Friday, February 1, 2013

Up All Night with Kira Sinclair


I think it’s a safe statement to say that all writers are also readers.  That’s usually how we came to our love of story.  I’m sure I’m not alone when I say that over the years my reading time has dwindled – for some reason the kids demand to be fed and clothed and my editor likes to receive work from me on a regular basis. 

 

But just like before I started writing, my reading time is an escape.  It’s a chance for me to slip out of my world – both reality and the fantasies I create in my own head – and into someone else’s universe for a while.  There’s nothing better than finding a book I can’t put down and I always hope that I can give readers that same experience when they pick up my books.

 

Discovering a new author that I can fall in love with is the best part of reading.  I’m currently judging a writing contest, one of a few that I do throughout the year, and it never fails to yield a new voice that becomes and auto buy for me.  I often wonder how I could have missed finding the book in the first place.  How my friends could have missed it and/or not told me about it.

 

It’s been a long time since I’ve stayed up until dawn because I couldn’t put a book down, but I did that just the other night.  And while my eyes were gritty for the entire day, I wasn’t tired.  It was totally worth it to race to the end of the story (and then take a nap). 

 

So, my question is, have you discovered a new author recently that you just love?  Have you ever stayed up all night reading a book?  Do you remember it even now?  Share with us! 

 

Kira

 

The Risk-Taker

Subject: Totally buff ranger Gage Harper

Current Status: Walking wounded— both physically and mentally

Mission: Finally get the girl he could never have

Obstacle: She may just be the biggest risk he’s ever taken

All returned POW Gage Harper wants to do is forget, even if he has to let some gym rat beat him to a pulp to do it. He certainly doesn’t want to tell the tale of his heroism to the tabloids. Especially since he’s no hero…. But one journalist is determined to get the inside scoop–and she’s the only girl Gage has never been able to resist.

Hope Rawlings never took Gage’s romantic advances seriously growing up. After all, she was just his buddy, and a guy like Gage could have any girl he wanted. But now she needs his story to get her dream job in the city. And she’s willing to do anything to get it.

 

Thursday, January 17, 2013

The Dark Passion It Becomes; INSIDE OUT TRIOLGY by Lisa Renee Jones





Thanks for having me today to sharing an excerpt from IF I WERE YOU and THE INSIDE
OUT TRILOGY to celebrate the release of the serials connected to the books. These serials are SUPER sexy and have tons of clues to what happens in BEING ME inside. They are also very much inside the BDSM world so when I say sexy, I mean SEXY!

The serials are fun because they are in journal format but tell a sexy story and the series is inspired by a real journal my fiancee and I found in a storage unit when we use to buy and sell units. He pushed me hard for years to write these books. I mean hard! I tell him he gets the nagging award!

I still remember the night he found the journal. He was reading it and kept popping his head up from the couch where he was laying to say things like ‘someone got killed next door!’ and ‘she’s pregnant again!’. It was pretty funny seeing him get so absorbed.

The serials are in Rebecca’s POV who you get to meet in the series through her random journal entires starting in IF I WERE YOU. These serials actually tells her story and begin when she first arrives at the same gallery Sara (The main heroine in the trilogy) from the series later visits and starts working at. You will meet all the characters that you know from the series through Rebecca’s eyes and you will find loads of clues to what happens in the series!

The serials can be read alone but they are perfect for in between IF I WERE YOU and BEING ME. I thought today I’d share a sexy excerpt from IF I WERE YOU.

First about the series...

How It All Started...

One day I was a high school teacher on summer break, leading a relatively uneventful but happy life. Or so I told myself. Later, I’d question that, as I would question pretty much everything I knew about me, my relationships, and my desires. It all began when my neighbor thrust a key to a storage unit at me. She’d bought it to make extra money after watching some storage auction show. Now she was on her way to the airport to elope with a man she barely knew, and she needed me to clear out the unit before the lease expired.

Soon, I was standing inside a small room that held the intimate details of another woman’s life, feeling uncomfortable, as if I was invading her privacy. Why had she let these items so neatly packed, possessions that she clearly cared about deeply, be lost at an auction? Driven to find out by some unnamed force, I began to dig, to discover this woman’s life, and yes, read her journals—-dark, erotic journals that I had no business reading. Once I started, I couldn’t stop. I read on obsessively, living out fantasies through her words that I’d never dare experience on my own, compelled by the three men in her life, none of whom had names. I read onward until the last terrifying dark entry left me certain that something had happened to this woman. I had to find her and be sure she was okay.

Before long, I was taking her job for the summer at the art gallery, living her life, and she was nowhere to be found. I was becoming someone I didn’t know. I was becoming her.

The dark, passion it becomes…

Now, I am working at a prestigious gallery, where I have always dreamed of being, and I’ve been delivered to the doorstep of several men, all of which I envision as one I’ve read about in the journal. But there is one man that will call to me, that will awaken me in ways I never believed possible. That man is the ruggedly sexy artist, Chris Merit, who wants to paint me. He is rich and famous, and dark in ways I shouldn’t find intriguing, but I do. I so do. I don’t understand why his dark side appeals to me, but the attraction between us is rich with velvety promises of satisfaction. Chris is dark, and so are his desires, but I cannot turn away. He is damaged beneath his confident good looks and need for control, and in some way, I feel he needs me. I need him.

All I know for certain is that he knows me like I don’t even know me, and he says I know him. Still, I keep asking myself — do I know him? Did he know her, the journal writer, and where is she? And why doesn’t it seem to matter anymore? There is just him and me, and the burn for more.





EXCERPT:

Rounding the corner, I enter the hallway, and Chris is suddenly there in the narrow passage with me, pressing me against the wall, his powerful thighs framing mine.

My hand goes instinctively to his t-shirt-clad chest. I am immediately aware of the intimacy of the touch, of my body’s reaction to the man who has betrayed me. “Don’t shove me against another wall and try to intimidate me, Chris.”

“I’m not trying to intimidate you. I was protecting you, Sara.” His hands move to my waist, scorching me, and my reaction to the sizzling touch is instant. I cover his hands with mine, trying to control what he does next, but it doesn’t help. Now, my hands are on his hands and his hands are on my body.

“Call it what you want,” I ground out, “but you had no right to do what you did.”

“He had to know he couldn’t manipulate your dream. Money, and my many resources at your disposal, does that.”

His words knock my anger and my breath away, and confusion consumes me. His actions and his words conflict at every turn. “Why would you help me? You said I don’t belong in this world.”

“Because I won’t watch him gobble you up and destroy you.”

I remember his words, and understand now that he wanted me out of this gallery, not this profession.

“Because he’s a dark, messed up, arrogant asshole who will play with my mind and use me until there is nothing else left of me I recognize.”

“That’s right.”

“And yet you say you’re worse.”

He stiffens and cuts his gaze, seeming to struggle before fixing me in a turbulent stare. “I am, Sara, which is why you should run as far away from me as you can. And I should step back and let you.”

“Then why aren’t you?” I whisper.

His eyes hold mine, and what I see there, the depth of his desire, overwhelms me. He flattens his palm on my belly and I tremble beneath the touch, and he has to feel it too. “Because,” his voice low, seductive, his hand traveling up the center of my body, “I can’t stop thinking about you, and everything I want to do to you, everywhere I want to touch you.”

His hand presses to the swell between my breasts, and my nipples ache with a wish he would touch them. His boldness ignites something sultry and dark inside me, a side of me that defies the good-girl school teacher who is appalled I haven’t stopped this. I want him. I want him here and now, and any way I can have him.

And when his gaze lowers to my mouth and lingers, I know he is thinking about kissing me and I have never wanted to be kissed so badly in my life.

“Do you taste as good as I think you do?” he asks, but he doesn’t wait for my reply.

Suddenly, his fingers have tunneled into my hair and he’s dragging my mouth to his. I am all soft submission, yielding to the moment, to the man. I melt into him, welcome the hardness of his body pressed to mine. And when his tongue presses past my lips, a long, wicked caress, I taste his hunger, his need. There is possessiveness to his kiss, to his hand on my back, molding me closer. I am lost in the ache that has become my need for this man, this stranger I cannot resist. He says he’s protecting me; he says he’s dangerous. I am conflicted, and sure I should be angry with him, but I am completely incapable and unable of processing why.

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Baking

I love to cook, to me it’s relaxing. I love trying new things and new recipes. Baking is one of my favorites because I love the smell from cookies or pies in the oven. It makes your home smell so inviting. Over the years I have learned several things about baking, some from my grandma and some on my own. Below are my top 10 Baking tips followed by one of my favorite recipes.

Baking Tips

1). Know your oven: when I first started baking I thought when my oven preheated to 350, it was in fact at 350. I also thought that if it’s supposed to take 10-12 minutes to bake, the cookies would be finished by 12 minutes. Your oven could bake faster than mine or slower for that matter. And when you preheat it, it doesn’t mean that it gets that hot, or it may even get warmer than the temperature in you intended.

2). Chill!! I know when we get that pie or those cookies out of the oven we want to rush and get them off the pan and get more in. But let them chill! Set the pan on a wire rack and let the cool off before poking at them. If you try to move them while they are too hot than you risk breaking that cookie in half or the pie crust falling apart. This is true except where cupcakes are involved. I like to get them out of the pan and onto a rack immediately out of the oven.

3). Find a trusty recipe source: I personally use many recipes from http://www.allrecipes.com I can always find something on that website. I also love to just type in what I am looking for on Pinterest or Google and see what I can find as well.

4). Who needs a timer: I hardly ever go by a timer. I may set my stove for ten minutes as a reminder to myself to check on what’s in the oven, but I don’t go by what the box says or the recipe calls for. If it says it takes 15 minutes, I don’t take that to heart. The food is ready when you want it to be. DO you like you cookies chewy or crunchy, maybe crunchy around the outside and chewy in the middle? You know what you like so let the food cook until you want to take it out. And this also goes back to knowing your oven.

5). Comfort Zone: A few years ago I worked with a woman who was always baking. I loved the food she made and she would have brownies that looked like something out of a box, but with a raspberry center. She was always exploring with different ingredients. Sometimes you will make something that will be disgusting and sometimes you will make something your entire family will love.

6). Room Temperature: I honestly find it best when all ingredients are at room temperature. I try to set out everything I am going to need for a recipe before I begin. It’s important if you are using cream cheese or butter that you let it get to room temp and not try melting it some in the microwave or using it straight out of the fridge. It makes a difference in your flour, sugar, icing(if making homemade) You won’t have the fluffiness you need. If you cut your butter or cream cheese into small cubes it should take about 15 minutes to reach room temperature.

7). Measuring Utensils: I suggest investing in measuring spoons instead of trying to measure it out of a tablespoon or teaspoon. Also measuring cups instead of using a coffee cup. Or by not measuring at all. I still have one grandma who never measures, if she tells you a recipe she says a little of this, a pinch of that, a dab of this. And then I have one grandma who measures everything out. I have to measure everything out or I get lost.

8). Too hot, too cold: This goes back to knowing your oven. But here is a tip on how you can judge your true temperature. If your cakes always rise too much in the middle (with a dome) your oven is too hot. If your cakes fail to rise and sink your oven is too cool.

9). When making buttercream beat the butter first before adding the icing sugar – you will get lovely smooth butter cream.

10). Check that all your ingredients such as baking powder and bicarbonate of soda are in date especially if you don’t use them often – this will really affect their ‘raising’ properties.

I really hope these tips help you. Some I have learned on my own and some from doing research online or asking a friend or family member who cooks.

Classic Vanilla Buttercream Frosting

Recipe from http://savorysweetlife.com/2010/03/buttercream-frosting/

Classic American Buttercream frosting. This recipe uses powdered sugar, butter, vanilla and milk. This is a great recipe for decorating and piping on cupcakes and cake.

Ingredients

  • 1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks or 1/2 pound), softened (but not melted!) Ideal texture should be like ice cream.
  • 3-4 cups confectioners (powdered) sugar, SIFTED
  • 1/4 teaspoon table salt
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
  • up to 4 tablespoons milk or heavy cream

Instructions

  1. Beat butter for a few minutes with a mixer with the paddle attachment on medium speed. Add 3 cups of powdered sugar and turn your mixer on the lowest speed (so the sugar doesn’t blow everywhere) until the sugar has been incorporated with the butter. Increase mixer speed to medium and add vanilla extract, salt, and 2 tablespoons of milk/cream and beat for 3 minutes. If your frosting needs a more stiff consistency, add remaining sugar. If your frosting needs to be thinned out, add remaining milk 1 tablespoons at a time.

What are some of your tips for baking? Anything you’ve learned over the years? Have a favorite recipe or a question? Feel free to leave it in the comment section.

Until next time,

Tonya

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

A New Beginning

Welcome to the first post in my A-Z Blog Challenge. Now traditionally this was supposed to start April 1, but unfortunately I haven’t been able to begin until today. So I am way behind and I’m going to do my best to play catch up.

The month of April is a new beginning for me. It’s a new beginning in many ways. I will be a mom for the first time to a baby boy. This is the first time I am participating in this blog challenge and I am getting back into my routine of writing. That’s a lot to take on in one month, but I’m bound and determined to give it my all.

I have one book published, Night Promises, with Secret Cravings, they are a great publisher to work with. All of the authors, editors, cover artists, etc are extremely supportive to one another. And thankfully they have been supportive of me and my writer’s block.

Why did I quit writing? Honestly I don’t have a complete straight answer for this. Life took over, I work full-time as a manager and I go to school. I’ve had close family battle cancer and I forgot why I started writing. I began writing because I loved it and I didn’t care about getting published or getting paid for it. Then all of a sudden I began to care, that took my passion away. Now I just want to write and I want it published so that others can enjoy the stories I enjoy.

My main motivation to get back into writing again is Nora Roberts. She is an incredible author. I began reading her books years ago. I snuck ‘Montana Sky’ from my mom’s stash of books and I fell in love with her stories. Now she is releasing her 200th book, ‘The Witness’, it’s out today as a matter of fact. She is the author we all want to be. I have never had the privilege of meeting her…yet.

As for this blog challenge, yes I am getting a late start. At first it was procrastination, oh I have all the time in the world to get started on this blog challenge. Then it was health issues. I have preeclampsia with this pregnancy so it’s been a rough month. But that’s just an excuse because I have had several days I have felt wonderful and could have taken a few minutes to write a post.

No More Excuses!!

As for being a mother for the first time, I’m on cloud 9!! I still have days I can’t believe I’m going to be a mommy. It truly is one of those joyous occasions that makes life complete. I just can’t wait for him to be here. Yes, it is a boy. My due date is May 2nd, but it looks like I may induced as early as this Friday, April 20.

But that’s my ramblings for today! I hope you enjoyed them. Feel free to leave comments…especially if you have topic ideas for letters coming up. Tomorrow will be B…my topic…well I’m not sure yet to be honest I have three ideas. So we will see where my muse goes.

Until next time,

Tonya