I just returned from the Authors After Dark weekend where I met fans and other authors and finally got to put faces to names I’ve been running into online for years now. Now that I’m back, I’m catching up on sleep and work.

Things are happening. Some long awaited, others a complete surprise.

First, I was just brought on to be a regular blogger for a really fun site. This site has nothing to do with romance authors or readers, which is what makes it so exciting. I get to expose a whole new group of readers to the insanity that comes with the romance industry. The main site actually focuses on foods that are Aphrodisiacs, which makes it a nice tie in to romance actually. Here’s the link to my blog Confessions of a Romance Writer.

From there you can get to the other blogs and the main site. Check it out, it’s a lot of fun. I stumbled upon it while researching natural aphrodisiacs for my upcoming release (which is my next bit of news). “Gillian’s Island”, a fun, sexy, short story, will release from Sapphire Blue Publishing in November. It’s about a group of castaways, my twist on the old TV show Gilligan’s Island.

On the cowboy front, Rough Stock rereleased through Samhain and became an instant best seller, hitting #2 on the MBAM list, which is really good for a re-release. Unridden is the next to be moved from the soon to be defunct Linden Bay Romance imprint over to Samhain. That will happen officially on November 10th. THEN, this is the best part, we are in edits on the sequel to Unridden, the long awaited story for Mustang Jackson. Yes, Bucked has been contracted and as soon as I have a release date, I’ll let you know.

On the military front, I have rewritten and expanded the first story in my first military trilogy. “Trey”, story 1 from Trilogy No. 103: Red Hot & Blue has been contracted and will be released from Samhain. Sean, the soldier muse, is currently very busy getting ready for his 6th deployment. This will be his second to Afghanistan. I anticipate this with mixed feelings. Though I worry about him daily while he is there, I also know the excitement radiating off him while he’s deployed in palpable. I truly believe adrenaline is a drug and certain men are most happy when it is surging through them at full force. Sean is one of those. The other strange part is, I have much more contact with him when he’s deployed than when he’s not. I expect lots more stories of everyday life on his Forward Operating Base in the border province and tales of missions, all of which will of course inspire me to want to write another military book I am sure. I haven’t had a new one released since A Prince Among Men, which was about his last deployment. I guess I am due.

On the Greek God front, I am 2/3 of the way done with the story for Pantheon Volume 3. I need to finish and submit that this week. It is a twisted (very twisted) retelling of the Eros (aka Cupid) and Psyche tale. We’ll see what both the editors and you all think about my interpretation. It should be interesting. LOL! In the meantime, both Pantheon Volume 1 and also Volume 2 are both available in print.

And in the middle of it all I am reading and reading some more to get through the many submissions from the more than generous authors who have sent in stories for the All Romance eBooks’ call for their 28 Days of Heart Charity Campaign to benefit the American Heart Association. There are so many, I will most likely pull my own submission and let one of the others have my spot.

That’s it for now!

Cat

Taking it up a notch… new review for Rough Stock

“Menage isn’t difficult to find nowadays, but menage with heart is an entirely different story-literally. …after reading Rough Stock, my expectations have been taken up a notch… Definitely check this one out!” Read More

Fern, Whipped Cream Reviews

Video for the newly expanded best-selling Rough Stock

Trouble veiwing this video? Watch on You Tube

Rough Stock Re-Releases TODAY

The heart wants what it wants…

Bronc riders Mason and Clay have shared both good times and bad as best friends, but they never expected to share their boss’s daughter, April. Can two friends love one woman, body and soul, without it destroying them?

The heart wants what it wants. For April that means not choosing between the two cowboys she loves, no matter how wrong it may seem inviting them both into her bed.

Life sends the three lovers in opposite directions, but a devastating injury brings them all together again. Their relationship now is no less bittersweet—or complicated—than before. Once severed, old ties leave scars that are tough to heal…

This book has been previously published and has been revised and expanded from its original release.

Warning: When you choose a man who thinks 8 seconds is a long time, perhaps you need two of them. In other words: Watch out, this book contains hot ménage sex with two cowboys and the woman they love.

READ AN ALL NEW EXCERPT

Hello all,

Things are changing in my career and my life. The purchase of my publisher Linden Bay Romance by Samhain Publishing means lots of changes. One is the re-release of my best selling cowboy menage ROUGH STOCK. It’s been expanded with added content (I added a much requested epilogue so readers will finally know what happens to the threesome after the story ends), it’s been re-edited, has a shiny new cover and is available in eBook from Samhain September 11th. As per Samhain’s standard paperback release schedule, the print version will mostly likely be available sometime next year.

For those of you who have already read and enjoyed ROUGH STOCK, please recommend the newly released version in eBook to a friend. It will be available later today at Samhain’s My Bookstore and More, and soon added to the stores of other eRetailers (All Romance eBooks, Books on Board, Fictionwise,  Amazon for Kindle, etc.) There is an all new excerpt posted, and the new cover and revised blurb is above.

Enjoy.

Cat

I’m no Jane Austen

This shouldn’t be a surprise to any of you. No, not much of a resemblance between her and I, but apparently I thought I was Jane Austen for a brief period.

I wrote a novella using what I thought was a very up to date and catchy premise. Think Gossip Girl meets Dukes of Hazard with a few of the Golden Girls thrown in for color. A spoiled rich girl acts out for attention and gets into trouble, prompting her grandmother to ship her off to an old friend’s cattle ranch in Colorado where she has an epiphany, makes a dramatic transformation, and meets two really hot cowboys. Yes, the heroine is unlikeable in the beginning. She is flawed. It’s not her fault. It’s how she was raised and the environment she was brought up in. But she sees the error of her ways and changes with the help of the family who takes her in.

Flawed heroines are not a new thing. Think Jane Austen’s “EMMA”. Emma is not so nice. She’s cruel to the spinster, she’s manipulative in her dealings with her friend and men, she jealous, yet she learns a lesson in the end. But I’ve read Emma three times. I cry when she is heartbroken. I rejoice when she gets the man.

Think of the Alicia Silverstone movie, “Clueless”, which was a modern day remake of Emma. The heroine, Cher, is not so nice. She’s spoiled, shallow and a bit stupid. Yet I love that movie and I root for her to win the guy everytime I watch it. And she does in the end after she transforms into a better, yet still silly, person.

There’s a phrase in publishing. Mary Sue. It refers to when authors write perfect heroines. They are smart, gorgeous, perfect in every way and everyone loves them. And they are totally unrealistic and editors hate them. Yet write a flawed heroine and she is “manipulative’ (rejection from publisher #1), ‘whiny’ (rejection from publisher #2) and ‘unlikeable’ (rejection from publisher #3).

Actually, publisher #1 rejected the story twice so this poor character has been rewritten twice and still rejected a total of 4 times. So now what?? The good news is I am becoming quite immune to rejection. The bad news is, I’m not sure what to do with the story or this character. I don’t want to rewrite her and make her nice and sweet and likeable.

Any suggestions? Do I have faith in readers that they’ll accept my heroine as is, ride along with her on her journey to redemption and rejoice in the end at her happy ending. Or do I succumb to the pressure and accept I’m no Jane Austen.

Cat

And the winner is….

The winner of our Cool*er eReader contest is…

Tonya Keener

Panama City, FL

Thank you to all who entered!

Authors After Dark

Save the date! October 23-25, 2009 – The Authors After Dark Paranormal Weekend is filling up fast! Sign up by August 1^st to get the lowest membership rate of $160 for the weekend. (After August 1^st, the membership goes to $175.)

The event is being held at the Suffern, NY Holiday Inn, located conveniently about 1 hour from New York City and most of the area’s major airports. Guest include:

Jacquelyn Frank

Sunny

Joey W. Hill

Stella and Audra Price

Bianca D’Arc

Rosemary Laurey

Jennifer Armintrout

Madeline Oh

Georgia Evans

Mechele Armstrong

Samantha Sommersby

Cat Johnson

Cathy Clamp

Eliza Gayle

Diana Castilleja

Leigh Ellwood

Tilly Greene

Selena Illyria

Adra Steia

Stephanie Julian

Judi Fennell

Kayleigh Jamison

Donna Grant

Robin T. Popp

Linda Mooney

Mima

Area attractions include the phenomenal shopping at Woodbury Common (http://www.premiumoutlets.com/outlets/outlet.asp?id=7) and the Forest of Fear (http://www.theforestoffear.com/home.php), held on the site of the New York State Renaissance Faire at Sterling Forest.

The convention is limited to 200 attendees so your “face time” with your favorite authors is maximized. We’re having loads of panel discussions, parties and a fantabulous dealer’s room. We’ll also be holding a massive charity raffle to benefit the CAN and Pets Alive – a local no kill animal shelter.

Sign up now for the best rates! The conference registration is only $160 until August 1^st ($175 after August 1^st) and the hotel is $99 per night, double occupancy. Lots to do in the area will make this a weekend you will never forget!

Sex: Pushing the boundaries

The theory goes that everything cycles. I know this is true in fashion. I’m sad to admit I’ve lived long enough to see bell-bottom pants come and go twice now. Will romance go full circle as well? I remember stealing one of my mother’s Silhouette Romances when I was young. Reading and thinking it was so scandalous when the couple kissed and then “made light love before eating lunch”. Now as the pendulum swings further out than ever before, I wonder where we can possibly go next.

As I monitor the best selling list on All Romance eBooks, I see themes that shock even me, and I write erotic romance for a living. What were not one but TWO of the best selling eBooks of 2008? Twincest. Books that feature love, and yes a sexual relationship between twins. Male twins, not that their sex matters since they are siblings having sex and that is where the shock value comes from in my opinion. Let me reiterate. Two of the ten best selling books of the entire year spanning all genres of romance featured twincest. Other recent best sellers? eBooks featuring multiple partners. Not just threesomes either but many men, three or four, sharing one woman, sometimes against her will.

So now I have to wonder, where can the industry go from here? Is the only place to go backwards? Will future best sellers feature a whole bunch of sexual tension and hand holding? Doubtful, but I can’t imagine where else we can go moving forward. There is already BDSM, orgies, polyamorous relationships, Male/Male, M/M/F, M/M/M/F, 4Ms/1F. What’s next? Not to mention the newest fad–Zombie romance. Yeah, I don’t get it either. I guess vampires and werewolf romances were becoming too commonplace. The industry, and the readers, needed something more.

I suppose we will all have to wait and see what the future holds. In the meantime, I started a new story today. A plain old military romance again, a genre which you all know is close to my heart. I’m still deciding how far I will push this one. Maybe a threesome? Maybe a boring one man one woman romance, though that will kill my best seller potential I suppose. Who knows. I can assure you there won’t be any twins. Right now I’m more busy researching Operation Enduring Freedom-Horn of Africa. I haven’t ironed out the romance aspect yet, though it is beginning to form. I guess we’ll have to wait and see about that too.

Cat

Raise a glass to Dionysus, Bacchanal is here!

Bacchanal released today in eBook exclusively from

All Romance eBooks

Working Writers

I always learn so much from the authors I interview on the radio show that it amazes me. One thing I am still trying to internalize, something other writers have already achieved, is accepting other people’s opinions of what I do. I’ve said it before and I’m sure I’ll say it again, I love my job as a romance writer as much as I hate it. I love the creativity, the positive feedback, the freedom and the people I meet. I hate the negative feedback, the arbitrary nature of the biz and the judgment I often receive because what I write is not “important”. Hell, I know that I’m not penning great literature, but what I am writing is something that might just help the reader escape for a little while. If I make that reader laugh, or smile, or forget the laundry, or economy, or heartbreak of the real world then who cares if I haven’t written the next Oprah bookclub pick? I liken it to this… how many times can you watch Schindler’s List before you need a break from the drama with a little Mel Brooks? There is room in this world for both.

I always feel like this when I’m exposed to ‘real’ writers. Those people who write poetry, or non-fiction, or real-life/memoir-inspired fiction. There is one thing I know soul deep and that is this-whether I am considered a ‘real’ writer by others or not, there is no questioning that I am a ‘working’ writer. The greatest compliment I ever received was given by the head of Fremantle Media after a pitch session where I was on the phone from NY, and my writing partner was in the office with him in California. I’d hung up and he said to my friend, “She’s very commercial.” When Chris told me what had been said, I asked, “Is that good?” He said, “That’s very good.”

Yes, I am commercial. I write what sells, but I also write what I enjoy. That small distinction is what keeps me from feeling like a career whore. I’ve found hot sells. The hotter the better. Threesomes sell even better than M/F romance. So that’s what I’ve written lately and you know what? They’ve all been best sellers. To have looked at the Amazon.com Best Selling Romance/Western list and seen my paperback sitting at #6, surrounded by the likes of Linda Lael Miller and Diana Palmer told me I’d made the right choice.

I know I am a ‘working’ writer because I make money doing what I do. No, it’s not a huge advance from a big name NY pub, but it is damn good money considering I spend most days sitting at my keyboard in the comfort of my own home. No commute, no gasoline bills, no work clothes to buy.

I know I am a ‘working’ writer because the ‘book of my heart’ is not sitting under my bed waiting around for the perfect book deal. Instead, my 13 full length novels, and many other assorted short stories are on shelves and in eReaders being enjoyed by readers.

I know I am a ‘working’ writer because I have edits, deadlines and schedules. I lose sleep, I don’t have time to cook or clean and I go days without changing out of my PJs because of those edits, deadlines and schedules.

So why do I still feel lesser? Does this stem from the RWA controversary about what makes an author ‘published’? No, not really, at least not this time. My first menage, Rough Stock, earned me more than $600 in 30 days, so I am sure that more than 7 months after release, most of that time sitting on the Amazon paperback category best seller list, as well as the fact it hit the ARe Top Ten and sat for a long time at #1 at LBR, I’ve well earned over the required $1000 on a single title to be qualified to join RWA’s PAN (Published Author Network). It’s not RWA. It’s other things in my life but the feelings are no less strong or real than my disagreement with RWA’s policies.

Interviewing other authors helps. Speaking with writers like best seller Joan Johnston for the radio show. A woman who left the legal field to write romance novels. A woman who used to hide the Harlequin book she was reading in her briefcase so no one knew she was reading it. She stayed up until 5 am to meet a deadline and finish a book so she could travel to BookExpoAmerica to promote her work. She is a working writer, just like me.

So no, I don’t pen poetic prose. I am commercial. I am published. I am a working writer. If you don’t like it, then you better get the hell out of my way.

Rant over now, so check out sexy cartoon me and don’t miss the interview with Joan Johnston at www.blogtalkradio.com/whats-hot-in-romance