Heating Up The Holidays, Compliments of Rock*It Reads

Welcome to the Rock*It Reads Heating Up the Holidays Blog Hop. There are 15 stops on the blog tour. The more blogs you visit and comment on, the greater your chances of winning the grand prize, a $75 gift certificate to Barnes & Noble or Amazon, and a huge collection of books from the authors of Rock*It Reads. Smaller prizes will be available at each stop along the way.

Good luck, and have fun!

Winter is coming and for a lot of us, that means cold, gloomy days and long, dark nights. Chilly, damp, blah. Which is why I'm so glad to be helping heat up your holidays with these Rock*It Reads authors' musings on sexy heat. Our little gift to you.

One of the most fun parts of doing self-published works is the chance to be intimately involved in designing the covers. I love how great covers tell a story, it doesn't just show you a picture.

I commissioned a photo shoot from Jenn Le Blanc and her talented crew at Smexy Studio for my upcoming super sexy Irish-set Elizabethan novella, CLAIMING HER (available 2013).

Their first meeting involves the hero taking over her castle and, when she's not happy about it, and attacks him, he kind-of pins her against the wall. Okay, he totally pins her against the wall.



"Her breath was coming too fast, her heart hammering too hard, her hand—the one she’d punched him with—was throbbing as if she’d hit a wall, not a man. Steel before and stone behind, she was, most literally, between a rock and a very hard place.

He was all wild thing, untethered and unafraid. His hair had been shaved close on the sides and grew long in the back and front, so he looked familiar and yet utterly foreign. His face was all cut planes of male fury, hard cheekbones, dark brows above the ice-blue eyes pinned on her. She felt like she was staring at a flame burning inside a shard of ice."



But much as Katarina sees nothing but Irish warlord, there's a lot more to Aodh Mac Con than conquest of castles. There's his conquest of Katarina.

Here's the model, James, getting painted with tattoos:

And here is James after being painted:

Yes. Wow, right?


And here's the final cover for CLAIMING HER, also done by Jenn LeBlanc:

That story occurs in the winter but I'm also working on one that happens in the summer. The hot, hot summer. So, of course, my trek needs to involve hot guys and hot summer. Things like:

And

At which point, of course, they need a way to cool off:

Oh wait, I mean:

Wait, wait. I mean:

Okay, basically, what I'm saying is it's important to have a way to cool off. I just don't know that I've actually offered one here.

Your turn! Leave me a comment and let me know what books you're planning to help keep you warm this winter. Don't forget to include your name and email address!

TWO commentors will win a copy of their choice, either a print copy of any one of my current releases, OR if you want to wait, an e-copy of one of my self-pubbed releases when they become available.

Also? Comments here double your chances of winning the grand RiR prize--check out our blog!

And signing up for my newsletter? Doubles your chances here. ;)



Be sure to stop by the other Rock*It Reads authors' blogs for more fun. Fourteen authors, a slew of sexy pictures, maybe a hot excerpt here and there, and some incredible romance books to check out--you can't beat it!

Leave a comment below to enter for your chance to win!

Don't forget to visit the other authors on the Blog Hop for more chances to win!

Kris Kennedy	Bonnie Vanak	Erin Kellison
Sharon Page	Lila DiPasqua	Elisabeth Naughton
Norah Wilson	Jennifer Lyon	Monica Burns
Vanessa Kelly	Mia Marlowe	Joan Swan
Pamela Clare	Margo Maguire	Rock*It Reads