My Belated RT NOLA Post

So unless you've been under a rock (or offline) the past couple of weeks, you know by now that I went to New Orleans recently for the Romantic Times Reader's convention. It was five fun-filled days of books, cover models, books, drinking, books, swag, books, authors, books, readers, books, beads, and did I mention books?

One of the first authors I ran into was Jade Lee (aka Kathy Lyons) whom I absolutely LOVE! She makes every event unforgettable and is one of the nicest people I know. 

Any time spent with Jade is guaranteed to be a good time.

One of the major events was a Mardi Gras 'parade'. Authors stood on the floats in the warehouse where they're stored as the crowd walked down the aisle between them. Throwing out beads was a awesome!

No trip to NOLA is complete without a pub crawl down Bourbon Street. There were ten bars being hosted by various publishers and most of them were handing out free drink vouchers. Yeah, I got a little (ahem) inebriated.

Directly after the pub crawl was Samhain Publishing's Saints and Sinners party where I hosted a table as a drunk nun (oops!). It was a lot of fun meeting the ladies who joined me at my table. One of them traveled all the way from Thailand.

I didn't take nearly as many food shots as usual because I kept forgetting to do it before digging in. This was the chicken served at Heather Graham's Mrdi Gras Magic and Mayhem dinner and dance party.

Beignets abounded throughout the event, but cheesecake is always a good choice too.

There were lots of beautiful and creative costumes, including Heather herself on her very own dragon float.

One of the biggest draws for readers is the giant book signing. I was honored to be in a room full of so many talented people. Sitting next to Kelly Jamieson was a blast!

And last but most certainly not least, I got to meet some of my favorite authors:

Angela Knight

Alyssa Day

Nalini Singh

Megan Hart

 And many others where I missed my photo op. Over all, it was a great time and I plan to attend again next year when it's here in Texas. I hope y'all will join us in Dallas.

New Release! Born of Stone

Today is release day for my newest book: Born of Stone! This is the beginning of a romantic fantasy series about Gargoyles...and the women who love them.

Blurb:

Within a body strong as stone beats a heart ready for love.

For seventy years, Orestes and his eleven gargoyle brothers have done their duty to protect King Kadmos’ realm. There’s only one annoyance in his life—humans.

He’s content to leave them to their idol worship. Until he notices a small, frail woman serving at his table, doing her best to remain invisible. Something about her calls to him like no human before.

Astrid is terrified. Not of the powerful magical creature with kind eyes, but of the staff overseer’s lash for calling attention to herself. Instead she finds herself whisked away to paradise, where she is bathed, fed, and made love to by Orestes as if she is his reason to live. But she isn’t naïve enough to believe she is anything more than a temporary diversion.

When Orestes is called away to search for a missing brother, Astrid is kidnapped by traitors intent on using her to bend Orestes to their will. Little do they know that the connection between them is no weakness, but a strength their enemies would be fools to  underestimate…

Warning: This book contains paranormal fighting, steamy sex scenes, strong-willed females, and men made of stone who prove to be soft as butter in the right hands.

Read an excerpt and buy it here: http://store.samhainpublishing.com/born-stone-p-73413.html

Here: http://www.amazon.com/Born-Stone-Gargoyle-Masters-Missy-ebook/dp/B00IBDKQIY

And here: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/born-of-stone-missy-jane/1118602499?ean=9781619220232

To celebrate this new release I’m giving away a $25 Amazon gift card! Enter here: http://www.bittenbybooks.com

New Release & New To Me Publisher!

Whoohoo, I can finally share my exciting news!! I'm now a published Entangled author. Today's new release is the first in my new Archangel series, and these men are HOT. The first book is about Zerachiel, known as Zerach to his friends and employees.

Here's a taste:

As the owner of a string of successful nightclubs all over the world, Zerach can have any woman--except for his assistant Isadora O’Donnell. First off, Isadora isn't a one-night-stand kind of girl, and second, her dominating godparents don't approve of him. There's also the fact that he is an archangel with a mission to protect humans from demons, something Isadora can never find out about. 

Isadora secretly longs for Zerach’s attention but her scarred body and his playboy ways keep her from acting on her feelings. With her only family on the brink of bankruptcy, she’s determined to help them, even if it means trying to forget Zerach and marrying the womanizing Jake, a man she’ll never love. 

Zerach tries to keep Isadora at arm's length, but when a demon starts stalking her, Zerach will stop at nothing to protect the woman he loves. But protecting her could cost him his wings. 

Want more? Read chapter one here.

I'm also celebrating this new release with two other Entangled authors releasing today. Join our Facebook party here.

And last but most certainly not least is the virtual book tour I'm doing to spread the word. There is a $25 gift card on the line. So be sure to check it out here.

The Fine Art of Politely Saying 'NO'

Aside from my glamorous life as a multi-published author, I also have a full-time day job. I sell advertising for a local magazine Monday through Friday. So that means I make cold calls on a daily basis and get to talk to people I've never met before. Some of these people are friendly, some of them are annoyed, some of them are too busy to take my call every single time. But the one type of person who I absolutely HATE to call is the one who won't say NO. Now, don't get me wrong. I don't mean the one who says yes. Unfortunately, that magical three letter word is few and far between most days. But that person is markedly different from the one who absolutely won't say no the first fifty times I call them.

This anti-NO person is the one who strings me along day after day, week after week, and month after month with a maybe. This person can't make up his/her mind to save his/her life and just refuses to commit. So I keep calling and emailing in the hopes they may give me that magical three letter word noted above.

Even worse than the maybe person is the one who simply refuses to ever answer the phone and/or return a call or email. They obviously don't realize that not getting an actual NO means I WILL keep calling and emailing month after month after month. If you don't want something, just say NO. It's not hard, really. All you have to do is wait until the salesperson takes a breath and then say "No, thanks." That's it. No fuss, no muss. I know not all salespeople are the same, however, in my office NO means NO. If we're told not to call anymore then we don't. We don't want to waste our time any more than the ones who don't want to buy advertising want to hear our voices every month.

And last and most definitely least of my favorites is the rude SOB who hangs up as soon as I identify myself. I mean, come on. Is it really that hard to just say NO?! It would take literally seconds out of that person's life to say no AND THEN hang up. That's it. That's all. And I promise it doesn't even hurt.

So yeah, I had a few of these today. Can you tell?

Where Did March Go?

I just realized I didn't post a single thing to this blog in March. It's April already?! My god, where did March go? I've been working and doing the mom/wife thing mostly for the past few weeks. I did begin the sequel to my Gargoyle book, which will be out from Samhain at the end of May.

I'm also preparing for a couple of appearances in May. One will be at the Romantic Times convention in NOLA from May 14th-17th. The other will be at Comicpalooza in Houston. I'm really excited about both and hope to have lots of new stuff to share with everyone even before those appearances. We'll see.

For now, I'm just writing as I can fit it into the crazy mom/wife/work schedule I hold each day.

Want to keep up with my news? I'll have a newsletter soon that will go out when I have new releases or other exciting things to share. The first one is in the works but you can sign up here:

http://eepurl.com/QZ4Hn