Have taken on a new and exciting opportunity that’s due June. Plus have final galleys for my May release with Entangled. Plus two books due at the end of March. Have just done first pass edits on the Chessman (Black Knight, White Queen) and I know edits for the next Talking Dirty book will be upon me soon. It’s getting busy.

It’s good to stay busy while I await the book release, suffering from random bouts of nausea, mixed with touches of hysteria as I obsessively check my Amazon rank.

This is kind of the moment I’ve been working toward for five years now, the moment I’ve been dreaming about since I was little. My book out there for people to buy. I never dreamed it would be romance and I never even imagined it would be as an ebook but fate moves in mysterious ways. And to be honest, I’m ecstatic with the result!

To celebrate, I’m going to post another excerpt that follows on from the one on the Samhain site. Hope you enjoy!

 She took another sip of her beer. “How’s Katie?”

Ignoring his question. Another one of her “I don’t want to talk about it yet” techniques. Fuck that. “You said you were going to give me an explanation. Or have you changed your mind?”

A hand pushed one of the dark wings of her hair behind her ear. “No, I haven’t. I just wanted to know what you’ve been doing.”

“If you’d bothered to listen to any of my messages, read any of my emails, or even answer your bloody door, you’d know.”

Green eyes slid away from his.

Great. Now he really did sound like a petulant, angry child.

He lifted his bottle, took a sip of beer. “Katie and I broke up. She wanted more. I didn’t.”

Anna let out a breath, dark brows knitting together. “Oh, Finn. I’m sorry.”

She always was sorry whenever he broke up with a girlfriend. Sorrier than he was. He lifted a shoulder. “Easy come, easy go.” Because he didn’t want to settle down. Katie had been a lovely girl, but when she’d started angling for “the conversation”, he’d had to get out. He wasn’t a cruel person, and keeping her hanging on just because he’d liked the sex wasn’t right.

“Finn,” Anna murmured.

“No, it didn’t worry me, truly.” Only a little.

Anna’s watchful green eyes looked at him from beneath her new fringe. “But something happened, didn’t it? That’s why you’re so angry with me.”

Ah. Deflection. Another Anna-ism. When there was something she didn’t want to talk about, she turned the conversation back on him. Fuck that too.

Finn leaned forward. Put his beer on the floor, elbows on his knees. Stared at her. “This isn’t about me, Green Eyes. So come on, spit it out. Why are you here after six months of silence? What happened?”

Green Eyes. Finn’s affectionate nickname for her. She’d always liked it. Liked how it made her sound exotic when she was anything but.

Yet even the familiar sound of it didn’t stop the cold feeling spreading through her. Neither did sitting here on Finn’s comfortable leather couch, the same couch she’d spent so many nights sitting on, talking or watching TV, or listening to music or arguing, or sleeping on when she’d had too many glasses of wine to drive home.

It should have reassured her. Should have grounded her. But it didn’t.

Because what had happened six months ago was too big for familiarity to overcome. As was the request she had to make. Still, she had to try. Had to ask.

Finn never let anything get in his way when he wanted something. He never had. And she knew he’d always wanted to help her. That was why she was asking him in the first place. That and because she trusted him as she trusted no one else.

Anna took a fortifying sip of her beer. Talking to him shouldn’t have been so difficult, but the therapist she’d gone to see for a few months afterwards had told her not to expect miracles. That these things took time. But if she couldn’t tell her oldest, most trusted friend, then who could she tell?

She held the beer loosely in her hands, trying to get up the courage to meet his gaze. Trying to fight the fear that had made a home for itself inside her soul.

“It’s serious, isn’t it?”

Anna swallowed, looked up.

All the anger in his eyes was gone. Dark brows drew together in a frown. The sun coming through the windows struck gold highlights from his shaggy, surfer-blond hair.

Dark eyes, straight dark brows, blond hair…unusual. Striking. She’d never really noticed before. But then she’d seen the parade of women in and out of his bed. She knew that Finn Shaw, the man she thought of more as a brother than anything else, wasn’t exactly lacking in the looks department.

Don’t go there, girl.

But she had to go there, didn’t she? Now she was here, knowing the request she was going to make of him?

“Yeah,” she said, taking a breath. “It’s serious.” He didn’t move, but a sense of stillness seemed to steal over him. Most of the time Finn was a ball of restless, kinetic energy, but when he listened, he listened.

“Tell me.”

Bossy son of a bitch. Anna gripped the bottle she was holding, trying to think of how to broach the subject. Normally she thought everything through carefully, the legacy of a career in law, but when she’d thought about this moment, her mind had always gone blank. She didn’t like the feeling. Groping around for some words, she eventually said, “You know Michael and I were having problems, right?”

Finn moved, a sudden, fluid motion, leaning forward in his seat, a dark kind of anger in his eyes. “What did he do?”

Oh, great, Mr. Alpha Male was on the case now, was he? Finn had a protective streak in him a mile wide. Plus he seemed to think that no one was good enough for her when it came to her boyfriends. He’d never liked any of them, Michael least of all.

“Nothing,” she snapped, angry with him all of a sudden. Him going Incredible Hulk on her was the last thing she needed. “Stop jumping to conclusions.”

The intense look on his face didn’t waver. “You said you were having problems.”

“It wasn’t to do with him, okay? The problems were mine.”

He didn’t look the slightest bit appeased by this. “So what was the issue?”

“We…he asked me to marry him.”

A look passed over Finn’s face. Something she couldn’t interpret. “When?”

“Six months ago.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Anna swallowed. Screw beer. She needed whisky. Right now. “I’m getting to that. Have you got anything stronger?” She gestured to the beer.

Finn ignored the question. “Get to the point, Green Eyes.”

Crap. She found her hands were clasped tightly over her knees, pressing against the denim of her jeans. “I wasn’t sure. I didn’t know what to say. I was confused.”

“About what?”

“About his proposal.”

“But I thought you wanted to get married?”

Yeah, so did she. But when Michael had asked her, something inside had held back. “I did.” She swallowed. “But I needed some time to think. I went out with Lily—”

“What about me? You didn’t think to talk about it with me?” He sounded pissed off.

“Sometimes you need a girlfriend—”

“Don’t give me that shit. That’s never bothered you before.”

Oh, bloody hell, he really was angry. “You weren’t there. I called but you were in a meeting.”

He let out a breath, sat back in his seat again. “So you went out with Lily.”

“We went to a bar. Had a talk.” Her hands clasped her knees tighter. “Lily left after an hour and I…I stayed to think about it. Just to have some time alone.”

His long, lean figure went still again, obviously picking up on her tension. “And?”

Anna swallowed. “And the next thing I knew, I woke up in an alley.”

Finn was staring at her. His eyes had gone almost black.

“I’d been drugged, Finn,” she made herself go on. “I’d been assaulted.”

This book wasn’t meant to be published. I mean, I didn’t write it with the intention of publication. I wrote it because I wanted to write it. It was everything I’d been holding myself back from writing. You’ve heard me go on about it ad nauseum, you guys who’ve read this blog know about why I wrote it. For the lurkers or any random passers-by, I’ll just say I wrote it for me. I didn’t intend for it to go anywhere, I just thought I’d write it and it would stay on my hard drive, unread, forever.

My characters are difficult buggers and the relationship they have with each other is difficult. They make difficult choices. They are what they are. And I never expected a publisher to want to buy it.

But a certain person told me to send out the book anyway and though I whined and complained and told them it wasn’t meant for publication, I did send it out. Because I think I’m secretly rather proud of it. Like I said, my characters are difficult and so is the story. It won’t be for everyone. But I didn’t write it for everyone, I wrote it for me. And that’s why I’m kind of scared. When you write it for yourself, it’s hard to accept that not everyone in the entire universe will like it.

Which I guess brings me to the next hurdle in the journey of publication. I’ve spent five years fighting for the opportunity to get my work published and while you’re in pre-publication hell, all your energy is directed on your next revision letter or your next rejection, or sending the next story out there. The thought that when you eventually get accepted EVERYONE will have a chance to read your book is only a passing one. Then you finally DO get accepted and then there’s that lovely time when your book isn’t out yet and you can pretend you’re the greatest writer in the world, basking in the love of your editor, not a care in the world. Until release day comes and you realise people will soon be able to see behind the mask. Will they see the wizard or just a little old man?

Kind of sobering to know all the blood, sweat and tears you put into getting published is just for the privilege of having some complete stranger say, “Nah, that book was bollocks’.

On the up side, I now have an awesome picture that I will make into a mug! A whole series of mugs! That I could give away!  You have been warned…

I know, I know, I was supposed to do this months ago. But I only really managed it in one chapter and that was my contest chapter. The rest of my mss, I’ve been dicking around with but not getting anywhere, questioning every action my characters took, every reaction. I told myself I wasn’t going to worry about the little editorial voices in my head but you know what? No prizes for guessing…. Yeah, I’ve been listening to them.

The CPs have had to give me a slap round the head (Robyn and Maisey do an excellent good cop/bad cop routine) and since then, I’ve made a momentous decision. Ish.

I can write sassy and flirty, and I do it well. But sassy and flirty do not a story make. You need conflict and character and that’s where I am having problems. Because I’m holding myself back. I’m trying to keep the light and flirty, but also have the intensity and angst that I love as well and it’s not working for me. I keep injecting inappropriate tension and angst everywhere because that’s what I REALLY want to write.

So, I’m giving up the light and flirty. I’m going all out on the angst. The intensity. The strong alphas. But I’m keeping my heroines stroppy. I’m doing Presents/Modern conflict and hero with a Riva heroine. I have no idea whether it’ll work or not but already the Chessman – which Maisey had already told me was Presents – is benefitting. My hero (who was more Presents than Riva anyway, as I think Janet commented once) is no longer going to do stuff just to make him more sympathetic. If it’s not in his character, then he ain’t doing it. Like flirting. He doesn’t flirt. He doesn’t seduce. He has no light and flirty button. Neither does my heroine. She’s hot-headed and stroppy and straight up. So Jackie must stop trying to make her light and flirty too.

And the next time I find myself questioning every action, every reaction, I need to ask myself this question – am I holding back? And if so, why?

Anyone else guilty of holding back??

Such are the joys of the alpha male.

Anyway to give myself a bit of alpha practice, I’ve been redoing my Frenchman to suit Presents/Modern. Yes, it’s quite different to writing MH but to be honest, I’m quite enjoying releasing my inner emo. As you know, I LOVE teh angst. Bring on the drama, the torture, the sexy darkness! You can’t go too dark with MH – at least not as dark as I want – so letting it all hang out with a bit of Presents is actually quite liberating. Anyway, I always had a sneaking suspicion that the Frenchman erred on the Modern side of the Modern Heat line so it’s not been too much work to pull him completely over it. And I have to say, he’s happier as a Modern hero. His voice in my head wasn’t ever MH and so the rest of the ms is not all that MH is tone either. In fact I’m secretly thinking of sending the first chapter to SYTYCW, just to see what happens. Hehe.

So what’s everyone else doing? Neutered any bad boys lately?