Drop in!

I'm over at friend and fellow author Tara Lain's blog today. Drop in and say hello!

The winter months can be difficult insofar as maintaining a consistent writing schedule; my own has been all over the place this week. I'm now toying with dropping one of my WIPs into the "stalled" bin. My muse, fickle as ever, seems to want to focus on two projects now rather than three. It might be more manageable, so I'm not going to argue.

I'll see you all again after the holidays. Have an awesome weekend!

Now available: Dark Solace

Just in time for the holidays! A short paranormal erotic from Noble Romance Publishing!





Three hundred years can change many things, but love is not among them.

Forbidden to claim the woman he loves as his mate, Gabriel established a yearly meet with Jael to satisfy their hunger for one another. Time has not weathered their need, or made the pain of every other day more bearable. Christmas Eve together might not be much, but pretending for one night that they can belong together is the only way either knows how to survive.

Except this Christmas, Gabriel can't go on pretending. Living for one night is no way to live, and he is determined that he and Jael will see the new day together. The only question is, after all this time, is she prepared for the consequences of saying yes?

Interested? Intrigued? Desperate for more? Click here!!!

Dark Solace - Adult Excerpt

Three hundred years can change many things, but love is not among them.

Forbidden to claim the woman he loves as his mate, Gabriel established a yearly meet with Jael to satisfy their hunger for one another. Time has not weathered their need, or made the pain of every other day more bearable. Christmas Eve together might not be much, but pretending for one night that they can belong together is the only way either knows how to survive.

Except this Christmas, Gabriel can't go on pretending. Living for one night is no way to live, and he is determined that he and Jael will see the new day together. The only question is, after all this time, is she prepared for the consequences of saying yes?

Release Date: December 20, 2010



Excerpt

Tonight was going to be different. He felt it.

Hell, he'd known it the second he stepped into the pub. Seeing her under the soft glow of lights much too cheap to capture her glory. The woman he loved. The woman he lived to see for just a few hours. Every second apart from her constructed another level in his personal hell. He felt cheap for being so easily defined, for being strung along for so many years for the promise of the one woman he could never have; but love knew no reasoning. No boundaries. The rules of the Order didn't apply, and love certainly didn't listen to them.

Time had not healed him. Time had only made his feelings grow almost unbearable. And being so close to her now . . . something was going to change. Something tonight was going to change.

They were at the door now. Her apartment. Her bedroom. Her refuge. The place where he was welcomed once every year to forget his loneliness in the sanctuary of her body. Her body flush against his. His cock so hard he was sure the flimsy zipper on his slacks would pop. Had it been anyone else, he would have been surprised at the depth of his reaction. But it wasn't anyone else; it was her. Jael. His golden goddess. She could smite him with a look if she wanted. So much power in her small, capable hands. It unnerved him to think himself so easily rattled.

There had been no such thing as love in his life before he met her. Before he found her three hundred years ago and was forced to let her go. Forced to forfeit their promised eternity because she could no longer be human. It had been no fault of hers. No fault of anyone's, really, though he would have loved to lay blame on someone's shoulders. Illness was a culprit without a body, and hers had nearly killed her. He'd had no choice if he wanted to keep her in this world, regardless of the consequences. His act of saving her, turning her into a nightwalker, had taken away the only woman to whom he could see himself mated for the rest of time.

A bittersweet pang struck his heart at that. He thought of it sometimes still. Of losing himself and claiming her, to hell with the rest. He longed for the taste of her blood, the feel of her fangs, the promise of her arms. The thought alone was enough to inspire anyone to tears. Anyone who knew the agony of what he felt. Of having everything he had ever wanted right beneath his fingertips and forcing himself to let her go. Every year, he let her go all over again. Every year, he relived that horrible night when she had died in his arms. And every year, he fought the temptation to claim her. To make her his forever.

Of course, any sort of ceremony was impossible, and he felt like a fool for even entertaining the notion. Still, the thought of spending eternity with her was too rich to cast aside, even if such aspirations only filled him with sorrow. He was still so terrified of scaring her off with the intensity of his regard. He felt if she ever knew just how much he loved her, there would be no more of this. No more tempting fate, no more tempting desire, no more challenging the decree of the Order to have their night together. No more sharing this stolen holiday with her. No more tasting each other for hours and pretending it was enough for a year. No more pretending his heart didn't break when he left her before the sun rose and returned to his cold, empty existence.

No more of her guiding him into their bedroom and closing the door behind them.

"Jael . . . ."

Her hands were already busy at her top, revealing the satin of her black bra to his hungry eyes. The cream of her skin against the contrast of the material was surprising in its effect. Gabriel liked fancy lingerie and scantily clad women as well as the next hormone-infused male, but he had never truly envisioned himself being so turned on by something that simple. Logically, he knew Jael wore bras. Hell, he had snapped her out of practically every style the past generations had fed to impressionable women, always eager to feel the weight of her breasts in his hands. He had never known her to wear black. Never known her to go out of her way to look so delectable in her undergarments. She had a rather adorable fixation on her assumption that her panties and other unmentionables were, as she called them, plain and boring. She assumed this despite the fact that seeing her so bare fogged his eyes with lust to the point that she could be wearing a doormat and he wouldn't notice.

His thoughts must have run away with him, for when he blinked, Jael was wearing nothing but that black bra and a pair of matching panties. And he was still fully clothed, unable to do anything but gawk at how gorgeous she was.

Jael shifted uncomfortably. "I . . . I wanted to try something new . . . for us tonight."

"You're beautiful."

Her blush enchanted him. She was his seductress, his only temptation, and she somehow didn't know it. "I was hoping you'd like."

Gabriel released a deep breath, fighting his desire to growl something primitive and throw her on the bed. Instead, his eyes glazed over, and he stepped toward her predatorily, a lump forming in his throat. "Beautiful," he murmured again, fingers entertaining themselves at her left strap. Then his mouth couldn't stand the torment of being parted from her flesh, and his lips descended once more upon her neck, tasting her sweet skin as his arms curled under her shoulders and pulled her against him. "You're killing me."

Winners!!

I'm using the names under which these were entered on Twitter, GR, my blog, or the LJ where I cross-posted.

WINNER OF "RIPPLES THROUGH TIME" PAPERBACK!

Amy

Karahelen

Congratulations! Please email me (rosalie.stanton@gmail.com) with your snail mail addy and I'll have your books on the way ASAP.

WINNER OF "FIRSTS" ECOPY!

Scarlett2U
tjb_waldring
wrigglerosie



Drop me a line (rosalie.stanton@gmail.com) and I'll send your e-copies your way.

Congrats to the winners, and thanks to all who participated! Have a wonderful holiday season!

Contest Closed!

The Deck the Halls Contest is officially closed! I'll announce the winners this afternoon!

Thanks to all the participants!

New release!

Monday, December 20, Noble Romance Publishing is releasing my short story, Dark Solace, on their Naughty Nibble Line.

I received my cover today. Isn't it gorgeous??!!?!

ONE DAY LEFT!

Winners of the DECK THE HALLS GIVEAWAY will be announced tomorrow. You have until TOMORROW, 12PM CST to enter. Just click this link for instructions on how to throw your name into the gauntlet.

This has been my first massive giveaway, and between three blogs and Twitter entries, I'd say fairly successful. Good luck to all who have entered!!!

New reviews!

I received two new wonderful reviews this weekend; one for Firsts and the other for Moving Target.



"The feelings that swept through me as I read this short novella. I found myself laughing out loud at the conversations and witty banter that takes place between Thorn and Savannah and the one conversation that took place between Savannah and her girl best friend Allison. I found myself holding in my breathe as Savannah and Thorn coursed through previously unchartered waters in their relationship, how Thorn takes care of Savannah in all the little ways during their journey of discovery which made me fall for him just that much harder."

More here!




"Mmm.. you guys guessed right! Of course Wolf tops the list of my likes for this short novella. I felt my heart literally go aflutter when Wolf came up beside Anna asking her to dance, while promising with his eyes of things that he wants to do to her that just made my knees go weak. The club scene was definitely something! *wicked grin*

2- Anna. I liked her because she doesn’t wait around fussing and bemoaning about the fact that an assassin who has been hired to kill her is the one who ultimately rides to her rescue when the shit hits the fan. I loved Anna because in spite of everything she still saw the gentleness that resides in Wolf that yearns to show itself, and because she opened up herself to let Wolf in, giving him a chance to embrace the light to escape all the darkness in his life.."

More here!

This definitely made my weekend a good one, and gave me enough motivation to get my 2k written last night. ;)

I feel so productive recently. I must have forgotten something.

REMINDER: DECK THE HALLS GIVEAWAY!

REMINDER:

Two participants will have the chance to win a signed trade-paperback copy of Ripples Through Time. Three runner-ups will win a free e-copy of Firsts. December 15, 2010 at 12:00PM CST is the deadline for entries.

CLICK HERE TO ENTER!

New Link Section

As followers of my blog are most likely aware, I am an Obsessive Compulsive. I'm very open about this, as it's nothing I can help. I just try to get the word out because I know the "popular" or "mediaized" versions of OCD are typically what people consider the actual condition to entail. That's not so, and some of the darker thoughts can terrify those who don't know what they are.

My own OCD story is linked in one of the tabs in my blog. I am now linking a wonderful new blog I discovered earlier this week devoted to de-stigmafying OCD and reaching out to fellow sufferers. I will add blogs and links as I come across them.

Exposing OCD

Writing Is (a) Pain. (Not really, but it can be)

I can't have it both ways. And quite frankly, I prefer it when my muse wants me to work for it.

Those who frequent my blog are likely aware that a few months ago, I suffered through a bout of writer's block. It was difficult, but I have recovered. And this is what's happened: rather than no ideas and no energy, I have three lengthy WIPs I'd like to work on and WAY too much energy. Know Thine Enemy is the same story I've been planning/outlining since last year, but I took a break to write Lost Wages of Sin, which is complete and with one pub for consideration. I didn't know when I began writing it that LWoS would turn into a series, or that I'd want to start working on that series immediately after completion of the first installment. I also wasn't planning on getting struck with yet another lengthy WIP out of the clear blue sky.

I know there are some writers out there who can work on multiple projects with no trouble at all. In a chat the other day, someone revealed they had almost 30 WIPs with at least 10k written on each. And I think I have problems.

I can't do that. I've never been apt at juggling WIPs. Yet with three stories I want to write, all at once, I have decided to challenge myself.

My previous attempts to juggle WIPs revolved around writing a chapter per story at a time before turning to my next project. I'm scrapping that. With the wonky unreliability of my schedule, writing a single chapter of something might take me as long as a week. Therefore, I am instead implementing a "by word-count" course of action. Yesterday, I managed to get over two thousand words written, one thousand each on two of my WIPs. That's my new goal. Two thousand words a day. Whether it's 2k on one story or divided up some other way is up to my muse. But in order to work on each story, I need to focus on the word count rather than the chapters. I might leave it in mid-chapter, and that's fine. My aunt, young adult and nonfiction author, says it's a good idea to quit in mid-scene, that way you have a place to start without staring at the screen. This doesn't always work, but I'm willing to give it a shot.

So here are my active WIPs, marked by current word-count and goal:

Know Thine Enemy
Erotic Paranormal Romance


Sinfully Scandalous
Erotic Paranormal Romance


Quintessence of Dust
Erotic Paranormal Romance


And here is my "will finish it one day" WIP, marked by current word-count and goal:

Blackout
Erotic Contemporary Romance


Yes, the one with the lowest WC goal is the one currently on the back-burner. I can't help what I want to work on, and right now, while I love the idea behind Blackout, that ain't it.

My mind is a dangerous place.

Wish me luck, everyone!

Deck the Halls Reminder!

We're narrowing down on the deadline to enter in the Deck the Halls Giveaway! Visit the contest for information on entries.

I have announced the contest on three different blogs and have around 20 entries. Five prizes available!

Hope everyone's December has kicked off with a shower of holly and mistletoe!