February - The Month of Love

February is huge for me. I have four books coming out. Am I crazy? Yes, sometimes I honestly think I am. But I am so excited about this new series. 

When Krystal Shannon asked me for an original story to put in her autism box set, I thought I had no ideas. Then I remembered. Several years ago I wrote a short story called Return to Cupid, Texas and I decided to go back to that little town. Once I started writing, the ideas started pouring in and now this little seed has grown to six books. Return to Cupid, Texas will have new stories unfolding for the next three months. 

But wait...the month starts off with the next Kindle World I'm writing in. A science fiction adventure set in Magic, New Mexico - which is author S.E. Smith's world.

Touch of Deceit comes out February 2nd and there are no links because it's in a Kindle World and they drop everyone's books at the same time. If you enjoy witches and aliens, you'll like the story of Petuna and Jaqarg. A witch who wants revenge. An alien with a Secret. A magic mirror that reveals true love. Come join the adventure. 

We All Need a Smile Today

Today our nation makes a decision on who will be our next President. After this very long, very nasty campaign, I thought that we all needed a laugh. Who knows how the next twenty-four hours will go, so let’s start our day off with a smile and some laughter. 

Here are 10 Dumb Blonde Jokes and I am blonde, so it’s okay for us to smile and laugh at these. After all, I should have been a rocket scientist. All of these jokes were taken from an article by Melanie Berliet on the Thoughtcatalog website. If you share them, please give her credit. 

2016 What Kind of Year Will You Have?

In 2016 I’m going to hit one of those milestone birthdays! You know the kind that makes you cringe and yet I feel so extremely blessed to still be walking this earth. As you go through life there are some good years, some not so good years, blah years and really bad years. I rate 2015 as one of those blah years - not really great, but not really bad either. So I’m planning on 2016 being a fantastic year. 

So what am I going to do to make it a great year? I’m going to improve my attitude. It all starts with me. And that’s about the only New Year resolution I’m making this year. I know I need to lose weight, exercise more, work harder, yada, yada, yada. Been there, done that and the T-shirt is worn out. So this year my number one goal is to change my attitude and be more grateful.

How am I going to do that?

Bad Women of the West

As a western writer, I spend a lot of time reading books about the time period. Much has been written about bad men, but what about outlaw or bad women of the west? From the beginning of time women, just like men have gone astray. In the current book I’m writing my heroine who is a bounty hunter, is working as a card dealer in a saloon to catch the man she’s hunting.

The idea came from reading a book called The Lady Was A Gambler: True Stories of Notorious Women of the Old West by Chris Enss. The book tells the tales of fifteen women who either gambled or were dealers at the saloons or gambling halls. Interesting reading of how women were used to distract men and help them lose their money.

Another book I’ve found very interesting for research is The Bedside Book of Bad Girls: Outlaw Women of the American West by Michael Rutter. The story about Kate Bender at Benders Bloody Inn was one of the scariest tales I’ve read. It made me think twice about stopping at a hotel for the night.

My latest read is a book called Tough Towns: True Tales from the Gritty Streets of the Old West by Robert Barr Smith. This book is about how ordinary citizens took back their towns from the bad guys who invaded. I haven’t finished this book yet, but so far it’s been interesting reading.

Groundhog Day -- Six More Weeks of Winter or Spring?

GroundHog Day
Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania 2005

Yesterday was Groundhog Day and in our area, the sun shone brightly, so we will see six more weeks of winter weather. Since I’m in Texas our winters are usually not that bad and this year we’ve been very lucky. So far, knock on wood, no snow or ice.

But how did this custom get started? According to Wikipedia, a diary entry dated February 4, 1841 is the first documented American recording of this German custom.

In Scotland, the Poem: 

If Candle-mas Day is bright and clear,

There’ll be two winters in the year.

If Candle mas be fair and bright,

Winter has another flight.
If Candlemas brings clouds and rain,
Winter will not come again.

And yes, there are three different spellings of Candlemas.

Zeus - Father of Gods and Men

If you’re looking for a blog on mythology, you’ve come to the wrong place. Zeus, is our brand new puppy that we brought home on December 7^th when he was eight weeks old. Our older dachshund is named Ashley. We now have A-Z weenie dogs.

When you get a new puppy, you should be careful what you name him. Puppies seem to take on the personality of their name. In mythology Zeus was considered “King of the Gods.” Our Zeus is just a puppy, but he now reigns supreme over our household. He has taken all of the older dogs toys, her bed, he has us jumping at all hours day or night and the common words in our house are “No Zeus. Stop Zeus.”

He’s part lover, part terror, part sweet baby. In fact, my son has renamed him Zeusifer – after Lucifer. At this stage of his life, everything goes into his mouth including fingers, toys, electrical cords, furniture, blankets, stuffing (don’t ask) leaves, sticks, grass. You name it and the puppy has tasted it. His teeth are like little razor blades and you don’t want any of your body parts in his mouth.

Our older dog has been very patient with him, but she’s growled at him several times when his teeth sank into her nose. And she has held him down a time or two to stop him from biting her. But recently I watched her playfully chasing him through the house, and sighed with happiness. She’d been lonely since our other dog passed ten months ago and it was so good to see her playing once again.

Help! The Cookie Monster Has Me!

Why is it that we eat more during the holidays than we do the rest of the year? It’s as if we all get into this baking frenzy and try to outdo each other with our fabulous recipes and decorating the house. We run around like crazy people buying gifts, putting up a tree, seeing little Timmy’s Christmas play, decorating our homes and baking. We may not bake the rest of the year, but by golly at Christmas, the recipes come out and we’re in the kitchen.

Okay, I confess…I don’t cook that much. I wish I did, but even though I’m a full-time writer working from home, I don’t spend much time in the kitchen. My husband does most of the cooking and he’s not all that bad. I’ll run downstairs and throw some stuff in the crock pot and say whew that’s dinner.  It’s a lucky night when he comes home and dinner is fixed.

But at Christmas it’s like some spell comes over me and I want to bake cookies, pies, candy and try all these new recipes. Do I need to eat that much? No, I seriously am watching my weight and my sugar intake. I’m pre-diabetic with type II diabetes in my family. I know the risks. But I WANT COOKIES.  It’s like the cookie monster takes over my body and I think peanut butter, oatmeal, ginger snaps and oh…those delicious ones with the Hershey’s kiss stuck in the middle of them. GIVE ME COOKIES!

Coming Release -- Deadly: Lipstick and Lead Series Book 2

This Friday, the first full length novel Deadly, in my new series Lipstick and Lead comes out. The heroine in this story is one of my favorites and in fact all of the sisters in these books have been fun to write, but Meg has stayed with me.

We first met the sisters in the Novella, Desperate.

Meg's a woman forced by life to take over the care of her sisters, wear men’s clothes and when her father dies, she must find a way to save their family farm. After trying a typical job for a woman back in her time period, she and her sisters become bounty hunters like their father. It’s a profession they know, but they’re women chasing bad guys.

Only Meg has a dream. A dream of owning her own dress shop and dressing like a woman. And her hero…well let’s just say they have a past that involved her leaving him tied up and naked on main street.

Here’s an excerpt from Deadly:

Do You Love Bad Boys?

As a writer and a reader one of my favorite types of plot is changing a bad boy into a guy that falls in love. I like to take a strong heroine who sort of knocks the bad boy on his knees. When I say bad boy, I don’t mean someone who is abusive or criminal, but rather a guy who you know deep down is really a good guy, but he’s just got some tendencies that need to be tamed.

In my new novel, The Relationship Coach, just released last Friday...I hope I’ve done that. I love Reed Hunter, but as far as my hero's go, he’s out there. He uses women for his own purposes and never intends to get married. So when he and his boss get dumped after their girlfriends attend my Relationship Coach’s Twelve Steps of Dating Seminar, Reed is out for blood. Her blood. As a documentary filmmaker he has the tools to either promote or destroy her business.

Come along for the fun ride where my bad boy gets knocked to his knees and Lacey Morgan learns the value of passion in The Relationship Coach. 

Here’s an excerpt:

Watching Loved One's Age

This month my father will celebrate his 83^rd birthday. It’s hard to believe that’s he’s that age and I still remember him as a young man working hard to earn a living for his family. My mother is 78 and she still gets around really well, but my father is starting to struggle.

Aging is just part of life’s journey and I know that eventually we all die, but until the last five years I never realized how difficult the journey could be. Unfortunately, I fear that I haven’t seen the worst yet and know that eventually there will be a time when my family members will be gone.

In the last five years, we’ve lost my husband’s mother, my grandmother, my aunt and an uncle. And I know that this is just the beginning. All my family is aging and for that matter, so am I.

Before my mother-in-law died at the age of 88, she told me she was ready to go because all of her friends had passed on. She said you reach a time when you no longer have funerals to attend and you’re the only one left. That statement has stayed with me and I know that there could come a day when that will be the case with me.

At first this really bothered me, but the logical part of me says that this is just part of life. This journey we call everyday living will someday come to an end. The optimistic side of me says that’s why we’re to love each other and enjoy our time together. Live each day to the fullest.

School Supplies -- Office Supplies -- My Addiction

Yes, August is upon us and soon it will be back to school time. Time to start thinking about new clothes, new shoes and school supplies. Getting my new school supplies was always the highlight of getting ready to go back to school.

Even now I seem to have this fetish thing with office supply stores. You walk in and automatically I start getting excited and thinking what do I need. There’s a smell that just says spend money now. Automatically, I grab a basket and start to fill it up and this stuff ain’t cheap.

On my desk at home, you will see an electric pencil sharpener. An electric stapler – love it. A cute little posted note purse, a timer and a beautiful paperweight given to me by an old friend.

Inside the desk drawers are organized with my trays and I have one whole drawer of posted notes. Yes, that’s right. Love the posted notes. A writers must have.

Ok, I'll admit it.  I basically shot myself in the foot.  I was supposed to post yesterday's blog and got so busy with other stuff that I totally spaced and forgot to schedule it, and it sat on my computer in a word file instead of posting to the Plotting Princesses, where it was supposed to be.

So I'm rewriting it a bit and posting it today.  TA DA!!!  (Well at least I'm getting something up – better late than never, don't you think?)

Fireworks Anyone?

I'm on deadline and completely forgot it's my day to blog. So forgive me for running this one a second time around, but I think it's worth a repeat. It's the funniest fourth I've ever experienced.

Happy Birthday America!  It's almost the fourth and this month I wanted to do something a little different.  I want to hear from you what you love about living in America.  We say we're the greatest country in the world, but I want to know what makes you appreciate living here.

Here's mine: 

Vacation - All I Ever Wanted

So it’s June. School is out or very nearly out for many kids, and it’s time to start thinking about getting away. We leave very soon for Colorado where we will visit family and go up to our property and talk to the builder we’ve chosen. While we’re there, we’ll do some hiking, fishing and resting. I’m emphasizing that last point because frankly I’m needing the resting part.

To me there are two types of vacations. The whirlwind where you’re trying to see and visit everything and the one where you’re just resting. I have to say that the one we’re about to embark on will be a combination of both. There will be some downtime, but there is also the whirlwind where we will visit three different family members in three different cities. There would have been a fourth, but I nixed that one and said sorry. No time.

My favorite vacations are the ones where you rent a house on the beach, and all you do is go down the steps to the ocean get wet and then go back in the house or sit on the veranda and stare at the ocean. You can do this with the mountains as well, but most of the time we’re out hiking or doing something in the mountains.

Saloon Girls of the Old West

Yeah, I knew that would grab your attention right away, and I aim to please. If you were around in the sixties and even the seventies, I’m sure you saw Gunsmoke with Marshal Matt Dillon. And who else…Miss Kitty.

Did anyone else realize that Miss Kitty ran the saloon and would have been a well dressed whore? I was only five years old, how would I have known that she was sleeping with the cowboys for money. And why didn’t the sheriff ever marry her?

Since I like for my westerns to be as historically accurate as possible, I do a lot of research on the west.  One of my favorite books is Hell’s Half Acre by Richard F. Selcer. This book is about the half acre of Fort Worth, Texas back during the height of the cattle driving days.  He talks about prostitution back in the old west and how it contributed to the local economy. Women were not allowed in most saloons, but they were close by. Most women rented rooms above the saloon where the randy cowboys would pay them a visit.  

While we like to think of a prostitute in the old west looking like Miss Kitty, most were between the ages of fourteen and twenty and were hardened women with names like Big Nose Kate, Squirrel-Tooth Alice, Irish Kate and Monkey. Yes, can you imagine a cowboy coming in and asking for Monkey?   

Kisses, Laughter & Love -- Three Zany Stories of Love

The last weekend has been kind of crazy after spending time at a lovely readers event in Atlanta,
Georgia where I met so many new readers. So today, I thought I would share with you my latest Boxed set. Right now it's on sale for .99 cents, but that could change at any moment. The price will be $5.99 as soon as Amazon updates their files. 

This boxed set includes three of my contemporary stories, The Wanted Bride (my favorite), My Sister's Boyfriend and The Reluctant Santa. Here is the blurbs on all three books.

What Do You Want Your Sweetie To Bring You for Valentine's Day?

Every month in my newsletter I ask my readers a question and have them respond. This helps me get to know them, and hopefully they learn about me as well, since I answer every single email. This month I asked them what they wished their sweetie would give them for Valentine’s Day. Some of their responses were so sweet and caring that I’m sharing them with you!

“I wish my sweetie would just plan a trip and take me away.  For once, I don't want to be the one who does all the planning and the packing.” Kim

“I wish my sweetie would get me a pound of Alaskan King Crab legs and we’ll have a wonderful dinner.  I’m just not a red roses kind of girl.  Maybe this year-lol I've asked him for the last 33 years.  I should put a sticky on his car steering wheel I think.” Jai

“Unfortunately, my sweetie has to fly over 1400 miles away on V day to go to his first sweetheart, his mom. I give him willingly to the woman that raised a good man, that needs him now, more than ever, being that he is her oldest boy.” Carla

Summer Sweat or Winter Chill?

Yeah, I know it’s winter, and we’ve just survived ice apocalypse 2013 where I live and now we’re experiencing the Polar Express. But we don’t have it as bad as many parts of the country. I thought the picture of the Dallas Arboretum in summer would maybe warm everyone up today.  I’ve always considered myself more of a winter person than a summer girl just because the temperature in Texas gets so freaking hot. When the temperature climbs, higher than 98 I’m indoors. The heat makes me cranky, irritable and I hate to sweat. The feel of sweat trickling down your back and your hair sticking to your head makes me want to shower again. In the summer, I’ve been known to take more than one shower a day, just to get the sweat off.

Being an outdoor person, when the temperature climbs so high it’s miserable, I have to stay indoors, and that’s when I stop liking summer. In the winter, I’ve always felt like you can add more clothes. Yes, it can be bundle some, but still you can get comfortable once you have enough layers. Before I hurt my ankle, I loved to ski. There is something about being outdoors, in the pines, gliding through the snow. My husband and I like to hike in the winter, even when there’s snow. It’s fun to walk the back country and spend time outdoors.

Happy Holidays! The Plotting Princesses are all about cake and...

Happy Holidays!!

The Plotting Princesses are all about cake. It's quite royal and mass quantities are consumed when we party. We asked Vicki to post her favorite cake recipe.

Chocolate Dipped Fruitcake

Ingredients: one good quality fruitcake, chocolates used for melting and making candy, a sharp knife, wire cooling rack, waxed paper.

Put a sheet of waxed paper under the cooling rack (to catch the dripping chocolate). Cut the fruitcake into bite-sized chunks. Melt the chocolate according to directions. Spoon or dip fruitcake chunks in chocolate. Set on cooling rack to set. Once cooled, store in a tin container or plastic storage bag.

Easy peasy!

The Plotting Princesses love the holidays so much and several of us have holiday stories. Perhaps, one of these will tickle your fancy:

NEW BOOKS FOR BOOK LOVERS

It's been a while since the Princesses shared our current books with you. So here you go, in one handy, dandy, all-in-one list: The current releases for several of the Plotting Princesses. Included is a short blurb about the story, the cover and (of course) links to buy the books!

ENJOY!

The Reluctant Santa by Sylvia McDaniel

Blurb: Since his mother abandoned him on Christmas Eve never to return, Colin McDermott has hated Christmas and sworn never to have children. But this year two angels are giving him everything he didn't want. A Santa suit, a child and a chance at love again. This is his last chance to learn the true meaning of Christmas.

Buy Link: Amazon

Losing Cassie (Destiny's Desire Series #2) by Kathy Ivan

Blurb: Welcome to Destiny's Desire Lodge, where The Fates can manipulate the threads of life at their whim and the Fate-Keeper battles to unite the predestined souls of true love.

Firefighter Jake Stone lost the love of his life when his high school sweetheart disappeared. The arrival of a mysterious letter promising answers draws Jake to Destiny's Desire.

Cassie Daniels has been running for seven long years. At Destiny's Desire she might finally have a chance for a happy future, if she can face the evil from her past.

When Fate and Destiny collide . . . can Love survive?

Buy Links:
Amazon
B & N
Smashwords