Five months or so ago, in the midst of the very stressful and time-consuming task of forcibly downsizing my parents’ living situation, a wonderful thing started to happen. An opportunity for a full-time job sort of evolved in an industry I left in 2003 and never thought I would re-enter. All I can say is this path felt more clear, sensible, and stimulating than the idea of continuing to write when I can’t seem to earn the support of more than a few people who buy books. So, I’m starting this week on a new/old professional journey.

Local readers often ask if I’m working on the next book. I have a few in my head, in both my existing series and one totally different story, but writing them is another thing. The inclination exists, the love for the written word and my characters is still there. I just can’t imagine I’ll have time. If I choose to continue, it will begin again as a hobby, which is how I started, after all.

Thank you for visiting my blog and website, and for being one of the fans who enjoys my writing. I’m sure I’ll be distracted by this new chapter for awhile. Hopefully, one day, some characters will become so loud in my head that I’ll start to let them out again. And when that happens, I’ll definitely be talking about it here!

In this scene, Gratia has been trying to avoid a woman claiming to be her husband’s mistress by hiding in the darkness of a garden overlooking the Danube River. Her husband, Leo, has been gone with the emperor for over six months—most of their new marriage—and she fears this temptress is part of the reason why. As she hides, she presses herself against the high stone wall, enjoying the warmth left from the day, when a man suddenly steps up behind her and traps her.

“You should not be out here alone,” he said in a harsh whisper. The man smelled like horse and sweat and the thick dust of hard travel.

“Move away,” she squeaked. She could not free her hands nor turn her head far enough to see her attacker.

“Are you waiting for someone?” he rasped as he dared move his body close to hers, close enough she felt a heavy belt buckle press at the small of her back. “Perhaps a lover will meet you here in the dark, far from the light of the torches outside the house?”

“Move away,” she repeated, glad her voice carried more authority this time, though not enough to make the cur step back. What should she do? With what could she threaten him? “My cousin, the Lord of Regensburg, will hear of this!”

“Are you under his protection, then?” The whisper sounded angry now. Good. He should know he assaulted a woman of means, not some unguarded peasant.

“I am a guest here,” she snipped. “I also have a husband and a father who will—”

“Ah, so you do remember you have a husband.”

A shiver coursed down her spine like cold, inky river water as the whisper resolved into a deep voice on the word “husband.”

Her breath caught. “Leo?”

I really love this couple. Each of them is hurt and unsure, and they struggle to find the way back to each other over one tempestuous night.

If anyone would like a free review copy, please email me or comment below.

Love Like A River is available on Amazon for only 99 cents!

BLURB:

What is new bride Gratia to think when her husband’s been gone for six months and a woman claiming to be his lover attends her sister’s house party? Unsuspecting Leo returns eagerly home to a wife who isn’t there. When he finally locates her in a moonlit garden by the Danube, the reunion of these newlyweds sizzles with anger, accusations, and denied passion as each tries to find a path to the marriage they both desire. Love Like A River is Book Six in the Evolution Series set in Charlemagne’s Empire and is a novella of 11,000 words.

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EXCERPT

She lifted the new summer fruit, yellow and fuzzy. He hadn’t had a peach since last year. His mouth watered. Without another word, she found a knife and cut a tiny, crescent sliver, releasing juice down the side of her hand. He could smell the sugary flesh as she lowered it to his mouth, deftly slipping the thin bite between his lips. The ripe pulp crushed succulently between his tongue and palate with a burst of flavor and sweet liquid. The strip of resilient skin rubbed satisfyingly in his mouth, giving him the welcome sensation of eating something substantial. She fed him one delicious bit after another until the entire globe of perfection was gone. She wiped her hands on a damp cloth, now smiling as though he had conquered not only Rome, but Athens, as well. He had forgotten those tiny dimples on her cheeks. He sighed as his stomach growled again, beginning the forgotten work of handling solid nourishment. He could not hold his eyes open another minute, dropping back into sleep, despite the distraction of fingers brushing the hair from his forehead.

END OF EXCERPT

Amazon http://amzn.com/B00BNETIG4

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Kobo http://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/ebook/vain-1

Smashwords http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/284641

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This excerpt shows Susan’s spunk as she argues with Alexander late one night in her backyard about his plans when he returns to England.

EXCERPT

“So you’re The Viscount of Nowhere.”

“Temporarily. When I marry well, I will repay my brother-in-law and return to my position.”

“Oh yes, the English girl again.” Susan sashayed to the well, holding her skirts wide as she lighted primly on the opposite side, trying to act as the proper English girl would though she had no real idea how that would be. “She must have money, tolerance for your mother, and must stay indoors after dark.”

“You possess the tongue of an asp.”

Susan shrugged. “If this woman holds the key to your life, why aren’t you in England finding her?”

“You do not comprehend the first thing about my life.”

“Maybe not, but I know I didn’t see one rich Englishwoman between Baltimore and here. It occurs to me you don’t really want one.”

“Ridiculous.” He shoved away from the well. Susan followed him as he hastened toward the house.

“Wait. I’m about to explain your life. If you don’t want the wife, then you don’t really want Furnivall, do you? Like I said, you are not sure who you are!”

He paused on the porch, turning to her slowly, his piercing eyes shooting daggers. “Your powers of inaccurate deduction astound me.”

“You strung together a lot of big words but I think you said I’m wrong. How?” She hopped on the porch to stand right in front of him, close enough to count the individual whiskers on his shadowy chin.

A ragged sigh tore through him. He lifted a lock of her hair, rubbing the strands between his thumb and finger as if testing the value. Susan’s breath locked in her throat. “It is all wrong, Susan.”

His scent wafted around her, spicy and unique. She stared into his eyes and saw trouble. Confusion, anger, and something else – something more base – blended into a turbulence of blue. “I’m not wrong, Alex.”

“Are you not, with your bare feet?”

“Yours are too,” she said defensively.

END OF EXCERPT

Conversation gets pricklier than a cactus and desert temperatures are bound to rise when American common sense meets British nobility in Arizona Territory. To learn more about the story, visit the Sass Meets Class page, or you can find it at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, iTunes, Kobo, and Smashwords.

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In this passage from historical romance Unbidden, the heroine endures a journey in the unexpected snow as her villainous brother-in-law kidnaps her to Bavaria. Since many of us are feeling the effects of holiday spending, I offer this first book in my series for FREE. Treat yourself to a warm, sensual read with a classic hero and a feisty heroine.

EXCERPT

Snow began to fly on the third day, setting up a night of misery. Rochelle couldn’t help but imagine how different it would be if David were curled behind her. She wondered if he slept safe in their bed. The thought of that chilled her as much as the weather, that he might be ensconced at Alda while Doeg dragged her across the empire. Her thoughts preyed on her. She swung the gamut of imagining him healthy or dead or every possibility in between. Healthy meant he’d sent her away from him, her home, and their marriage. Injured or dead meant Doeg had finally succeeded at whatever nefarious motivation drove him. If that was the case, however, what did he want from her now?  For what purpose would he kidnap her?  Exhaustion eventually stemmed the wild flow of her thoughts, letting her sleep.

A wet covering of snow as deep as the horses’ fetlocks coated the ground by morning. The further east they traveled, the more remote the surroundings became.

Doeg announced heartily, “We will pass Eichstadt today. Tonight we sleep in a hut, and by tomorrow we should arrive at Atrum Calx, if the snow does not slow us down too badly.” He’d become less arrogant, perhaps even a bit cautious with her of late. He acted like someone who had belatedly realized his own blunder, finding himself set on a track he could not leave.

“What will you do with me there?” Rochelle asked cautiously, trying to make out his purpose.

“I will show you the estate,” he replied, “after you have had a day or so to rest, of course.

The strange answer threw her, but his caring whether she had rest was even stranger. They retreated into the usual uncomfortable silence, only heightened by the muffling effect of the falling snow.

END OF EXCERPT

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Unbidden is not free at these vendors, but still a bargain!

iTunes for 99 cents

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EXCERPT

He had never heard Lily sing, not consciously. He had never seen Lily dance. Had she ever really laughed in his presence?

They danced for over an hour, carried in the sea of sweaty bodies and injured toes. Theo bought ale and roasted nuts, and they sat on his cloak in the grass watching the chaos, then he pulled Lily back into the fray. When the musicians finally tired and the torches started to sputter out, he had to search in the darkness for his cloak while Lily giggled behind him. He finally found it, probably ruined by grass stains and people tramping on it. He flung it around his shoulders anyway. He took her hand in both of his.

“May I walk you home?” he asked earnestly, like a boy with his first love.

Her smile faded. She stared up at him, her face pale and her eyes wide in the light of the harvest moon.

END OF EXCERPT

What is Vain about? A tailor’s abandoned daughter fashions a vain nobleman’s tunic, finding passion between the neckline and hem as misfortune forces her into his precarious aristocratic world. Vain is book three in the Evolution Series, but stands alone as a story. In fact, I wasted two hours skimming back through Theo and Lily’s story, and decided it is my favorite.

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I was logging onto my Yahoo account, minding my own business, when an article about Yellowstone caught my eye. Since my current writing project centers around an eruption of Yellowstone, obviously I had a professional obligation to read said article. And then read every article linked within said article. I even understood most of it, though the unit “microstrain” must have been invented since I graduated with my geology degree in 1989.

Many folks, when I mention Yellowstone, say something like “Oh, it’s so beautiful there, I can’t wait to go back,” or “Visiting Yellowstone is on my bucket list.” The eruption concept of my series fuels a few to admit worry about impending volcanic activity at the USA’s first national park. (They get an A for even knowing about the possibility. I recently had a reviewer who actually asked in the middle of the review if Yellowstone was really a volcano. As if I would invent that plot twist, and as if he/she couldn’t have answered that question with a five-second online search. Definitely not a geek.) For those of you now scratching your heads, here is a list of key talking points about Yellowstone. If you have geek-like tendencies, you might want to know more, which is why I’ll tackle some of these as single topics in 2015.

1. Yellowstone is, at its essence, a volcanic caldera. That’s why it’s hot and steamy, like a great romance hero.

2. The potential of Yellowstone is massive. It is part of an elite club known by commoners like us as super-calderas. There is no firm definition of what constitutes a super-caldera, but to even apply to the club, a volcano must have emitted in a single eruption at least three hundred cubic kilometers of stuff. (Picture a solid block with each edge long enough to reach from New York City to Baltimore, Maryland.) Some scientists hold the bar quite a bit higher, at one thousand cubic kilometers. Yellowstone has done all that and more, so it’s a gold card carrying member.

3. Volcanoes are just local events, right? Wrong. Remember the volcano in Iceland that screwed up air travel in Europe for several weeks in 2010? During it’s troubling second phase, it ejected one quarter of one cubic kilometers of stuff, or a cube with edges equal to something like the long side of a city block in Manhattan. That is a trifling sneeze compared to a super-caldera (see point 2.)

4. Yellowstone will probably not erupt, and is much more likely to do so in a small way, like a tiny garden wedding as opposed to the mass weddings of the Unification Church.

5. Though even Yellowstone isn’t monitored as overwhelmingly as curious scientists would like, we’ll probably have warning signs of a massive eruption, so as long as you have a go-bag for the southern hemisphere, you’ll be fine. Or you’ll at least survive longer than the rest of us.

6. Of course, Yellowstone isn’t the only super-caldera to worry about.  There are at least six known on Earth. If any one of them cuts loose in your lifetime, buckle up.

Curious enough to dash down the path of geekdom? Here’s the article that got me meandering into this blog post in the first place, or you can follow my blog so you know when I post the next fact-filled blast.

And here’s a link to my Pinterest board where I collected images for my series. There are some really impressive photos of volcanic eruptions! I definitely want to see an active volcano in person some day, though I hope it is one that is sort of gurgling along, like Kilauea, not a super-caldera with the potential to end life as we know it.

Such a variety of authors should mean there will be something for everyone and, as a bonus, in the middle of the show Mallory Kane shares a few minutes of recent news in the world of romance books.

Hummingbird Place is also super-convenient. Recorded every Monday at 7PM EST, shows remain available for listening long after the broadcast, hence the term blog radio. Recent topics included “Naughty and Nice — Bad Boys/Bad Girls,” and historical romances separated by genre such as Revolutionary War, and Regency.

Check out Hummingbird Place if you need a few minutes to put your feet up and listen to a chat with real people who create the characters we all grow to love.

BLURB

Rochelle of Alda, a feisty Frank noblewoman, expects to continue her industrious life managing her family’s estate. When her emperor summons her to the palace to meet the skilled soldier she is required to marry, Rochelle engages in a battle for independence from David of Bavaria. As her own deceptions multiply, she suspects another of also plotting against their marriage. To her surprise, and too late, David’s passion and patience begin to win her heart. Can their love survive the tangled web of her schemes and the secret adversary David refuses to see?

In this excerpt of David and Rochelle’s first meeting, David has arrived to take Rochelle to the palace for the betrothal, and is dismayed to learn her mother has told her nothing about it.

EXCERPT

David turned his head as the noise from the door escalated, unsure what he expected to enter his life. Given her mother’s shocking hair, he didn’t hold his hopes too high for the girl’s appearance, no matter what Theo said. The need for deception to even get her to Aix did not indicate a particularly biddable personality. Based on the increasingly violent rattling from the latch, she couldn’t even open doors for herself.

He was about to climb the steps to offer assistance when the door finally wrenched open, releasing a storm of muttering about city workmanship and rotten carpentry carried in a whirlwind of deep blue linen. She all but flung herself onto the narrow staircase. Not exactly light of foot nor entirely graceful, she rushed down the stairs, noticing his presence in time to abruptly stop on the bottom step.

She stared at him.

From across the room he could feel the chill of cold caution. Even so, his concern about her looks evaporated. She stood taller than her mother, clear skinned, with eyes of a soft green. The gold circlet on her head held her veil neatly in place, covering what it was intended to cover. An unexpected desire to see the color of her hair shot through him. He could only approximate it from her eyebrows:  not quite brown, but certainly not red either. And her female attributes remained a mystery to him as well, hidden under layers of varying shades of blue, though a heavy gold girdle studded with aquamarines suggested narrow hips.

“Mother?” she queried.

David reluctantly turned to Marian, who, it appeared, had been watching him stare at her daughter. A small smile quirked her lips. Her tightly clasped hands now lay on her chest as if in prayer. She did not find her voice until David cleared his throat expectantly.

“Rochelle!” she said too loudly. “Theophilus, the gentleman who has helped us so much, sent this burly young man to escort ye to yer audience with the emperor. He is called David. A Bavarian, no less!”

David raised his brow at her rather obtuse explanation of his role in the upcoming event. Marian gave him a slight warning shake of her head. Well, if the woman hadn’t the courage to tell this girl the truth of the matter, he certainly did. He didn’t know much about getting along with women, but he guessed that starting his marriage with deception – and necessarily short-lived deception at that – could not be wise.

As he opened his mouth to explain exactly who he was, Rochelle spoke, “I do not see why I need an escort. I found the palace yesterday.”  She lowered herself off the last step and strode toward him with a confident swing of her arms. “But if Theophilus wants to share his guard, so be it.”

Marian bobbed her head. “It was quite thoughtful of him.”

David held up a hand. “I am not Theo’s guard. And did you just suggest you were wandering about the city yesterday, alone?”

Rochelle studied him assessingly. Yes, assessingly was the only word for it and, God help him, she was lovely up close. Her not brown, not red brows arched over green eyes flecked with hazel. A dusting of freckles decorated a thin nose that flared pertly at the nostrils. Her soft pink lips were slightly parted exposing straight teeth.

“Not alone. Our servant, Gilbert, was with me.”

“Gilbert, the bag of bones who opened the door?” David scoffed. “He could not keep a street rat away much less a pack of thieves. From this day forth, you will not leave here without an able-bodied man at your side.”  She smelled nice.

Rochelle placed her hands on her hips, pleasantly outlining a slim waist beneath her clothing. “What has given you the idea you can make pronouncements such as that to me?  I will go where I wish, when I wish, escorted or not, as I wish!”  Her chest heaved a bit and there were breasts under that tunic, he could tell, and damn it when was the last time he’d lain with a woman?  He mentally bridled himself. First, betrothal. Betrothal was the task set before him today. It was time to attend to that task.

He stepped forward, purposely crowding her and letting his hard gaze bore into her fiery eyes, daring her to challenge him. “I will tell you what gives me the right –“

Marian made a strangled sound before finding her words. “Ye should be going!  It will not do to be late to the palace.”

Rochelle eyed first him, then Marian, before backing away to grasp her mother’s hands. “Mother, I do wish you would reconsider. Certainly the nobles have forgotten your circumstances by now. Father would want you to have the honor of meeting Charlemagne’s son.”

Marian laughed a bit shrilly. “No, that is no place for me. Ye shall have the glory today, daughter. Here is your cloak.”  She kept babbling as she closed the gold and aquamarine clasp at the neckline of the pale blue garment. “David will keep you safe. Do as he says, my dear. He is in charge of you today. And possibly tomorrow.”

Rochelle chortled. “Mother, do not be ridiculous. This will be over in an hour or two and then we are going home!  Home, where I also do not require an escort!”  She fixed David with a significant look before she walked to the door, wrenched it open with relative ease, and stepped onto the street without him.

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With Violet’s perfect college semester underway, of course the Yellowstone caldera will erupt for the first time in 630,000 years.

Sign up for my newsletter so you don’t miss the fireworks, plus you’ll earn the chance to win some really cool swag – a choice of one of these nifty items made with a Yellowblown and an Eruption charm. I’ll pick the winner based on signup order after August 19 using random.org.

So many interesting bloggers are sharing my big news. There is a list of them and links below.

Visit these blogs to learn more about Eruption.

The Velvet Lair                    Happily Ever After          Reviews by Crystal

Lynda Bailey                        Tina Donahue                A Passion for Romance

Writing Dreams                    The Whole Shebang      Melissa Keir

D’Ann Linden                       The Pink Fuzzy Slippers   Some Like It Hotter

Storm Goddess Book Reviews