HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Wishing everyone a new year that's full of much happiness, good health and new beginnings! Please be extra careful if you're out on the roads, and please, please, please don't drink and drive!

Happy New Year!
Laurie

IT'S JACKET TIME!

Here I am wearing my favorite Christmas present! I love my Bluejackets jersey. Any hockey fans out there? We typically go to watch the "Jackets" once a year when the real estate title insurance company that my office underwrites for hosts our office in their private suite - pretty swanky stuff - but we rarely miss them on television. I've come to love them and after wanting a jersey for about three yars, finally have one! My friend Carla gave us my second favorite gift - a family pack of tickets to see the boys beat the Carolina Hurricanes last night. We had a blast -and the Bluejackets won! It was a fun family night out.

What was your favorite Christmas gift??

ANOTHER CHRISTMAS HAS PASSED

I hope everyone had a great holiday! I was determined that this was going to be a kinder, gentler (so to speak) holiday, less hectic than years past. It didn't turn out that way at all. I spent more time than I had anticipated in the kitchen, throwing together this dish or that, making cookie/fudge plates and tins, stirring up sugared nuts at the last minute. I did have most of my wrapping finished by Christmas Eve however, a major accomplishment for me.
We always give gift cards to nieces and nephews and wanted to give my girls gift cards to American Eagle as part of their gift. I had my list of nieces and nephews, with the various places I would need to go to get said cards. As I approached the checkout desk and saw the rack of gift cards, I grabbed six and every niece and nephew got gift cards from American Eagle. Not very imaginative, but I can't tell you how satisfying it was to put a check beside those names indicating that they were taken care of!
We had a wonderful Christmas, except that my hubby evidently didn't get the memo that we were "downsizing" our holiday spending this year. He is the most generous and giving man in the world, especially at Christmas. My favorite gift? I have several, but I think my brand spanking new Bluejackets hockey jersey is my absolute fav - followed by the family pack of hockey tickets that my friend Carly gave us for this Saturday's home game! I can't wait - I'll be sporting my new jersey and waving my foam finger! Well, I probably *won't* take my foam finger, that's not really my style, but it was sweet of Tim to get it for me! I also got a black leather coat that I've had my eye on, new robe and slippers, a Belleek (Irish porcelain) snowman ornament, lotions, candles, calendars, and an attachment for my KitchenAid mixer that scrapes the bowl while it mixes - can't wait to try that one out!
I have reviews coming in the next couple of days for Janice Maynard's THE PERFECT TEN and LuAnn McLane's TRICK MY TRUCK . . . - both are great fun and there will be a contest running to celebrate LuAnn's book!!
The contest for the Lora Leigh books I spoke about a few weeks ago will also be coming up in the next week or so. I realize that I'm behind, but between college "shopping" with my daughter and the Christmas holiday, I've barely been able to think straight.
If you have a minute, tell us about your holiday - what did you do? What was your favorite gift? New Year's Eve plans?
Laurie

WICKED by Sasha White - coming soon!

WICKED
Berkley Heat
ISBN-10: 0425219186
ISBN-13: 978-0425219188
Format: Trade Paperback
Genre: Contemporary
Length: Novel
Release Date: January 2, 2008

Sasha White readers are anticipating her next Berkley release, WICKED, available January 2. I was fortunate enough to receive an ARC from Sasha and am pleased to chat it up! Here's a little blurb:

Readers first met Karl Dawson in BOUND, they’ll get to know him a little better in TROUBLE, but one woman will learn all in WICKED.
Bad-boy divorce attorney Karl Dawson has seen all the ways love can go wrong. That’s why he’s given up on it. Jaded and feeling restless, he has playmates, not girlfriends. A leather-clad Dominant, he comes and goes in the city’s after-dark playgrounds as he pleases. That’s how he likes it.
Lara Fox is an independent jack-of-all-trades who can do anything she sets her mind to - except that falling-in-love thing. She’s got a need for control too strong for most men, and an inability to walk away from a challenge. Including a challenge like Karl. He’s cocky, arrogant, and demanding. That’s how she needs it.
They’re perfect for each other. But what begins as a sensual battle of wills turns into a journey neither is prepared for when Lara is threatened and emotional walls start to crumble.

If you liked that little nibble, click here for a great excerpt!

I've done a brief review of WICKED:
Lara Fox is fiercely independent, having fended for herself since the tender age of 15. She's a hard-working young woman who is self-assured in everything she does, but she'll be the first to tell you that when it comes to love, she's a non-believer. Life has dealt her one too many low blows and while she has managed to get back up after each one, the emotional scars remain. When her good friend Graham introduces her to his boss, attorney Karl Dawson, she can't help but flirt with this arrogantly intriguing man. When he gives back as good as he takes, she knows the two of them could sizzle together. Karl is a well-known Dom and when he introduces Lara to the ways of a true submissive, neither is certain that she will ever be able to relinquish complete control, although she desperately she wants to please him.

Karl is fascinated by Lara from the moment he spies her sweet little butt peeking out from under Graham's desk. He tries not to be interested, thinking that her headstrong nature would make any sort of relationship just too much work, despite the fact that he has tired of his current playmates and their sexual games. A violent attack against Lara has Karl on the defensive, and when the attacks escalate, he wants to keep her safe, but Lara has been on her own for too long to give up her independence. Karl begins to tutor Lara in the ways of dominance/submission and while she is eager and a fast learner, there's a slight hesitance on her part that leaves Karl confused. He is even more confused by the emotions he is beginning to feel for Lara and, because he believes in love even less than Lara does, is unsure of just how to manage them.

Lara and Karl are very interesting characters. Their personalities are excellently written and there is never a question as to the reasoning or purpose behind any of their actions. Sasha White allows readers glimpses deep inside her characters in a way that few authors are capable of and there's never a disappointment in her books. Most of you know that while I love erotic romance, I don't typically care for some dom/sub stuff - spanking, anal sex, and painful pleasures, in particular. As would be expected, given the content of Sasha's previous books with some of these shared characters, this book does contain those things, but I think because Karl and Lara are so wonderfully written, and their personalities delved into so completely, it wasn't a concern and I loved their story very much. The two are almost instantly attracted to each other - they didn't want to be, mind you, and they did fight it - those deep emotions come into play and make for an absolutely beautiful story. A side M/M romance is sweetly written, and the return of familiar faces as secondary characters is a bit of a bonus. I give WICKED a strong recommendation, and ask that even if you aren't a fan of edgier sex scenes, you consider giving it a try because the love story it tells is so deliciously well written.

You should also check out Sasha's Samhain release, LUSTFUL, an anthology available for download now! I haven't read it yet, but am familiar with some of the other authors and I'm certain it will be a great read!


Samhain Publishing
ISBN 1-59998-840-2
Genre: Contemporary, M/M, Ménage a trois, D/s, Light Bondage
Length: Novella
Release Date: December 7, 2007

Thanks, Sasha, for giving me the opportunity to review WICKED for you!!
Laurie

NAME THAT CAROL!!

UPDATED! Ok, with all of the shopping and running around I've been doing, I almost forgot to update the carol list with the corresponding numbers. I hope those of you who played have enjoyed our silly game! Merry Christmas, everyone!

Several years ago, our office received a fax with ten "riddles" that describe the titles of Christmas carols. We had so much fun with it that two of us came up with several more. I came across the list in my desk last week and decided to dust it off and post it here so anyone stopping by can join in the fun! Our office has an ornament exchange/pizza lunch every year and this year we're doing it on Thursday; I plan to bring this out since we have a couple of new people since we last played. I remember one (former) co-worker, an especially nasty woman whose goal it was to make everyone else in the office look ignorant (We called her "BM" for "Backstabbing Mary") - she couldn't get any of them and threw a rather embarrassing hissy fit about what a stupid game it was - wadding up her paper and throwing it across the room. We enjoyed that so much that we added to the list the following year. She then moved away and the game just wasn't as much fun!!

Anyway, I hope you enjoy it. I'll include the list with the carol names, but the first round is typically played without the assistance of the names. I'll stop back in a couple of days and post the answers for those who have trouble. Have fun!

CLUES:
1. The lad is a diminutive percussionist.
2. Stepping on the pad cover.
3. The red suited Pa is due in this berg.
4. Cup-shaped sounding instrument fashioned of white metallic element.
5. The department of two psychiatrists.
6. Decorate the entryways.
7. Sir Lancelot with laryngitis.
8. Far back in the hay bin.
9. Tiny little Alan, King and Nat Cole.
10. Uncouth dolf has his beezer in the booze and thinks he is a dark
cloud’s boyfriend.
11. Duodecimal enumeration of the passage of the Yuletide season.
12. Leave and do an elevated broadcast.
13. Our fervent hope is that you thoroughly enjoy your Yuletide season.
14. Small Israeli urban center.
15. Listen, the winged messengers are proclaiming tunefully.
16. As the guardians of little woolly animals protected their charges in the shadows of the night.
17. Beyond I envision a trio of nautical vessels.
18. A joyful song of reverence relative to hollow metallic vessels which
bring forth a ringing sound when struck.
19. Jubilation to the entire terrestrial globe.
20. Do you perceive the same longitudinal pressure which stimulates my auditory sense organs?
21. A strafed member of the round table.
22. A parent was observed osculating a red coated unshaven teamster.
23. Wanted in December – forward incisors!!
24. May a deity bestow an absence of fatigue to humanity.
25. An event which arrived on a cloudless bewitching hour.
26. Alphabet minus the twelve letter, the primary ordinal time.
27. After the solstice, a stroll through a vista of amazement.
28. Amusement park entertainment for Stephen King.
29. Fantasize constantly about a Yuletide without color.

CAROLS:
O Little Town of Bethlehem 14
Go Tell it on the Mountain 12
Away in a Manger 8
Nutcracker Suite 5
Up on the Housetop 2
Twelve Days of Christmas 11
Sleigh Ride 28
I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas 29
We Three Kings 9
I Saw Three Ships 17
Do You Hear What I Hear? 20
O Holy Night 7
The First Noel 26
All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth 23
Hark! The Herald Angels Sing 15
As Shepherds Watch Their Flocks by Night 16
Walking in a Winter Wonderland 27
Joy to the World 19
I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus 22
It Came Upon a Midnight Clear 25
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen 24
Ding Dong Merrily the Bells 18
Little Drummer Boy 1
Santa Claus is Coming to Town 3
Silver Bells 4
We Wish You a Merry Christmas 13
Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer 10
Silent Night 21
Deck the Halls 6

CHRISTMAS TREE '07

We've finally decorated our house for Christmas - a downsized version of what we usually do. I usually take all of our year-round knick knacks and what-nots off all shelves and flat surfaces and put out holiday decorations - mostly snowmen, which I have collected for years. This year I decided to just put up our big tree and two smaller trees that I put in our entryway. We're putting lights on our trees and bushes in the front of the house too, but that's it. It's been a bit of a relief to not spend days and days getting ready. We still spent several hours on the trees, but we had fun doing it.

I have to go get ready - we're going to the annual Holiday Concert by the Columbus Symphony Orchestra with my mom, my best bud Carly and her mom - always festive and fun. We're going to dinner after at a local Irish pub called The Old Bag of Nails - great times, great friends and great food!!

Laurie

AND THE WINNER IS . . .

BARBARA! Congratulations! Please email your address to me at ljodamron@gmail.com so I can get your books out to you! Thanks everyone for playing!
The next few weeks promise to be exciting with a couple more fun contests. First off will be a review and chat about LuAnn McLane's upcoming release TRICK MY TRUCK BUT DON'T MESS WITH MY HEART. LuAnn will be offering an autographed copy of her most recent release, DANCING SHOES AND HONKEY TONK BLUES, and some other fun goodies for one lucky reader!
Are there any Lora Leigh readers out there? I'll also have a contest in the next two or three weeks for three of Lora's books - REAL MEN DO IT BETTER, HIDDEN AGENDAS and NAUTI NIGHTS. I have to admit that I'm tempted to keep NAUTI NIGHTS just so I can drool over the cover! These books are not autographed, and they aren't new - I have read them, but promise that they look new - sparkling clean and crease-free.
Have a great weekend, everyone!
Laurie

THE PERILS OF PLEASURE by Julie Anne Long

Will you look at that beautiful cover? You know, most of the first romances I read were historicals - and I admit that a good many of them were bought based solely on the cover. I'll further admit that this is one that I would have taken one look at and tucked it under my arm! Now that I buy a good deal of my books online, this one is going straight into my shopping cart! Several years ago, the number of historicals I read dropped to just a handful a year, but in the past couple of years I've begun to return to those historical roots; now I'm trying to catch up with all of the ones I've missed. I've read (and loved) several of Julie Anne Long's books over the years, and I hope that you'll take a minute to read the excerpt below, because if you haven't read her work, I think you'll be mighty tempted to start with this one!

THE PERILS OF PLEASURE
by Julie Anne Long
Coming February 2008!

It was early summer, and accordingly, hedgerows were a riot of Hawthorne blossoms. Horse chestnuts, beeches and the occasional old oak stood sentry over the roads, and songbirds rustled amongst all the greenery. Up ahead, around the bend, Madeleine could see the branches of an enormous oak splaying out in every direction, taking up more than its share of roadside.
"Do you know what I haven't done?" Colin said suddenly. He stopped, allowed her to catch up with him.
She sniffed indelicately. "Very little, if you believe the broadsheets."
"I haven't yet kissed you."
And then he snatched hold of her hand and pulled her behind that oak, barely giving her time to squeak.
Blessed shade the tree provided, with arms that splayed everywhere like a mad octopus. It hid two of them from the road, but not from the gaze of a gently curious sheep, who paused in its grass cropping to stare. Colin spun her about and had her up against it in a thrice, pinned between his arms, and he towered over her, staring down for a moment. At the stars in my eyes or my great white forehead? She wondered.
"Don't—" she began nervously.
"Don't what, Mad?" Colin laughed softly, in a voice that stroked up her spine like velvet. His arms dropped from the tree, went around her waist; he pulled her hips hard against his hips, very familiarly; she felt the outline of everything male about him. "Don't…what?" He whispered it this time, and when his hands went up to her face, it was she who closed her arms around his slim waist, flattening her hands to feel the hard muscles of his back, keeping him pulled close to her body, keeping the two of them groin to groin. She wanted to feel again the heat of his body over the entire length of her.
His knuckles dragged softly over her cheeks, and she closed her eyes, because his eyes were too merry and too hot and too soft and too knowing, and she, at the moment, didn't want to be known by a man who had known nearly every woman in London, if rumors were true.
She did want to be kissed.
And then his fingers opened to feather across her ears, along her throat, the nape of her neck, and she felt her head tip back trustingly into his hands.
Cradling it, he touched his lips very, very softly to the pulse in her throat.
"Oh, Mad." It was half sigh, half soft laugh.
Colin dragged his lips softly from the arch of her throat, to her ear, to her lips, which were parted, while her eyes were still closed.
"Now I'll kiss you properly," he murmured.
She knew how to do this. She'd done it before. Her body knew where it wanted to be touched, and how it wanted to fit against his, and oddly nothing had ever seemed more right. And still somehow it became a little battle, as it always was with the two of them, in part because Madeleine only felt safe in the midst of battle. Their lips brushed, bumped, nipped softly, Madeleine now afraid to surrender to this. Too late she recalled how a kiss sometimes had the power to split one dangerously, vulnerably open. More so even than lovemaking.
"Shhhh," he whispered against her mouth, although she wasn't making a sound. It was as though he wanted to soothe the battle inside her. "Shhhhh."
His hands were at the back of her neck, soothing, stroking, and he brushed his lips over hers, urged hers apart with tender strokes of his tongue, sending a rain of silver sparks down her spine, and she gave a sigh. It was part pleasure, part some unexpressed sadness. The sound of something released.
Madeleine's hands slid up to the hard blades of his shoulders, pulling him closer, and her lips fell open beneath his. His tongue, at first, was a gentle invader, warm, velvety soft, finding and twining with hers softly in a tentative foray.
He took his lips away from hers, looked into her eyes, as though looking for some sort of answer, or wanting to see what the kiss had done to hers. His own eyes were hazy with desire.
And then his firm, clever lips took hers again, more decisively this time, and she was ready. Her arms slid up his chest to wrap round his neck, and he pulled her into his body, and his iron-hard arousal pressing against her was a maddeningly erotic contrast to his soft lips, his soft tongue. He drove the kiss deeper, and she met him; their tongues touching and tangling, part dance, part duel. He moaned softly, the sound of it vibrating in his chest beneath her hands. He withdrew his tongue to bite her bottom lip gently, a sensation startling and erotic.
Then he took her mouth again, ferociously this time, and she took as much as he did, devouring, needing him deeper into her body. He tasted sweet and dark and as she kissed him everything in her was melting, dissolving, until Madeleine knew that terrifying, exhilarating sense of having no other existence outside the heady, penetrating bliss of this kiss.
And then Colin suddenly broke the kiss with a gasp.
He tucked his cheek against hers. His whiskers rasped at her delicate skin; his breath was hot and swift the crook of her neck.
He was quiet for a long time. His arms loosened on her.
Confused and strangely bereft, Madeleine's clung to him for a moment longer. Then her arms loosened about him, too, uncertainly.
"Just a kiss," he whispered, sounding dazed.
She didn't quite understand what he meant.
They remained close but not nearly as close as moments before, their breathing slowing to before-kiss rhythms.
Colin lifted his head up, looked down into her eyes. He looked as if he was considering whether to speak.
"Did you love him, Mad?"
The question surprised her so completely that she didn't have time to disguise the truth, and she was certain it was written all over her face.
Why did he do this? How did he do this?
"Life can be the very devil sometimes, can't it?" he said softly.
She stared at him.
"The very devil," she agreed thickly, after a moment.
He smiled down at her, as only Colin Eversea could smile.
And when he took her by the hand back out to the road Madeleine felt feeling as though she'd been thrown from the moon back down to earth.

*************************************
Thanks for reading! Like it?? Here's a preorder link for Amazon, if you're interested!


Laurie

Five Christmas books up for grabs!

I have five Harlequin/Silhouette Christmas romances that I've read - with the exception of one slight spine crease, they look like brand new. They're just little bits of sweet holiday fluff that I couldn't resist. I enjoyed them and now would like to share them. I'm not going to post cover pics because I just don't have the time, but here's what I have:

HOLIDAY HEROES by Rachel Lee and Catherine Mann
CHRISTMAS IN HIS ROYAL BED by Heidi Betts
THE ITALIAN BILLIONAIRE'S CHRISTMAS MIRACLE by Catherine Spencer (I guess a millionaire wasn't rich enough)
THE SHEIK AND THE CHRISTMAS BRIDE by Susan Mallery
EXPECTING HIS ROYAL BABY by Susan Stephens

If you're interested, just leave a post here - maybe tell us whether you like holiday romances, or what you like best about them - or just say you want them, I'm not picky! I'll draw a winner this coming Friday evening (12/7).

Laurie

TROOP BOXES ARE ON THEIR WAY!

Look at those beautiful boxes! I just returned home from from mailing the above pictured boxes from our troop holiday project - another five boxes were shipped last Saturday. I would point out that three of today's boxes are headed off to some of the winners of our drawing - but still, that's 18 boxes for the troops - the most I've ever sent out of a single project! I don't have an exact count, but my estimation is that we have shipped approximately 800 pounds to the troops to date. How incredibly awesome is that??

I can't begin to thank everyone enough for their generosity - the authors who donated books and other fabulous goodies for prizes, many of whom also sent checks or gift cards for shopping, the readers who gave from the heart - more checks and gift cards, boxes of goodies, and one reader sent the most beautiful crocheted ornaments - bunches and bunches and bunches of them - for the troops. While every single donation was so deeply appreciated, the time and effort put into those ornaments deeply touched me.

So now that this project is in the record books, I'm definitely calling it a huge success!

I hope everyone has a terrific weekend as we head into December!!

Big hugs,
Laurie