I'm Alive!

I thought I should put something up here before it gets too stagnant. There's been a lot going on the past month or so -- I have been a busy little bee, if I do say so myself.

First off, my critique partner Thomma Lyn released her debut novel, Mirror Blue!

*squee* I'm so excited for her - the reviews are starting to come in, and I just know people will love the book as much as I did.

In the same vein, I got to meet the fabulous Debbie Mumford in the flesh yesterday. We had a great lunch, talked shop, and she is even cooler in person! Her novella The Silver Casket is releasing from Freya's Bower on August 18th, and I'm totally in love with her cover art. I had the pleasure of reading an early version of this story and highly reccomend it. :)

I've also joined a start-up critique group, run by Lynette Labelle. She's pulled together a good mix of writers and we even have a name: The Rumored Romantics. I'm excited to get started. I've never been a critique group before and look forward to trying out a different venue. You know we writers are always looking for extra sets of eyes. The more opinions the better, in my mind. I haven't decided which project I'll be throwing at these ladies for starters, but I'm sure it will be a fun learning experience.



On the writing front, I'm at the halfway point with my re-write of Inner Eye. As I get closer to the end, the rewrites will be less extensive, so I'm hoping to have this one wrapped up and shelved in the next few weeks. I've submitted it to 3 contests to sort of test the waters. Then, I just have to polish my query packet and start throwing it at some agents. I'm both excited and nervous. I've put A LOT of work into this book, and if it doesn't find a home, that will be hard to swallow. On the flip side, I know the number one thing that keeps people going in this business is believing in themselves, so I do have hope!



I've done a little bit of reading recently, but not a lot. I think the most surprising was the Vampire Queen duo by Joey W. Hill. I enjoyed the Storywitch's writing so much, I even went and bought one of her early Ellora's Cave titles. The emotional depth, well-woven backstories, and top-notch writing have really made me re-think a lot of my own prejudices against the erotic romance genre (which I didn't even realize I had until I was surprised by how good these books were. *g*).



I'm still working down my list of exciting releases I mentioned in the spring. Devon Monk's 2nd in her Ally Beckstrom series lived up to my excitement. I have yet to read Lover Avenged, though from the sounds of it, BDB fans are pleased.



I've decided to nail myself down with an actual deadline for my new blog/website. Rain or shine, it will launch August 15th, so I've got my work cut out for me. I'll try to ease into the blogoshere between now and then, and spread the word. I have a few ideas for a little launch party. We'll see.



Time to get rolling!


~G

HAPPY HAPPY DAY!

My thank-the-stars-I'm-so-lucky-to- have-her critique partner Thomma Lyn is celebrating the release of her novel Mirror Blue today, from Black Lyon publishing's Literary Love Story imprint.

I just had to publicly squee.

The eBook is available from Black Lyon today, and the paperback will be available next week.

I plan on doing both a review and an interview in the coming weeks, and Thomma Lyn is on a virtual book tour through June. If you're hunkering for a character-driven story to suck you in and pull on your heartstrings, I *highly* recommend this book.

Here's the blurb:

He’s her first chance at love.
She’s his last.

Free spirit Aphra Porter never thought Isaac Lightfoot would remember
the letter she wrote to him years before. But by some miracle, he does. Now a
successful Web site designer in her thirties, Aphra meets the man whose writing
talents she’s always idolized—an encounter that leaves her spinning. No longer
is Isaac a distant image, but a flesh and blood man who looks at her like no one
has looked at her before.

A critically acclaimed author and Vietnam war hero, Isaac is one tough
bear of a man. Faced with the physical and emotional scars of war, a
relationship with a daunting age difference, and an ex-wife bent on tearing
Aphra from his life, he’s about to learn that leaving the past behind and
building a new life can be the toughest battle of all.

New Release this Week from Wild Child

Star Stepping: An Anthology of Fantasy and Sci-Fi Tales

Written by Various

Stories Included:

Beneath and Beyond by Debbie Mumford

Archaeologist Erin Carstedter is a no-nonsense kind of gal. If something can't be defined by scientific method, it doesn't exist. Erin's beliefs are about to be tested by a ruin beneath the polar ice cap. What Erin discovers in those icy depths will challenge her thinking...and change the world.

Read excerpt.

That Old Sweet Smell of Deception by Martin Owton

An ancient dragon tempted out to war for the first time in centuries finds the world greatly changed and dragons a rarity. Does an enemy wizard hold the key to saving dragonkind?

Read excerpt.

Fatal Wager by Andy Heizeler

Read excerpt.

A Pixie Story by Joe Miller

Miike awoke to find himself in a strange land. To then find himself surrounded by a whole hoard of pixies, each one with an arrow aimed at his heart, one could hardly guess how things would turn out.

Read excerpt.

The Honorable Lady by Kim Knox

Royal officials are vanishing and Evia-ben-Thiak doesn't intend to be one of them.

As a high-ranking member of the court, she fears for her life. So, she takes the only option open to her. She hides on a boat sailing to her home-island.

However, the boat is not the sanctuary she hoped for. A friend from her childhood, the now-feared sorcerer, Makovik is also onboard. To be seen with him could end her career; have her thrown in the deepest dungeon. But more than that, she finds he has a plan.

And his actions will change her life forever...

Read excerpt.

Wakinyan's Valley by Debbie Mumford

In a post-apocalyptic world, Mark Whitehorse and his friends search for a safe haven where they can raise their families. When they stumble across a hidden valley, they believe their search is over. But the valley is already inhabited. Will the band of survivors find refuge...or something else entirely?

Read excerpt.

Storms of Light and Shadow by Patrice Sarath

Some gifts are better left unopened.

Read excerpt.

Under a Full Moon by Tom Fowler

A weretiger wizard immune to the lunar cycles suddenly finds himself caught in a painful transformation -- one he suspects was caused by someone else. Can he stop it before he becomes a rampaging monster, and can he find the man who did this to him?

Read excerpt.

Casey by Noelle Sterne

An ordinary junior high school boy, Casey suffers the trials of a teenager until one day his life is changed forever.

Read excerpt.

Bastet by R. S. Pyne

Captain Kai Brenhin Righa of the corsair fighting ship Raven is quite happy not being human. The transition came without warning, a blessing from a stowaway with the face of an ancient Earth Goddess and a strange sense of humor. Now Bastet is back and she needs a favor.

Read excerpt.

Nana Genevieve by Julie Nordeen

As science creates robots that behave more and more like humans, how will we know when they cease to be our creations and become self-aware beings of their own? Nana Genevieve knows. And she'll make sure the world understands...if it's the last thing she ever does.

Read excerpt.

The Tie That Binds by Debbie Mumford

Twin brothers Cameron and Kyle McClellan have always shared a psychic bond. Though the adult men lead very different lives, when career military officer Kyle is wounded in Iraq, Cameron's ability to decipher their special link may mean the difference between his brother's life and death.

Read excerpt.

Genre: Science Fiction/Fantasy
Book Length: Novel
Price: $5.95
Buy it here.

A Secret in the Cellar

A good friend of mine has a short story published in the Membra Disjecta e-Zine by Drollerie Press.

It's a touching story with a bittersweet ending, and I'm a sucker for those. I can't say too much because I don't want to spoil the secret. Just trust me - it's good!

A Secret in the Cellar

I may be slightly biased, but I think I could take up house inside Eden's imagination and live quite happily there. And she's just getting started.

Double Take

Here's a quick blurb on a fellow Diva's new release. It sounds très steamy. Congrats Tawny!

Double Take
by
Tawny Taylor
(BDSM/Menage a trois/Gay)

Fallon dreamed of a dominant lover for years. Giving it all to a man who can master her sexually. What she never imagined was not one, but two dominant lovers, determined to make her wildest sexual dreams a reality. But perfect lips and to-die-for bodies aside, the identities behind her new Masters’ masks aren’t the only secret they’re keeping.

As Fallon is pulled further into the erotic web they weave, she realizes that being submissive to two dominant men isn’t just about the sensations they can rouse in her, but the emotions they unleash.

The biggest surprise is yet to come, the one that can either set her free to share a love and a life she never dreamed possible, or break her heart forever.

Read an excerpt/Buy

Tawny
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Wicked-Hot Erotic Fiction

The Mask She Wears

A quick teaser from a fellow Diva. You can visit Jennifer's blog here.
I'm intrigued . . .

In the BDSM lifestyle, Catherine Lanyard is an extreme submissive with serious baggage. For years, she’s avoided her pain and hidden dark secrets. Now, an experienced Dom has broken through her barriers and forced her to face her fear. Sex was always a give and take for Justin Travers. He’d always kept his “lifestyle” practices separate from real life. But when Catherine blurs that boundary, he must decide what he really wants.

BUY IT HERE

More Diva Love

Jenna Bayley-Burke has her first release from Samhain - 'Her Cinderella Complex'. I've read an excerpt of this, and it's smokin'! It's on my TBR list, and that's not even my genre. (Cute cover too!). Go and check it out!

She’s got the man—and the wedding—of her dreams. If only love were part of the fantasy.

Heather Tindall is temping as a personal assistant until her dream job as an event planner comes along. Worse, her new boss has a penchant of running off new assistants before lunch. Heather’s not about to let her spotless employment record be ruined by a real estate mogul with an attitude problem, no matter how well he fills out a suit.

At first Curtis can’t believe the nerve of the woman who refuses his order to leave. Six months into their working relationship, her dedication still manages to surprise him. But her best efforts to protect his personal life can’t keep the press from seeing him as anything more than a playboy. Then it dawns on him that the perfect solution is right under his appointment book—Heather.
Swept off her kitten heels, Heather can’t help but accept the proposal of the man with whom she’s fallen in love. She hopes that in time he’ll come to feel something for her.

Curtis is determined not to feel anything, for anyone, ever. He’ll do anything Heather wants—but he’s not going to fall in love with her.

Except that will never do for a girl with a Cinderella Complex…

Read An Excerpt Online

Buy it today from My Bookstore and More

Diva Love

Fellow Diva Adelle Lauden will be chatting Friday and Saturday this week with Zinnia Hope and M. E. Ellis at Zinnia Hope's yahoo group. Stop by, say hello and find out about what these three authors are up to!

Romance Divas eBook Challenge

Happy Valentines Day!

The Divas have arranged a special treat for you - FREE eBooks! That's right, a whole bunch of Divas got together and wrote something special for you in celebration of V-day. Visit the Romance Divas website for a complete listing of stories. LINK

Here is my contribution, a contemporary paranormal short (8500 words), heat rating: sensual.

Kelly Lincoln is a society reporter convinced that playboy Forrest Meydenbauer is a murderer. All she has to do is prove it. But when he turns the rules of their game of cat and mouse upside down, Kelly's left to wonder if even her sharply honed instincts could be played false. What is she willing to bargain in order to uncover the truth?

Download Now (Adobe PDF)

If you can't read a PDF, contact me to arrange another file type.

'On the Run' Promo for St. Jude's

Just helping out a fellow Diva - all the proceeds of this book go to St. Jude's Hospital for Children - which is an awesome organization.


On the Run
by Judith Rochelle
Rose
PRINT ISBN 1-60154-214-3
(240 pages) Sensual



When Robin Fleming witnessed the murder of her sister, Jamie, her only thought is to grab her nephew and run, from her vicious brother-in-law. Running and hiding, covering their tracks, they eventually settle in Memphis to begin a new life. Robin, now Laura, though still grieving for her sister, is determined to make a good life for her nephew. Then illness hits Andy, and while Laura is dealing with that crisis, bad luck and unfortunate circumstances bring all the players together again and endanger everyone’s lives. Can Dr. Gage Hollander, who has fallen in love with Laura, find a way to save them?

Available now from The Wild Rose Press....ALL Proceeds going to ST. JUDE'S CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL

From Rhonda Penders, Editor-in-Chief, The Wild Rose Press:

Judith Rochelle, is one of our multipublished authors at The Wild Rose Press. In late summer, 2007 I approached her with an idea of a project that would enable RJ and me to give something back for all the wonderful things that had happened to us since we opened in May 2006. I wanted to find an organization that I felt everyone, everywhere would care about and really embrace. While many qualified, the one that kept coming back to my mind was St. Jude's Children's Hospital.

A few days later, Judith created a synopsis and a proposal for a book incorporating romance, suspense and St. Jude's. It took my breath away at what she'd come up with. Judith wrote the book, RJ and I edited it, and Kim Mendoza did the beautiful cover. None of us, including the publishing company, will receive any compensation; every penny will go to St. Jude's. Children's Hospital.

The result of this, is the amazing Crimson Rose book called "On the Run" by Judith Rochelle.
The book will be offered in both print and electronic format. The amount raised will be announced on our web site twice a year. The first report to be posted at the end of June 2008.

If you've purchased this book, thank you for your contribution to St. Jude's, if you haven't purchased it yet, I strongly encourage you to do so. The download is $5.00 and will go into a special fund to be donated to St. Jude's twice a year.

I've been very very blessed to have not only three very healthy sons, but cousins and nephews and nieces and children in my life who have been healthy and happy and strong. Sometimes we all have to take a reality check and realize that there are families out there truly suffering due to their children's long term illnesses. Maybe some of these children are in your family and circle of friends. St. Jude's is an amazing hospital in Memphis, TN that supports and helps families and children of long term illnesses.

If you would like more information on this project, you may contact Rhonda Penders at rpenders@thewildros epress.com. To learn more about the author, please visit www.judithrochelle.com. To see the amazing work St. Jude's does, please visit their web site at www.stjude.org

Thank you for your support of this important project.

Rhonda Penders