Girlfriend release month

Two of my fabulous girlfriends have releases this month.


First, we have the always amazing Gena Showalter and PLAYING WITH FIRE.

The blurb says:

Earth, Wind and Fire aren’t just a band anymore…

Used to be my greatest achievement was holding a job more than three days. Now suddenly I can shoot fireballs, chill your drink, or blow-dry your hair at fifty paces with a blink of my eye!

It all started when this crazy scientist dropped something in my grande mocha latte. Of course I got wicked sick. Next morning I’m waking up with this total hottie bending over me. He tells me 1) his name’s Rome Masters, 2) he’s a government agent and 3) I can control the four elements with a thought.

He seems even less pleased by my (apparently irreversible) transformation that I am. . . because now he’s supposed to kill me. The only good news: I didn’t make this bed of trouble, but Rome sure seems to want me to lie in it. With him.

Okay - naturally I bought this book and started reading it. I had it at school with me on my desk (planning on relaxing with it during my way too short lunch period) when one of my high school students started looking at it. She read the first few pages and begged me to pulllleeeze let her read it. So the teenager took the book. Sigh. Her current report is, "Like, I'm almost done with it and it SERIOUSLY rocks. Seriously. She's, like, majorly funny and the guy is hot. Miss Cast, do you have any more of her books?" So there's the real review. Check it out, and YES, GENA BABY, I'LL BUY ANOTHER COPY FOR MYSELF.



The second release this month isn't a romance - it's not even fiction, but I highly recommend it. The book is called REMEMBERING THE FUTURE: The path to recovering intuition, by my friend Colette Baron-Reid. Colette is a Canadian singer/songwriter (check out her fabulous website: http://www.colettebaronreid.com). She is also an intuitive (what you might call a psychic). She is an incredible woman, and this book is excellent. Here's the book description:

Within each of us is the voice of an inner teacher-guardian that is our link to the unseen world of Soul. Its purpose is to guide and protect us. It allows us an “all-access pass” to the vast arena of Divine intelligence, potential, and power. It is called intuition. We all have it, yet sadly, most people are disconnected from it.

Using her own turbulent yet remarkable life as a narrative, along with fascinating stories from her clients, internationally renowned intuitive counselor Colette-Baron Reid shares the deeply moving and amazing story of her journey to finally accepting, and exulting in, her extraordinary gift of intuition and foresight, which had been thirsting to be heard since she was a young child.

Over the past 17 years, Colette has amassed an international client base that spans 29 countries, while offering astonishing personal insights that many consider miraculous. She now openly and generously shares that journey in Remembering the Future, which will not only leave you filled with hope and empowerment, but will guide you in rediscovering your magical gift of intuition.

By following Colette’s Seven Spiritual Keys, you’ll experience a consciously fulfilling, creative life, filled with profound harmony and opportunity. And most important, you’ll know who you really are. . . .

So check her out, and perhaps get in touch with your inner psychic! If you've read my books you know that I believe strongly in the intuitive ability of women, and think that for too long we've allowed a patriarchal world to bully us into turning away from our innate intuition.

Oh, and an interesting tidbit is that the beautiful picture on the cover is Colette!

Re-teenaging Myself (as scarey as that is)

Okay. I'm well over half way in book 2 of the paranormal YA series my daughter and I are writing for St. Martin's. This one is: THE HOUSE OF NIGHT, Book 2, BETRAYED. And I have to tell you - writing YA is definitely a different experience. I'm 46. Yes, that's 4 years away from 50. Five - Oh. Our heroine, Zoey, is almost 17 in this book. We're telling the stories first person from her pov. So I'm inside a teenager's head. In this book the sexual tension is really heating up - NOT inappropriately, trust me on this. But it's definitely there, especially because Zoey is Changing into a vampyre, and experiencing bloodlust for her human ex-boyfriend. Zoey's a virgin (not all innocent and stupid, though - she's not a moron), but a sexual awakening is going on with her. It's really forcing me to do some serious back-in-time remembering. True, my daughter and co-author, Kristin, goes through everything I write and she re-writes, being sure Zoey and the rest of the kids actually sound and act like teenagers, but I don't want to hand my daughter a ridiculous mess of totally adult emotions/reactions, or blank paragraphs with "KRISTIN, FIX THIS FOR MAMA" scrawled across the page. Plus, as an experienced author I like the challange. (And I like it when Kristin tells me stuff like, "Good job, Mama, you got that totally right!)

Anyway, for those of you who are aspiring romance authors, I think it's a good exercise to flash back in time (for some of you it might not be too far of a flash...) and write a scene or two about sexual awakening - I mean early stuff. Not a 25 year old who's losing her virginity. I'm talking 14-16-ish, before you're really clued in, but you'd like to think you are. I can tell that what I'm writing now is going to help me increase the sexual tension level in my adult novels. It's like an exercise in getting back to the basics. It's dissecting emotion and motivation. Give it a try!

Guest Blogging @ The Idea Boutique

Hi All!
The lovely ladies at The Idea Boutique asked me to guest blog about where my writing inspiration comes from, which is a subject I think is fun and interesting to write about. Run by and check out the blog at: http://www.ideaboutique.blogspot.com - I'd love it if y'all would chime in!

XXXOOO
PC

FINALLY!! (or a lesson in outlasting asshats)

FINALLY!! I've been waiting since 2001 to see my first novel, GODDESS BY MISTAKE, published by a "real" publisher with a "real" editor and "real" distribution. It has been a long, frustrating journey since I mistakeningly (pun intended) allowed an inept small press (not all small presses are inept - example: Ellora's Cave is fabulous) to publish GbM. Basically, it's been a lesson in outlasting asshats, as well as a lesson in how Karma can kick ass. Anyway, here's a summary of how GODDESS BY MISTAKE became DIVINE BY MISTAKE, and why it took so many years for the book to be available (almost exactly five).

DIVINE BY MISTAKE, which was released by LUNA this month, used to be GODDESS BY MISTAKE and is set one hundred twenty-five plus years before the events of ELPHAME’S CHOICE and BRIGHID’S QUEST. Okay, stay with me here. It might get confusing...

DIVINE BY MISTAKE was my very first book. It was published in August 2001 under the title GODDESS BY MISTAKE by a small press with a tiny print run and very limited distribution. At that time I was a naïve first time author without an agent or any experience (I also wonder if I might have been without sense, too, when I look back on that dreadful first contract!). So my book was released, and I’d already almost finished its sequel, GODDESS BY CHOICE, and had a third book outlined, GODDESS BY DESIGN – and, Wham! Out of nowhere I get a 4 ½ star top pick gold review from Romantic Times Magazine, and GbM finals in The Holt Medallion, Prism, Laurel Wreath, and National Readers’ Choice Award. It eventually wins all of these except the NRCA. This wonderful attention helped me sign on with my incredible agent, Meredith Bernstein, and within four days she had an offer from Berkley for the trilogy. As you can imagine, I was deliriously happy – until I was informed the small press refused to sell the rights to GbM, thereby ‘holding hostage’ the second and third books in the trilogy.

I like to believe out of negatives can be born positives, which is definitely what happened in this case. Because my Partholon series was temporarily dead (and sitting under my bed) I was forced to come up with an idea for a new series of books, which became the Goddess Summoning Books for Berkley.

Meanwhile, I never forgot that I had a fabulous trilogy in limbo. For years my agent diligently attempted to get the rights of GbM back, and I waited...and waited...and waited...and wrote other books while the wretched small press held GbM, GbC, and GbD hostage.

Then I heard about Harlequin’s new fantasy imprint for women, LUNA, and knew my Partholon books would be perfect for it. But, again, the small press wouldn’t release my rights. So I got mad and did some serious brainstorming, which is when I came up with the idea to take my basic plot plan for the third book, GODDESS BY DESIGN, and set it in the future so that I could have the beginnings of a new series which refers back to and is based upon the events of GODDESS BY MISTAKE as history. And that is the idea LUNA bought in a three book package: ELPHAME’S CHOICE, BRIGHID’S QUEST, and CIARA’S DESTINY.

Soon after my sale my agent was finally able to get the small press to agree to sell my rights to GODDESS BY MISTAKE (I won't even go into the details of the small press's greed and the ridiculous amount of money I had to pay to get my rights to this book back, let's just suffice to say that Karma is already eating them alive), and LUNA quickly bought the book and its sequel. It had been four years since GbM was first published. Who said good things come to those who wait? I think fantastic is a better word than simply good!

So why the title change from GbM and GbC to DIVINE BY MISTAKE and DIVINE BY CHOICE? That was a condition of my contract with Berkley. While I’m writing “goddess” books for them the word goddess can’t appear in any of my other titles.

Does that clear things up? I think it’s easy to understand when you read the books. So we’ve had Elphame’s and Brighid’s stories – now we’re going to get Shannon Parker’s story, and the Fomorian War. Then there will be a sequel to DbC, DIVINE BY BLOOD and another book, DIVINE BY DESTINY, wherein I tie all the Partholon books together (DIVINE BY DESTINY was originally titled CIARA’S DESTINY). Hope you’ll come along for the ride!

QUESTIONS? Did I totally confuse you?