Today I’m participating in Paloma Beck’s birthday blog hop and giving away a digital copy of Deadly Descent to one of the winners. Click here to go to her blog and enter!Some other authors participating are Laura Kaye, Kallypso Masters and Keta Diablo. Happy birthday, Paloma!

 a Rafflecopter giveaway

I got the most awesome email today from Angela James, executive editor for Carina Press. She told me that Harlequin has decided to pick up Darkest Caress as one of their June direct-to-customer program titles. So, I’m going to print! Not in stores, though any leftover copies from the program will be available for sale on the Harlequin website, and I get author copies as well. Woot!

I know a lot of my readers don’t love paranormal books, but I’ve received a surprising number of emails asking when the next book in the series is coming out. I feel so torn! I’m working on another single title romantic suspense right now (featuring military contractors in Pakistan), but I’m definitely interested in writing both Cade’s and Vaughn’s stories. Especially Vaughn’s.

I’m about a quarter of the way through the draft of this next book, and Lethal Pursuit (Bagram Special Ops #3) is due to my editor in mid-December. It’s all done, so I’m going to start revisions in early December. In the meantime I hope to hammer out most of this draft.

Read any great books lately? Would love to hear some recommendations.

Being that we’re now into November, that means it’s the start of the Christmas season here at our place. And, according to tradition, the first wave of decorations went up this weekend. Added to my collection this year is this Grinch quilt, which I finished up last week. It’s so cozy and snuggly.

My father and step mother arrived home safely after their three month trek across all the -stans (Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, etc–they even dipped across the border into Afghanistan!), so I’m relieved. I wasn’t too crazy on them being over there, but they managed okay. My father said again he wished I’d gone with them, especially the leg across Tajikistan and the border of A-stan. You know, since I write about that stuff.

I’ll be honest–I’m quite happy to look at their trip through pictures, rather than experiencing it firsthand. Some of the places they traveled to were extremely rough (they slept in tents in the desert, no running water or plumbing or heat, and even had to kill a goat at one point), and there have been kidnapping and shootings between the locals and the military. At any rate, they’re home safe and sound and that’s all I care about. My Christmas wish came early this year!

And, if you’re looking for some holiday reading right now, Katie Reus has another installment of her Red Stone Security romantic suspense series out. Miami, Mistletoe and Murder is only 99 cents!

Blurb: Fierce
and sexy, former Marine Travis Sanchez has always held himself back
from the rest of the world, using his tattoos and piercings as armor.
But when the woman he’s wanted for months is threatened, he knows it’s
time to strip away the bad boy image and show her just how much he wants
to be with her. As one of Red Stone Security’s best contractors, Travis
is trained for almost any situation. But nothing prepares him for the
most dangerous threat of all: the one to his heart.

Kind-hearted Noel Baskov’s only wish for the holidays is that her
Miami coffee shop has a successful Christmas season. But her focus on
work is interrupted when the family of the young girl she mentors is
threatened, and the man she’s been lusting after for months steps in to
handle it. Unfortunately the danger is far from over. Can this sexy and
mysterious warrior protect Noel? Or will he be the one to shatter her
heart.

Warning: features a heroine determined to fight for those she
cares about, a protective hero with a very interesting piercing, and
some holiday magic.

It’s been forever since I posted here, so I’ll do a quick rundown of what I’ve been up to for the last while.

A couple of weeks ago we pulled a big surprise on our kids. We drove them to the airport and announced we were going to Disneyland for a week. They were thrilled, except my big guy (8) was really ill with a high fever and sore throat the day we traveled, and it was too late to cancel all our reservations so he had to tough it out. He was a trooper, but a few days into the trip he broke out in a weird blistery rash that we later found out was hand, foot and mouth disease. Yeah.

The rest of the family was spared, but then I got sick with a really awful cold and passed it onto my little guy (6). Running fevers and going through boxes of Kleenex is not my idea of a good time and certainly put a damper on our trip, especially considering the crowds and the temperatures being in the mid to upper nineties. The best part of the trip was the night before we came home, when we were mostly on the mend and attended Mickey’s Halloween Party. The kids dressed up in costume and actually got to trick-or-treat in the Magic Kingdom that night. Expensive, but worth it to see their excited smiles.

Since returning home I’ve started the draft of my next book, received my gorgeous cover for my Civil War romance I’m self-publishing next year (Not sharing it yet! I’m turning it into a freelance editor in February for a thorough critique), and finished most of a Grinch Who Stole Christmas quilt. Since we’re Christmas fanatics around here, we pull out the decorations the weekend following Halloween, which of course is this coming weekend.

The news reports coming in about the devastation caused by Hurricane Sandy are unreal. If you live on the eastern seaboard, I hope you’re safe!