It so happens that today I got author copies of GIRL ON A DIAMOND PEDESTAL, which features my very first Aussie hero, Ethan Grey.

And in honor of Australia Day…I’d like to give at least one copy away!

Never been kissed.

Noelle was once the girl who had everything. Until the piano prodigy fell from grace. Destitute and desperate, she’s forced to accept billionaire Ethan Grey’s convenient proposal.

Ethan wants revenge – all he needs is Noelle’s signature on the marriage certificate. Yet his carefully composed façade cracks in the face of her innocent attempts at seduction.

Noelle’s only ever felt love and excitement whilst at her beloved piano – yet now her traitorous body craves the white-hot passion ignited by Ethan’s skilled touch. But will he ever see her as more than a means to an end?

Leave a comment to be entered to win!

So basically, I’m a cartoon character. No, really. I am. If you don’t believe me, I’ll tell you about the time my husband was out of town and I was driven to keep things organized and spotless. (My husband does a fair amount of the cleaning around here…)

So the kids were in bed and I was getting set to vacuum. And I managed to suck the string for our mini-blinds up into the vacuum, yank them off the window and OH YEAH ALMOST START A FIRE. Also, Danger baby peed on my laptop a couple of years back and fried it. Yeah, I have a gift. I’ve slipped and spilled a latte on my face in the Starbucks parking lot, had every eletronic I own malfunction while I tried to send an important email, and just recently the ice maker in my fridge randomly broke and flooded the kitchen.

So, me, at best a sitcom character from the 90s, at worst, Donald Duck.

I say this because I think it’s important for people to know I don’t have all mah crap together. Not even close. Every day is a learning experience for me while I try to balance being a wife (which I’ve only been for going on 7 years…) a mom (even newer at 5 years) a home owner (4 years) and a writer (2 years). While I try to figure out how in the world I’m supposed to get everything done!

It’s chaotic, and hilarious, and evolves constantly. The biggest thing I’ve leared is not to expect it all to go according to a schedule. At this point, it just can’t. I have been learning (continually…daily) that if things don’t go according to plan, I just have to improvise.

I’m learning that what I thought was true about kids before I had them…isn’t. At least for mine. And that I have to be willing to adjust my expectations of them, and myself, on a daily basis.

I’m learning that I married a patient and forgiving man, and he’s learning how to cook.

I’m learning that sometimes there is nothing that feels better than being able to close my office door and have a moment to myself. Even if it’s ‘work’.

I’m also learning that some days I want to avoid work when I can’t. And that it’s hard to try and explain to someone ‘no, I can’t, I have work to do.’ when you’re the boss of your own schedule.

I’m learning that when your husband tries to help and puts regular dishsoap in the dishwasher and causes a suds flood…the best thing to do is laugh. And maybe use the extra soap the mop the floor. (because Lord knows it needs it)

I’m learning that every day can be an adventure. That even if a day is hard, it can be salvaged by a smile from one of the kids.

I don’t have it all together. I don’t have it all figured out. I don’t have organized lists of tasks I get completed every day. But I’m having fun. And I’m learning.

I think that’s all any of us can really ask of ourselves.

Update: I have confirmation that this ebook will be FREE from March to June! So hurry and get your copy when it comes out!!

I got to be a part of my VERY FIRST continuity last year. This is an amazing and awesome thing where eight authors get to work on a series together. I contributed a full length story that will be #6 in the series, and it’s called Princess From the Shadows (or…Hot Rod if you follow me online).

It was a great experience because I think it pushed me to try things that I wouldn’t have normally done on my own. Or…ever in some cases. But you’ll find out more about that as the release for Hot Rod gets closer.

I was also asked to do a prequel for the continuity and was told I could pick any characters lying around who hadn’t had a story. In my book, the hero and heroine have a son and, to help with the son, a nanny. A liked her as soon as she popped up on the page. She was pretty, and liked to play with kids, and I didn’t know much else. But I felt like there was something else.

As soon as the offer to do another book in the series came…I knew it had to be her book. Then I asked Twitter who her hero should be. A Spaniard? A Greek? An Aussie? Overwhelmingly…Twitter said Sheikh. And so came about Sheikh Taj. Twitter, you should be proud of yourself.

This was my first novella, and I have to say…I think writing them could be an addiction. It’s such a cool skill to try and hone. Fitting all that wonderful passion, emotion and conflict into an even smaller format! Makes me feel like McGyver. But…with less duct tape.

And without further ado…

THE LIFE SHE LEFT BEHIND

The Santina Crown… Royalty has never been so scandalous!

Heiress Angelina Carpenter traded in diamonds for denim–and the freedom to make her own choices–when she fled from her arranged marriage to Sheikh Taj Ahmad. Now working as a nanny for the royal family of Santina, Angelina can’t help but risk a glimpse at the glamorous life she left behind during a lavish party…and runs straight into Taj! And this time, the ruthless sheikh has no intention of letting his runaway bride get away…

A prequel novella to The Santina Crown series.

The Life She Left Behind will be available March 1st as an ebook from Amazon. UK date TBA.

I don’t blog about social media much. Mainly because a lot of other people do it, and they do it well. But tonight, I want to talk about the blue unicorn in your tweet stream. Or on your Facebook. Or whatever.

For the sake of this discussion the blue unicorn is a political party. Or a religion. Or a non-religion. He’s whatever one of those things you aren’t. And he’s probably listening to you talk. Or…tweet.

Example:

JohnSmith: ^$&% the blue unicorns! They probably drown puppies.

JimHoofman: @JohnSmith um…I’m a blue unicorn. I don’t drown puppies.

JohnSmith: @Jimhoofman What? Well, I mean every blue unicorn but you.

JimHoofman: @JohnSmith there are plenty of blue unicorns who don’t drown puppies.

JohnSmith: @JimHoofman No there aren’t.

JimHoofman: @JohnSmith O_o

Twenty minutes later…

JohnSmith: I swear blue unicorns are what’s wrong with this country!

JimHoofman: I wish SOME PEOPLE were more sensitive.

Clearly, this is a ridiculous example. But I see this, all the time. I think it’s easy to sound combative when there’s no tone of voice, first of all. And if something is negative about something someone believes in deeply…well, it’s going to sound ten shades of mean whether you meant it to or not. It’s also going to feel DIRECTED at the people in your stream/on your page, who hold that particular set of beliefs.

This doesn’t mean you can’t say your opinion, but I think the big question is, if you were at a social gathering would you shout BLUE UNICORNS ARE WHAT’S WRONG WITH THIS COUNTRY while one was standing in the corner trying to drink a rum and coke?

Remember, social media is social. And you want to be a good party guest. Not one who makes blue unicorns cry.

Fear ruins everything. I mean, there’s the fear of cobras which is completely logical and, you know, lifesaving. There’s the fear of spiders which, you would be CRAZY not to have. Crazy. did I mention crazy? Well, okay, my fear of spiders is a little over the top, but I consider this a lifesaving type of fear. But then, when it keeps me out of my office because there’s a spider in the corner…nope. Still logical. I digress.

General, daily, insecurity type fear, ruins EVERYTHING.

It makes it take too long to get dressed cuz you worry about how you look in whatever jeans and DO THEY MAKE YOUR BUTT LOOK BIG?? It makes you not query that agent because…they might reject you. It makes it hard to find the right words to type in your MS, because you’re afraid of ruining it, or you’re afraid it won’t be good. Or that no one will want to read it. Or buy it.

Fear protects us sometimes. From cobra bites and wiggy icky spider legs. And sometimes from rejection. But unlike cobra bites and being touched by a spider, rejection and failure aren’t fatal. (Shut up. Being touched by a spider is fatal.)

It’s like gymnastics. No really, go with me. Sometimes you stick your landing just fine, sometimes you land on your butt. Sometimes you straddles the balance beam and it hurts like HECKA BAD and sometimes, your hand slips off the parallel bars, you hit your chin on the low bar, land funny and break your ankle. That last one can really mess you up, man. None of it’s fatal. Sometimes you mess up because you only sort of half committed to that big flip, rather than giving it your all. Because fear can do that to you. It can cause the failure. It can keep you from getting back up.

But what if you got back up and you did it next time? and you WON?? You won’t know if you don’t try. You won’t try if you let fear stop you. There will be challenges. No matter what stage of the game you’re in, no matter what stage of LIFE you’re in. Sometimes you won’t stick your landing. I don’t every time. But I DO know this: When I let fear control me, I’m not as good of a writer as I can be. I don’t jump as high. I don’t go as far. That means it doesn’t get to play in this part of my life. When you give it your all, the fall still hurts. But at least you know you tried EVERYTHING.

If you try again, you’ll still be hurt, but you have a chance to make that pain mean something. To come out on the other side with your goals achieved. With that painful MS written, with your dream contract, or with lots and lots of sale.

If you give up halfway through, all you have is a broken ankle. You get the hurt, without the reward. If you get up again, you’ll still have a broken ankle. But you might get a gold medal too. And that makes it worth it.

Hammering the point home with this video of Kerri Strug in the 1996 Olympics. Because this is what it looks like to try again, with no fear, to push past the pain, and win.

Can you see I had a mild disagreement with a character again? This seems to happen to me a lot. It happened with Maddy from The Petrov Proposal. It happened with Blaise from Highest Price to Pay. It happened with Carlotta from Princess From the Shadows and now…it’s happening with another heroine.

I love hero (and heroine!) torture. Gimme drama. Scars. Whatever. I love it when life has thrown a ton of CRAP their way and they withstand it, even if they are a bit (or a lot cough cough) emotionally screwed up as a result. I love the healing that comes with that. I love the reward. Sad backstories R us.

What I don’t like quite as much is when they make a mess of it themselves. When everything is screwed up (and maybe some other people are too) and it was MY character’s fault. Well, that’s not entirely true, I always end up liking it, but as I’m sort of starting a book and trying to really FIND it, I don’t. Take Blaise from Highest Price. I started him out with a really sad backstory. He’d made a mistake (one that wasn’t REALLY his fault) and he was carrying the guilt of it. And it never settled well with me. I had a great character with all kinds of guilt, but he really didn’t deserve to be carrying it. Unless…oh no. Nononononono…please, Blaise, tell me you didn’t do THAT. PLEASE. You did? Well…frick.

Turned out he was very much the author of his own issues. They were his creation, the consequence of his mistakes. And in the end, I liked it, but I always struggle with that at the outset. I want my characters to be GOOD and for everyone to LIKE THEM. So the idea of giving them these sort of sticky issues in their past is always a bit frightening.

My brand new shiny heroine is insisting she’s just not all that shiny. I tried to ignore the niggling idea I had about her past because I found it a bit…well, tricky. I want her to be GOOD. But really, she’s better than good. She’s interesting. And she was an active participant in where she is in her life because of both good and bad decisions.

And I think that’s really the issue. It’s easier, on some levels, to write a character who is tossed around by the storms of life, and is in hard times because LIFE IS HARD. First of all, that’s a relatable feeling. Second, it makes the character easier to write and…easier to like in some ways. And I’ve written those characters, several of them. Because they’re interesting too. What someone does with the bad things in their life is telling of the kind of person they are, and there is nothing wrong with writing that sort of H or h.

What’s harder though, is the character who made their own bed. But that’s true in life too. We make mistakes, and we have fallout for those mistakes. But just because someone makes a mistake, doesn’t mean they don’t deserve to move on from it and find a happily ever after. I’ve said it before, I tend to look at love as a cure, a balm for the soul. Who needs that more than someone that’s dying? (metaphorically )

All that whole blog post to encourage you not to be afraid to explore characters who have made some mistakes. Who have a past. Who very much had a hand in their own undoing. It’s interesting, and, as much as I fight in the beginning, I find it rewarding in the end. (This post is partly a reminder to me as I try to deal with this shady new heroine of mine!)

Also, to let you all know, The Highest Price to Pay is currently 99p in the Amazon UK Kindle store…you can check that out here!

And for my North American friends The Petrov Proposal is now available at eharlequin! (wide release coming in Feb!)

Hajar’s Hidden Legacy is hitting UK shelves in a couple of days (that’s my Beast Sheikh!) and will be on Mills and Boon Australia soon too!

Here’s the cover they gave it for it’s trip to Aus and NZ!

I like this one a lot. I like BOTH of them, actually, but here you have Katharine as a redhead, as I wrote her, which is nice. And Zahir looks a bit more ‘weathered’ in this version too, which I also like as he’s supposed to be badly scarred.

The other thing I like is the scene it’s depicting. *rubs hands together* The scene with Katharine in her blue PJs is dear to me. And I’ll share a little teaser with you now! (This is a bit of an 18+ teaser, so if you’re under age or offended by a bit a sexiness, don’t read it!)

Katharine flung the bedcovers back and stalked to the window. She was hot. And the desert wasn’t the blame. The night air was cool and dry, and it was usually her favorite time in Hajar. But nothing could extinguish the flame that Zahir had lit inside her.

Nothing had been able to dampen it. The chilly shower she’d taken had only made her blood run nearer to the surface, had only made her more aware of all of the parts of her body. Tender, needy parts that wanted Zahir’s rough, insistent hands on them. Without that sweet little yellow dress in the way.

She felt like her skin was too tight. Like she needed to shed it. At least shed her clothing. She arched against the silky camisole top she was wearing and the filmy fabric brushed over her nipples. She sucked in a sharp breath. The slight abrasion of the fabric sent sensation arrowing down to the apex of her thighs, made inner muscles she had never been overly aware of tighten in response.

She took a handful of hair and twisted it around her hand, holding it up off her neck. It was damp with sweat and some of the coolness in the air finally made its way into her. Like the shower, it didn’t help.

“Katharine.”

She dropped her hair and let it fall down past her shoulders. Zahir was standing in the doorway, wearing nothing more than those pale linen pants, low on his narrow hips. Showing perfectly defined muscles, gorgeous bronzed skin.

He hid his imperfections in the shadows, and for a moment, it was easy to forget he had any. That made her feel strange. Like she was adrift in the sea without an anchor. Because without the scars—those marks that made him who he was—she didn’t recognize him. It was only for a moment, but it was so strange and strong.

She moved nearer to him, breathed in a sharp breath when she saw the roughened side of his face.

“What are you doing here?”

“I am here to finish what should have been finished in the entryway today. What should have been finished last week in the study.”

She drew in a shaky breath, just before his lips crashed down on hers. And then there was nothing beyond desperation. It clawed at her, tore at her stomach, creating a frenzied desire in her that seemed to possess her, drive her actions. He slid his hand down to her backside, his palm resting on the tiny silk sleep shorts she was wearing, his heat burning through the thin fabric. Even that was too much. The barrier was too inhibiting.

“I’m here to show you that there are still ways I can put any man to shame.”

HAJAR’S HIDDEN LEGACY is on the shelves in the UK in January, and online in AUS January 1st!

I have been biting my lip and hopping up and down and DYING to share this cover with you guys forever!! And I finally can!

You guys remember me talking about my Aussie hero? Well, this is the cover for his book. Although, as you can see by the cover, and the title, there’s a heroine in this book too. I jokingly said she’s the heroine who sold herself for a latte. Which is only sort of true.

The thing I love about this cover is that I know exactly which scene it portrays…and I’m going to share a little of that scene with you!

He watched as she wove through the crowd, a bright spot amid the sea of customary New York black. Golden hair, pale skin, silken red dress, making her a force of color and light that was impossible to ignore as she made her way to the stage.

And once she was there, sitting behind the piano, she commanded every eye in the room to watch her.

She put her hands on the keys and he swore he felt her fingertips on his body. Long, elegant fingers caressing the keys, easy to imagine them on his skin. She started playing a piece he recognized, one he’d heard in department stores many times. Something from one of her old albums, he assumed. But actually hearing it in person, watching her perform it, made it a totally new experience.

It was so fluid. Smooth. Pure perfection.

And it felt like it was only for him. Not for anyone else in the room. His chest tightened, breathing a little harder as arousal assaulted him. Flooded him.

Each note was a caress, the flow and rhythm of the song like making love, hard and fast then slow and sweet. Everything he wanted to do with her, everything he dreamed of, put out in the open, forcing him to confront it.

She lifted her head and looked into the crowd, looked at him, her eyes locked with his as she continued to play, her entire body moving with the effort she put into playing, every part of her involved in her performance.

She would move like that in bed. Perfect. With passion, with all of herself.

GIRL ON A DIAMOND PEDESTAL will release in the UK in March!

I am SO LAME and I posted this in my pages instead of posts…like two days ago. And now I lost some really nice comments fixing it and putting it in the right spot. And THIS is why you shouldn’t do things while you’re half asleep…but here it is…in the right spot now:

I got the idea for this post when I started thinking about a D I got in college. Yes, a D. On a paper. A written one. For writing.

It got me thinking about every writing experience I had in college. And how excruciatingly painful I found them. But not just non-fiction essay writing…writing fiction as well. I had the bug to do it. I was always creating stories in my head, always thinking about characters I’d made up and what they might be doing. Sometimes I would sit and try to write it all down. It would last about…ten pages. One start I *think* went up to about thirty pages and that was my absolute all time record.

Why was it so hard for me? I think it comes down to the fact that I didn’t know my voice. Or I at least didn’t trust it! If I was going to write an essay, I was going to sit down and regurgitate facts in my very best Smart Writing Tone and try to give the teacher exactly what I thought they wanted. It was dry. It had no authenticity. It sucked.

I did the same with my fiction. My first attempts were either YA ‘Stranded on an island or in the woods’ type stuff. The kind of thing that showed I’d read Hatchet one too many times. And I tried to write it the way I thought it should soon. Same when I went to YA mysteries. Same when I tried fantasy. I didn’t want it to sound like me. I wanted it to sound ‘real’ or ‘professional’ or something…

I really discovered the JOY of writing when I started putting together little email stories for my friends. They were done in a very outlandish, humorous style and I didn’t think about the words. I just let it go. I played. I had fun. I read it out loud to at my creative writing class and my prof said ‘That’s what you need to write’.

First person detective noir featuring the worst similes I could think of? (Incidentally, it was a line from one of those stories that got Dishonorable Mention in the Bulwer-Lytton contest. But that’s a different story altogether.)

Well, obviously no. That’s not what I ended up writing. And no, I don’t go anywhere half as absurd when I write an actual book. But those crazy stories just for friends unlocked what I’d been missing: MY VOICE.

It was painful to sit and write two sentences when I was struggling with every word. Because I was rejecting my instincts, rejecting my style, and trying to replace it with someone else’s. And it just didn’t work. It actually really sucked.

Even when I first started writing romance I fell back into the ‘how would Kim Lawrence say it’ sort of thing. Because I could think of these writers I admired, and I wanted to be a part of their line, so of course, I felt I had to write like them. It was my amazing editor, Jenny, who pulled me from slush, that said I needed to trust MY voice and what makes ME unique. She told me not to fall back on reactions, scenes, facial expressions just because I thought that was what was ‘supposed’ to happen.

And as I’ve gone on, I’ve learned more and more to trust my voice. And more and more, I love the act of sitting and writing. I find it freeing. I find it fun. I find it to be nothing like it was for me back when I first started.

Does everyone love my voice? Nope. Not even close. But it’s my voice. We all have one. It’s what makes our writing unique, it’s what will make it stand out. It’s what will make people love us, or hate us. It’s what sets our writing free.

For me, finding and trusting my voice has been a process. The trust especially is an ongoing one. But I’m getting there. I hope you’ll all do the same. Be you, be proud. And find the joy in your words.

My husband Haven and I decided to make a video, musical Christmas card! So here it is. Merry Christmas!