Indispensable Wife ebook ON SALE

$0.99 

NINETY-NINE CENTS

At most US ebook retailers.

The Wild Rose Press 
Barnes & Noble
Amazon
Kobo
All Romance Ebooks


AND:
Amazon Australia (where it's $1.30)
Amazon UK (for 99 pence)

And even though it's all in English, it is available in France and Germany for .99 Euro.
Amazon France

Amazon Germany  

Aurore was delighted when a marriage was arranged with the boy she loved, her older brother’s friend Dominique, Comte de Bures. But in a few years the first rush of joy has worn off, and their promising life seems ruined by loss, betrayal, and misunderstanding. 

One terrifying morning mercenaries overrun their château and usurpers take Aurore hostage. Miles away at Versailles, where he is required to dance attendance on Louis XIV, Dominique is nearly killed by a crossbow bolt. 

Escaping, Aurore travels with a troupe of itinerant musicians, hiding in the open while discovering hidden resources within herself. 

Dom sets out to find his wife. He needs his old life back. He needs revenge. But his lands, his title, and his honor mean nothing unless he can win back the love of his indispensable wife.

Feeling Lazy....Accountability

Maybe I'm avoiding the actual work I have to do, but today's to-do list includes baking cookies (for DD's school, so not entirely at a whim) and feeding the hummingbirds (they are very thirsty this time of year and have drone battles around the feeder, then drain it within a few days).

ACCOUNTABILITY (because I gave a list of goals ten days or so ago):

But 4 realz, I have to finish reading my critique partner's Sci-Fi-Erotic-Romance. And my other critique partner's psychic thriller with romantic elements.

And then I need to do some more thinking and editing on Chateaux and Shadows Book 4, write a synopsis and blurb for it, and submit it. It's still August, right? I wanted to do that by September.

And I keep churning through the ideas I still have for a half-finished New Adult, the one based on the Rolling Stones' Hot Rocks.

But most of all, I'm savoring having a quiet day at home after taking my phone to the store to see if they could figure out why it wasn't booting, only to end up having to have it wiped completely. And then sitting in the car starting to reinstall stuff while listening to the radio for 10 minutes, then discovering just that wore out my battery. And the nice young guy who was giving me a jump start must have had a bad connection on his battery because it didn't work. So I had to get my husband to go pick up my daughter from school and then come rescue me, at which point the jump worked immediately. And then oldest to karate, then dinner, then me to book group.

So anyway, I've made my cookie dough, but the recipe said to chill it before making the dough balls to bake. So now I'm off to do that and to read some Sci-Fi Smut. Whee!

OH AND
Just now got an email with the cover for my novella, Henri et Marcel, which will come out......I don't know when . In the next few months, I bet. Big excitement!

So go pre-order The Chevalier. It's awesome.

Maybe I wrote myself into a corner?

Idly casting around for a part time job. 

I guess while I was raising kids and writing evenings and weekends, I should have taken some college/training classes. 

But I was busy. 

With writing.

So now, my job skills are rusty. I did work retail for a few years when the boys were in preschool, before I had my last baby. I also did some proofreading/editing/formatting at home before I started homeschooling. But right now, I'm kind of at a crossroads, wondering what to do next.

(See what I did there, with the title?)

SO ANYWAY,  do me a favor and pre-order Chevalier!

If you are a personal friend of mine or a review blogger, hit me up for an ebook copy. I'm allowed to give away a certain number free and I have about 4 of those left. Though if a couple of the blog sites I sent it to never review it, do I get to give away those again? 

Emmanuel, Chevalier de Cantière, youngest son of a baron, is happiest raising horses far from his complicated family. When news comes his mother is deathly ill, he races to her side only to find she has apparently recovered and moved on, leaving behind her companion, Catherine. 

Catherine de Fouet blends into the background, saving up so she’ll never have to wait on waspish, scheming old ladies like the baronesse again. She has no interest in a resentful gentleman, estranged from his mother, no matter how broad his shoulders or intriguing the wounded soul behind his handsome face. She just needs someone to escort her back to Versailles. 

But Catherine is suspected of poisoning the baronesse. She rebuffs a pushy courtier who tries to use blackmail to make her his mistress, and her reputation hangs by a thread. 

The chevalier wants more than anything to protect this woman whose prickly exterior hides sweetness and passion. They need his family to help him through court intrigues—almost as much as they need each other. 

Back to School!

The kids all started school this week, my eight-year-old daughter on Wednesday and my two teen boys on Thursday. And with that, my homeschool journey is complete. I mean, I am assuming it is. My daughter has asked several times if I could homeschool her. My son could still wipe out and need to come home again.

BUT.

They're all in school. I don't know quite what to do with my time. I need a part-time job for quicker money influx as I devote the rest of my time to writing. But yesterday, I went for a walk, took a shower, and drove the Freshman's bike to a bike shop to get a new shifter thingy (and a lock, and some inner tubes and a patch kit) and by the time I got home, it was time to pick them up.

Today, I met with my critique partners and then came home and did a ton of setting up of promo, then a ton of editing.

OH!
New book goes on sale in just under three weeks!
The Affair of the Poisons just got personal. 
The Chevalier, also known as the Cranky Cavalier or the Hacked-Off Horseman.

Look how subtly I shoved my promo in there!

Right. And I trawled through some job sites looking for something part time. They're either minimum wage or something my long-ago work experiences and my momming experiences don't cover. Which I know has always been an issue for parents who take time off to raise kids, just saying I'm in that boat now, rowing and bailing.

And writing books. Wheeeee!

Planning....and forgetting

I typed up a plan of the projects I'm going to do over the next few months, then immediately got sidetracked.

Yesterday, I got the edits for my novella (coming...this winter, I hope), "Henri et Marcel". They weren't onerous at all, so either it's awesome or my editor isn't strict enough. And since I lack self-confidence most of the time, I'm going to say she wasn't strict enough. Anyway, I went through the stuff she did want fixed and am now going to be sure the plot structure holds together. I've checked it before, but honestly, I want people to love this as much as I do.

You might have guessed from the title, this is Male/Male romance. And anyone who has read the first two books in my 17th century French series will know who these guys are. (Indispensable Wife introduces Henri, Honorable Officer has him meet Marcel. Then they appear in Chevalier, too, mostly as Emmanuel gets to know Henri, the prickliest of his brothers, better). BUT there are no sex scenes. There is attraction, affection, cuddling, a few kisses, and a bit of implied they-had-sex-last-night.

Yeah, sorry, all my friends who like m/m sex scenes. I have enough trouble publishing m/f sex. Oh, I'm blushing just mentioning it.

There is more explicit sex in the NA/Chick Lit series and even more in the contemporary romance I'm working on, but I'm still not planning on getting categorized as erotic.

The novella takes place immediately after Chevalier, ten years after Henri and Marcel moved in together to work for Jean-Louis (the Honorable Officer himself) at the furniture factory. Henri returns to Paris and pulls something in his upper back and is in constant pain. My critique partner asked if he had meningitis. Well, no. His symptoms are the ones I had a year ago this spring, when my shoulder froze up due to my messed up upper spine.

Anyway, this post was going to be about planning, but I got sidetracked.

Right.

1) I've got a solid first draft of the contemporary romance I wrote the second half of (I wrote the first half a few years ago and got stuck, so went back and edited it heavily and deleted the last chapter or so and went from there). It will go on the back burner for a little bit and then I'll come back and edit it, give it to my critique partners, then start submitting it. So that's done, even though it wasn't even on my original plan.

2) Finish edits of Henri et Marcel.

3) Edit Melisande (Book 4, Chateaux and Shadows). My crit partners might have already read this one, at least in part. Submit to Wild Rose in...September, I hope.

4) Edit/proofread/get a cover for Christmas Spirit. Release October? November? Well before Christmas, anyway.

5) Through all this, keep querying Chill, my NA/Chick Lit book based on the soundtrack to the Big Chill.

6) November means NANOWRIMO! So I hope to finish Hot Rocks (the second NA/Chick Lit) and finish Dario (Book 6, Chateaux and Shadows). Each is to or past the halfway point. And I know NaNoWriMo is supposed to be a new project and a short novel, but I'll use the deadline this way, instead.

7) Edit Francoise (Book 5, C&S), which takes place more than ten years after Chevalier and Henri and is the story of their niece, Cedric's daughter and how she has to choose which twin to marry, which will be the way they pick which is the heir. I hope to get this to my publisher by early 2017.

8) THEN I can edit Dario and turn him in. He's currently the last in my French series, but he and his heroine open up a can of worms left over from the first book. I still have ideas for more French stories, maybe about other cousins, maybe about other people in Louis XIV's court.

Oh, and I need an actual out-of-my-home job, preferably part time, though after so many years out of the job market, I'm sort of weak in the resume. I look at job postings and realize I don't have the actual experience they require or that my experience is so old that it's not so relevant. I know a lot of people are in that situation. So anyway. If you live near me, let me know if you hear of something...

Or in my home, but an actual legit job, you know, not a pyramid scheme. I've done business proofreading/editing. It was a bit crazy, what with all this business buzzwords (Incentivize still isn't a word) that made me groan and laugh, but I was pretty good at it.

More grumpiness

I'm really struggling right now, so I'm reading. I've spent the last few days lying around.

It's really hard to apply for part-time jobs when you look at them and decide you're not going to get them anyway. Ditto for querying agents and small publishers. Double ditto for writing.

So reading it is!

Yesterday until late last night, I read Sarina Bowen's Bittersweet and Steadfast. I'm a fast reader, OK? And the books aren't that long. And I didn't really do anything else yesterday. At all. Stayed in my PJs all day and everything.

Other than that, I've zoomed through all of the Nalini Singh Psy-Changeling series this summer (in a weird order, because I only just re-read some of them), I've read Swept Away by Kristina Mathews (whitewater rafting romance), re-read several of Jennifer Ashley's Shifters books, Signs of Attraction by Laura Brown (With Deaf and Hard of Hearing characters), and Virtually Impossible by Lauren Stewart.

It's a reading extravaganza!

Today I got dressed and went to critique group, where I picked up a Sci-fi erotic romance novel from one of my CPs. So I'll be reading that this week.

And I really need to finish this contemp romance and do a quick edit before handing it off to my CPs in turn.

And do some more review-seeking and early promo for my upcoming historical, The Chevalier.

I can read and write to my heart's content, but I'd really love everytone to read what I write!

Book 1: Indispensable Wife
Book 2: Honorable Officer
Book 3 (coming soon): Chevalier

AND I'm bound and determined to go for a walk. I know exercise helps cheer me up, but there are times when I don't have the energy.