Into The Fire Cover Reveal!

Ta daaaaaaaa!

I love this cover! Look – he’s grabbing her butt! They’re making out! Don’t you want to join them? Wait – that didn’t sound right…

I mean don’t you want to know their story?

You can! June 1oth! If you are into semi-immediate gratification, pre-order links are up at AMAZON, BARNES & NOBLE, GOOGLE, iTUNES, and more. If you want a little something to whet your appetite, I’ll be giving away Chapter One excerpt booklets on FB and Twitter for the next few weeks. Follow me there for more details.

Meanwhile, here’s the blurb:

Jackson Calabrese has a lot of nerve. He beat Lila Grant in the Culinary Academy competition using her recipes. Now, he’s opening a restaurant and wants her help? Fine, she’ll fix his menu, but it’s going to cost him.

Heir to the Calabrese restaurant empire, Jackson can buy anything he wants, except creativity, so he buys Lila’s instead. He can craft perfect paella, but to take New York by storm he needs her innovative spark.

Skillets aren’t the only things hot in the kitchen, and an uneasy truce ignites into passion. They’re great in bed, but Jackson doesn’t trust her, and Lila is contemplating revenge. The restaurant opening approaches, the menu is completed, and the tables are set for one final act of betrayal. How can love bloom in the midst of such a hot mess?

Flower-shaped ice cubes! My kids love ‘em!

Also – the sexy/foodie/cover reveal contest runs through May 20th, so I hope you’ll get in on the fun. There are about a zillion easy ways to enter right here: a Rafflecopter giveaway
The main reason to enter the giveaway is the flower-shaped ice cube maker, though…well, that and I don’t know about you, but I totally needed new measuring cups and spoons. And I’m sick of grabbing a paper towel to cut apples on when I make the kids’ lunches. But mostly the flower-shaped ice cubes…YAY! Thanks for celebrating INTO THE FIRE with me!

 

INTO THE FIRE Cover Reveal Contest!

INTO THE FIRE has a hot cover! It’s spectacular. I love everything about it – the lush, warm colors, the kissy faces, and the kitchen in the background (no health codes broken, I promise!). I love it so much I decided to have a party and invite six fabulous friends…and you. We’re serving up puzzle pieces of the cover and guessing the heroine’s favorite dessert. Visit each of the blogs listed below and gather one ingredient. Enter each ingredient into the rafflecopter (there are a gad-zillion other ways to enter, too). We’ll pick a winner next week, but I’ll post the entire gorgeous cover right HERE tomorrow!

The prize! All this plus an exclusive peek at the first chapter of INTO THE FIRE! Click the pic to visit the RAFFLECOPTER!

I was so excited about our party, I rushed to the kitchen store and bought prizes. I’ll be honest, I put one of each into the prize box and one into my cupboard. I figure if I want it, someone else might, too! My kids love the flower-shaped ice cubes, and I love having the ever-elusive 1/8 cup measure. I also love the 1 1/2 Tablespoon measure. I just can’t help it. I’m a kitchen geek. However, I REALLY adore the excerpt booklet I made especially for the giveaway. SO CUTE. I felt like a formatting GENIUS when I figured out how to print it. For those of you already waiting for INTO THE FIRE to be released on June 10th, the excerpt contains a sneak peek of Chapter One. Spoiler: it’s hot! My editor asked me to get Jack and Lila hot and heavy…fast!

I hope you will celebrate INTO THE FIRE with me and join today’s party!

Visit these amazing blogs to gather ingredients:

Carribean Accent Book Reviews

Stella Ex-Libris

Book Sniffers Anonymous

Stitch Read Cook

Cocktails and Books

Romance Novel News

Then plug them into the Rafflecopter (on any of the sites). If you mix the six ingredients together in a special way, they make my heroine’s favorite dessert…and another entry in the contest! A big thanks to the participating bloggers, my Entangled publicists Jessica and Cameron, my cover artist Pamela (whom I’ve never met but want to tackle hug), and YOU for celebrating with me! Let’s start the party!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Sizzling Summer Reads

A Luscious sight, indeed!

You may have heard…but Luscious is coming! In some stores, it’s already here! I went to a graduation party the other night, and my friend Molly had purchased a half-dozen copies of Luscious and was giving them to our friends. She had already packed her copy in her suitcase, so she wouldn’t be tempted to read it until she got to Aruba. I am touched on so many levels by her gesture. She not only believes the book would be good enough to give away, she is taking it on vacation. That means she thinks it’s going to be a fun book, the kind of book you read when you’re in a good mood and giving yourself a treat – the exact kind of book I try to write. Thank you, Molly!

Sign Up To Win Free Books!

Summer is always so busy, and I’m going to be extra busy this month. July is packed with a Luscious release party at Arrowhead Spring Vineyards, a book signing at B&N, a blog tour all over the place and the RWA national conference in Anaheim. All good stuff! I’m also participating in The Romance Reviews Sizzling Summer Reads Party – and you can too. TRR will be giving away hundreds of books in July, so sign up for a chance to win! I’m giving away a copy of Luscious at the party and for anyone who visits my site this month and signs up for my New Release Newsletter (click the paper airplane at the bottom of this page), I’ll enter your name in a giveaway for a $20 gift certificate to Amazon or B&N – winner’s choice! Signing up for my newsletter does not mean you will get tons of promo from me – just a short e-mail when a new book comes out. Giveaway runs from June 25th through July 31st. Winner will be announced in August. Have a Luscious July XOXO!

Click here to sign up for my New Release Newsletter and the chance to win free books!

No Spring Melt Down!

Straight-Up Fruit Tart. An irresistible classic!

This time last year I was about to lose my marbles. (You can read about it here.) It was a memorable experience, and I vowed not to repeat such idiocy this year. Nope, I wasn’t going to teach an intermediate pastry class, plan a classical pastry class, edit Scrumptious and write 1000 words of Luscious each and every day. Nope – this year I was going to teach an intermediate pastry class, plan a classical pastry class and write a synopsis plus the first thirty pages of Book Three in my hot chef series. Whew! I’m so glad I learned from my mistakes last year…

Actually I did. Well, sort of. It was May before I pulled my head out of my tush last year. It’s only March now, so let’s call it a win.

How did I trick myself into thinking I wasn’t making the same mistake again? I told

Luscious Tiramisu helps a lot. If this pic hits you where you live, the recipe is under Recipes, Luscious, Tiramisu on this very blog. I invented it when my Olive Garden Tiramisu habit exceeded my resources...

myself my classes were my first priority and anything I got done on Book Three was pure gravy…but then I worked obsessively on the synopsis every day before going downtown to teach my night class. I worked on weekends, too. I made tons of progress! Then I got bitchy and exhausted just like last year. My husband said, “No wonder – you are working sixteen hours a day.” (He said it without a smirk, too, God love him.)

Head. Wall. Bang.