Video Love

So, my gym plays music videos - actual, for-real, used-to-be-on-MTV music videos - which I find both novel and fabulous.  For the last several days I have been mildly obsessed with this one (I just wish we got to see more of the dancing).  It's so So You Think You Can Dance!  Happy Friday, darlings!

Name that Ruby

Today I'm over at the Ruby blog playing a little game - can you identify authors based solely on their voice?  Could you pick my paragraph out of a crowd?  Come on by and try your luck at Naming that Ruby. 

Which Pill Would You Choose?

In my upcoming release, Kim was a normal, everyday chick who suddenly had telekinetic powers.  If you could take a pill and become a super hero, which pill would you pick?

In related news, I've had Ask Alice stuck in my head all day.  Happy Earworm, boys and girls!

Get Ready to Get Super!!!

Gosh, is it almost February?  Well, you know what happens in February?  Other than the Super Bowl... and the Olympics... and Fur Rendezvous (Alaskan shout-out)... that's right, boys and girls, it's time for a new installment of superhero lovin' - Super Trouble comes out in less than a week!!!!  

To keep her out of trouble, he'll have to hold on tight.
Kim Carruthers is done being the damsel in distress, waiting for some superhero to save her. Now that she finally has super powers of her own, the bad guys had better watch out. It's payback time. Provided she can get past the sexy super determined to stop her quest for vengeance.
Unfortunately, the hero on her tail is none other than Frost Nightwing, the man even supers fear and the ex-lover whose icy touch always set her on fire. Tall, dark and deadly Frost is the one love she could never forget and the last person she wants to face… especially now that he's playing for keeps.

As a little teaser snippet, here's part of the scene that inspired (loosely) the cover.  Take a peek... Kim is hopped up on her new powers and feeling all vengeful as she confronts an ex-nemesis...

**

“You know what I used to think?” she asked conversationally, as if her companion wasn’t about to blow chunks all over the bar in a fear reflex. “I used to think there was some kind of super villain club and bagging me was the price of admission. Funny, right?”

Vic tried to laugh. It didn’t work out for him. He sounded like someone was trying to gag a donkey.

“But lately I’ve realized I was making things too complicated. No clubs. No initiation rituals. Just one guy paying a bunch of you idiots to do his dirty work for him.” Kim clapped Vic on the shoulder and he eeped, shrinking down beneath her hand. “I’m betting he never even told you why it had to be me. But he rewarded you for a job well done, didn’t he?” She smiled, showing all her teeth. “Nice watch, Vic.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“What’s his name?”

“Whose name?” Vic squeaked, feigning ignorance that would have been much more convincing if he hadn’t looked like he was about to wet himself.

Kim heaved a dramatic sigh. “Let the record show that I asked nicely first.”

“First?” he yelped.

She palmed the revolver, pulling it smoothly out of the holster—and taking a distinct satisfaction in drawing like a gunslinger in the middle of a bar called The Hole in the Wall. Nothing like a little atmosphere to really make a moment come together.

Smiling sweetly, she aimed the barrel at the center of Vic’s chest. He went from green to chalk white in a heartbeat.

“What do you say, buddy? Are you faster than a speeding bullet? Wanna test it?”

**

Coming February 4th!!!  Can I get a woohoo?

Big Samhain Paperback Giveaway!

Hear ye, hear ye!  Do you like books? (Of course you do!)  Do you want to win some free ones?  (Of course you do!)  So hie yourself on over to Samhain's Blog for details on how you can enter to win a $50 Samhain Gift Card or one of 32 different print releases!  (Including Finder's Keeper!) 

Good luck, reader minions!

Downton: Abbey of Anguish

**Warning: There will be spoilers.  I'm talking about Downton Abbey, so if you want to remain pure and unspoilt, steer clear.**

Downton Abbey is a phenomenon.  My friends love it, my aunts love it, my grandmothers love it.  It is addicting in the extreme... but it is also home to some of the most emotionally manipulative writing on television.  (Not saying that's a bad thing, just saying...)  Last night, a friend and I were watching the latest episode and, well, she kind of lost it.  You see, Anna is her favorite character.  When all around are falling apart, she finds comfort in the fact that she can always rely on Anna and Bates's happily-ever-after (now that he's not married to someone else or in prison anymore).  And then... yeah.  She was surprised, stunned, shocked.  I wasn't.  They were spending too much screen time showing how perfect Anna and Bates are.  In Downton, that's like foreshadowing hell on the horizon.

The Downton writing (to me) has always been about yanking the audience as hard and fast from joy to misery as possible.  Who dies?  The nice characters.  A villain gets away with it (whatever "it" may be) and even if they are fired the writers will do insane (and wildly illogical) backflips to make sure the villains will be coming back so we can focus our vitriol and frustration on them more directly.  But if you are genuinely good?  Death!  William.  Lavinia.  Sybil.  Matthew.  Honestly, I'm starting to find it a bit annoying.  It's beginning to feel a bit like a Nicholas Sparks movie - where the deaths (and other tragedies) are not to make us think or make a moral point or even to complicate the plot, but just to make us feel the most when they need a payoff moment.  And then the entire next episode is everyone wallowing in mourning.  Not just being in mourning.  Wallowing in it. 

I feel like it is sacrilegious in some circles to even say this, but I might be going off Downton.

What do you think?  Are you more invested than ever?  Or has the series jumped the shark?

Shiny gorgeous gushy happiness of the Shifter Variety

LOOK!!! Look, look, look!  Look at my shiny pretty new cover full of amazingness and gorgeousness!

Jaguar's Kiss, Book #1 of the Lone Pine Pride is COMING this JUNE!!!  It's back to lions and tigers and bears for me and oh, my, these cats have never been sexier.  I'm SO EXCITED!!!  (As evidenced by the caps and the exclamation points.)  Fans of the Serengeti series will recognize the world and, yes, there will even be crossover characters as the series continues.  Get ready, boys and girls.  Love is about to get furry!

Calling All Writers!

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, the fourth annual Ruby Winter Writing Festival is HERE!!!!  Can I get a woohooo?!  For the next seven weeks the Rubies and writers inclined to join us will be writing our fingers to the bone, fiercely piling up pages of brilliance, and doling out prizes with a wanton generosity that is really quite shocking.  (Shocking, I say!)

It all starts today!  Swing on over to the Ruby blog, announce your goals, set your point system, and then hie yourself (hie, dagnabbit!) on over to the Festival site (www.rsswwf.com) where you can partake of the Writing Sprints in the chat room!  (Hosted by yours truly from 1-3pm EST today and every Tuesday and Thursday throughout the festival!)

I shall be stacking up words of unimaginable brilliance (aren't I humble?) on a book of a shifterly persuasion, but the festival is open to ALL. Romance and non, full-time-writers and first timers. If you've always wanted to write a book, but never had a crowd of eager Rubies cheering you on, NOW is the time.  If you have a work-in-progress that is half dog's breakfast after the frenzy of NaNo, the festival is the perfect opportunity for revisions and rewrites as you set your very own goals and points.

We are always particularly delighted to hear that some of our former participants have gone on to sell works created or inspired during the festival.  It's a frenzy of creative energy and if you are of the writerly persuasion, not to be missed.  In my humble opinion.  So go forth and don't miss it!

Gosh, Is It Cold?

Here's the thing.  I'm Alaskan.  Cold?  That's part of winter.  If you let snow and low temperatures stop you from living your life in Alaska, you better stock up in September because you're going to be a hermit for half the year.  When it's cold and/or snowy up north, we just deal with it.  This is the attitude I was raised around, so when the Lower-48 has super cold temperatures and everyone I know wants to complain to me about how their world has come to a screeching halt because OH MY GOD WINTER IS COLD, WTFBBQ?!?!?!  Yeah, I'll admit I just hear white noise.  I try to smile and nod and be understanding, especially if you live south of the Mason Dixon, because you probably don't get winter weather every year - but if you live in New York where it snows every single year, people, then maybe white stuff falling from the sky isn't worthy of muppet-flail level of panic, hmm?

I think this is one way in which I will always be distinctly Alaskan.  You can keep your East Coast Weather Panic.  I'm just gonna buy some anti-freeze, put on an extra scarf and go on with my life.

**Update: 15 seconds after I posted this, I was told "Weather this cold should be illegal!"  I just stared.  It's all anyone can talk about.  White noise.  So much white noise.**