It’s still cool out there, but it’s beginning to look and feel like early spring. The air is moist, not winter dry. Daffodils and other spring bulbs are emerging in the gardens–and along the brick south wall of the house, some have buds. Birds are flitting and flirting in the yard, chirping their little hearts out. Mostly I’m seeing ones that over-winter in Massachusetts, but they’re more active than they’ve been in months. I’m waking to light, even if I wake up before the alarm. (Though not if I wake up as early as I did today. Himself had a rare bout of insomnia and crept out of bed before 5 AM and that woke me so I couldn’t get back to sleep. At least I was able to drift off for awhile after he left for work at 7. Poor man will hurt tonight.) The overwintered kale is perking up again, as are the dormant perennial herbs.

The forecast calls for a vile wintry mix later in the week, so I’m resisting the urge to do much in the garden, but I won’t be able to hold off much longer. Just a short row of spinach and one of arugula. Maybe scatter some alfalfa on the bed that will eventually get eggplant and peppers, since they won’t go in until mid-May at the earliest. At least pull out the fall greens that didn’t make it through the winter. I need to get my hands dirty!

According to my mom, my father’s cousins were farmers north of Albany, New York. They were also gamblers, and like my father and myself, adrenalin junkies and risk takers. (My risks are more intellectual and financial, my thrill-seeking more…intimate. My father drove race cars and did gymkana on ice.) Their thing was to try to get the first tomatoes to the Albany markets-a risky proposition when the farm is north of the city in the hills. But it was a calculated risk This was mid 20th century, when produce markets were much more localized. If hothouse tomatoes or “ripe” tomatoes from Florida or California were even available in Albany in winter and spring, they were luxury items, something the average family would get once in a blue moon. And of course, back then people remembered that tomatoes were supposed to taste like something, so those “treats” might not have been worth the money. The risk involved in setting out tomatoes early with frost protection must have seemed small compared to the reward of tomato-craving people willing to pay a premium for the season’s first juicy red goodness. Some years, Mom says, they failed catastrophically, losing a good chunk of the tomato crop to late frost. Others, they made a comfortable cushion of money by beating everyone else to market at a time when people were dreaming of tomatoes. I seem to have inherited that urge to plant early and see what happens. Luckily, in my case, the worst that happens is I need to start more seeds, or maybe pick up a six-pack of tomato seedlings at the farmers’ market, not wonder how I’ll pay the bills all year.

Nature bulletin: a magnificent redtail is circling the neighborhood.

Soon, my newly planted seeds will be baby plants like these from a previous season.

Today, the 2013 garden season officially began. I could argue that it actually started in the dark days of January, when I placed my seed order and got an exciting post-holiday present to the house: an apricot tree, a peach tree, and a rhubarb plant. But today I planted my first seeds, so it feels official.

In the spirit of starting a new gardening season, I’m starting to record this year’s Independence Day Challenge results.

What is this challenge? It’s not a writing challenge, but a living challenge for those of us who are interested in living a more earthy-crunchy life in a very practical way, and it’s mostly but not exclusively concerned with food.  I first found about this challenge several years ago from the blog of farmer-author-environmentalist-mom Sharon Astyk. Since I love to garden and to eat locally and am more than a bit obsessed with food and food systems, I jumped right on it. I’m not sure if Sharon is running an official challenge this year (though since she’s a farmer, she’ll be covering all the category challenges, in a more serious way that I am), but I’m continuing it anyway as a way of tracking my efforts.  To quote Sharon, “the whole idea is to get the positive sense of your accomplishments – it is easy to think we haven’t done anything to move forward, but in fact, we all do, almost every day.  We just think of accomplishment as a big thing – a whole day spent putting up applesauce or a hundred tomato plants.  The Independence Day project makes us count our little accomplishments and see that we are moving forward.”

The challenge categories (again from Sharon’s site), are:

Plant something: A lot of us were trained to think of planting as done once a year, but if you start seeds, do season extension and succession plant, you’ll get much, much more out of your garden, so I try and plant something every day from February into September.

Harvest something: Everything counts – from the milk and eggs you get from your animals to the first dandelions from your yard to 50 bushels of tomatoes – it all counts.

Preserve something: Again, I find preserving is most productive if I try and do a little every day that there is anything, from the first dried raspberry leaves and jarred rhubarb to the last squashes at the end of the season.

Waste not: Reducing food waste, composting everything or feeding it to animals, reducing your use of disposables and creation of garbage, reusing things that would otherwise go to waste, making sure your preserved and stored foods are kept in good shape – all of these count.

Want Not: Adding to your food storage or stash of goods for emergencies, building up resources that will be useful in the long term.

Eat the Food: Making full and good use of what you have, making sure that you are getting everything you can from your food, trying new recipes and new cooking ideas, eating out of your storage!

Build community food systems: What have you done to help other people have better food access or to make your local food system more resilient?

And a new one: Skill up:  What did you learn this week that will help you in the future – could be as simple as fixing the faucet or as hard as building a shed, as simple as a new way of keeping records or as complicated as making shoes.  Whatever you are learning, you get a merit badge for it – this is important stuff.

This week’s progress:

Plant something: Eggplant; cutting celery (which should have been started 2 weeks ago, in theory!); jalapenos; Oregon Spring tomatoes (these are the ones that can go out before it’s reliable “last frost” as long as they’re small enough to cover); peas for pea shoots; a mix of spinach, buttercrunch lettuce, and arugula  for baby greens

Harvest something: Pea sprouts in a salad, but there’s not much to harvest yet, considering the garden beds just emerged from the snow. (However, it looks like some of the kale survived, despite the row cover blowing away, so that will change soon.)

Preserve something: Made meat sauce for the freezer for easy, tasty meals

Waste not: Rearranged the kitchen to make staples easier to find and planned to use up some items (like the last of the Bisquik–the last ever!), and some tiny amounts of various beans. We also did all the usual for us: composting, recycling, donating or passing on items instead of tossing them, trying to reduce packaging and unnecessary purchases in the first place

Want not: Did a BJ’s run and stocked up on rice, tomato paste, and other staples.

Eat the food: Made a fabulous stew with freezer beef, roasted tomatoes from the freezer, and wine we’d “stored” this summer when we were a bit more flush. Eating the way through frozen leftovers, and greatly enjoying our freezer beef, frozen vegetables, and frozen and canned fruit.

Community food systems: Getting eggs from the Cat-Herder’s co-worker. Starting seedlings for friends with less space. We haven’t made it to the indoor farmers’ market for a few weeks–perhaps a good thing as it’s hard not to overspend.

Skill up!: (I hear this with a ping and in a goofy voice, like “level up!” Yes, I’m a geek): This is more a “realizing where we need to skill up,” but we looked over the yard and decided where the chicken coop’s going, though it may not happen for another year. Met some chicks (as in baby chickens–I guess I do have to specify for my naughty readers!) and talked about what kinds we’d like, but decided we don’t enough information. Fortunately we know several people who keep chickens (see above).

Well, today has been an interesting day, and I mean that partly in the Chinese-curse sense.

As you’ve probably figured out if you’ve been anywhere near my social media presence today, Knowing the Ropes has been released into the wild, where I hope it is making many new friends. So far, the book’s reception has been encouraging, and that makes me smile. I love this book and I hope everyone else does too. That’s the good part of the day.

And it looks like I’m going to be a full-time writer and part-time homemaker/gardener/suburban homesteader, which is what I’ve wanted to being for a long time and which I’d been hoping I’d see a way to transition to by next year, when I’ll turn 50. Perhaps all the Trickster magic in Cougar’s Courage decided to come home to roost, because it seems like I’m going to be writing full time sooner than I thought.

Unfortunately, this is where the “interesting” comes in, because I didn’t accomplish this in the way I wanted to, by handing in a resignation at the day job when I was ready to leave, when I’d checked off all the million things I felt I needed to prepare before I could quit. *shrug* At least this way I can collect unemployment, right?

I’m not making light of this change. Unexpected unemployment is a shock and I definitely shed a few tears -mostly of financial panic. But the day job, while it certainly had positive aspects beyond the steady paycheck, was not what I wanted to be doing with my life. I’m trying to see this as the Goddess forcing my hand. I might never have been “ready” to make the leap as long as I had a steady paycheck coming in, might have kept saying I needed to save more money or reach some other milestone before I could do what I’ve known, since I was about six, I wanted to do with my life.

Instead, here I am. Free. Dazed and confused, but free.

And to celebrate that state of freedom, I’m going to give a free copy of Knowing the Ropes to someone who comments on this post before March 1, 2013. Tell me about an experience of getting lemons from life and making luscious limoncello*, of turning a negative into a positive, and you’ll have a chance to win.

Of course, if you want to buy the book, that’s great too!

* I know it’s traditionally lemonade, but I think something gently alcoholic is called for after a day full of ups and downs.

Samhain link

Amazon link

Barnes and Noble link

Kobo link

Out Tuesday, 2/26!

Who said the sub always had to be the one on her knees—or that she wasn’t getting a kind of power out of being there? Giving pleasure could be a way of claiming someone, and he intended to claim Selene. Still kissing her, Nick steered Selene to the couch, then broke off the kiss so he could order her to sit down.

Lips swollen from kissing, damp hair in Medusa-like tendrils and tangles, Selene shook her head slightly, less a negation than a clearing, before saying, “Uh, wet bathing suit, sir?” her voice small but not exactly humble—more kiss-dazed.

“Well, take it off.”

A lazy grin wakened and spread across her face as she solved the problem. The bathing suit bottom made a satisfying plop as it hit the floor.

He gave her a gentle shove, and she sat back on the couch. “Spread your legs,” he said, trying to sound authoritative but to his own ears sounding more eager. Greedy, even.

Was that a bad thing? No, he decided as he gazed at her pink folds, lightly slicked with moisture. Her dark curls were matted from her swim, and it made her look wetter yet, as if she’d just been licked into oblivion.

Like she soon would be.

“Wider,” he commanded, and without waiting for her to comply, he knelt down between her splayed legs.

“What are you…”

“Hush.” With one hand, he pulled back her outer lips, bringing the inner lips into greater prominence, making her clit stand out, ready for attention.

“Wait a minute, is this some kind of dom trick? I lie back and enjoy and then get punished for being greedy or selfish or something?” She sounded skeptical but not particularly alarmed at the prospect of punishment.

Good, she’d figured out that at this point “punishment” was just a code word for “an excuse to play harder”.

A sharp slap on the inner thigh left a pretty red handprint on white skin, made her wince one second and smile dizzily the next. “That’s for trying too hard to be clever,” he said, grinning as he did to make it clear he wasn’t annoyed, just seizing an excuse. “I wish I’d thought of that, actually, but now you’d be on to the trick.”

“But…shouldn’t I…”

Nick resisted the urge to snort with laughter, because it wasn’t fair to Selene. She’d figure out for herself, with a little more experience with him, why it was funny. “Selene,” he said, forcing his voice into what he thought of as DomSpeak. “We’ve agreed that today you’re to do what I tell you. I’m telling you to relax and enjoy yourself, because right now I feel like tasting you. I like making you scream, Selene. Will you scream for me if I lick you?”

Eyes wide with anticipation now that it had finally sunk in this wasn’t a test or a trick, just good old-fashioned oral sex, she smiled and nodded.

He positioned himself, gave a slow, sensuous tonguing from the juicy opening of her cunt up to her eager clit, savoring the combination of her sweetly smoky juices and overtones of chlorine. Usually, pool water wasn’t on his list of favorite flavors, but blended with essence of Selene, it was damn tasty. “There,” he said, “not so hard to handle, is it?”

Then he set to work to carry out his threat-or-promise.

Samhain link

Amazon link

Barnes and Noble link

Knowing the Ropes comes out on February 26 and I’m as excited…as excited as my heroine Selene is in the naughty excerpt below! Not in the same way, mind you. Publication is always a rush, no matter how many books one has out, but it’s not the same same thrill as a first-time scene with a new lover.

Suddenly, Nick, springing like the cat she’d envisioned, was on her. His big hand grasped her jaw and throat, gently but with unmistakable authority. No pressure, no physical danger, but a definite sense of menace, of claiming. “Something funny?” he growled. The dark gravel in his voice worked with the hand on her throat, freezing her in place. She shook her head, barely able to move even that much. She couldn’t think, could barely breathe from sheer sexual tension, but oh God, she might just come. He wouldn’t hurt her, but it was like a roller coaster or a monster movie where you got scared at something that wasn’t actually dangerous and enjoyed the hell out of the adrenaline rush.

“Very good. Stay right there. Don’t move.” Nick stepped away, leaving her bereft as soon as he opened a side door and disappeared from view. He returned quickly, set something she couldn’t see just beyond the open archway and returned, holding two hands of rope. “Hold your hands out in front of you.”

When he wrapped the rope around her left wrist, Selene’s heart started beating so fast she thought she might crack a rib. It was natural-colored and looked like a thicker version of the twine her grandmother used to trellis peas, but it felt surprisingly soft against her skin. She closed her eyes, wanting to focus on the sensations of Nick touching her, of the rope moving against her skin. He made a snug band around her wrist, then repeated it on the other side. When she opened her eyes, Nick stood before her, holding the ropes that connected to her wrists. He tugged on the ropes. “Follow me.”

He led her to the wide, open doorway that led into the kitchen. It was perhaps a dozen steps, but with the ropes holding her, with Nick leading her, it felt both instant and endless.

There were rings set in the wooden doorframe, spray-painted to match the dark green trim. One set was at roughly shoulder height, another single one above her head. Selene gulped. So much for her first impressions. This was definitely a den of iniquity—just a subtle one.

Using the rope ends, Nick secured her wrists to the rings at her sides. There was a bit of play in the ropes; she’d be able to shift around, change position a little. Still, she wasn’t going far, and knowing that was a delicious feeling. “Next time we’ll try something more elaborate,” he whispered, “but I wanted you to experience the feel of hemp rope. Feel the safety of bondage when I flog you for the first time.”

She shuddered violently at the word flog. It evoked vicious images of the British navy circa Master and Commander, a title that seemed much sexier when she was bound in a doorframe waiting to see what evil things Nick might do. But he was right about the safety of bondage. She felt…embraced, as if Nick’s hands and not pieces of rope were holding her in place. Delightful.

Nick leaned in and whispered in her ear, his voice a sinful caress, “Are you ready?”

All she could do was nod.

“Stick out your ass.” Wordlessly, breathing shallowly in little gasps, she obeyed. Nick ran his hand over the curve of her butt. “Beautiful. You have the perfect ass for spanking, round and heart-shaped and just the right combination of firm and soft. The kind of ass that makes a man like me think evil thoughts.” He demonstrated by grabbing one of her cheeks hard. It should have been uncomfortable, would have been under other circumstances, but instead it made her gasp and clench. “Very nice.” He lightly smacked the area he’d just grabbed, then struck the other cheek. Back and forth a few times, light and only mildly stingy, but making her feel warm, swollen, pink. Selene moaned and thrust her butt out more, hoping he’d take the hint and pick up the pace. “Oh, you’re a natural at this. But spread your legs more. I want to see the juices dripping down your thighs.”

As she obeyed, Selene’s face flamed, abashed that he’d see she was already soaked, her thighs already slick. Then she had a revelation. She was embarrassed because she thought she should be and because she’d had the bad luck to date a couple of guys who were intimidated by how sexual she could be. But Nick wasn’t intimidated. Nick craved her desire, wanted to see its evidence on her skin.

That knowledge aroused her even more.

Realizing this didn’t make her face feel less heated, but it was more a flush than a blush now, pure sexual excitement.

“Ready?” Nick asked again, but before she could answer, his hand struck hard.

Selene squealed and jumped in place. It hurt. That was her first reaction. It stung and burned, and instinct told her to pull away. But he stroked the skin he’d just smacked, and the throbbing discomfort shifted to a throbbing pleasure. “More, please,” she said before she could help herself—not that she wanted to help herself.

“Of course. But don’t you dare come until I tell you to.”

Come? Selene wanted to chuckle. Spanking might be a huge turn-on, but there was no way she could come without more direct stimulation. She was safe, although she had to admit the order not to come was exciting in itself.

That thought fled after a few more blows, a few more caresses, and instead she found herself wondering how she was going to manage to hold off coming until she got permission. She tried to count at first, but somewhere around twenty, her brain turned off its ability to do anything that rational and linear. Her ass felt huge, hot and swollen—but not as hot and swollen as her cunt. She throbbed all over, between the sweet, decadent ache in her pussy and the tender ache in her abused butt. Her head swam. She didn’t want to beg. She really didn’t. It was such a cliché, and she’d sound stupid, and…

And if she didn’t get permission to come, she was going to do it anyway. The combination of pleasure and pain was driving her mad. “Please,” she whispered, her voice doing that Marilyn Monroe thing again. “Please, may I come?”

The novel formerly known as Shaman’s Seduction is now Cougar’s Courage. The other books in the series feature the shifter characters in the title, and now this one matches. It took a while to wrap my head around the title change, but now I like it.

Editorial  and marketing changes are part and parcel of being a genre fiction writer. One’s work is art, but it’s also product. Aesthetic considerations are important, but so are marketing considerations. Either title fits the story. Either title is catchy. I admit I liked the original title a bit better, simply because both main characters are shamans and it conveys the mutuality of the relationship–they are very much equals sexually and both are, at various times, the seducer or the seduced. But my editor explained several good reasons why featuring the shifter aspect in the title made sense, and I couldn’t argue with the logic.

So, Cougar’s Courage it is–because not only is Jack brave facing his enemies, he needs every bit of courage he can muster to make things work with his tough, but wounded heroine.

Photo by dracobotanicus/Flickr creative commons.

I seem to be back in my writing happy place after several weeks of brain fog. I was struck by flu on January 12, and yes I remember the exact date: I got up in the morning feeling all right, though with a minor sore throat and sniffles, and nearly passed out at the farmer’s market when the fever hit. (Apologies to everyone who was at the Pawtucket Winter Market that day because I’m sure I was spreading the virus far and wide. ) I was literally too sick to write for over a week, or to do much of anything other than napping and re-reading old favorite books, as new, fresh material was beyond me. I went back to work this Monday, but was still so tired and weak that no writing happened. Yesterday I got back on the wagon, drafting a short story and writing nearly 2,000 words on Out of Control, and I feel much better for it. Lesson: next year, get my flu shot and get it early!

One thing that perked me up in the middle of last week, when I was well enough that I felt I should be writing, but exhausted enough I just couldn’t do it after a day at the day job, was hearing from my editor at Samhain. Shaman’s Seduction (Duals and Donovans: The Different Book 3*) has been accepted and will be out in November. I did a major rewrite of this book at the editor’s request and ever since I resubmitted it, I’ve been at pins and needles hoping the new version worked. A stand-alone novel that doesn’t work for one editor can always be sent somewhere else, but that’s trickier when the book falls smack in the middle of a series. So relieved, and so happy that this book, which has been a troublesome one, has a good home and a pub date. Lesson: if you make the trickster god Coyote an important character in a book, expect the plot to take on a life of its own and go in directions you never expected, including some that will make both you and your editor rather uncomfortable.

Add my upcoming reading and the imminent release of Knowing the Ropes (February 26, but you can pre-order it from Amazon, BN, or direct from Samhain), I’m feeling pretty good about the writing side of my life. And yes, I am counting the days until KtR comes out.

* Astute readers will note there are already 4 Duals and Donovans books out. Fox’s Folly, the most recent release, is actually a prequel and takes place before any of the others, so it doesn’t have a sequence number.)

I’m venturing from my cozy office to Turners Falls, MA (nearly in Vermont) on Saturday, February 2 to take part in a reading that bears the delightful name Triple S: Sexy Scribes Speaking.  It’s in conjunction with the opening of art exhibit called “Triple S: Sexy Sensual Smut” and we’ll be reading after the end of the artists’ reception. I’ll be reading a selection from Knowing the Ropes, which may make me a little less “literary” than some of my fellow erotica writers, but hey–some of the original draft of KtR has been published as literary erotica. And with Knowing the Ropes coming out on 2/26 (a month away from tonight), of course I want to read from it.

Who will be reading? It’s quite a line-up of who’s who in smart smut in New England. Jeremy Edwards hosts. The other readers include Michelle Augello-Page, Sally Bellerose, Elizabeth Black, Lana Fox, Sacchi Green, I.J. Miller, and Robin Elizabeth Sampson, aka Erobintica. I’ve been in anthologies with most of these people and am Facebook friends with a few (and Jeremy knows my junior year college roommate), but Sacchi is the only one I’ve met before, so I’m quite excited to get to meet all these wonderful writers at last. Please come join us! We’ll have a door prize, books for sale, and plenty of written and visual delights to warm a chilly winter night.

Also excited that Turners Falls is far away enough that the Cat-Herder and I will get to stay in an inn and have a little adventure. We do love hotel sex! I mean, we love going out to brunch in new places and exploring quaint, artsy communities near the Vermont border…oh hell, I can’t fool you people. We love that too–but you know it’s all about the hotel sex.

Sexy Scribes Speaking
Colle Opera House basement
85 Avenue A
Turners Falls, MA

Sexy_Scribes_Speaking_010513c

Click the link for more info!

We bought a new chest freezer last night. Not that there’s anything wrong with our old freezer; we just want more freezer space. We’re pondering ordering a quarter of a buffalo, or maybe “just” a sixth of one. Rather in shock, but also rather excited.

Five (fallen) Angels for Knowing the Ropes.

Thank you, Bella at Fallen Angel Reviews, who says of Knowing the Ropes: “Selene is a wonderfully, three-dimensional character” and “The kink and sex between Selene and Nick was scrumptious and had me turning virtual page after page. This new-to-me author surprised me; I certainly will be seeking out works by her in the future.” Read the whole thing here.

I’m over the moon right now. What a lovely start to 2013.

And it looks like I have a contract for another Alison Tyler bondage anthology waiting in my in-box, just to keep the kinky good news coming.

The end of 2012

Yesterday the sun set on 2012. Today, it rose on 2013. Like yesterday, it’s a blustery winter day, brilliant sunshine glaring on fresh snow alternating with gray clouds.

The new year always gives a sense of new beginnings. Since I’m a pagan, I already celebrated one new year at Samhain, and I reassess my life with each cross-quarter day. But since I’m prone to what most of the world calls Seasonal Affective Disorder and I call a perfectly natural desire to hibernate, or as close to it as possible, in the dark times of the year (think about it–in a society without electric lights and central heating, the rhythm of your days would be different in winter than during the rest of the year), I like this opportunity to focus on the positive points of last year and how this coming year can be better yet.

Later today I hope to post with specifics. But right now, I’m going to look up where and when The Hobbit is playing. One of my goals this year is to not get so wrapped up in work that I neglect to do fun things with my beloved.

I’ve been tagged by erotica writer/editor extraordinaire Sacchi Green to take part in the Next Big Thing Blog Hop. The purpose of this hop is to expose folks to writers and their work that perhaps they haven’t heard of, whether a new release or a Work in Progress (WIP). This is week 26 and I’ll be writing about a forthcoming release. Sacchi also tagged two other writers,Jove Bell ( http://jovebelle.wordpress.com) and MJ Williamz: (http://mjwilliamz.wordpress.com/) I hope you’ll pay them a visit as well.

Congratulations to Lisa K (I’m not sure if she wanted her full name used), who won a copy of A Satyr for Midwinter via The Romance Review’s Year-End Splash (YES!) Party.

Happy reading, Lisa! And remember, the Winter Solstice is the perfect time to curl up with a sexy Winter Solstice themed romance.

The revised version of Shamans’ Seduction–shorter and I think much better–is on its way to my editor. Tomorrow I get back to new words on new books.

We even have a Yule tree now, though it’s not yet decorated.

*

And now for a few serious thoughts

It’s a dark time of the year as we head toward Winter Solstice, made darker by horror and tragedy in the news. The light will prevail at Solstice, though, as it always does. The world will not end on December 21, any more than it has any of the other times apocalypse has been predicted. And in the midst of tragedy, you can also see heroism–in teachers who risked their own lives to keep their students safe, in first responders, in people who, day and day out, continue to work like hell to make this world better. And there is beauty beyond understanding: in the night sky and the sunrise, in the mountains and the ocean, in the words of storytellers and songwriters, in the works of artists and filmmakers, in the eyes of your partners, your parents, your children, the purr of a cat or the excited wriggling of a dog happy to see you when you walk in the door.

Embrace your loved ones. Embrace light and joy as best you can. Stay safe, because there is evil out there–but remember there is far more good.

www.publicdomainpictures.net

Look what arrived in my mail, along with a few boxes of gifts and the promo postcards for Knowing the Ropes. Happy Solstice to me–and to you, erotica fans! More info on Best Bondage Erotica is here and I have a fairly extensive post about my story in Morning, Noon and Night as well. (Actually, Morning, Noon and Night has been here for about a week, but I hadn’t gotten around to saying anything about it. Since the other book came in, I figured I’d post both at once.)

In other news, while the books haven’t arrived yet, I’ve just gotten word that the print edition Best Erotic Romance 2013 has been released early.The ebook’s coming in January, and there should be an audio book in March. My story in this collection is a bit more serious than some I’ve written–it’s about how parenthood (in this case, via adoption) transforms a relationship. But it’s still plenty sexy, a little kinky, and I think somewhat touching.

Here are all the relevant links:

Cleis Press: http://www.cleispress.com/book_page.php?book_id=506

(Sorry, I can’t find a larger image of the cover.)