Heartbreaker Blog Jump With Mia Downing

And the winner is...

Jbst! 

I've sent out an email. Congrats, and thanks to everyone for participating! 

Welcome to Carrie Ann's Heartbreaker Blog Hop! 

The heartbreaker hero is so fun to read and write! As an author, there's nothing like the guy that a woman can't have. Take one of my heroes from the Spy Games series, Chase Sanders. He's dark and dangerous, all boss, and women want nothing more than to serve at his feet. 

His buddy,  Jake Anderson, has a wicked sense of humor and loves to have fun in bed. That doesn't mean he's serious about marriage, though. He's tall, blond and every woman's fantasy because he's the one who will never settle down. He loves women, though. He likes them best tied to his bed and begging for more. 

Finally, Aaron Anderson, Jake's younger brother is a unique heartbreaker. He's a movie star, so most of his heartbreaking is done on the big screen, at a distance. He has a few secrets that keep him from becoming a true man whore like his brothers!

I'd love to know who's your favorite heartbreaker hero, and why? 

And on to the good stuff!!!! We have THREE grand prizes. You as a reader can go to EACH blog and comment with your email address and be entered to win. Yep, you can enter over 200 times!

Now what are those prizes?

1st Grand Prize (INT): A Kindle Fire or Nook Tablet

2nd Grand Prize(INT): A $100 Amazon or B&N Gift Card

3rd Grand Prize (USA only): A Swag Pack that contains paperbacks, ebooks, 50+ bookmarks, cover flats, magnets, pens, coffee cozies, and more!

My prize: A $10 Amazon gift card and one of my e-books! 

To enter: fill out the Rafflecopter gadget with a comment and your email address. You MUST leave your email in the comments to be considered for the grand prizes! 

To continue hopping, go to:  http://carrieannbloghops.blogspot.com/

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Impulsive #SundaySix Sentences from Mia Downing

Aww, only two Six Sentence Sundays left! 

I've been busy with family stuff and have been sick since the New Year, so I'm sorry for neglecting the blog. I decided to jump back in to better blogging with a Six Sentence selection from Spy Games: Lethal Limits to celebrate the release at The Wild Rose Press and Barnes and Noble as well as other distribution sites. 

This selection was chosen by Jake's biggest fan, Kim! Enjoy! 

The set-up: Jake and Tia are spies, and friends with benefits. They've been sent for a bit of R&R, so they're playing a game of twenty questions to get to know each other better outside of the bedroom. Tia has just asked what Jake's best asset is, and he believes it's his impulsive streak. 

Six Sentences from Spy Games: Lethal Limits 

Tia: “Impulsive gets you killed.” 

Jake: “Impulsive got you a weekend leave with a man bent on giving you proper orgasms. I would think you’d be on my side.”

The heat of a blush crept to her cheeks, and Tia ducked her head to hide behind the veil of her hair. The last time she’d blushed was probably at fifteen. “I guess when you put it that way…”

Buy links: The Wild Rose Press,  B&N,  Amazon

To join in on more Six Sentence Sunday fun, visit: 

Six Sentence Sunday Site

Naughty New Year's Blog Jump with Mia Downing

The winner for my prize on the blog hop is (chosen by Random.org):

CK Poisoned Rose

Thanks to everyone for participating. 

Grand prize winners will be alerted soon by the hop organizer. 

I unwittingly signed up for two hops at the same time! So if you're looking for the New Year's Blog Hop from Carrie Ann, enter this one and then hop on down the page! 

Carrie Ann's New Year Blog hop w/ 3 grand prizes!!!!!

As an erotic romance writer, I'm fairly committed to the naughty side of life, at least in my books. And you know what? I write these naughty books for me. They're stories I want to tell or want to read. They're characters with flaws I want to investigate, or challenges I want to see them overcome. Each sex scene is naughty but hinges on these characters' conflicts, giving them another venue to explore and grow in. They all end very happily, but there's angst laced in the trials and tribulations the characters must face to be together.

This naughty plan to write what I want to read led to Spy Games: Trained for Seduction being named one of Smitten With Reading's Top Reads of 2012. It was a story I dreamed up while my husband snored and kept me awake every night. Here's the blurb (because a print copy is one of the prizes!)

Blurb for Trained for Seduction (Spy Games #1)

Emma Walters didn't choose to be a spy, but when her crazy father was caught selling bombs to the wrong people, she was given a choice--become a spy or rot in jail. Her exciting new life as agent Kate Wells becomes more so when she discovers her new boss is the agent--undercover and investigating her father at the time--who took her to third base. Emma is already half in love with the dark and dangerous Chase Sanders. Kate wants nothing more than for him to finish what he started, but he's the devil incarnate. And one doesn't make deals or fall in love with the devil.

If someone had told Chase he'd fall in love with a certain virgin when he was on his last mission, he would have shot them dead, sniper style. She was nothing more than collateral damage, damn it. But watching the sexy new spy morph into a bombshell killing machine is too much to bear. So when the powers that be command him to train her in the art of seduction for her first--and possibly last--mission, he's scared witless. Making love to Kate means preparing her for sex with another man.

Somehow, Chase has to find a way to get Kate in--and out--of her mission without dying. And without falling in love.

On to the prizes!!! 

1) Win this erotic romance bundle of books! Ten hot reads, all for you. 

2) Win a $100 gift card to Eden's Fantasys! Now that's naughty! 

My prize: A signed print copy of Spy Games: Trained for Seduction 

To enter: Leave a comment with your email address below. I'll use Random.org to pick one lucky winner. Names and emails will be collected for the grand prize drawings, so don't forget to leave it! 

Then continue hopping along the blog hop by following the links: 

Starting the New Year with a Blog Jump! with Mia Downing

The winner for my prize for the blog hop is: 

Mel Bourne! 

I've send off an email. Congrats! 

Thanks to everyone who entered. It was so fun to see your comments! 

The grand prize winners will be posted on the main site.

I just posted a blog entry about New Year's Resolutions in Are You One of the 22%?. So for this post, I'll tell you one of my funniest New Year's eve evenings. My best friend and I were spending it watching movies (we were in our twenties) and she told me they had a New Year's tradition in her family. They had to run barefoot around the house, twice, in order to have good luck for the year. I thought this was stupid, but whatever, I was on a quest for good luck. I shed my shoes, drank the wine and waited. 

Midnight struck and she made me go first, both of us streaking around the house in our bare feet, the lawn spotty with snow and the air frosty cold. I finished, turned around and she pegged me in the head with a snowball. Come to find out she had made up the tradition because she was sick of being pegged with snowballs, since I was a better shot! All she wanted as an opportunity to get back at me. We still joke about this every year.

Now on to what you could win for reading that. 

We have THREE grand prizes. You as a reader can go to EACH blog and comment with your email address and be entered to win. Yep, you can enter over 200 times!

Now what are those prizes?

1st Grand Prize: A Kindle Fire or Nook Tablet

2nd Grand Prize: A $300 Amazon or B&N Gift Card

3rd Grand Prize (USA only): A Swag Pack that contains paperbacks, ebooks, 50+ bookmarks, cover flats, magnets, pens, coffee cozies, and more!

To celebrate Spy Games: Trained for Seduction making Smitten With Reading's Best Reads of 2012 List, I'm giving away a signed print copy. 

All you need to do to enter the grand prize drawing and my drawing is to make sure you fill out the Rafflecopter gadget. You MUST leave at least your name on the blog with your email addy if you want to be considered for the grand prizes. If you're chatty, then share your New Year's tradition or resolution. I'd love to know! 

To continue along the New Year's Blog Hop, visit here: 

Carrie Ann's Blog Hops

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Fun With Food #SundaySix Sentences from Exceeding Boundaries

To celebrate the close of 2012, I'm going to share 6 sentences from Exceeding Boundaries, my first published work. 

The set up: Adam and Megan are enjoying a bit of fresh pineapple spears for dessert. Who says getting your nutritional requirements for the day has to be boring... 

Six Sentences From Exceeding Boundaries

Adam pulled her closer, dabbed the spear to her lips and then kissed the juice away, his tongue lapping a path down her chin, along her jaw. Satisfied, he pulled back to watch her reaction. He loved the way innocence tore away as she realized his full intent. Her eyes widened as she bit her lip, and the hand on his chest trembled. He took another bite of the fruit and this time she leaned in, tentatively, and licked his mouth, his chin. Her gaze returned to his, as if seeking approval.

Buy links for Exceeding Boundaries: Amazon   The Wild Rose Press   B&N

For more Six Sunday Sentence greatness, visit:  Six Sunday website

Are You One of the 22 Percent?

 

On December 31, 2011 I decided I would make a New Year's resolution to write a book and publish it. Why I did this, I don't know. I suck at resolutions. In the past if I vowed I was going to lose 10 pounds I'd gain 10. A study I found stated 78% of people fail at accomplishing their New Year's resolutions. It's nice to know when the going gets tough, we all abandon ship like a herd of rats. But human nature wants us to be the rats on the good ship, the ones partying and eating the really good cheese while the rest of us float away on driftwood and plot out how long it will take to eat each other alive. We all want to be one of the 22% who succeed, dammit. 

Making resolutions isn't a new thing. The ancient Babylonians would vow to their gods that they would pay debts, and the ancient Romans would make promises to the god Janus. Even the knights of olden days would renew their commitment to chivalry every year after Christmas. I hope the knights were part of the 22% or there would be a whole bunch of disheartened princesses. 

I never intended to be one of the 22% when I woke up on January 1, 2012. I just said I would try. So I opened the laptop, found a story I had started working on, and began to write.  I wrote 10,000 words that day (in writer talk, that's 10k.) I was happy with that. I hadn't written anything new in eons so the world could have ended and I would have died happy. The next day I think I did 5K more. I didn't tell anyone, because if I was setting myself up to fail, I didn't want people making popcorn to eat while they enjoyed the train wreck. I would suffer in private. 

I don't quite remember when I finished the book, then called Phases of Seduction (you all know it as Exceeding Boundaries) but it was probably ten days later. I promptly sent it off, and suddenly, my resolution was complete. I had written a book and submitted it! So I did what any writer would do--I started the next one. And then another, and then another...

I wrote and submitted seven books in 2012. One is still in edits, the other six are published. I  wrote and published a short novella under my real name. I also started another book, which was 62K the last I checked. So in total, that's almost 500K words. WOW. 

I have a bunch of people to thank for helping me to become one of the 22% who succeeded for a change. First, thanks to my family, who went nearly naked, played with dust elephants and saw the back of my head more than the front (the back is more attractive.) You are not getting thanked for pegging my ass with rubber bands while I sat and wrote. You get to pet a dust elephant for that. 

Thanks to my friends for listening to me whine, for cheering with me, handing me tissues at the appropriate intervals. The coffee and IV tequila were also appreciated. 

Thanks to my editor, Diana Carlile, for either being smart (or silly) enough to buy my books and thanks to The Wild Rose Press for getting them out there. Diana gets extra thanks for all of the other things she does for me, such as the awesome cover art, the excellent editing, and the hand-holding. 

Thanks to my girls in The Hive, The Chick-lits, The Writer's Playground, and Series Romance. You know who you are and I love each and every one of you. 

Thanks to my groups, friends and fans at GoodReads. I wouldn't be here with out them. 

Finally, thanks to the average but cherished reader who decided to take a chance and pick up one of my books. Thank you so, so much. I hope you enjoyed them. 

Resolutions for 2013... Because it worked so well last year...

I'm going to write a book and submit it. :)

What's your New Year's Resolution? Are you going to be one of the 22% for a change? I hope so. 

Dangerous #SundaySix Sentences From Spy Game: Endgame

I was a slacker this week and didn't blog diddly. But we'll rectify that with six sentences from Spy Games: Endgame, book three in the series. 

The set up: Sexy actor Aaron James has had a pretty shitty evening. He was knocked out and bound to a chair by an unknown kidnapper. But things are looking up when he's rescued and then treated to the most awesome kiss by sexy spy Charlotte Smith. Unfortunately, Aaron's has a knack for putting his foot in his mouth when he's stressed, and he's said a few things he shouldn't have. Now Charlotte has gone from sultry hot to frosty cold, and she's got a dangerous side that turns him on. 

****

Six Sentences from Endgame (Spy Games #3) 

Charlotte put her hands on his thighs, her nails biting through the fabric of his jogging pants as she leaned closer until her nose almost touched his. “How many women have you fucked, love?”

“None of your business.” But his cock twitched, wanting her to be number three, bad.

Her eyes were violet steel, the set of her mouth firm, nostrils slightly flared. “Then keep in mind that I have killed more people than you have fucked.” 

****

Spy Games: Endgame will be available winter 2013. For more Six Sunday Sentences, visit: www.sixsunday.com