Today is an exciting day! Months of collaborative scheming have come to fruition, and I’m delighted to announce the grand debut of The Ballroom Blog. The Ballroom blogroll includes authors Sarah MacLean, Gaelen Foley, Katharine Ashe, Miranda Neville, Sabrina Darby, and yours truly. I was thrilled to be invited to blog with these lovely and talented ladies, and our hostess, the incomparable Lady B, will be most happy to make your acquaintance.

We’re starting the blog off with a round of introductions and, naturally, a giveaway. 🙂 Please do stop by and join the party! All posts on The Ballroom will be in the style of fun conversations – between authors, characters, and guests.

Also, if you’d like to read A Night to Surrender early, you have few hours left to bid on a special advance copy. It’s up for auction to benefit author L.A. Banks, who has been battling adrenal cancer. As of this post’s writing, it’s still going for a song! Here’s the eBay link.

See you in the Ballroom!… Read More »

I’m back from NYC! The conference was wonderful. A full wrap-up (including details of my scintillating encounter in the NYPL Rare Books room!) will have to wait for another day, because I have so much exciting news to share.

(The beautiful NYC skyline from Bryant Park. We had gorgeous weather! You can click on the photo to see it bigger.)

The quick-and-dirty RWA recap: My panel went great, the signing was wonderful, and the parties were to die for. I had a great time meeting so many readers, bloggers, authors, and publishing folk. The RITA award for Best Regency Historical went to the amazing Lauren Willig–congratulations to her!

One of the huge stories of the week was the fabulousness of my friend and roomie Courtney Milan, who hit both the USA Today and New York Times bestseller lists with her wonderful self-published novella, Unlocked. It was a tremendous thrill to wake up in our hotel room Thursday morning and retrieve the complimentary copy of the paper from the hallway, so we could see it for ourselves in print!

Adding to the excitement, what should be two pages back in the same section of the same edition of said national newspaper–but a little photo of me! I was quoted in this fun little “Opposites Attract” article with a few authors you might have heard of. Like, say, Susan Elizabeth Phillips and Sarah MacLean? Yeah. Pinch me. 🙂 You can read the whole article here, if you so choose. … Read More »

The bags are (mostly) packed, and in just a few short hours I’ll be jetting off on the red-eye, headed for the Romance Writers of America national conference in New York City!

Before I forget —

While in NYC, I’ll be passing out some beautiful postcards for A Night to Surrender, directing people to visit my website to read the first chapter. So… the first chapter is up now. 🙂 You can read it here.

Things I’m so excited for in the coming week (other than the chance to see all my fabulous and far-flung romance-minded friends, of course):

• Workshops! I’ll be on the “Quick Release Trilogy” panel with Stefanie Sloane, Monica McCarty, Zoe Archer, and Christy Reece.
• The literacy signing! Open to the public and featuring hundreds of fabulous authors in one place, this Tuesday night event is always a blast. Plus, it benefits local literacy organizations.
• The awards luncheon – can’t wait to see local colleague and friend SuperLibrarian Wendy Crutcher pick up her “Librarian of the Year” award.
• PARTY – I have some smaller celebrations planned with friends, and I’m particularly excited for the Avon party at the swank Central Park Boathouse.
• The RITAs and Golden Heart awards. It’s a huge thrill to be a RITA finalist for Twice Tempted by a Rogue, and I’m so excited that my good friend Leigh LaValle is up for a Golden Heart in the Regency category. Actually, I’ll be rooting for friends in several categories, so it

A Night to Surrender finally has its own bookshelf page! There isn’t a whole lot there yet, but there are pre-order links and a blurb and tiny teaser excerpt. I will be posting a much longer excerpt in weeks to come.

If you’d like to win a signed coverflat and bookish surprise, please do enter my new contest.

Exciting news! Rights have been licensed for the Stud Club trilogy to be published in Thai translation.

And before I dash off again to put the finishing touches on Spindle Cove book two (A Week to be Wicked), I leave you with this gorgeous French cover for Goddess of the Hunt.

C’est magnifique! I just love it. I especially love how much that cover model looks like “Lucy” to me. Her hair is perfect, and her expression definitely looks as though she’s up to something. 🙂 And the title, Impulsive, certainly fits Lucy, too! The French edition releases June 15th.

I hope you’re all enjoying the first taste of summer!… Read More »

I finally found time to update the site with some of my most recent foreign covers. I thought I’d highlight them here, too.

First, this gorgeous new Slovak cover for Surrender of a Siren:

Siigh… So romantic! I love it.

And here are two new covers for A Lady of Persuasion– the Indonesian and the Thai.

What I find so interesting is that they’re wildly different covers, but the artists seem to have tried to keep the same color scheme from the book’s original cover. Or maybe that’s just coincidence?

I understand (from a Russian reader) that the Russian title translates loosely to, “Why a Lovelace Gets Married.” To which I asked, “Um… What’s a lovelace?” 🙂 A scoundrel or rake, she tells me. So there you go! A very appropriate title, actually.

Speaking of great foreign titles, the German edition of Surrender of a Siren releases next Monday! Its title? “Hurricane of Love.” (I confess, I can’t type that without hearing it as ‘Hurricane of Luuurve.’)

To any German readers who might wander by… Ein herzliches Dankeschön!
(Crossing fingers I got that right. I don’t speak German! Correct me if it’s wrong, please.)

Foreign editions are just the most exciting things. It’s so amazing to think that people in Russia and Indonesia and Germany and Slovakia are all reading a book that I wrote. *pinches self* … Read More »

I spent much of the last week at the RT Booklovers’ Convention in L.A., and it was a fabulous conference. What a busy few days! I, of course, always forget to take pictures – especially ones with me in them – so I’m linking to a few posted on various blogs, and I hope those folks don’t mind.

Wednesday, I participated in a few panel workshops, then attended Avon’s Romance Live event. We had some technical challenges, but I’m told something like 800 people stuck with us and watched the chat! Pictured, from left to right: Katharine Ashe, Cathy Maxwell, Sophia Nash, publicist Pam Spengler-Jaffee, editor Erika Tsang, me, and Elizabeth Boyle. What an amazing group–I’d doubt it really happened, if I didn’t have this picture to prove it.

Photo linked from Avon Romance blog

Thursday, I hosted Purple Prose Taboo with friends and fellow authors Victoria Dahl and Courtney Milan. A raucous good time was had by all!

Photo linked from RT Book Reviews blog

Also on Thursday, I was honored to accept the RT Reviewers Choice award for Best Regency-Set Historical, forOne Dance with a Duke. And no, I didn’t take a picture. But when I got home yesterday, the darelings reenacted the award ceremony with a toy pink microphone that makes applause sounds. 🙂 The actual awards ceremony was wonderful–I especially enjoyed the inspiring speeches from the career achievement award recipients, including Robyn Carr, Catherine Coulter, and Lisa Kleypas.

Of course, the highlight of conference … Read More »