I’m going to be opening a giveaway of a SEASON FOR SCANDAL advance copy soon (yay!!)—but first, I thought I’d do a little backlist giveaway.

Somehow, I have wound up with:
*two no-longer-advance copies of my romance debut, SEASON FOR TEMPTATION, and
*two coverflats for my second romance, SEASON FOR SURRENDER.

I think it makes perfect sense to turn this stash into
*two prizes.

Did you miss SFT when it came out in 2011? Here’s your chance to catch it in its earliest form, with the embarrassing typo on page 214. (Just kidding. I think. *checks page 214*) I’ll sign the advance copy and the SFS coverflat—and I’ll put in a SEASON FOR SCANDAL coverflat for you too.

So, here’s the prize we’re talking about, times two:

Since we’re talking about so many “Season” titles, here’s how to enter: just leave a comment letting me know your favorite season of the year. (I vote for autumn.) Or if you like every season, you can just say hi. It’s all good.

This giveaway is open internationally. Entries in the form of comments on this post will be accepted until noon ET on Wednesday, June 12, 2013. Two winners will be chosen at random from among all comments submitted by the close of the giveaway. Winners will be contacted using the email address submitted along with the comment.

Thanks for stopping by, dear readers–and good luck!

The short version: today I’m blogging with Limecello and giving away a copy of SEASON FOR TEMPTATION.

The longer version: Limecello describes herself as “reader, reviewer, lawyer, foodie, and discusser of all things random.” I really tested her on that last characteristic when I visited her in December to talk about holiday (or “holiday”) movies. And she was a total peach, if one can say that about a Lime. Not only was she ok with my randomness then, but today she has let me come back with more!

This is the nth anniversary of my first date with Mr. R, so in honor of that momentous date, I’m talking about the role of conflict in dating. Hint: it’s better in fiction than in real life. Another hint: skeletons may be relevant. Also: I made a table. (I know, I know.)

As I said in the short version, a copy of SFT is up for grabs to a random commenter. Open internationally, so get on the horn to your friends in Antarctica and tell them to stop by. And you–please stop by too! Share a favorite dating story from a book or movie.

Valentine’s Day is next week.

Perhaps you’ve heard this from your significant other. Perhaps you picked up on the fact when you went into a grocery store and ZOMG EVERYTHING WAS PINK AND RED.

Or perhaps you’ve been following the Sealed with a Kiss series, run by Not Another Romance Blog and Ramblings from This Chick? I sure hope so, because that series is most excellent fun. Remember how those lovely blogmistresses set up a Christmas series, with short stories by historical romance authors? This February series welcomes authors back–one a day for two weeks–and is featuring love letters between a hero and heroine.

You’re probably thinking I have a reason for mentioning this. Well, yes. I highly recommend hopping over to the two blogs and reading all the letters so far, but while you’re at it, you can, you know, read some letters I wrote. The hero and heroine of SEASON FOR TEMPTATION, James and Julia, wrote each other a few letters about two months after the end of the book. If you’ve read SFT, you might guess that food is involved in some way. You’re right. (No, not in *that* way. At least, not that they wrote about in the letters.)

Need a bribe? It’s ok if you do. I’m giving away two signed copies of SFT, one at each site. Here’s James’s letter to Julia (read this one first). And here’s Julia’s letter to James.

Hope you enjoy! And be sure to stop by the Sealed with a Kiss series each day through the 14th. More letters and more giveaways every day.

The greeting cards have been dispatched
The Christmas rush makes you say “tarnation”
But I still have one offer cached:
The chance to win “Season for Temptation”….

No one’s asking me to be a lyricist. That is a sadness for the world.

But! A point of joy for me? Romance author Vanessa Kelly–she who wrote the witty-sweet Sex and the Single Earl (best title evah) and My Favorite Countess (most delightful redemption of a villainess heroine) (yes, villainess heroine)–has invited me to guest blog with her.

I jumped at the chance. I made tables. I told Vanessa, “THERE WILL BE BLOOD. Fun, festive blood!”

Her response: “Great! I love festive blood.”

A woman after my own heart.

So, the post is up today! There’s not really any blood, but there really are tables. (Sorry. I can’t be stopped.) Meander over to read about the Twelve Days after Christmas, Regency-style, and leave a comment for a chance to win Season for Temptation. The giveaway’s open until Friday, I think, so swing by soon. See you there!

Blogmistress extraordinaire Limecello—she who is both tart and sweet—is hosting me today! We’re talking about Christmas movies that, well, aren’t the usual suspects. You won’t find any Frank Capra films on this list. You will find a few zombies.

Come by and check it out! Yup, there’s a book giveaway: a signed copy of SEASON FOR TEMPTATION is going to one random commenter.

Also—psst, secret. Lime’s going to give a Kindle copy of SFT away on Twitter sometime today. Are you following her? @Limecello? Yes, yes, yes.

Looking for something delicious to read with your eggnog and cookies? If you’re here, then I’m guessing you are. (And I’m also guessing that you’re on your second glass of eggnog. It’s ok. Here, I’ll join you.)

The lovely bloggers of Not Another Romance Blog and Ramblings From This Chick have organized “12 (Historical) Days of Christmas” to give you something new and festive to read every day! This blog series counts down the days till Christmas with all-new scenes by a plethora of historical romance authors.

For example, today’s scenes are by the amazing Anna Campbell and, um, me. I don’t know how I squeaked in here, but I’m so thrilled to be in this lovely company.

The theme for today is “11 Mamas Plotting.” While we didn’t have to write about 11 mamas (the numbers were for organizing the posts), I threw in as many elevens as I could. As for my plotting mama? She’s Gloria, the sister of James, the hero of SEASON FOR TEMPTATION.

Gloria, quite frankly, doesn’t have the best time in SEASON FOR TEMPTATION. Her husband dies in a dramatic way, which kicks off SFT’s plot. She has a rough marriage and a rougher widowhood. Today, she gets to seize a bit of happiness at last.

Hope you enjoy her little story! Be sure to check out the other scenes, too. The series began yesterday with scenes by Sherry Thomas and Sara Lindsey (I KNOW) and will continue through December 23.

Interviewed by Joan;
What does she ask? Snipes, books,
Punctuality.

I answer them all.
I even ask for more. Have
You read the blurb from

Her debut, FEVER?
Or seen the cover? Joan Swan
has what readers want.

In case my poetic meanderings are unclear (what!?), I’m still over at the blog of Joan Swan, author of sexy romantic suspense. Her interview questions were fun and clever, and I had a great time answering them. Got questions of your own? Pop them in the comments to her post. (I can’t promise everyone a haiku, though.) We’re giving away SEASON FOR TEMPTATION, plus some gorgeous SEASON bookmarks that Joan made. See you there!

Since I chucked a Spice Girls reference into this post title, here’s a picture of me dressed as Baby Spice from…oh…1998? I guess this is my atonement for not wearing a costume yesterday. (No, that is very extremely not my real hair.)

But more important than my youthful escapades are: my adult escapades. I’m visiting some fun and fascinating new sites this week, and this time Mr. R is coming with me.

First off, my dear friend Spiceaholic (not her real name), who runs the delicious food and cooking blog Spice’s Bites, is hosting me for historic food talk, recipes, and a book giveaway! Stop by today or tomorrow and share some foodie insights of your own, and be entered to win a signed copy of SEASON FOR TEMPTATION.

Today, Mr. R is accompanying me to A Writer’s Salon, the blog of “fiery tales” romance writer Lila DiPasqua. But it’s not Lila doing the interview–it’s her husband! Come see what these two romance husbands have to say to one another. I admit, I learned a few things from Mr. R’s interview. Like how he saw himself on our second date…oh, you’d better just come read it for yourself. Another copy of SEASON’s up for grabs there!

So there you have it: spicy food and spicy reads. It’s a new month, so spice up your life!

OH HAI WAIT: I know that would have been a totally smooth ending for this post, but I have to share some fantastic news. It has been a week since my last confession, and since then–SEASON FOR TEMPTATION’s gotten a sequel! My publisher, Kensington Zebra, will be publishing SEASON FOR SURRENDER (Louisa’s story) in October 2012. Hip hooray! Nice Nice!

 

All right. I’ve put this off long enough: the FINAL RECKONING on my Bucket List.

To start off with a weaselly caveat, the purpose of this list was to help me define goals and keep them in mind. So just making the list is a teensy little triumph in itself. (Right? Right????) The four-month timeline was because, well, that’s how much time was left before Season for Temptation began its eccentric yet benevolent journey through bookstores.

As of October 4, Season is journeying. So let’s see how I did on my goals.

Personal

1. Stop biting my fingernails.

Grade: B. I finally got new nail polish, since I hadn’t bought any since Mr. R and I were dating–which was significantly longer ago than the average lifespan of nail polish. I did this because if I paint my nails, I don’t bite them. Ta da!

Although: if I paint them, I get distracted by the Shiny Pretty Colors all the time. They’re currently kind of a sparkly whitish color. Shiny! Pretty! I’m really hoping the saying about forming a habit in 21 days is true, so I can go back to forgetting about my fingernails until I slam them in a car door, like normal people do.

2. Go on a date with my DH every month.

Grade: A. Kind of. My mother kept Little Miss R overnight, and Mr. R and I therefore supposedly had a date. So we went out to dinner and took as long as we wanted at the restaurant, since no one—not even Mr. R!—got all fidgety and started coloring on the table.

And then we came home, and—get ready for some serious romance-writer talk—I fell asleep. And I slept for FIFTEEN HOURS. And lo, it was good.

So I’m not sure how much of a date that really was, but I had a fantastic time. I hope to do it again soon!

3. Get all my photos into albums and my digital photos backed up onto DVD.

Grade:  C. Grumble. I had this all done, but then I went on a family trip, and now I have three camera memory cards worth of photos to go through.  I know, some people really like to sort through photos and put them in albums and make the albums pretty. Those people probably also have nicely decorated houses.

Moving on…

4. Keep our plants alive.

Grade: A. Last month, a lot of things had to be replanted. This month, we even got them to grow. How? Sprinkler system, baby. After 6 years in our house, Mr. R and I finally had a sprinkler system installed.  In our flat part of the U.S., this is the only way to keep landscaping alive in a reliable fashion. (Yes, even if you use native plants. Which I guess begs the question: are they really native plants, or are we living on land that really wants to be a desert? Probably so.)

The installation of the system was kind of fun, because it involved guys making trenches in our desolate yard and stuffing hoses into the holes. Then it looked like baby kraken were attacking our property. Cool!

Since the installation, we’ve had two valves crack, which causes Big-Time Mudification of the ground. Caused by faulty parts? Or wrackspurts? I don’t know. But the system will be shut off for the winter soon, so further drama will just have to be patient until spring.

Professional

1. Plan a blog tour.

Grade: A. Planned! Not to mention signed, sealed, delivered. You can check out the Home or News pages for the schedule. (Hint: the RomCon giveaway is still going on!) It’s amazing how often I ended up talking about food on the blog tour. Without even meaning to!

So, what’s next? I’ll be doing a few guest blog posts here and there over the next few weeks. Specifically: “here” means Spice’s Bites, and “there” means author Joan Swan.  But don’t let that stop you from buying 25 copies of Season as early holiday gifts for your relatives!

2. Read a history or research book every month.

Grade: F. I didn’t do this. I didn’t read any nonfiction this month, unless you count the annotations in the New Annotated Sherlock Holmes (of which I am in volume 3: Novels). Hey, can we count those annotations? Maybe I get an A after all.

All right, that’s pushing it. Actually, this reading goal has been a weak item for me all along.  That’s kind of a surprise to me, since I’m so astoundingly scholarly and sophisticated.

WARNING WARNING WARNING EXTREME FACETIOUSNESS

See? “Facetiousness.” That’s how sophisticated people say “liar liar pants on fire.”

Anyway, I really like reading narrative nonfiction, and I need to do better at seeking it out.  Well-read writers have more fun, right? I think I saw that on a bumper sticker once.

3. Set a sustainable page/word count goal and meet it every week.

Grade: A. This is important. This is red-letter-worthy. I have author Serena Bell to thank for this one. She’s one of my dear Twitter friends (tweeps, I suppose, is what the kids call them these days). Serena’s good-natured humor is outstripped only by her amazing work ethic. To pace herself and not type until her arms fell off, she suggested: 1,000 new words or one revised scene per day. 5 days a week.

I thought that sounded great.  It allows for both 1) intrusions from that darn real life, and 2) the undeniable need to revise stories so they don’t veer into crazy-making places.

So we’ve been checking up on each other for the past few weeks.  It’s lovely having a workout buddy for writing.  (No, I don’t have a workout buddy for working out. That can go on next year’s Bucket List.)

4. Get my TBR pile from three towers down to one.

Grade: B. Last month there were 33 books in the TBR tower(s). This month, I’m down to 29…at least until the 5 books I’ve pre-ordered reach me before October’s end.

I’m glad I wrote this goal down, because now, after four months, I realize that I’ve demonstrated very little behavior change. But I also realize that my reading and buying happen at about the same rate. So, I’ll probably always have 30-35 books in the queue.  And that’s ok by me.  (Which is good, because there’s obviously nothing I can do about it. Stop buying books? Don’t be ridiculous.)

*      *      *

To quote Emperor Joseph II: “Well. There it is.” The end of the Bucket List, at least for 2011. Got any words of wisdom for me? I could sure use them. Or—have you been working toward any goals lately? Do tell!

My SEASON FOR TEMPTATION blog tour continues this week with more stops, more giveaways, and more secret factoids.

Does that make it sound like a tabloid? Sure. Let’s roll with that.

This Week’s Headlines!!

Over at Mia Marlowe’s blog: What do foreign dignitaries have to do with romance? The SHOCKING TRUTH revealed! ALSO: find out WHO is doing the laundry these days.

At SOS Aloha: Thrill to the cheekiest interview questions I have EVER BEEN ASKED. Answer a clandestine question about biscuits. Anything you say may be used against you–for the purposes of a BOOK GIVEAWAY! THERE ARE VIKINGS.

And on Thursday, at Muse at Highway Speeds: I BARE MY HEART about just how I became a romance novelist. THERE WILL BE BLOOD. Figuratively speaking.

Ahhhh. That was fun.

And hey, now I have a bonus for you. If you’ve read the full first chapter of SEASON FOR TEMPTATION (the excerpt on my Books page is about half of it), you know that the characters go gaga over ginger biscuits and consume an unbelievable number of them.

These biscuits are real, folks! I found the recipe in an old British cookbook that we own for some reason (it’s not weird that WE own it; it’s weird that Mr. R owned it before we got married). I had to modify the recipe because I didn’t have some of the ingredients–hi, caster sugar; I don’t believe we’ve met–and we shall not even speak of the conversion from grams to cups.

So. Here’s the simplified Americanized version of Ginger Biscuits as Consumed in Unbelievable Numbers by Julia and James:

2-1/2 cups all purpose flour
1-1/4 cups granulated sugar (plus a little extra for sprinkling)
1 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. ground ginger
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. cloves
1/2 cup softened butter
1 egg
1/4 cup molasses
1 tsp. lemon juice (if you don’t have this, orange juice might be good too, though I haven’t tried that)

Preheat oven to 325.

Cream together butter, egg, and sugar. Stir in molasses and lemon juice. Stir in all dry ingredients. You should have a soft, workable dough now.

Roll it into small balls, about the size of a 50-cent piece. (I told you I was Americanizing. If you haven’t seen one of these for a while, it’s about the size of the circle you can make with your thumb and index finger.)

Sprinkle dough balls with granulated sugar and place them two inches apart on lightly greased cookie sheets.

Bake about 14 minutes. They’re done when they’re not squishy to the touch anymore. After a minute or so on the cookie sheets, scoot them off onto a wire rack to finish cooling. Or eat them while they’re hot.

Warning warning: these are pretty small, so this recipe makes A LOT. Like, maybe 5 dozen? But don’t worry, it won’t be a problem getting them all eaten.

*     *     *

Hope to see you at one of the blog tour stops this week! And if you give this recipe a try, let me know how it turns out. Don’t worry, you don’t have to admit how many biscuits you consume.