... Enjoying Paranormal, Urban Fantasy & All Things Romance!
Today, our very own Deelylah Mullin (aka Vampbard), is at That’s What I’m Talking About celebrating her new release, Distilled (A Love Brothers Anthology, December 15, 2016, BeerWench Enterprises, LLC). She’s brought a very special Christmas treat: an all-new, exclusive, slice-of-life short from her Distilled world! Please give Dee some big love! A Slice of Life: Distilled by Deelylah Mullin Exclusive for That’s What I’m Talking About Roni sat on the modern couch with newborn Alexa in her arms. As she gazed at the miracle she held, she reflected on the journey she’d taken with Kurtis to get there. So many little things—continuing her anorexia treatment, becoming healthy with Kurtis—worked out, against the odds, to create the most valuable Christmas gift. Bathed in the golden lights from the evergreen standing in the corner, she knew she was on the right path in her life, and she shared it with the one person that made her complete. “Hey. We almost ready for bed?” Kurtis whispered. Roni nodded. “I think so. She’s nursed again, and seems content.” “Let’s get you two upstairs, then. Maybe we can get her down for the night and Santa can visit.” He extended his hand, and Roni gripped it, pulling herself to standing. “You know she won’t remember this year, right?” She peered at him, taking in his playful expression. “I know. I’m also wondering whether someone else wants to find out whether she’s on the Naughty or Nice list.” He grabbed her ass firmly. Roni chuckled. “I see how you are. Let’s try to get her to sleep in her own room, first. Then, we can consider exploring lists.” “Excellent idea, Mrs. Clements.” Kurtis took Roni’s free hand and led her to the wrought iron, spiral staircase tucked in the corner of the condo, following behind her as they began their ascent. He said it was because the stairs were awkward with such precious cargo, but Roni was sure he just wanted to look at her ass. While they knew they needed more space before long, they were both content staying in town a while longer. By this time next year, Alexa will be crawling… or maybe walking. Their time there was drawing to a close, but was reluctant to broach the subject. They’d already weathered so many life-changing events. They entered the spare room they’d converted into a nursery and she shifted Alexa in her arms, preparing to put the two-month-old in the bassinet they’d...
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Please help me welcome Kelly Siskind (author of one of my favorite series!) today at That’s What I’m Talking About. Celebrating her upcoming release, Hooked on Trouble (January 10, 2017, Forever Yours), she’s sharing Nico and Raven’s favorite Christmas movies with us. It’s no secret Raven and Nico from HOOKED ON TROUBLE have different tastes. He digs country music, while she loves her punk tunes loud and proud. Nico is a meat-and-potatoes guy, and Raven prefers exotic spices that challenge her palate. When it comes to the holidays, they don’t exactly agree on what to watch. They do, however, always spend the time together and compromise by alternating between each other’s movie choices. Nico is two hundred and seventy pounds of tattooed muscle, but he has a gooey center. He’s all about the romantic holiday movies and wanting to curl up on the couch with his girl. He also likes anything that gets him laughing. His top five favorites are: It’s a Wonderful Life—movie making magic at its finest. Love Actually—don’t you dare tell his friends. Elf—that darn movie cracks him up every time. Home Alone—no, YOU cried at the end. The Holiday—real men watch romantic comedies, but seriously…don’t tell his friends. Raven enjoys being scared, and her natural sarcasm also makes her a lover of dark humor. Her favorite holiday movies include anything twisted and creepy. Add some action—and a small couch where she can cuddle with her main man—and she’s a happy gal. Her top five holiday movie choices are: Die Hard—guns and shooting on Christmas Eve = perfection. Love Actually—don’t you dare tell her friends. Bad Santa—dark comedy genius. The Nightmare Before Christmas—the creepy, fantastical imagery is the bomb. Black Christmas—totally scary, totally bloody, totally awesome. About the Book: Reality bites. Hard. The last time Raven did “real” was sixteen months ago, when she spent one unforgettable night with the tattooed, impossibly sexy Nico, and then he disappeared the next day. Since then, she’s kept her guard up and her feelings to herself. She doesn’t have time for relationship drama when she’s busy searching for her long lost sister. Nico hasn’t stopped thinking about Raven—her sultry curves, inked skin, and the fact that he ditched her after their night together. Now that they’re living in the same city, he knows this is his chance to make things right. What better way to prove to Raven he’s for real than helping her find her sister? But when the...
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Celebrating her new release Don’t Open Until Christmas, Abigail Owen is at the blog today with her heroine Ashley Hughes, who is sharing her favorite Christmas dessert… Ashley Hughes is heading home for the holidays. While she’s not too happy about the trip, she is excited to have her favorite Christmas dessert. A recipe passed down through the generations of her family. Easy to make, and way too easy to eat, given the calorie count. But worth every scrumptious bite! CHOCOLATE CREAM CHEESE ICE CREAM PIE Ingredients: ¾ cup + 2T chocolate syrup (your choice of brand) 1 cup heavy whipping cream 8 oz. cream cheese 1 can sweetened condensed milk chocolate pie crust (crushed oreo) Instructions: Beat the chocolate syrup, cream cheese, and sweetened condensed milk together in a bowl. Whip the heavy whipping cream. Fold the whipping cream into the chocolate mixture. Pour into the pie shells. Freeze 12-24 hours until solid. About the Book: Ashley Hughes would love to cancel Christmas this year. Her holiday plans involve a wedding–her twin sister to her ex-boyfriend. To add to the holiday cheer, the big event is being held in the small Texas town where they all grew up together. Then rumor links her romantically with her high school tormentor, Ryan McAdams–when what she’d prefer to do is deck his halls–and things get complicated. But the more time they spend together, the more Ashley finds herself wishing Ryan was her present waiting under the tree Christmas morning. Don’t Open Until Christmas is 1 of 10 fantastic novellas in the multi-author contemporary romance anthology, HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS! Ten New York Times, USA Today, and International bestsellers have teamed up to bring a little heat to the winter holidays. Billionaires, Brother’s Best Friends, and Old Boyfriends abound in this treasure trove of contemporary romance tales, and whether these couples are snowbound or spending the holiday in the sun, there’s one thing they all agree on–there’s no place like home for the holidays. Purchase Links: Amazon : Barnes and Noble : Kobo Excerpt: “Ashley Hughes?” a female voice squealed from her right. Let the bullshit begin. “Mandy Walker!” Ashley could do the bubbly girl thing when required. “It’s been ages. How are you?” The blonde valedictorian of their senior class held up her left hand sporting an obnoxiously large diamond. “Married.” “Let me guess? Jason Hubbard?” The two had been high school sweethearts, so figuring that one out didn’t exactly require a PhD. Mandy...
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Please help me welcome debut author Katie Michaels to the blog today… From Katie Michaels: Thank you so much, Jen, for having me on your blog today! I am beyond excited for the release of my new book, Feels Like Forever. It’s a romance involving two 18-year-old high school seniors who are trying to balance a new relationship with the friendships that define them. With Thanksgiving just around the corner, I thought this would be a great opportunity to introduce the heroine, Evelyn, and her friends as they celebrate the holiday together a little more than a year before the book begins. Ev hasn’t met her hero yet, but she and her friends have been like sisters for years. There’s no better way to celebrate the holiday than with the family of your heart. Two minutes out. Merrin’s text flashed across my phone. I bussed around the table, putting the finishing touches on the dining room display. It was set up for our Thanksgiving feast with an array of food. Whipped sweet potatoes with candied pecans. Slow cooked green beans. Black eyed peas with hunks of bacon. Spinach Madeline, fresh from the oven, the hot white cheese still bubbling up through the buttery bread crumbs. And at the center of it all, a perfect golden brown turkey, with cornbread stuffing trailing from the bottom. Thanksgiving was usually a holiday reserved for family, but this year, my mom extended an invitation to my best friends and their parents to join us. Chloe’s family couldn’t make it, but Shelly and Merrin said they’d be here with bells on. I tucked a thick strand of brown hair behind my ear as I gave the table one last once over. It was perfect. “I’m here, girl. You can start the party now.” I turned to see Shelly holding a pecan pie. She sat it with the rest of the food. “You cut your hair!” Her once shoulder length blond locks were now in an ultra-short pixie cut. Her cheekbones looked sharp and sculpted. “It looks amazing!” Merrin walked in behind her. “I could never get away with a cut that short.” “Why would you want to? If I had gorgeous red hair like that, I’d never cut it.” Merrin flashed a dazzling smile and reached out to tousle Shelly’s bangs. “I love it.” Her stomach grumbled and she flushed. “I’m starving.” Shelly’s grin turned sly. “Well, I’m thirsty. I say we get a...
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From the Author: When I was 20 years old, a college student having just signed up for my first creative writing class and excited at the prospect of recently having entered a new relationship, I noticed something among my boyfriend’s belongings, a music box containing a figurine with a black hat and cape which he’d set on a small, marble-topped stand. It seemed an unusual item to be coming across in the apartment of a twenty-two year old man but there was something about it that was calling to me. The box was urging me to learn about the play its icon represented, The Phantom of the Opera. A busy student on a limited budget, it wasn’t until the following year that I got an opportunity to see The Phantom of the Opera on Broadway. The experience changed my life! Watching the play, I fell instantly in love with the lonely and mysterious Phantom and I was swept away by the music—I was singing it for weeks following and the lyrics were permanently embedded into my mind. They play was a new fascination for me, one which brought my romantic side to a height it had never climbed to before. Fast forward to the present. I’ve been writing romance for the last five years and after completing my debut series The Pinnacles of Power—which is a romantic suspense series in which five heroes and heroines find passion amidst the dangers of a criminal diamond enterprise—my mind returned to theater, something which, thanks to the enchantment of the Phantom of the Opera, has never been far from my thoughts. I’ve always strived to make my heroes complicated souls, who oftentimes, must overcome mistakes that they’ve made that come back to haunt them in the present. But unlike the mythical phantom, I always want my heroes to reform, to see the light just when all seems lost and after overcoming countless obstacles they’ll win the heart of the heroine they love. In romance, we’re guaranteed a happily ever after. I find comfort in this genre because I’m reading (and writing!) for that very such happily ever after! Though I’ve never worked in, or spent any great amount of time at a theater, I find the setting to be artistic and inspiring and in developing The Rabourn Theater Series I’m easily identifying with my characters, many of whom are struggling artists and all of whom have great passion for what they do,...
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Today, I happy to host one of my favorite people here at That’s What I’m Talking About… Please welcome Jeffe Kennedy who is here celebrating the upcoming release of Lonen’s War, the first book in her new fantasy romance series. From Jeffe: I’m not much of an architect. By that I mean, so far as planning my books. That’s George R.R. Martin’s analogy. He says most writers fall in a spectrum, where the far end of architects have detailed blueprints planned ahead of time that are strictly followed, and at the other are the gardeners, who plant seeds and see what grows. I might have some trellises and nicely laid-out flower beds. I love how a good arbor looks. But mostly I wait for stuff to grow. When I set out to write Lonen’s War, I’d been saving those particular seeds for quite a while. I had an idea of my hero and heroine – the king and queen of enemy nations – who would come together in alliance. When I’d talk about it, my writer friends would inevitably ask things like “why are they at war?” and “what are they stopping by joining forces?” My answer? “I don’t know yet.” I started with my heroine’s point of view, because I felt a stronger sense of who Oria might be. By looking through her eyes, I began to see the landscape she lived in – and those answers started coming. Backing up a little, let me explain that the very first writing class I ever took was “Essays on Self and Place,” taught by a visiting writer to the university. It’s hard to say how serendipity works. That class happened to be available at a time (at night) when I could attend without impacting my graduate school coursework or related teaching, and coincided with my then brand new decision to try to become a writer. The subject didn’t matter so much – except that it totally clicked for me. I lived in Wyoming at the time, had gone to college for four years in the Midwest (St. Louis), and before that had grown up in Colorado. Viewing myself in terms of place and understanding how landscape shaped my thinking unlocked something huge in me. It could be I had so much writing energy stored up that anything would have unlocked it and sent it in that direction. It could be I hit exactly the right thing at the right time. At...
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Erotic romance author, Vivian Winslow, is celebrating the release of Uncovering Camila. She’s here today with Camila Cohen, the third wildflower from Vivian’s Wildflowers series. These New Adult stories explore the sometimes fun but often messy or complicated process of falling in love and opening yourself to experience love. Camila isn’t the easiest person to set-up on a date, just ask her cousin, Shoshanna, who made the mistake of fixing Camila up with the perfect date, only for Camila to ruin it. Between law school and her bartending job, she doesn’t think she has time for a relationship or to fall in love. It’s not until she meets Marshall James, that she’s forced to decide if it’s worth opening herself to not only love someone, but to receive it. Please help me welcome Vivian and Camila. When I first started bartending, I wasn’t even twenty-one. It was at some dive bar in Morningside Heights near Columbia University. I did it to supplement my work-study job at the Columbia library, which barely covered the rent on my cockroach-infested apartment on 129th and Amsterdam. The late shifts prepared me for the even later shifts I work at L to supplement the meager financial aid I received to attend New York University School of Law. New York is expensive, and I can pretty much count on spending the next twenty years of my life paying off my loans, if I manage to get a six-figure salary when I get out. In this economic environment, the odds are not in my favor. At least I have four years of bartending under my belt. In a city like New York, that’s not insignificant, especially if you work at a place like L, where the cocktails start at $20 and the clientele are eager to tip well just to prove how wealthy they are. The thing is, I know what real money looks like. My last name is Cohen, and if anyone bothered to ask, it makes me a part of one of New York’s real estate dynasties. But I’ve never seen a cent of that fortune because my father gave it up to marry my mother. Talk about setting a high bar for love. I grew up seeing money as the thing that corrupts and breeds misery. I have to confess, though, that when I close the bar at 4 a.m., I find myself occasionally thinking money might let me have a few extra...
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Today I have Pip Ballantine and Tee Morris, the authors of one of my favorite series, here on the blog to celebrate the release of The Ghost Rebellion, book five in the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences series. The series features agents Eliza Braun and Wellington Books, and their action-filled adventures. I thought it’d be fun to find out some of Eliza’s more interesting adventures that have not been highlighted in the series. Please help me welcome Pip and Tee to That’s What I’m Talking About… Eliza D Braun picks her favourite adventures not seen in the books 5. I love Paris, so when I got a chance to join my partner at that point, Harrison Thorne in a bit of investigating, I jumped at it. We were having a spot of bother with Marquise de Savoie, but the surroundings made up for it. It also happens to be one of those missed opportunity moments, but you can’t always be looking back, can you? I still love Paris. 4. Wellington and I had an unusual callout one Christmas. I am not a fan of ghosts, but they do seem to pop up around the holidays. Anyway I did get to try out some new armaments from R&D, though the old man who called us was not very pleasant. Still I would rather be on assignment with Wellington than sitting around eating Christmas pudding. 3. Don’t tell Bruce Campbell this, but he does make my list…well at least our very first case together does. It was in Melbourne one of my favourite cities in Australia. Although he isn’t my preferred agent to work with, we managed to have some fun, tracking down some House of Usher agents embedded in the city. Oh and there were trains…I love trains. 2. Back in New Zealand, woman were fighting for the right to have a vote. Naturally I was on board with that, but not everybody was. The outcome worked out in the end, but it was a bit hairy for a while. Still we had a nice car ride, and a bit of a fight in a burning building. 1. My favourite happened in Egypt actually. At first we were sent to Cairo to do some collection of records for the archives. It didn’t start off well, but through a fortuitous turn of events, we were soon investigating the mysterious ancient silver coins that were causing people to act in homicidal and suicidal ways. I...
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Today we welcome Tiffany Shand to That’s What I’m Talking About. She’s celebrating the release of Denai Bound (Excalibar Investigations Series #2, March 26, 2016) and is here sharing about her inspirations for her main character, Cate McCray. What inspired me to write my main character? I got bored of contemporary fiction when I was a teenager. My first urban fantasy novel was Dead Witch Walking by Kim Harrison and I absolutely loved it. I’ve always had a fascination with witches and it was nice to read about them being betrayed in a good way instead of being persecuted. I think this was probably what inspired me to start writing my own paranormal/urban fantasy novel. I’d had this character floating around my head for a long time and always knew her name was Cate McCray and that she was a witch. Reading about immortals was something I always enjoyed in paranormal novels so that inspired me too. The story went through several different incarnations before I finally settled on one idea. The idea was there would be a woman who was extremely powerful and born with a lot of authority over people. Her working in law enforcement seemed to fit with that idea. I wondered, what would this woman be like? And what kind of person would love her? She turned out to be a very strong and independent woman, feisty and she tells it like it is which is one of the things I love about her. But she always has a vulnerable side too. Excerpt: “Damn it, they must have followed us here,” Jason groaned. “What’s to stop them from destroying the temple?” she asked. “I know Devas can’t set foot on holy ground, but…” “Their power can’t destroy anything on hallowed ground,” said Emrys. “They can try, but we’re safe inside these walls.” “You’re welcome to come to Elaris with us,” Cate added. “It would be good to see the Serenity again.” “I–” Another tremor cut her off as power stirred the air. “The portal!” Emrys grinned. “Someone is trying to open it.” “They must be having trouble getting through.” Vivienne touched the wall where the large circle of Silveron stood. “Can’t you open it?” Jason prompted. “Not from this side, no,” replied Emrys. “If the Devas on their side catch them they are as good as dead.” “Devas can come and go through the old portals,” explained Vivienne. “Only the Ashralis have power over them.” “I’m half Ashrali. What...
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Amanda J. Greene is here today, celebrating the release of the Rulers of Darkness Box Set. Hi all! I’d like to start out thanking That’s What I’m Talking About for allowing me to take over one of their posts. This is one of my favorite blogs and I’m honored to be here today. So, let’s jump right in! 10 Things Reader’s Might be Surprised to Know about Me 1. One of my favorite movies of all time is the Godfather Part I. I watch it every time it’s on and love it so much so that I walked down the aisle to the Godfather Love Son rather than the traditional Bridal March. Also, when my husband and I were introduced as Mr. & Mrs. for the first time, the DJ played the Godfather Trilogy’s theme song. Hey, I’m Italian – it fits. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMGE8pks9UE 2. Flame and the Flower by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss was the first true romance novel I ever read. It was one of my grandmother’s favorite romances that she allowed me to borrow. This historical is written in the true bodice ripper fashion and was originally published it 1972. Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/896623.The_Flame_and_the_Flower 3. My love of vampires started in middle school when I read my first Y/A paranormal novel but Dark Gold by Christine Feehan was the first adult paranormal romance I ever read and I was hooked. Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/108385.Dark_Gold 4. I have a terrible habit of starting series on book 3. Dark Gold is the 3rd installment within the Dark series. I don’t know what it is, but the 3rd book almost never fails to capture my attention and then I have to go back and read books 1 and 2. 5. My husband and I met when we were 10. We were in the same 5th grade class and actually “went out” that year. Lol We went to different middle schools and high schools, but reconnected when he joined the military. 6. We have 2 fur babies: Kelly (cocker spaniel) and Barrette (blackmouth cur mix). We didn’t have either name picked out when we got our pups. To be honest, Kelly was supposed to be a cat. We went out with the intention of bringing home a kitty, but got a puppy instead. Her name came from a car commercial that was playing when we picked her up. Barrette wasn’t planned at all. We saw an adoption event going on and decided to stop by. He is...
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