ENFORCER by Lauren Dane Contest!

Check out Lauren’s blog today before 7pm EST. She’s running a contest for the chance to win a print copy of ENFORCER, book 1 in her Cascadia Wolves series. Good luck!

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Jaci Burton Book Winner!

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

BethR!!

Congrats Beth!

Please email me your address at mad @ romancereaderatheart.com (without the spaces) so we can get the books out to you.

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Jordan Summers Book Winner!

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

PamP!!

Congrats Pam!

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

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THE DARKEST TOUCH by Jaci Burton

Ryder. The man was just as sexy as she remembered him:

Tall, lean, and dangerous, a demon hunter with the body of a god.…

But archaeologist Angelique Deveraux has little time for lust. She’s been hiding a gleaming black diamond, a prize everyone wants—including Ryder—and now she’s running for her life. Hot on her trail is Ryder, a legendary demon hunter she desires but can’t quite trust, a man with an insatiable need for danger and a few dark secrets of his own.

As sparks ignite between the rogue hunter and his latest prey, Angie’s world is rocked again when her twin sister vanishes, stolen away by the same dark forces stalking Angie and the black diamond. With Ryder offering protection—and more—suddenly a woman who’s never trusted anyone is falling for a man who isn’t afraid of anything…except losing his heart. Now, as an all-out demon war erupts and Angie’s family secrets unravel, Ryder’s demon hunt and Angie’s quest to save her sister are about to collide. And when they do, it’ll send these two wary hearts on the wildest adventure of their lives—and maybe even save humankind in the process.…

I love this time of year. Crisp, fall air and pumpkins, leaves changing and the smell of cinnamon. Children ringing the doorbell wearing cute or scary costumes and expecting treats. And of course, candy. I love candy.

But there’s also something spooky and mysterious this time of year. Ghosts, goblins, witches, demons, vampires, werewolves and all things paranormal. My favorite things.

Which of course brings to mind evil. *rubs hands together*. The good stuff. As a paranormal writer, I love delving into the dark side of characters. They tend to be the most fun to write, because you can really let loose with them and let them have their way. For awhile anyway. Then you need the heroine and hero to kick evil’s butt. I also think you can find out a lot about your characters’….character….by putting them to the test, by having them battle not only the forces of evil, but the darkness that lives inside them.

In my upcoming Demon Hunters book, The Darkest Touch, the question of good vs evil really comes into play with several of the characters. I had a great time drawing that line between good and evil, between the forces of darkness and light. My characters wage an incredible battle, and it’s not an easy one. Evil can be a powerful force. But so can goodness. Goodness kicks ass, in my opinion.

So let’s talk evil characters. In books or in movies. Who are some favorites that come to mind?

Freddy? Jason? Michael Myers? Hannibal Lecter? Dr. Evil? Hehehe. What about Voldemort from Harry Potter?  How about the Wicked Witch of the West from Wizard of Oz?  Even in Disney cartoons there are evil characters—Maleficent, Ursula, Cinderella’s stepsisters, Gaston,  Cruella deVille….

Name your favorite evil characters in books or movies.

And Happy Halloween!

*****Leave a comment for the chance to win the first two books in this series…SURVIVING DEMON ISLAND & HUNTING THE DEMON. Good Luck! 🙂

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HelenKay Dimon Book Giveaway!

HelenKay totally rocks! Because of her awesome generosity, I received a box in the mail today with some books to give away. I’ve got two copies of her latest anthology, TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT with HK, Donna Kauffman & Jill Shalvis and two copies of HOT AS HELL. How yummy is this cover?

She’s mad as hell.
He’s the reason.
The desert may not be big enough for both of them.

TELL ME MORE…

Lexy Stuart is nobody’s fool…not since she wised up to the fact that her fianc‚, Noah Paxton, wasn’t just sporting the hardest bod this side of the Ironman competition. No, he was also harboring enough secrets to make a CIA operative blush. Little things he never thought worth mentioning like, oh, a previous marriage. So Lexy gave back the ring-with extreme prejudice-and made sandy tracks straight to a remote desert spa. Problem is, with a man like Noah, a girl can run, but she can’t hide. Nor does she particularly want to…

Alexa Annabeth Stuart. The stuffy name couldn’t be less suitable for a woman as fiery and free as Noah’s Lexy. And Lexy is his-always will be-the tricky part will be getting her to realize it. Of course, Noah’s always up for a challenge. Which is a good thing, since between the crazy heat at this god-forsaken “retreat” and the looks Lexy’s shooting him (not to mention the shockwaves he’s getting from her hot-pink bikini), winning his ex back could be one dangerous mission. But if Noah doesn’t survive it, well, he intends to die a very satisfied man…

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?

All you have to do to get a chance to win one of these books is tell me which of the two books you’d like to win and which book off HelenKay’s backlist is your favorite. Or what books of hers you have in the TBR so we can nag you into reading them. *G* This giveaway will be open until Saturday, November 1st. Winners will be announced on Sunday. Good luck! 🙂

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RED by Jordan Summers

Gina Santiago is a member of an elite tactical team in charge of protecting the world. She’s devoted her life to apprehending the most heinous criminals that prey on society—and now she’s after the worst one yet.

On her own, with no backup, the trail takes her to a dusty, tight-knit town on the fringes of society, where everyone’s a suspect. Even the sexy sheriff, Morgan Hunter, isn’t telling her everything. Gina knows he’s trouble, but she’s inexorably drawn to him.

The closer Gina comes to finding out the secret of this sleepy little town and its big bad sheriff; the closer she comes to catching the predator, the more scared she gets—because she’s beginning to realize that she has a secret too. A secret that will change Gina’s life… and make her the killer’s prey.

First off, I’d like to thank Fatin for having me here. 🙂

A lot of people ask me where I came up with the idea for RED. Most of my books have started with a single sentence, question or line that eventually snowball into full manuscripts. Sometimes I hear the characters saying the lines in my head. I know it sounds crazy, but it’s the truth. Sometimes the line itself plays in my mind until the rest of the story forms. That’s what happened with RED. One question kept rolling around and around in my head until I could no longer ignore it: What if Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf turned out to be the same person?

The question is provocative and certainly not something a lot of people would ask themselves while reading the fairytale. I’ve always loved Little Red Riding Hood, but hated how it ended. I didn’t like that the wolf was killed. It always seemed ‘wrong’ to me. It’s probably why I’ve been drawn to write about werewolves.  Don’t get me wrong, I like vampires, but there’s something about wolves that draws my attention like a lodestone.  That said, I should tell you that many creatures occupy my Dead World, including vampires.

The thing I decided when I first started to write RED was that all the creatures in my world would have a scientific basis for existence. What does that mean? It means my world isn’t magical. Vampires and werewolves aren’t creatures of myth. They are transgenic creations. (People who carry a foreign gene that has been inserted in their genome. The foreign gene is constructed using recombinant DNA.) These people volunteered to have their DNA manipulated in order to become super soldiers. RED takes place over a hundred years after the war has ended. The soldiers (Others), who were once heroes, are now in hiding because the organizations who created them want them destroyed. They don’t want proof of what they did during the war walking around.

The story follows Gina ‘RED’ Santiago as she investigates a murder. Murder is all but unheard of on the Dead World thanks to advanced DNA detection. In the course of the story, which loosely follows the Little Red Riding Hood fairytale, Red stumbles upon the Others and finds her life forever transformed.

RED is a dark fantasy thriller with a little science fiction tossed in for good measure. It’s also the first book in a trilogy. The love story starts in RED, continues through SCARLET (June 09), and wraps up in CRIMSON (Nov.09). Although different than the average paranormal romance, the Dead World series will not disappoint romance readers in the end.

You can find excerpts and more information about the books at www.jordansummers.com

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

******Leave a comment for the chance to win a copy of RED! Good Luck! 🙂

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Suzanne Forster Book Winner!

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

Estella!!

Congrats Estella!

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

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Sharon Cullen Book Winners!

We have winners! The winners of Sharon’s post is………….

Casee!! (wins a download of REDEMPTION)

JenniferY!! (wins a download of DECEPTION)

Congrats ladies!

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

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Allie Mackay Book Winners!

We have winners! The winner’s of Allie’s post are…..

Winners of TALL, DARK & KITLED (Let me know if you want the ARC or the final version)

1. Crystal Adkins

2. Joan Woods

3. Candy Gorcsi

Winners of DEVIL IN A KILT

1. Patty Bosko

2. Fedora

3. blackroze37

Winner of SEDUCING A SCOTTISH BRIDE

1. Mary

Winner of the CD.

1. Earlene

Congrats everyone!!
Please email me your address at mad @ romancereaderatheart.com (without the spaces) so we can get the book and/or CD out to you. 🙂

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A Tale of Two Blurbs

Some authors love to write the blurbs for their books.  Notice that I said some, because most of us don’t, at least among the authors I know.  I’ve heard writer friends say they would rather write the entire book than the blurb, or the synopsis, another task that sends cold shivers down writers’ spines.  So, imagine my surprise when the blurb for my just-released romantic suspense, The Private Concierge, popped into my head before I’d written a word of the book.  I had to grab a pen and paper and scribble madly just to get it all down.

Here, with just a bit of tweaking and a few added flourishes, is that very first version of the blurb:

She was a runaway who was forced into the oldest profession at a tender age.  He was the vice cop who posed as a customer, and put her in juvenile hall.  He’s been haunted by her ever since.  And she will never forget the humiliation of handcuffs, police cars and jail cells.  Or the man who changed the course of her life.

Today she is a new woman and legitimate business tycoon.  Her private concierge service is prized by high-profile clients across the country.  Today he is a ruined man.  And destiny is about to put them on another collision course.

His best friend, an all-star pitcher, dies mysteriously and scandalously, and three other prominent personalities are embroiled in scandals that ruin their careers and their lives.  The police dismiss the incidents as unrelated.  But he sees what the police cannot.  The one thing that links them is her … The Private Concierge

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t totally taken with the idea at the time.  It was all I could do not to start writing the story immediately!  But my life was complicated at the time.  My mom was ill and I was on deadline for three contracted stories.  There simply was no time.  So, I tucked the blurb away and eventually forgot all about it.  You know what they say about out of sight, out of mind.  I didn’t rediscover it until years later when I was going through a laundry basket of odds and ends to file.  Yes, you read that right, a laundry basket.  My filing system needs some serious work.

As it happened, I was on a break and between contracts, so I quickly wrote up a story proposal and submitted it to my editor.  I was thrilled when she bought it.  But there were many challenges ahead.  My beloved mother took a turn for the worst and passed away while I was working on the story.  So, of course, everything was put on hold, including the book’s delivery date.

Mom was just two months from her ninetieth birthday and we were all consoled by the knowledge that she had lived a good long life and was ready to go, but these things are never easy.  Between the grief of losing her and the exhaustion of being her sole caretaker, I needed time to heal and recover.  My publisher was wonderful about that, and with the pressure off, I soon realized that I really wanted to get back to writing, that it would help ease the loss and fill the hole in my life.

I threw myself into The Private Concierge, and as they say in that great Calgon commercial, let it take me away.  I was transported, right along with my hero and heroine, Rick and Lane, and I really did lose all sense of time.  That probably explains how, once again, I forgot about the blurb that started it all …  until I received a copy of the book’s cover with a blurb on the back—and it was not the one I’d written.  In shock, I realized I’d never told them that I wanted to write the blurb for this story.

So, there I was with not one but two blurbs for my soon-to-be-released novel—and you can probably guess which one I was partial to.  But I could definitely see the merits of the publisher’s version because by the time I finished the story it had changed and grown into something bigger—and I hope even better—than I originally imagined.

You’ve seen the original blurb.  Here’s the one the publisher sent me:

THERE’S NOTHING PRIVATE ABOUT MURDER

L.A.’s rich and powerful rely on Lane Chandler’s company, The Private Concierge, to anticipate their every whim…and to guarantee unparalleled discretion.  But then one of Lane’s celebrity patrons is found murdered in the most undignified manner imaginable.  In rapid succession, three other prominent clients become embroiled in separate scandals, thanks to what looks like a security breach of TPC’s communication systems.

As word gets out, clients drop Lane like last week’s gossip.  She’s bent on keeping TPC’s name out of the papers, but when former LAPD vice cop Rick Bayless starts nosing around, she has much more to worry about than bad PR.  Rick knows about Lane’s shadowy past, and he’s certain she’s hiding new secrets.  With no other options, Lane must face a dangerous conspirator who knows more about her every move than she does.

So, what to do?  I had an embarrassment of riches, two blurbs, and I loved them both.  I couldn’t seem to decide and my writer friends were divided too.  Eventually, I realized the wisest move would be to leave it up to the people who make the ultimate decision where it really counts, in the bookstores—the readers.  So I held a blurb contest—smartypants me!—hoping to end my dilemma.  Little did I know that even the readers would split down the middle.  Half liked the original blurb and half liked my publisher’s version.  Big help they were, lol.

Of course, the simple solution would be to go with the publisher’s blurb.  It was already there on the back the book, ready to go.  That’s when it hit me.  There was no reason I couldn’t let the book go out as it was and use the original blurb—the one that written itself and sparked an entire story—in the promotional material I was planning for The Private Concierge.  Sometimes life’s “accidents” are better than our plans!  Also, there would be no losers in the blurb contest.  Everyone who entered was eligible to win, no matter which blurb they voted for.

If you’d like to see who actually won that contest and what the prizes were, please check out my web site at www.suzanneforster.com.  All the winners are listed there.  And if you’d a like chance to win a signed book from my backlist, just leave a comment on this blog.  Thanks for letting me share my tale of two blurbs with you.  Best of luck in the contest, and of course, happy reading!

Suzanne Forster

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