2010 Wrap Up – Bring on 2011!

31 December, 2010 by

I’ve been thinking a lot this week about the past year. Kind of reflecting on what worked and what didn’t so I can work on my goals for 2011. I also made a list of everything I accomplished. Here are some of the highlights. In list form I think it looks pretty good. Even if the year did seem to go by waaay too fast!

Had 8 new books come out

  1. Lucas
  2. Kane
  3. Fire & Desire
  4. Dirty Deeds
  5. Slave To Pleasure
  6. Black Moon Rising
  7. Bottoms Up
  8. Midnight Playground

2 of those books made the overall Top 10 list at All Romance eBooks – (Slave To Pleasure and Bottoms Up) this was a first for me. I usually have best sellers by category but it came as a wonderful surprise to be in the top 10 of all books sold. Very exciting times.

In 2010 I wrote 231,000 words.

I experimented with Self Publishing – I’ll probably talk about this in more detail on the new writing blog I’ll be debuting on Monday.

I wrote more blog posts than I care to count - Keeping up with blogs can be hard to do but I’m trying. :)

Attended 6 book related conventions – RT, DragonCon, Authors After Dark, ConCarolinas, Fetish Fair Fleamarket,  & Leather Fet

Sat on 6 panels on such subjects as BDSM, writing sex, marketing, shapeshifters and general supernatural beings. (Three of those panels were videotaped and posted on the blog earlier in the year)

Did my first public reading – 2 actually and ended up having a LOT of fun.

Attended my first Social Media convention – this was done for the day job but I learned all kinds of goodies about branding, SEO and social networking.

Read 80 novels, novellas and short stories

Discovered several new to me authors that are now auto buys.

It’s been a pretty good year and I’m quite thankful for everything. Especially the readers who continue to buy my books and make it possible for me to keep writing. Thank you!

Now I’m off to ring in the new year.


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Happy Holidays & Saturday Snippet

25 December, 2010 by

Since Saturday Snippet falls on Christmas not only will I be offering up a holiday excerpt I’ve put together a little photographic gift for you. Some Christmas eye candy. My family spoiled the heck out of me and I have all kinds of cool new stuff. I will have to show off some of the True Blood stuff this week. I hope you are enjoying this most fabulous holiday! We drove north about 80 miles to visit family for Christmas and to our delight it’s snowing like crazy here. I love it!

Today’s excerpt comes from my free short story free read, White Cougar Christmas. It’s been a while since I’ve written a cat shifter book and I’m missing them. You can find this short stuff under the fun stuff tab on my website.

Excerpt from White Cougar Christmas:

“What’s a woman like you doing in a bar like this all alone on Christmas Eve?”

Niki rolled her eyes not even interested in turning to face the drunk who dared to hit on her tonight. Feeling surly enough to rip someone’s head off she growled low in her throat. A warning she hoped the idiot would heed.

“What was that?”

No such luck. He was either too stupid or too drunk to realize how close he was to death. Rules be damned she needed a release and a little violence was one way to get it.

She eased herself from the stool, straightening the leather halter she’d chosen for the night, making sure the optimal amount of distracting cleavage showed. Heat surged through her system as she prepared for a fight and she turned to the annoying stranger.

When he got a good look at her his eyes bulged in his head and she could have sworn drool dripped from his mouth. Spying the glazed over look in his eyes and the soft fleshy musculature of his arms, not to mention the beer belly, she knew this would be far too easy. She’d have him on the ground and broken to her will in less than thirty seconds. It wasn’t even worth the trouble. No satisfaction would come from a man like this. She needed a fight or a fuck but it needed to be fair.

“I suggest you move on before I lose what little patience I have left.”

“Want to play hard to get huh?” his words slurred together causing her stomach to roll in disgust. This idiot had no idea what he was toying with.

Concentrating inward, thinking about the cougar inside, she closed her eyes and imagined the ice blue glow of her own eyes when she shifted. Satisfied that she’d controlled herself just enough, she opened her eyes and bared her fangs at the helpless stranger. He may not be much sport but beating the hell out of him would still feel good none the less.

Her hand shot out to grasp his neck but was grabbed instead by someone crazy enough to step between her and her prey. Her snarl of frustration sounded in the bar, garnering the attention of more than a few patrons. But the warmth of the hand encircling her wrist distracted her, reminding her why she’d come to the bar in the first place.

She didn’t want to spend Christmas alone this year. “Hey pal, this lady is mine, no poaching allowed.” “I just saved your life, now be a good little drunk and order another drink from the bar before I change my mind and throw you out of here.”

His voice flowed over her like warm butter, all silky smooth as he spoke to the idiot without taking his eyes from her. Her heart pounded in her chest as his unwavering gaze traveled over her. Tall and lean, he had the body of a warrior not one sculpted in a gym. She could smell the cougar on him, a wild and reckless scent that made her nipples tighten and her nostrils flare as she took in more.

Be sure to follow the trail for more snippety goodness.

Jody Wallace
Leah Braemel
TJ Michaels
Lissa Matthews
Mari Carr
McKenna Jeffries
Taige Crenshaw
Delilah Devlin
Sasha White

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Red Hot Christmas Eve

24 December, 2010 by

I am so excited it’s finally Christmas Eve. That’s a full day of baking and a night full of… Well, I probably shouldn’t say that in a blog huh?

In case y’all are wondering, no I haven’t been drinking the holiday wine…yet. DH did bring home four bottles from the office luncheon though. *g*

I thought I would share some of my favorite holiday recipes. Of course, I thought we all needed a hot guy to get us started and this one reminds me of home. Home is in Florida (yep I was actually born and raised there) and this year my mom isn’t visiting so I miss home a little bit more than usual.

Now on to some recipes. None of these will likely be new to all of you. We do love the classics around my house. Although we leave the sugar cookie cutouts to my mom since she has a secret amazing recipe I don’t have my hands on yet.

Normally I like to bake a bunch of different things but this year I am on a diet and really happy with my weight loss so far so I decided to cut back a little but still enjoy the favorites for two days. So we settled on three things this year.

The Red Hot Chocolate bark, because its so easy and fun to give away. Peanut butter blossoms because it’s what the kids and DH LOVE.  And Chocolate chip cheesecake because it’s one of my favorite desserts to make and take to a holiday dinner. So how about some recipes?

Red Hot Chocolate Bark  

Ingredients

  • 8 ounces  white chocolate, broken into chunks
  • 1/3 cup  red cinnamon candies such as Red Hots candy

Directions

1. Place a sheet of wax paper on a plate and set aside. In a heavy saucepan melt chocolate over medium-low heat, stirring often.

2. For this step you have to move fast.

When chocolate is melted, remove from heat. Stir in about 1/3 of the cinnamon candies and immediately turn chocolate out onto wax paper. With the back of a spoon, spread out chocolate mixture until candies are in a single layer. Sprinkle remaining candies on top and place in freezer for 10 to 15 minutes or until hard. Leave bark in freezer until ready to break off pieces to serve. Break off pieces to serve. Makes 4 servings

Peanut Butter Blossoms

Okay this recipe is a total cheater. If you are unlike me and prefer homemade from scratch cookies, AllRecipes.com has some execellent choices.

For today I am using a peanut butter cookie mix that I bought and all I have to do is add water and oil.

I bake the cookies, I’ve rounded into a ball and while they cook I unwrap all the hershey kisses and do my darndest not to eat too many. As soon as they come out of the oven I squish a kiss right in the center of the cookie. Actually the kids do this part because even though they are teens they never get too old for these. I also like to sprinkle some of them with red or green sugar to make them look even more christmasy. :)

Chocolate Chip Cheesecake

2 (3-oz) packages of cream cheese, softened
1 (14-oz.) can Eagle® Brand Sweetened Condensed Milk (NOT evaporated milk)
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup mini-chocolate chips
1 teaspoon flour
1 (6-oz.) Ready Crust Chocolate Pie Crust
Chocolate Glaze (recipe follows)
Chocolate Curls (optional)

Preheat oven to 350°. With mixer, beat cheese until fluffy, gradually beat in Eagle Brand until smooth. Add egg, vanilla; mix well.
Toss chips with flour; stir into cheese mixture. Pour into crust.
Bake 35 minutes or until center springs back when lightly touched. Cool and top with glaze and curls. Serve chilled. Refrigerate leftovers.

Chocolate Glaze: Melt 1/2 cup mini-chocolate chips with 1/4 cup whipping cream; cook and stir until thickened and smooth. Immediately spread over pie.

Now that I am dying for some Christmas yummies. Let me leave you with a different kind of yummy altogether.

My good friend and fellow author, Lissa Matthews has a Christmas Eve release today from Ellora’s Cave and OMG the cover is… *swoon*  I’m just going to post the cover and blurb here for you. She blogged today at Kiss and Tell and you can go there to read more about it. :)

Happy Christmas Eve!

Eliza

By night, Mandi is a waitress in her best friend’s adult entertainment club, complete with long raven hair and bright violet eyes. By day, she’s a boutique jewelry maker with a flair for the occasional naughty design. She’s shy, quiet, a definitive Plain Jane, and completely in lust with the one man that wouldn’t ever be interested in her. He’s big, menacing, and inspires every one of her dirty girl desires. If birthday wishes came true, he would hers.

Tattoo artist. Business owner. Lover of vintage cars. And drummer. Jaz is far from the normal, average guy. Built like a brick wall and inked from head to toe, he can scare the faint of heart with just a look, but the faint of heart isn’t what interests him, isn’t what fuels his fantasies and keeps him hard from dawn to dusk. It’s her: the waitress, his sister’s friend, the birthday girl.

Without having told a soul of her attraction, Mandi is given the best present ever. Jaz. And she’s got one night to make every wicked thought and erotic dream she’s had about him come true.

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Christmas Winners!

21 December, 2010 by

I have to confess that when I start a project I tend to become a little single minded. On Saturday I sat down to edit one of my older out of print books with plans to do it in one day. HAHA What a funny thought. Three days later it’s done and I’m behind on everything else.

I can’t believe it’s so close to Christmas though. I managed to squeeze in a little more shopping tonight but that was mostly just because I was dying to get out of the house. I really DO NOT need to buy anything more. lol

How’s your holiday shaping up? Done with your Christmas shopping or are you a last minute shopper?

Thanks for hanging in there and waiting for me to post the Christmas Reading winners. The following two people won their choice of eBook from my reading list. (using random.org of course)

Ursula

and

elaing8


CONGRATS LADIES!!!

Since I always use the All Romance gifting program when giving away other author’s books. I need the winners to send me the email address they use at ARe or if you don’t have an account the email address you would like to use for your free account. You will then get a an email with your free gift. Easy Peasy, I promise.

I still have lots more Christmas cheer to share including some of my favorite pictures and recipes throughout the week.

Happy Monday!

Eliza

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Reading Christmas

17 December, 2010 by

One of my favorite things about the Holidays are all the Christmas books available. I find myself very much in the holiday spirit this year and I’ve been buying and or grabbing the Christmas freebies like crazy. (I won’t even mention my obsession with watching Christmas movies on Lifetime in December. lol)

I wanted a little variety but somehow ended up mainly with contemporary Christmas books. I’ll have to dig through my archives and see what else I have. I’d bet there are some paranormal holiday books I have somwhere that I haven’t read yet.

And this weekend I’ll be queuing up my favorite christmas movie, Christmas Vacation. But first I’m going to read some books. Here are some of the books I’ve loaded to my reader. Want to read some with me?

How about you? Are you reading holiday books this time of year? I love hearing about what others are reading which is probably why I love GoodReads so much. Since I can go there any time day or night and get recommendations.

All three of these have received good reviews so I am looking forward to reading them.

For two lucky readers I am going to give away one of these christmas books to you. So click on the covers read about the books and tell me in the comments whether you’d like to read All She Wants 4 Christmas, Mistletoe at Midnight or Christmas Stalking.

I’ll be back tomorrow to announce a winner and share some holiday pictures. :) I’m on my way out to a Holiday Dinner party so I might be sleeping in tomorrow morning. ;)

Eliza

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