Chat with me!

Tonight from 7-9 I'll be over at Coffee Time Romance's Erotic Loop about Hot Sex & Historicals.

Just join the Yahoo group and come chat with me! I'll be talking about writing, the trouble with historicals and sexual euphemisms, reading, ideas, upcoming stories, anything really. I'm giving away a Spanish fan and Godiva Chocolates to one random chatter.



Murder & Magick Sex & Subterfuge Desert & Destiny

Keeping positive

Recession, swine flu, recession, unemployment, recession...it's a depressing state of affairs. Keeping positive isn't as hard as it sounds. I like time to myself, I like hibernating far far away from people. I'm finding now, as strange as it seems for ME, that joking about the little things is all it takes to make me laugh.

Sure, I work in a public library and sure, people are disgusting with their hygiene habits, but working with people I've known for years makes it less stressful. (I can hear you now asking how a library could be stressful. Trust me. It is. And if you have to ask, you haven't been in a busy one, in a poor neighborhood.)

That and writing. I'm breaking a story that takes place just after the American Revolution and tossing out crazy ideas that make me laugh. Improbably and I'd never ever use them, but even in this, you gotta laugh.

So that's my advice for today. Breathe deeply, scowl at the stupid people, and laugh. Even if it's at those stupid people, it'll make you feel good! That and sexy men...

Calm before the storm

Now that many of my contracts with Ravenous are fulfilled, I'm going to take a break and rest. For maybe a week. It's more a mental break than a physical one, but one that's needed.


I have several ideas percolating for new stories. Some for Ravenous, some for Wild Rose, some I'd love to see with a big print publisher in a 100k print run with movie rights...OK I might be getting ahead of myself there :)


I plan on finishing the story before sending it out: I like to have that lull where I don't need to feel rushed or pressured. I want to take the time to expand the story if I need to, or if I suddenly have THE coolest idea ever to add in for a plot. I want to have the time to do all that and not be pressured by a deadline.

My first idea is for the American Rose Line of Wild Rose. I'm still a little sketchy on details but am thinking rough and tumble politics of post-Revolution America. Nothing says American Politics like fights on the congress floor.

Need to plot that out but good before I start and to do that, research is needed. I'm currently reading The Whiskey Rebellion: George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and the Frontier Rebels Who Challenged America's Newfound Sovereignty which isn't exactly what I want to write about but it's utterly fascinating. I have NO sympathy for either side. Self serving hypocrites the lot of them.

Then I have a half finished story I want to finish up for a Ravenous Anthology on gods and goddesses. I've run into a slight problem with that one: Length. It was supposed to be 10,000 words or less. My plot alone now seems closer to 40K words. That doesn't include writing the rest of it! It might not work, but I'm going to try it and see if it's feasible. I'll see how it goes.

Last, I have a contemporary addition to my Shadow State story from the Black Rose line of Wild Rose. It's the here-and-now of my German werewolf story. I have the vaguest of ideas for that one, and need to take an entire weekend to really break it. I don't want to do cliche but on the other hand, there are only so many things I CAN do.

But first, my week-long break. And who knows? Sleep might actually be a part of it. :) Wolverine definitely will be! As will Star Trek next week.

Dark Desire of the Druids Series:
Murder & Magick
Sex & Subterfuge
Desert & Destiny
Temptations & Treachery coming soon...

And the winner is...!

BabyBlue! Afshan522@aol.com email me your snail mail address and I'll get your gifts out to you. isabel@isabelroman.com

Guest blogging today!

I'm over at Wicked Thorn and Roses talking about historicals vs contemporaries and other fun stuff.

Remember to leave a comment; it automatically enters you to win a box of Godiva Chocolates and a signed DVD copy of Murder & Magick. We’ll also be giving away three $5.00 gift certificates for Ravenous on three random stops. You won’t know which ones until the tour is over, so visit as many as you can! And if you leave a comment on every stop in the RR Ornery Eleven BBT, you’re eligible to win a $25 gift certificate from Ravenous Romance!

Coffee Time Romance Chat!

Next Thursday I'll be over at Coffee Time Romance's Erotic Loop about Hot Sex & Historicals. Just join the Yahoo group and come chat with me! I'll be there from 7-9 pm talking about writing, reading, ideas, upcoming stories, anything really. I'm giving away a Spanish fan and Godiva Chocolates to one random chatter.

Murder & Magick Sex & Subterfuge Desert & Destiny

How the E-Book Will Change the Way We Read and Write

This is an article from the Wall Street Journal.

There is great promise and opportunity in the digital-books revolution. The
question is: Will we recognize the book itself when that revolution has run its
course?

It's the good, bad, and ugly of the eBook world, but it's also the future: After all, with a go-green attitude so prevalent, will all books one day be digital?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123980920727621353.html

Dark Desire of the Druids 3: Desert and Destiny

Dark Desire of the Druids 3: Desert & Destiny is now available! The 3rd in my Druids series follows Gareth as he discovers the truth of their Druidic past and how to forget the hurt of his own.

Blurb:
The first time they met, Arabelle Bahari tried to kill him. The second time, they made love on a desk in the British Museum. But they needed each other, and Gareth, Lord Moore, despite his arrogant ways and pompous manner, drew her back to him each time they met. He needed her to decipher the magickal runes on a special box and Arabelle discovered she just needed him.

Gareth, Earl Moore, had closed himself off from the world. He had his work at Parliament and his work securing a place for his kind, magickers, in a world that hated and hunted them. When he met Arabelle Bahari, he felt an attraction he’d never experienced before. And while he didn’t trust her, he did want her.

They came together out of need, helpless to resist the passion between them. But when an old enemy tries to kill Arabelle, will Gareth realize the depth of his emotions? Or will the desert swallow them all?

Murder & Magick and Sex & Subterfuge are also available from Ravenous.

Dark Desire of the Druids!

Today's Free Book is Murder & Magick, the first in my Druids series.

Love Romance Passion gave it 5 stars and says, "Mmm-mmm delicious! Roman
certainly has a way with storytelling."
Literary Nymphsgave it 4.5 Nymphs: "A very intriguing story of Gypsies, murder, and a bonding love that will hold for all time."
And from Coffee Time Romance4 cups of coffee "The characters are vividly drawn and the plot is very well crafted. This is the start of an extremely promising new
series, and I am going to buy and read every single one of them."

Tomorrow, Desert & Destiny is released! Get Murder & Magick free today, and tomorrow buy Sex & Subterfuge and Desert & Destiny! 3 books for the price of 2. How can you beat that?

Blurb:
The first time they met, Arabelle Bahari tried to kill him. The second time, they made love on a desk in the British Museum. But they needed each other, and Gareth, Lord Moore, despite his arrogant ways and pompous manner, drew her back to him each time they met. He needed her to decipher the magickal runes on a special box and Arabelle discovered she just needed him.

Gareth, Earl Moore, had closed himself off from the world. He had his work at Parliament and his work securing a place for his kind, magickers, in a world that hated and hunted them. When he met Arabelle Bahari, he felt an attraction he’d never experienced before. And while he didn’t trust her, he did want her.

They came together out of need, helpless to resist the passion between them. But when an old enemy tries to kill Arabelle, will Gareth realize the depth of his emotions? Or will the desert swallow them all?

Ravenous Romance Ornery Eleven Blog Tour

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Short Story Sale!

Ravenous is having $.50 short story day today! You can get all 6 of my short stories for just $3.00! Love Birds and Sex in the Springtime from my Four Calling Birds series; my Wicked Seductions series, Complicated Courtship, Wanton Woman, and Starlet; and The Tryst, the prequel to my Dark Desire of the Druids series (Murder & Magick and Sex & Subterfuge).

From the Ravenous site:
Today only, all Ravenous Rendezvous short stories are just $.50! Buy 10 to build your own custom anthology, and then email us at submissions@ravenousromance.com to tell us the theme of your anthology and which stories you chose. If we like the anthology you created, we'll publish it and send you a gift certificate!

In the Shadows

This is the cover for our Scandalous Victorian's Civil War anthology, Northern Roses and Southern Belles. My short story is In the Shadows. It'll be available in eBook form and print form from The Wild Rose Press in June of this year. I'll post an excerpt from my story soon, but this is the blurb for the anthology:

In a country torn asunder--from the Canadian border to Texas, from Maryland to Arkansas, from the battlefield Antietam to the Red River Campaign--brave men and loyal women see their lives turned upside down.

Peril lurks behind every tree and near every homestead, but the hard-fought love of a man and a woman surpasses all.

Six talented writers provide stories of romance and danger centering on Union and Confederate soldiers, spies, blockade runners, renegades, and battlefield nurses during a period of corsets, hoopskirts, and gentlemen callers.

What a month

April seems to be unusually busy for me. I have the 4th book in my Druid series (Temptations and Treachery) due next week, a short story I need to re-read and polish by May 1, lots to do in the working world including an upcoming all day meeting and a 3 day conference that just passed, a short trip to Florida this weekend, there was Easter, tax day is in 2 days, and my annual eye doctor's appointment. I'm exhausted already. And binged out on ham, sweet potatoes, and chocolate.

I'm afraid all the balls I'm juggling are about to crumble in a state of much needed sleep, but I'm still having at it. Anyone have the secret to surviving this eventful chaos we call life? I'd love to know your secret.

Now Available! Sex in the Springtime

An erotic Easter...er...epic? Actually just a short story but I was trying for alliteration. Didn't work. The only synonym for story that begins with an 'e' is epic. But I excurse...

Today my short story, Sex in the Springtime, is available from Ravenous. This is the next in my loosely-connected holiday stories about 4 friends and their trials and tribulations (there was no 'e' word for either of those, either) in love, work, and relationships. I hope you enjoy! I did, these 4 friends somehow became my favorite grouping. (Not like that! Sheesh, monds and gutter, people...*G*)
This follows Four Calling Birds (Christmas and apparently not available any longer) and Love Birds (Valentine's Day) but you don't have to read them in order, each short story stands on its own.

Blurb:

Lark Summers, Paige Nightingale, Megan Cardinal-Walsh, and Eva Robin are four best friends with a mission. This Easter, they’re struggling to juggle professional lives with personal needs. It’s not as easy as it sounds.

Despite Alex Parker’s talented fingers and mouth, Robin and he argue about seating arrangements for their wedding. Seating arrangements when she’s pushed against the door, half naked is not the discussion she planned to have. Will their petty differences put a permanent rift in their relationship?

Nightingale has no love of commitment. But as she and Adam Forrester detour to the side of the road for some pre-Easter dinner sex, she begins to wonder. She’s been with Adam for four exclusive months. Can she put aside her longstanding beliefs and forge a real relationship? Or is hot monkey sex the only thing between them?

Lark couldn’t think about relationships when her dream job at The World Bank keeps her so busy. Seth Turner would not be forgotten. She kept so many clothes at his place it looked like they lived together. But could they? Or would work tear them
apart?

Cardinal wanted Easter dinner with her closest friends to be a fun evening. It turned into a heart-to-heart over dishes. Though she’s sympathetic, she and her husband, Ethan, have their own issues. Thankfully, those issues take a back seat when he pins her to the wall and makes her forget everything but what he does to her body.

When it comes down to it, they each have to solve their own problems. Do any of them want to try?

I'm in love

With this new cell phone, the Samsung Omnia. I know, I know, but I'm a sucker for new technology I'll actually use. (There is a difference!) Not only can I check email, web sites, GPS navigation, text and picture message, all the cool stuff I already do with a touch screen, but now I can type in Word! I'm so excited, it's pathetic.

I have a laptop I take places with me, but having it attached to you no matter where is ridiculous. I can't use it in my everyday work life, but now (or August when I can get the Omnia on my Verizon new in every 2 year plan) I can use my phone!

Type down those flitting thoughts and ideas, dialog, scenes, new stories. Then download them onto my laptop and poof! there it is. No more scrounging for a pen and paper. No more forgetting anything *ahem*. No more scraps of sticky notes with scribblings I can't read.

It even has a business card reader. That's what they call it, seriously. And when I figure out how THAT works, I'll let you know. I'm wondering if it's like a scanner...go figure.

Sex in the Springtime

The 3rd in my loose series of connected stories which follows 4 friends as they discover love, passion, and the difficulties of relationships in a modern world. It'll be available Friday April 10! This follows Four Calling Birds (Christmas and apparently not available any longer) and Love Birds (Valentine's Day) but you don't have to read them in order, each short story stands on its own.

I'll also be at Slip into Something Victorian blogging about e-marketing.


Blurb:

Lark Summers, Paige Nightingale, Megan Cardinal-Walsh, and Eva Robin are four best friends with a mission. This Easter, they’re struggling to juggle professional lives with personal needs. It’s not as easy as it sounds.

Despite Alex Parker’s talented fingers and mouth, Robin and he argue about seating arrangements for their wedding. Seating arrangements when she’s pushed against the door, half naked is not the discussion she planned to have. Will their petty differences put a permanent rift in their relationship?

Nightingale has no love of commitment. But as she and Adam Forrester detour to the side of the road for some pre-Easter dinner sex, she begins to wonder. She’s been with Adam for four exclusive months. Can she put aside her longstanding beliefs and forge a real relationship? Or is hot monkey sex the only thing between them?

Lark couldn’t think about relationships when her dream job at The World Bank keeps her so busy. Seth Turner would not be forgotten. She kept so many clothes at his place it looked like they lived together. But could they? Or would work tear them apart?

Cardinal wanted Easter dinner with her closest friends to be a fun evening. It turned into a heart-to-heart over dishes. Though she’s sympathetic, she and her husband, Ethan, have their own issues. Thankfully, those issues take a back seat when he pins her to the wall and makes her forget everything but what he does to her body.

When it comes down to it, they each have to solve their own problems. Do any of them want to try?

April showers

Apparently brings freezing temperatures the next day. I'm glad I was lazy and hadn't brought out any spring clothes yet! Sweaters all the way!

Today is another long day for me. One day I'd like to sleep in, be lazy, NOT do anything but watch a NCIS marathon or a House or Stargate SG-1 one...or my Sharpe movies again. I long for that day. :)

That day is not today. Today I'll be fiddling with my website. Bought Dreamweaver which came with NO instructions, so went to my library and badgered the NF buyer into buying a Dreamweaver book. I reasoned I wasn't the only one in need. She bought it but then she's nice like that. Between that and Denise's help (she has the same book and actually made notes. I'm so impressed!) I managed to figure out cascading windows and text wrapping. Still a little iffy on the color thing, thought I had it, now I'm not so sure.

Finish last Wicked Seduction story. Cherrie on Top is a contemporary romance that takes place in a popular San Fransisco bakery. I'm about 1/4 through that and hope to finish it up tonight.

After I paint my bathroom. It needed a second coat. *sigh* Which meant I needed more paint. And now that I moved everything INTO the bathroom to have room in the hall, I need to move it back OUT to paint. Again. The whole thing should be finished by this weekend and it'll be nice to have

Love Birds

Today's Book of the Day at Ravenous is my Valentine's short story, Love Birds. This loose series follows a group of 4 women through the year as they discover that relationships are as hard to manage as work and the two together? It's enough to make one scream. Or run for the nearest bedroom.

Lark Summers, Paige Nightingale, Megan Cardinal-Walsh, and Eva Robin are four best friends with a mission. To spend Valentine's Day with the men in their lives no matter what the day throws at them.

Lark has been in lust with her professor since she started her Ph.D. program. Now that she has her degree, she also has Professor Seth Turner as her lover. Unfortunately, he has to work on Valentine's Day leaving her alone. Or is that part of the surprise?

Nightingale seduced her downstairs neighbor right before Christmas, and now finds herself in what others might consider a relationship. She's not sure but when Adam Forrester surprises her on Valentine's Day, she's forced to admit there's more to their relationship than sex.

Cardinal's husband is full of surprises. In the past months, they've rekindled their sex life and have grown closer despite their super busy jobs. Ethan has planned a surprise weekend for her and she must follow the trail he's carefully laid out.

Robin's fiancé whisks her out of town to historic Gettysburg. Despite the coldness of the day, the antique show they attend is just what she loves. But it's later when she shows Alex just how much she enjoyed her weekend.

The next in this series, Sex in the Springtime, will be available Friday April 10 just in time for Easter!

4.5 Nymphs from Literary Nymphs!

From Literary Nymphs:

Rating: 4.5 NymphsLiterary Nymphs Reviewer: Goddess Minx

The Dark Desires of the Druids 1: Murder & Magick is a very intriguing story
of Gypsies, murder and a bonding love that will hold for all time. The
characters in this book have very strong wills and it was difficult for them to
acknowledge the desire for each other’s help in the time of need....She brought to life a young lady whose only goal was to please her fiancée and parents without complaint because of her commitment to the Druid’s way of life. What she does is far more than what you expect, and the outcome is not exactly what you would normally read. I am looking forward to reading the next book in this series.

Thanks Goddess Minx!

The Dark Desires of the Druids 2: Sex and Subterfuge

5 Star Review!

Over at Love Romance Passion, Kiera gave Dark Desire of the Druids I: Murder & Magick 5 Stars! I'm thrilled and jumping up and down over it. It's my first review of my first book. :)

Excerpt:
Mmm-mmm delicious. I love the plot to this novel, which looks like it will drive the second in the series. I also love the romantic conflict- it’s simply too yummy. Roman certainly has a way with storytelling, twisting and weaving different threads into one cohesive whole.

Read the whole review here.