Just want to let everyone know that I've created excerpt ebooklets for A Happily Ever After of Her Own and Carnal Secrets. Each one has the first three chapters of the book, and you don't have to sign up for anything, pay anything, or go into indentured servitude to get them, either. ;) Both are totally free!

Melinda Lightfoot, a preschool teacher with an unusual ability to flit in and out of fairy tales, never thought she would get into trouble…

…until the Fairy Tale Police arrest her while she is in Beauty and the Beast. They offer her a deal: Find Beauty, who left the story when Melinda trespassed into it, or be charged with the ultimate crime — Fairy Tale Killer. If that's not bad enough the Beast tags along in search of his true love, and Melinda starts falling for the fairy tale prince. She must choose between doing the right thing and having her own happily ever after.

Warning: This title contains the following: Fairy Godmother, the Wicked Witch, dysfunctional fairy tale families, ax-wielding executioners and a happily ever after (or two).

Excerpt eBooklets

• PDF
• ePub
• Kindle (PRC)
• Sony (LRF)

Buy eBook: All Romance EBooks :: Amazon Kindle US :: Amazon Kindle UK :: B&N Nook :: Diesel eBook Store :: Kobo Books :: Smashwords :: Sony eBook Store

After a rapid change in management, Natalie Hall is surprised to find that she's being promoted so quickly. But when it becomes obvious that the new CEO is interested in her on a more personal level, she pushes him away — she doesn't want to repeat her past mistake of giving her heart to the wrong man.

A self-made billionaire, Alex Damon has his own reasons for pursuing Natalie. Her adoptive father, a powerful U.S. senator, is using his political clout to protect his friends the Rodales, who Alex intends to destroy for ripping his own family apart when he was a child. Furthermore, he suspects that Natalie is spying for the Rodales.

What he hasn't planned on is her unflinching sense of loyalty and integrity, the sizzling attraction between them that threatens to turn into something much more, and the dark secrets that can destroy them both.

Excerpt eBooklets

• PDF
• ePub
• Kindle (PRC)
• Sony (LRF)

Buy eBook: All Romance EBooks :: Amazon Kindle US :: Amazon Kindle UK :: B&N Nook :: Smashwords :: Sony eBook Store

The excerpts are DRM-free and you're welcome to share them among your friends if you're so inclined. Hope you like 'em! :)

I'm not sure how many of you saw Dear Author's post from yesterday regarding B&N PubIt stripping samples from erotic romances (the post also featured two of my books: erotic romance Destiny Entwined and contemporary romance Carnal Secrets). It appears as though PubIt started not allowing anybody to download samples of eroticas or erotic romances of indie authors, which resulted in a big loss of sales and so on for many indie authors.

Destiny Entwined was never allowed for sampling since it went on sale on February 14, and I just assumed that it was due to its length; it's a short story. Mind you, Amazon Kindle has always allowed people to sample stories regardless of length or genre. But I honestly had no reason to suspect that how I categorized Destiny Entwined had anything to do with Nook users' inability to read samples until I read DA's post.

Between the time DA's post went live and a few hours ago, PubIt allowed people to sample Destiny Entwined for the first time ever. I haven't changed anything on PubIt. The story still has the exact same description and genre category as before. So I have no idea what happened on PubIt's end. Maybe a little public pressure…?

Anyway, if you're a Nook owner, I hope you download the sample and hopefully enjoy it enough to buy a copy. :) If erotic shorts aren't your cup of tea, I also have a paranormal romance novella, A Happily Ever After of Her Own, and the aforementioned Carnal Secrets on sale as well.

And should any work of mine not have a sample on a particular bookseller's website, you can always come here. I have links to excerpts of all my stories on the Bookshelf page.

All Romance eBooks
Amazon US :: Amazon UK
B&N Nook :: Smashwords
Sony eBook Store

First, I want to thank all of you who made the soft launch of Carnal Secrets such a success. I hadn't expected it to do as well as it did in February, given that I only announced the release on my personal social media sites. So thank you, thank you, thank you!

Second, thank you so much for making the launch of Magic and Mayhem Writers so fun and rewarding! You guys are awesome.

It's getting warmer in Japan, though figuring out what to wear every day can be a bit tricky. Sometimes it's warm, and sometimes it's very cold. But soon cherry blossoms will bloom, and it's going to be gorgeous!

Hero Material and I learned that our first baby is going to be a boy. We're thrilled. Yes, we're still debating the name. Maybe we should give the Boy multiple names to appease both of us. But then he might get upset when he has to learn how to spell all of them. Dilemma, dilemma!

This month, I'm doing five guest-blog posts relating to Carnal Secrets with some lovely and uber-talented ladies I was fortunate enough to meet via Twitter. (Social media rocks!) Each topic touches upon a step of my self-publication journey with Carnal Secrets.

• March 8: Read the Fine Print, hosted by Zoe Winters — The Importance of reading contracts carefully and why I ended up declining a publisher's offer to publish Carnal Secrets.
• March 9: Walking Away Can Be Hard, hosted by Kait Nolan — The emotional impact walking away can have on writers.
• March 10: Small Press v. Self-Publication, hosted by Love Romance Passion — The advantages and disadvantages of having a publisher versus doing it all on your own.
• March 14: Distribution, DRM and Geo Restrictions, hosted by Pearl's World of Romance — The thorny problem called distribution and how to reach as many readers as possible, no matter where they live!
• March 15: Creating a Cover Art with Non-White Characters, hosted by Monkey Bear Reviews — The nervousness I felt at creating a cover with non-white characters, given the controversies over white-washed covers, etc.

I hope you stop by. :)

Finally — I'm making some changes to Facebook. I had a personal profile there, and due to some situations (involving minors in my extended family, etc.), I've decided to create a page instead to communicate with my readers and writing friends. It has photos, events, discussion boards, and many more.

So, please “like” my profile by going to the new page.

Also I've created a Facebook profile page for each of my books, again with events, discussion boards, etc. They're really for you to use in any way you see fit, and I'll stop by to answer any questions if any and post news updates, etc. You can “like” them by going to the following pages:

• Carnal Secrets
• Destiny Entwined
• A Happily Ever After of Her Own

Hope you have a wonderful March. Talk to you soon!

Soleil Noir of Black Sun Reviews has written a lovely review of A Happily Ever After of Her Own:

I'm quite impressed by how well the author developed Melinda and the Beast’s chemistry in the limited amount of time they had together without it giving off a “rushed” feel. The novella has a very wistful feel about, very much an escapist read… For any lover of Fairy Tales and those of us who always wonder “What Happens after Happily Ever After?”

Read A Happily Ever After of Her Own Excerpt
Buy: All Romance EBooks :: Kindle US :: Kindle UK :: Nook :: Smashwords

May was a super busy month. I have no idea what I was thinking, joining MayNoWriMo while doing the uber-challenging (but also uber-rewarding) mentorship with Kate Pearce.

But the good thing is I got a lot of writing done. Finally I'm finished with my sooper-sekrit project set in futuristic Paris and Shintokyo (New Tokyo) to the point where I'm satisfied with all the major plot / character arcs. I also edited a short erotic novella and sent it off to Agent, wrote the first draft of a paranormal romance novella plus a synopsis for the sequel.

On the non-writing front — I'm sure you've noticed that my site looks different. Frauke from CrocoDesigns worked her magic again. It's amazing that she knew exactly what I wanted even though my emails were somewhat vague. If you ever need a web designer, definitely check her out. She's just fantastic.

Also say hello to Miss Moneypenny (Dragon Naturally Speaking 10). I've been having problems with wrist and hand pain, and I figured I should learn to dictate. If nothing else, I can “speak” dialogue out loud, so I don't have too much downtime due to pain. I honestly don't mind having pages and pages of dialogue to go back and fill out later with descriptions and tags, etc. And now that I have a new helper, I need to train her so she can transcribe correctly.

(BTW — Amazon has an incredible deal on Dragon 10 right now. So if you're interested in trying it, you may want to check out Amazon's price.)

Finally, I uploaded A Happily Ever After of Her Own on Amazon Kindle. Several people asked me about its availability in the Kindle format, and I decided to just go ahead and do it. It's still available on my site for free to my newsletter subscribers, but if you want the convenience of reading it on your Kindle, you can get it. (Unfortunately Amazon doesn't allow individual authors to give away stuff via Kindle, so I had to price it at ninety-nine cents, the lowest allowable.)

Later this month I plan to give away a copy of Kate Pearce‘s Kiss of the Rose, the first book in her Tudor Vampire Chronicles. Vampires in Henry VIII's court — what more can paranormal and/or historical fans can ask for?

Stayed tuned for your chance to win!

(FYI – The giveaway is open to anybody anywhere in the world. I don't have any author copies or ARCs; BookDepository will ship a copy to the winner when Kiss of the Rose is released.)

As you know I'm totally excited about the Winter Olympic Games, and I love connecting with other people via Twitter. Not too long ago, I met A Buckeye Girl Reads (a.k.a. Colette / @buckeyegirl31) while discussing figure skating, esp. Sasha Cohen's “comeback”, with Heather (@BookObsessedGrl). This is an Olympic year, so of course we got talking. ;)

So color me surprised when Colette Twittered me on Monday and told me how much she loved A Happily Ever After of Her Own. I hadn't even realized she'd subscribed to my newsletter to access the novella. So of course, when she asked me if she could review it, I said, “Sure!”

Without further ado, here is the main part of her fabulous review of A Happily Ever After of Her Own:

I was glad I waited until all 9 chapters were out to read the whole thing, because I couldn't get enough of Melinda's story. It's a delightful story & it's for those of us who have always wondered what happened after the words “happily ever after” were written in the fairy tales we read. The problem I normally have with novellas that are this short is that I have a really hard time getting into the storyline & characters because they are just over too fast. Not so with this one. I loved Melinda's spirit, and the Beast is so swoon-worthy. I might be a little bit biased because I've gotten to know Nadia over the last month or so through twitter, but I think I would have loved the story even if I didn't know her. While this book doesn't have a Christmas theme, the storyline of doing what's right, and thinking of others first, definitely fits in with what Christmas is all about. The chapters are fairly short, and it's a perfect read for during the week.

The first two chapters from Nadia Lee‘s A Happily Ever After of Her Own are available here and here. The rest of the novella is for newsletter subscribers only. You can sign up here. It's free to join. I just can't say how much I loved this novella — but I'm not biased or anything. :)

Sigh Meter: High
Swoon Meter: High
Sweetness Meter: High
Cheesy Line Meter: A few here and there (A romance wouldn't be a romance without them!)

Thank you, Colette! :wub:

P.S. Colette reviews lots of books. You should totally check out her blog when you aren't sure about what to read next, etc.