy is HUGE.

And it’s divided by publisher. Procrastinate much? Me?

So tell me what you think about ebooks? Love em? Hate em?

How do you find the ebooks you want to read? Reviews? Word of mouth?

And how many are in your TBR pile?

And…Kendra Clark and I will be chatting at FAR chatters tomorrow all day (or most of the day - at some point I have to take off for the mall to get DH some new jeans).

I was really freaked out about not getting this months TBR challenge (a new to me author) finished. How pathetic that I couldn’t even read one book this month? It’s a good think I padded a little bit in January.

But then I finished the first draft of the Book from Hell and decided to do a little reading

Angie’s TBR Challenge Book:

Title: Bound and Determined

Author: Shelley Bradley

Year published: 2006

Why did you get this book? I like Shelley. She’s the VP of Passionate Ink.

Did you like the cover? It’s actually kind of creepy. I really liked it when I saw it online or on Amazon or something, but up close it’s kind of creepy. He looks like Colin Farrell and she looks like she’s about 14.

Did you enjoy the book? Yeah. It was good.

I generally prefer to read books in all one sitting, but since I’ve been so busy this month I had to train myself to read more sporadically. So to me some of the book seemed a bit - jumpy, but I think that’s because I’m not used to reading a bit at a time.

Was the author new to you & would you read her again? Obvioulsy new to me and I’m already waiting for Strip Search, the sequel.

Are you keeping or passing on? I keep everything. And I would like to give this book a second chance one time when I can give it my whole attention.

Anything else? The book is definately on the hotter side, but I was expecting it to be like Kensington-Aprodesia-put-a-warning-on-the-back-of-the-book-hot. So a warning for anyone looking for boundry pushing erotic romance - this isn’t it.

I’d even say this is on the low end of the erotic romance heat spectrum. But it’s still a good book.

Then, yesterday morning I didn’t want to do work and I was leaving in a few hours so I picked a smaller book to devour, I mean read, Suzanne McMinn’s Deep Blue.

I’m so in love with the PAX books. Cade and Sienna’s story was great, but I have to say I still like the first PAX book (The Beast Within) the best.

But seriously, if you like paranormal romantic suspense, you should pick up these books. Asside from the occasional Blaze these are pretty much the only category books I read anymore, and they definately stand up to their longer counterparts.

Yeah!

I got my shipment from Amazon yesterday!

I hadn’t realized it had shipped yet so it was like an extra special treat.

I got Unleash the Night (finally), Jewel of Atlantis, (yay!), Deep Blue (I’m so loving the PAX league books), Forbidden Magic (I’ve heard great things about it), and Dark Lover (I’ve heard so much about this one that I couldn’t pass it up).

Amazon was having their little special with buy 3 books get the fourth one free. But all of the books were $7. So if you buy 4 then it’s $21. Then of course you have to buy another one so you could get the free shipping.

So now my TBR pile is even more out of control. And I haven’t read anything this month because I’ve been so obsessively worrying about my current WIP. And I’m running out of time to complete Angie’s TBR Challenge for this month.

Bound and Determined is practically begging for me to read it.

Not to mention that I just want to relax for a little while…

I’ll be away for the weekend, but have some posts lined up for you anyway. Don’t forget to come back on Sunday for my second author interview. This one is with Liquid Silver Books author Vanessa Hart.

So, what are you reading?

Well, maybe I feel a little shame…wait…nope, no shame at all.

First, (and this isnt’ a brag) can you beleive I forgot to blog yesterday because I was procrastinating?!?!? I could understand if I had written a bunch of pages or something, but nope, a couple of lines, that’s it.

Anyway, onto the bragging…

I’m #1!!!

Really, I am. Check it out here.

Annnnd, not only am I #1, but A Walk on the Wild Side is the Febuary Sizzler at WCPT. What does that mean, you ask? It means, if you buy A Walk on the Wild Side (which is ALSO on sale) you get a free Torrid ebook of your choice!!

Personally I’ve really been looking forward to Tilly Greene’s Come Sweet Creature, but I haven’t had a chance to check out the other new releases yet. Too busy bragging you know. All of the books in the top 10 are great! I’m especially fond of Winter Wishes, too. Edited to say: All of the New Releases look fabulous. It’s going to be hard to support my book buying habit this month.

So, go forth and read. Preferably my book!

I’ve been restless lately.

It happens fairly regularly where I just can’t really concentrate on anything and have the urge to just go somewhere.

Back when we were living in Seattle it was nice, ’cause there were lots of places to go. Drive a few hours, you’re in the desert, or the mountains, or the rainforest, or the ocean.

Now that I’m back east, nothing appeals to me. Drive a few hours and if you’re lucky, you’ve made it to the other side of DC.

I’m trying to gear the Hubster up for a trip to Atlantic City. I’ve never been there before. Unfortunately it’ll still be a few weeks/months before we’ll be able to pull that off. In the mean time, I’m being lazy.

I read Kate Douglas’s Wolf Tales yesterday. I LOVED it. This was the book that had the whole brew-ha-ha (I’m pretty sure that’s not how you spell that) with the Amazon reviews and stuff. It’s been sitting on my TBR pile since before that whole thing (you can check the archives of RTB if you don’t know what I’m talking about but I’m too lazy to go hunting, lol).

It’s definately not for the faint of heart, I’ll say that. AND if it weren’t for the whole issue I probably wouldn’t know that they are really meant as four short stories and I think that made things clearer to me, but I really enjoyed the book. There was TONS of envelope pushing. Though the one chicks eyes did change color in the span of two pages, that was my biggest compaint.

But if you’re at all uncomfortable, heed the warning on the back.

As for my Sunday? It’s a toss up between actually working (which should win out) or Shelley Bradley’s Bound and Determined.

How’s your weekend?

Title: Jane Millionaire

Author: Janice Lynn

Year published: 2005

Why did you get this book? It was the American Title winner and I wanted to see how that all worked out, plus I sat next to Janice on the plane coming back from RWA Nationals in Reno.

Did you like the cover? Yes, love the cover.

Did you enjoy the book? At first I thought it was going to be a struggle for me to finish the book. I read it over several days and that’s very rare for me. Usually I have to finish a book in one sitting. But once I actually got into the book - about 1/3 of the way through I really enjoyed it and read the rest in one sitting.

I’m not really a fan of reality television so I’m probably not the ideal audience for the book. My guess is if you like The Bachelor et al, you’ll enjoy this book. It’s much better than many other books I’ve read with a reality show theme.

It’s got lots of twists and turns (sometimes seemingly random) like a reality TV show so I thought that was interesting.

Was the author new to you & would you read her again? Obviously new to me (new to everyone) and I’d definately read her again.

Are you keeping or passing on? Definately keeping for now. Is it a book I’d move with me (that’s how I rate REAL keepers)? I don’t know that I’d ever really want to revisit the realitiy TV aspect but I liked the characters. I think it’d be close to the top of the “move” list after the Keepers are boxed up.

Anything else? I’ve never experienced this before, but especially at the beginning (that first third) the formatting was really bothering me. There wasn’t enough white space on the page or something. And reading through paragraphs of text I kept coming across places where I though there should have been a paragraph break.

I think that was part of the reason the first part was hard for me to get through. I think even just flipping through the book you can tell that later on there’s more white space later in the book.

Weird, huh?

My super awesome CP Kendra’s first full length book came out on Sunday.

What’s worse than being dead? For Ancient Aztec Warrior, Cenyaolt, it’s being cursed.
Once an Aztec Prince, now a servant to the lord of the underworld, Cenyaolt wants nothing more than to complete his ninth level of hell and rid himself of his father’s 500 year-old vendetta. But when the gods conspire to return him to Earth for the final task– the one that will end his torment–he lands straight in the arms of an ivory-skinned goddess. Will he be able to give up eternal peace for love?

Will she continue denying her abilities even if they’ll stop five hundred years of suffering?

It’s available now from Triskellion. Click on the pic below to be taken directly there.