Sharing Obsessions with Carolyn Jewel

A desire that can’t be controlled…

Carson Philips is a witch on the run. For years, the notorious mage, Alvaro Magellan, has held her as his psychological prisoner. But once Carson gets a glimpse of the true extent of his evil, she flees Magellan’s mansion–stealing a stone talisman of unimaginable power on the way. Her only hope for survival is a demon who ignites a voracious hunger in her she can’t deny, a longing she can’t resist…

A hunger that can’t be sated…

Nikodemus is a warlord with a mission: Kill Magellan and his green-eyed witch at any cost. But when he meets the desperate Carson, the pull of her magic takes his breathe away. He’s not sure he can trust this tantalizing woman–she is his enemy–and less sure he can keep his hands off her. But Magellan will stop at nothing to reclaim what belongs to him. Can Nikodemus stop him before his desire for Carson destroys them both?

Thanks so much for inviting me to blog here, Fatin!

Today’s Topic: Sharing Obsessions

Through the magic of the internet, by the time you read this, I will be at the Romance Writer’s of America conference in San Francisco catching up on all the very best gossip and news. I intend to blog about the conference as well as Twitter it so feel free check it out.

I have a few obsessions. Writing, of course, is one of them; also Twitter, my iPhone, Adrian Paul and Jet Li. And books. Oh my. Books!!

My blog here today is about bookish obsessions. Share yours in the comments and I’ll send two lucky commenters an autographed copy of My Wicked Enemy plus an ARC of the sequel when the ARC is available and assuming they send me some. Xia’s story doesn’t have an official title yet, which is kind of lame for trying to describe what you’ll be getting. Right now I’m calling it His Wicked Witch, but who knows if it will stick? Anyway, the most awesome comment should share not just the obsession but a bit of the reason for the obsession.

If you are a reader, August 2008 is, I shall boldly state, a month to give a book lover palpitations.

Sherrilyn Kenyon’s Archeron anyone? I was at a signing on July 26 and I got the Waldenbooks bookseller in a headlock (not really) and forced her to admit that Acheron was in fact, in the back of the store. No matter how pitifully I begged or horribly I threatened, she would not even show me a copy.
Probably because she knew I’d snatch the book and start running. It’s 700 pages, she revealed but that’s all I could get out of her. There was a brief discussion about whether I should fill out an employment application so I could get hired and then read the book. If it weren’t for RWA, I might have done it.

I love Kenyon’s Dark Hunter series for the lovely tortured heroes and the spunky heroines. But mostly, besides Kyrian of Thrace, I love Archeron. He’s so awesomely powerful and hunky and hey, we know he had a thing with a demon since his daughter Simi is a demon. I’d like to know about that, please! I love Alpha heroes, as you might guess.

Stephanie Myers Breaking Dawn, the fourth book in her Twilight series. ::sigh:: I love this vampire series! It’s YA, but one of those YA books that adults will read, too. While I was at the signing noted above no fewer than three people came in to buy one of the books in the series. One was an 8th grade teacher who figured she needed to know what the fuss was about with her female students, one was 14 and had just finished Twilight, and the other was another adult woman. And now there’s going to be a movie!!
Squee!!!

I adore Edward but I love the pull Meyers has created in between her hero and heroine. How will this be resolved? Also, I think I have a thing for Jacob. The interesting thing with this series is that the awesome and sexy Edward is not an Alpha male and yet… ::swoon::

Then there’s Carolyn Jewel’s My Wicked Enemy. Nikodemus is a demon and he’s out to kill the heroine, Carson. Uh oh! The story is set in a contemporary world in which there are, indeed, demons such as fiends and the like. Certain humans have developed magical abilities that can stop demons from harming innocent humans. There’s a dark side to that power, though, and neither side, magic-wielding humans or demons, is entirely blameless in the enmity that exists between them. Since this is the part where I’m tooting my own horn, I’ll just say that so far the reviews have been great and I would love it if you decided to read my book.

Other series I love include J.R. Ward’s Black Dagger Brotherhood books. My favorite brother is Zsadist, followed by Vishous. And yours is? Reveal all in the comments, please. I’ve also developed a thing for Mejean Brook’s Demon series.

All right then. Spill, share your bookish obsessions! What books do you love and why?

Carolyn Jewel

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Jaci Burton Book Winner!

We have a winner! The winner of Jaci’s post is….

April S.!

Congrats April!

Please email Jaci at jaci @ jaciburton.com (without the spaces) and let her know what book off her Samhain backlist you’d like. Enjoy!

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SEDUCING MR. DARCY Book Winner!

We have a winner! The winner of Gwyn’s post is….

cyclops8!

Congrats cyclops8!

Please email me your addy at mad @ romancereaderatheart.com (without the spaces) so we can get the book sent out to you. Enjoy!

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Newest TBR additions!

Look what goodies I was able to get my hands on when I went to BAM earlier tonight?

KISS OF FURY by Deborah Cooke
TRIAL BY FIRE by Jo Davis
INTO THE FLAME by Christina Dodd
BEFORE THE SCANDAL by Suzanne Enoch
UNTOUCHABLE by Linda Winstead Jones
SURRENDER TO ME by Sophie Jordan
SEA FEVER by Virginia Kantra
MARKED BY MOONLIGHT by Sharie Kohler
NAUTI DREAMS by Lora Leigh
THE MISTRESS DIARIES by Julianne MacLean
SOME LIKE IT WICKED by Teresa Medeiros
FIRST BLOOD Susan Sizemore, Erin McCarthy, Chris Marie Green & Meljean Brook
DELICIOUS by Sherry Thomas

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VEIL OF MIDNIGHT by Lara Adrian

I love this series…I can’t wait to read Nik’s story. 🙂 Mark your calendars, it’s coming out in December!

BOUND BY BLOOD, ADDICTED TO DANGER, THEY’LL ENTER THE DARKEST–AND MOST EROTIC–PLACE OF ALL . . .

A warrior trained in bullets and blades, Renata cannot be bested by any man–vampire or mortal. But her most powerful weapon is her extraordinary psychic ability–a gift both rare and deadly. Now a stranger threatens her hard-won independence, a golden-haired vampire who lures her into a realm of darkness . . . and pleasure beyond imagining.

A combat-loving adrenaline junkie, Nikolai dispenses his own justice to enemies of the Breed–and his latest quarry is a ruthless assassin. One woman stands in his way: the seductive, cool-as-ice bodyguard, Renata. But Renata’s powers are put to the test when a loved one, a child, is threatened and she’s forced to turn to Niko for help. As the two join forces, as desire fans the flames of a deeper hunger, Renata’s life is under seige by a man who offers the exquisite pleasure of a blood bond–and a passion that could save or doom them both forever. . . .

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Donna Kauffman Discusses “That Moment”

Woo hoo! Hooray! This is The Week! The Week my newest book hits the stands!

Am I excited? Read on to find out the answer to that…. Well, check out the studly cover and find out a little about Finn and Felicity first…

“Donna Kauffman writes smart and sexy, with sizzle to spare!”

—Janet Evanovich

USA Today Bestselling Author

DONNA KAUFFMAN

THE BLACK SHEEP AND THE ENGLISH ROSE

With a few thorns…

******************************************************************************

BACK COVER:

Finn Dalton is the black sheep of his privileged family—because he’s always trying to do the right thing. But do good guys let bad girls go free? Ask British heiress Felicity Trent. Finn should have called the cops when he caught Felicity with a fortune in stolen jewels. But after the hot night they’d shared, betraying her meant he’d never have her again. Two years later, he discovers Felicity scantily clad and handcuffed to a bed in a posh Manhattan hotel room. Finn has three choices. Turn Felicity in. Turn her loose. Or turn her on…

Finn Dalton is bad boy personified. Felicity Trent should know; she’s a bad girl herself. But for Felicity, life as a jewel thief is almost as seductive as Finn is—and that’s dangerous. Because for a girl like her one night is all she needs to get what she wants, anything more means trouble. Now, with both of them after the same thing—the rarest of treasures—who gets there first might be the last thing they want…

Visit us at www.kensingtonbooks.com.

So…now that we’ve read, drooled, and perhaps required something shaken and stirred, we’re back to that am-I-excited thing. You see, I’ve been around the publishing world for a few years now. Okay, a lot of few years. My kids weren’t even in preschool when I first got published and now my youngest is heading off to college. And now, 40+ titles down the road, I often get asked if I still get excited when a new book comes out.

To which I respond: Duh! Like a kid on Christmas morning!

It never gets old. That Moment. I love That Moment, when I trek out to my local bookstore, a extra little bounce in my step (which might or might not have something to do with the celebratory Snickers bar I ate before leaving the house…) and I finally see, perched there on the shelf, beckoning to each and every passerby in all of its glossy, shiny, yet-to-be-dog-eared glory, proof that the story I sweat blood, tears, and Crunchy Cheetos to finish, drowning myself in Coke Zero and meditative hot baths (where there might have been some additional, meditative chocolate consumption happening – hey, it helps to, uh, calm your chakras. Or something. I heard. Somewhere. I think. It worked though! I don’t question why…) actually exists. For real. In book form. Published and everything. Right there. In public.

The story that, by the end, I was swearing would send me to an early grave, and had me convinced I’d never write again, and that if I had to deal with those two people for One More Day, I was going to switch from writing Happily Ever After’s to gritty serial killer novels where everyone ends up trapped with the psycho killer in the basement, and we have to wait until the very last page to find out whodunit. Which in this case? Would be ME.

That story. That lovely, lovely story-of-my-heart. That now, now that it’s done, and shiny and glossy and not-yet-dog-eared, is remembered with nothing but loving fondness. Sort of like the smile you give your child after the memories of natural childbirth have faded… (Which is possibly why the lead time after turning in a manuscript is about nine months before actual publication.) So, I stand in the bookstore, a stupid, loopy grin plastered on my face, some residual chocolate smears at the corners of my mouth, secretly jumping up and down and making quite a scene….inside my head, anyway, and thinking, “I did it! I did it! I wrote that!”

That part? Never gets old.

And it makes all the parts that come before it, the psycho, meditative, Crunchy Cheetos powder-covered parts, all worth it.

And this? This week happens to be That Week. I only get a few of them a year, so they’re a Rilly Big Deal for me, and so I thought I would share That Moment with you. (See? I told you it was exciting!) So! Everyone who comments on this blog entry will automatically be entered in a special drawing, to get the chance at their own Moment and win a copy of my next release, To All A Good Night, coming out this October. Only you get it before anyone else can get their grubby, chocolate smeared, orange powder covered fingers on it. Just You. The envy of all your friends, not to mention a great excuse for a celebratory Snickers bar. (If it wasn’t ninety million degrees outside, I’d mail one to you with the book. But that might take that whole chocolate smears part to a new level we really don’t want to experience.)

So, comment with abandon! And please, enjoy a special chocolate moment with me this week. Hey, it’s an excuse. And that’s often all we need. (I know. I’m so giving like that. But I live to serve. And not eat chocolate alone.) Good luck! Aaaaaand……type!

This Christmas, sugarplums aren’t the only visions that will be dancing in your head. Prepare to have your toes curled by some of the holiday’s hunkiest heroes in this hot, hot, hot collection. . . .

Donna Kauffman
Unleashed
When Emma Lafferty is hired by a billionaire CEO to watch his pets over the holidays, she expects to enjoy a quiet Christmas in opulent surroundings. What she doesn’t expect is to spend the week trapped in the mansion with the CEO’s sexy great-nephew-and heir-whose motives are as shady as his desire is crystal clear….

Jill Shalvis
Finding Mr. Right
Brilliant chemist Maggie Bell has a knack for choosing Mr. Wrong, and with yet another lonely Christmas looming, she decides it’s time to alter the equation-and seek out someone who seems totally wrong for her. Enter Jacob Wahler, the rough and rippling contractor who’s about as far from Maggie’s type as he could get. But suddenly what’s wrong for Maggie seems oh-so-right..

HelenKay Dimon
Can You Hand Me the Tape?
Natalie Pritchard is desperate. It’s a week before Christmas and she’s lost the naughty tape she made for her now-ex-boyfriend. She’s so desperate, in fact, that she’ll turn to her nemesis Spencer Donovan for help. The sexy criminal defense attorney would be only too happy to assist-but can Natalie afford his price?

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Marked Series by S.J. Day

Found this at S.J.’s site. Had to share since I recently got the chance to read EVE OF DARKNESS, Book 1 in her new Marked series. It’s early, but mark your calendars, if EVE OF DARKNESS is anything to go by, this series is going to ROCK! 🙂

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Beautiful…

Go see Lauren Dane’s reaction to getting a galley of her book, UNDERCOVER. 🙂 So thrilled for her!

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Jaci Burton Talks Opposites Attracting

A romantic game of chicken—and they’re both too stubborn to flinch.

Lucy Fairchild, lawyer and heiress to the Fairchild fortune, has just had the worst day of her life. Her father has found the perfect man for her to marry. Yes, she’s thirty and single, but that doesn’t give her father the right to run her life. She’ll choose her own husband—someday.

Jake Dalton is struggling to make his fledgling construction company a success. Ever mindful of his father’s derogatory comments that he’d never amount to anything, he’s spent his entire life trying to prove he’s not a failure.

From their first meeting on a construction site, verbal sparks fly. Their argument escalates into a dare for a date—and the game is on. Lucy thinks Jake is the perfect fake boyfriend to parade around in the hopes of getting her father off her back. Jake is amused by the chance to annoy both Lucy and her dad—he doesn’t intend to take the dating thing seriously.

But the heart is a fickle thing, and not above playing dirty. In their quest to prove something—to each other, or maybe to themselves—they find themselves building a case…for love.

And suddenly all the rules have changed.

Do you think it’s true that opposites attract?

I believe it, and I write about it often. Frankly, I tend to find when I create characters who are ‘opposites’, that by the end of the book, they’re not as opposite as they thought they were—or even as I thought they were.

It’s a fun theme to explore in romance—how two people with nothing in common find a common ground in which to launch their forever.

DARE TO LOVE, my book releasing from Samhain Publishing today, is very much an opposites attract kind of story. Lucy Fairchild is a rich heiress living in one of the finest areas in San Francisco. She’s always had a live of privilege, being the only daughter of a wealthy attorney who runs the Fairchild law firm. Since her mother died when she was a child, Lucy has been groomed to follow in her father’s footsteps, and that’s what she did. She’s now a partner in the firm, dutifully carrying on the Fairchild tradition of practicing law. But when her father tries to arrange a marriage for her with a man he finds suitable, Lucy balks. She can certainly choose her own man to marry and doesn’t need her father interfering.

When she runs into heckling construction workers as she’s pondering her father’s latest scheme to interfere in her life, she meets Jake Dalton, a man very much outside the realm of her world. Jake owns a construction company, is a self made man and hasn’t inherited a damn thing in his life. Abandoned by his parents at a young age, Jake has worked for everything he has now using sweat equity. Lucy is designer suits and evening gowns, and Jake is blue jeans and work shirts. Lucy is opera and charity events, and Jake is beer and barbeque. How could these two opposites possibly attract?

Of course, when they first meet there’s an instantaneous physical attraction. But beyond that, a curiosity, a fun antagonism between them, and a dare that neither of them are willing to back down from. It’s the dare that sets things in motion, and brings the two of them together long enough for them to realize that maybe they aren’t as opposite as they thought. And they begin to question everything they thought they knew about themselves and the lives they lead. Fun stuff!

I hope you’ll give DARE TO LOVE a try.

It’s available today from SAMHAIN PUBLISHING.

****Leave a comment for the chance to win a download from Jaci’s backlist at Samhain!

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Bakery Sisters series by Susan Mallery

Has anyone read the first one yet? I’ve got these on my wishlist and Book 1 is in the TBR. I like the covers…cute. 🙂

Is there anything sweeter than a first love?

Don’t ask Claire Keyes.  The twenty-eight-year old piano prodigy has never had a regular boyfriend, much less a real romance.  Her music career has left little room for friends or family — which is just part of the reason she’s estranged from her two sisters.

But now Nicole is sick, and Jesse is AWOL.  Despite the fact that Claire can’t boil water, she’s determined to play caretaker.  Connecting with her sisters tops her to-do list….along with falling in love, or at least in lust, for the first time.

Ambitious?  Maybe.  But a girl’s gotta dream.  And ruggedly sexy Wyatt is a dream come true.  Although he keeps telling himself that he and Claire come from entirely different worlds, he lights up hotter than a bakery oven whenever Claire is near.  If this keeps up, she just might sweet-talk him into her bed….and her life.

If only her life was more sinful than sweet…

“Responsibility” should be Nicole Keyes’s middle name.  After all, not many people would sacrifice their lives to run the family bakery and raise a younger sibling.  But with Nicole’s twin sister now blissfully married and her younger sis turning out more femme fatale than girl next door, superreliable Nicole is getting sick of putting everyone else’s needs first!

Enter Hawk.  The deliciously sexy former NFL player offers Nicole a taste of the freedom she craves.  Hawk may know the way, blindfolded, to her sweet spot, but Nicole’s not about to let him get close enough to break her heart.  Of course, she might not have a choice in the matter if Hawk’s past keeps getting in the way of their present…

Home, sweet home?

Jesse Keyes has done some serious growing up. With a steady job and a vibrant four-year-old son, she’s in a far better place than when she left Seattle five years ago…pregnant and misunderstood by almost everyone in her life.

Now it’s time to go home and face her demons. But her sisters, Claire and Nicole, aren’t exactly impressed with the new and improved Jesse. And then there’s Matt, Gabe’s father, who makes it clear that he never wants to see her again despite the lust that still smolders between them.

Jesse doesn’t know if she can make up for all the mistakes of her past. But the promise of sweet nights with Matt might just give her the extra incentive she needs to make it worth the trouble…

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