A word about out-of-print titles...

A few readers have noticed lately that a number of my books have disappeared from various sites such as Amazon and AllRomance, and folks have e-mailed me with questions regarding their future availability.  So, I wanted to address those questions and update everyone on the status of those books.

The biggest question is, will the books be available in the future? In short, yes, they will.

Several are already with editors for facelifts, though the publishers have not yet been determined for all of them. Some will be self-published and some will be reprinted through other houses. As contracts have not yet been signed and plans have not yet been finalized, I can't name names or give out dates, but rest assured that plans are very much in the works. Announcements will be made as soon as I'm given the green light, or have made the final decision to self-publish this or that title.

In short, my backlist is absolutely not going away. Some older titles will disappear for a little while to visit the edits-and-cover-art spa, and then they'll return.  When they do, some will have added material, such as extended epilogues. There's even a very good possibility of some brand spanking new sequels.

As of the date of this blog, the following titles are temporarily unavailable:

By L. A.:
Cover Me
Trust Me
Search Me
The Best Man
Noble Metals

By Lauren:
Between Brothers
The Next Move
Until It's Over
Cold Feet in Hot Sand
Light Switch
Reconstructing Meredith
What This Woman Wants
Disengaged

Please visit my website (http://www.loriawitt.com) for updates and additional information.

NOW AVAILABLE: The Princess and The Porn Star

The Princess and the Porn Star is now available from Samhain Publishing! It's currently on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and iTunes, and should be up on sites such as AllRomance very soon.

Also, Blogger has decided it doesn't want to let me copy and paste the blog without jumping through eleventy billion formatting hoops, so in the meantime, the blurb can be found here. I'll keep trying...

America: Put Up or Shut Up

This is not a political blog, and I usually don't drag politics onto it, but I've been chewing on this post for a while. So, here we go...

Okay, I think I speak for pretty much every American when I say that our current political climate sucks. It really does. The general consensus seems to be that our legislators—mostly career politicians—are out of touch with the lives of the American people. All over the country, hand-wringing and earnest political discussions pepper meals, car rides, water cooler conversations, and social media. Everyone’s worried, everyone’s upset, and everyone knows exactly what the problem is.

“Congress,” we all say with knowing nods. “They’re corrupt, and greedy, and out of touch. Just a bunch of rich white guys looking to get themselves re-elected and have their pockets lined by big corporations.” And then we shake our fists at the sky because Congress sucks and there’s (allegedly) nothing we can do about it.

I’m not here to argue that Congress is a room full of misunderstood saints. Quite the contrary. What I want to point out is the thing that doesn’t help any of us: Armchair legislators. We all have solutions in mind, and we all know what Congress should be doing, and we’re all angry about the things Congress is doing. Usually it’s the fault of those from the other political party, so the Republicans point at the Democrats, the Democrats point at the Republicans, and not a damned thing gets done. Kind of like in Congress.

The thing is, folks, for all we want to fix America, we’re collectively not doing very much about it.

According to Wikipedia, there were 33 seats up for grabs in the U.S. Senate during the 2012 election. When the votes were tallied, 21 of those seats went to incumbents. In 2010, 21 of 34 seats also went to incumbents.

In two elections, with 67 opportunities, we elected 25 new Senators and kept 42 incumbents.

The 2012 results in the House weren’t much better. In the state of Arkansas, there were four seats up for grabs with three incumbents running. All three were re-elected. Out of California’s 53 seats, only 7 representatives lost their re-election, and 35 incumbents won (remaining seats were either new seats or representatives who didn’t seek re-election). In over half of the states and all U.S. territories, every incumbent seeking re-election won.  Only New Hampshire saw a complete turnover, with both incumbents losing re-election. Overall, only 26 incumbents lost.

Let’s read that again:

In more than half of the states, and all U.S. territories such as Guam and Puerto Rico, every incumbent seeking re-election won.

So, for all we complain about Congress being the problem and Congress not getting the job done… we’re, um, not doing a heck of a lot to change it.

Seriously. What should we do if our legislators suck? Quite simply, stop re-electing them.

Let me draw your attention back to the above figures.

67 chances for new Senators. 25 new Senators obtained.  Over half of the states re-electing 100% of their incumbents to the House. We complain that Congress is the problem, and yet we were only compelled to vote out 26 representatives.

Now, do all of those legislators suck? Of course not. Heaven help us if they did. But if Congress really isn’t doing what we expect Congress to do, why do we keep re-electing the majority of the people in Congress?

If a legislator is awesome and ethical and actually doing their job, then by all means, keep them. But I find it hard to believe that the vast majority of our legislators are awesome and ethical and actually doing their jobs, or we wouldn’t all be complaining about how Congress isn’t getting anything done.

So what do we do if they’re not doing what we elected them to do?

Vote. Them. Out.

Okay, but what happens when that legislator runs against someone who’s even worse? Or what happens when they run unopposed?

That, my friends, is where we need to step up. This is where the government needs to start being a bit more “by the people.” Those words weren’t meant to be lip service. We as American people have a responsibility to make sure we are governed “by the people,” and that doesn’t mean “by someone else who hopefully won’t screw me over.”  It doesn’t mean “by the Democrats or the Republicans, depending on who has the majority.”

It means us. It means you, it means me. It means we need to run, and it means we need to vote. When the options on the ballot are not good enough, then there is only one solution left:

We need to get our butts out of our armchairs and put those butts into the seats currently occupied by the butts of irresponsible, unethical, corrupt, and dishonest politicians.

If we want to see things change, we need to make those things change. We are not without power, and we are not without responsibility. I don’t think it’s enough to call your congressman. I don’t think it’s enough to write to your congressman. I don’t think it’s enough to pass around memes on social media and hold up signs at demonstrations.

Don’t call your congressman. Be your congressman.

Think about it. There are 33 or 34 seats in the U.S. Senate up for grabs every four years. In the House, there are 435 seats. That means that in 2014, there are 468 opportunities for American citizens to occupy seats in the United States Congress.

Four hundred sixty-eight seats, folks.

And that’s not counting all the seats available in state legislatures.

You want things to change? You want your voice heard?

Then do something.

Get off your butt and get on the ballot. Don’t have a lot of money for a campaign? Use social media. Contact your local media. Work together to promote a potential candidate. Make some noise, folks! We live in a time of unprecedented ability to transmit and receive information. If a music video can get millions of hits on YouTube and turn someone into a global celebrity virtually overnight, then there’s no reason a potential candidate can’t reach their voters, get noticed, and get elected.

If the only way someone can get elected in this day and age is still to be a rich, party-backed candidate who charms and smooth-talks his way into the hearts of voters, then we have no one to blame but ourselves, the voters who allow ourselves to be won over like that. We can reach people, and we the people can be reached.

“But I can’t run for Congress! I’m not a politician or a lawyer!”  You don’t need to be. There is no such requirement to get into Congress. And we don’t need more politicians or lawyers. We need people who are willing to raise their voices, rattle some cages, and approach legislation from the point-of-view of the people who will be affected the most by that legislation: everyday Americans.

We need people who will raise unpopular measures like Congressional term limits and pay cuts, forcing those in Congress to decide if holding onto that cushy paycheck is worth the backlash when it comes time for re-election. The only way things like that will pass is via Constitutional amendments, which means someone with a butt in a chair in Congress needs to get the ball rolling. We can start all the online petitions we want, but if we want something like this to actually happen, it needs to make it into Congress. And I don’t know about you, but I don’t have a lot of faith in our current seat-occupants that someone will propose, let alone push, something like that.

“But I don’t know how to be a good politician/Congressman/etc!” Quite frankly, neither do the people currently occupying Congress. We need our voices to be heard by Congress, and at this point, I think that means getting a few of us into Congress. We don’t need to be experts on political strategy and smooth-talking to see when a bill—and the people discussing it—don’t have our best interests in mind.

And whether you get yourself on the ballot or not, vote!

Seriously, people. Vote! Don’t like the incumbent running in your district? Vote him or her out!  Research your candidates. Read about them. Vote for the person whose ideas align with your own, not the one who looks slick in a suit and kisses babies for the camera. Vote for the one who’s as tired as you are of the way things are, not the one who happens to be in the same political party you usually vote for. Vote for someone because he or she makes sense, not because he or she has a catchy slogan and shiny campaign signs.

If you can’t take the time to know who you’re voting for and make an informed, responsible decision, then don’t take up my time complaining about how Congress isn’t doing what they’re elected—and paid—to do.

So let’s say people get off their butts and get elected. Now what?

Now it’s time to get to work. Time to rattle some cages and get some stuff done. Such as?

For starters, since they can only happen via Constitutional amendments, I propose:

·         Congressional term limits.

·         A significant pay cut for legislators and the President.

What if these don’t pass?  Well, voting records are public. If your congressman doesn’t like the idea of a pay cut or a term limit and can’t offer a satisfactory explanation, or if you simply don’t like how he votes on issues that matter to you, he doesn’t have to be re-elected.

So, Lori. Are you going to put up or shut up too?  Yes, I am. Residency requirements are proving to be a sticky wicket after I’ve moved several times thanks to the military, and I will likely move again between now and the 2014 election. However, if I can iron out those details, I will be putting my name out there as well. 

In closing, I think we’ve all had enough, and it’s time to make some changes. If we can’t rely on our legislators to make those changes—and judging by the incumbency rate, I’d say most of them have had ample opportunity—then we need to get in there and do it ourselves. Which means we need to get ourselves on the ballots, and we need to stop voting in the same old faces who apparently can’t get a damned thing done.

It’s time, America. Put up or shut up.

Back in the Saddle

Yes, I'm still planning to post pics from my London trip. When? I'm not sure. Hopefully before I go back in July, though.

But I just had to share the latest adventure that's beginning over here in Omahatropolis. As I'm sure I've mentioned on this blog before, I grew up riding horses. Somewhere between driver's licenses and adulthood, life sort of intervened, and I didn't ride so much anymore. Then I got married and moved away, and have never had the means to have a horse since then. I did briefly ride a friend's horse in 2005, and showed him once, but that was the last time I got on a horse.

It's been almost eight years, y'all. When horses are in your blood like they're in mine, that is a long, long time.

So last week, I was poking around at some ads for horses, and had an epiphany: I could afford to get (and maintain) a horse.

After some prodding from some enablers -- er, friends -- I decided to just do it.

I went to visit a farm yesterday where there were several horses available for lease. A few of them seemed nice enough, but didn't really pique my interest.

Then I saw this face looking back at me.

And I was a goner.

Long story short, I am now the proud lessee of Jesse, a 6 year-old Appendix Quarter Horse gelding. Though I'm not 100% convinced of his breeding. He has no papers, after all, so we're just sort of guessing. What I do know is that he runs like a thoroughbred, stops and turns like a quarter horse, trots like an Arab, and gets into everything like a Morgan.  So he's probably just a big ol' mutt.

I don't care. I adore him.   

He's got a lot of crappy training that needs undoing, but with some time and patience, he'll get there. I'm not looking to show him (though I might take him to some small local shows next year just for the hell of it), and he's not mine to sell, so I'm not in any hurry. We'll just take it easy, and a little at a time, fix the bad habits he has on the ground and under saddle.

It feels so good to literally be back in the saddle after too many years. Now, horses are time-consuming, of course, especially those that need some training. There's also the 35-minute drive each way to visit him. Chances are, working with him will cut into my writing time. I'm already figuring on reducing my daily quota to 4,000 words on the days I work with him.

But I'm okay with that. I've been running myself into the ground, and have been spending too much time at my desk. Jesse will be that balance I so desperately need. Will stories come out a little slower? Probably. But I think they'll be stronger because I will have a clearer mind, not to mention the exercise which I sorely need. Just being around a horse, especially one like him, is insanely therapeutic for me. The simple act of walking into a barn calms me down.

So in the end, between Jesse and traveling, I think there will be fewer words this year, but they'll be better words because I'll be in a better state of mind.

If anyone needs me, I'll be at the barn...

NOW AVAILABLE: Covet Thy Neighbor and Test Drive

Two new releases this week!!

First, Covet Thy Neighbor, book #4 in the Tucker Springs series, is available from Riptide Publishing, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, AllRomance Ebooks, and Rainbow Ebooks.

Opposites attract, but heaven help these two.

Tattoo artist Seth Wheeler thinks he’s struck gold when Darren Romero rents the apartment across the hall. The new guy is gorgeous, witty, and single, plus he’s just the right blend of bold and flirtatious. Perfect.

Except then Darren reveals that he moved to Tucker Springs to take a job as the youth pastor at the New Light Church. Seth is not only an atheist, but was thrown out by his ultra-religious family when he came out. He tends to avoid believers, not out of judgment but out of self-preservation.

But Darren doesn’t give up easily, and he steadily chips away at Seth’s defenses. Darren is everything Seth wants in a man . . . except for that one massive detail he just can’t overlook. Is Darren’s religion the real problem, or is it just a convenient smoke screen to keep him from facing deeper fears? It’s either see the light, or risk pushing Darren away forever.

Also, Test Drive, a contemporary short story, is available from Amber Allure. Additional links will be added here as they are available. This story is part of the Office Affairs Amber Pax, and can be purchased individually or along with the other stories by Heidi Champa, Christiane France, Sean Michael, and Anne Brooke here.

Sean Waters is down on his luck thanks to the economy, and winds up working for his domineering father’s car dealership. It’s not the greatest job, but it’s a paycheck. The only problem? He’s got a wicked crush on the general manager, Jackson Shaw.

When Jackson suggests a drive in one of the brand new sports cars, Sean has no idea it’s not the car Jackson really wants to take for a spin.

They both need this job, though, and the boss isn’t keen on employees getting involved with each other. But it’s just a lusty little crush anyway, so they can move on and pretend nothing ever happened.

Can’t they? 

The Clampetts go to London, Part 1

So I've been incredibly remiss in blogging about my ongoing visit to the United Kingdom. I had planned to blog at least every other day, and now I've been here a full week, and not a single blog post besides this one. What the hell, author lady?

I do have a legitimate excuse, though. Seriously. You see, every day, we come back from sightseeing and pretty much faceplant within a five-foot radius of our bed, and don't wake up until it's time to fling ourselves towards the train station the next morning. I'm telling you, I haven't slept this well in years. And, yeah, okay, I've been uploading pictures and putting them on Facebook, but I've been borderline catatonic with exhaustion most nights and haven't had the brain cells to compose a coherent post. The jury's still out on whether this post -- written while I'm taking a day off from traveling -- will make any sense. So just blame my fatigue if this post suddenly horse potato couch laserbeam kitten squirrel.

But Lori, you guys are supposed to be on vacation. This is true. We are on vacation. And the vacation is doing what it's supposed to do, which is recharging my brainbits and pouring gallons of inspiration into my skull. I'm itching to write like I haven't itched to write in ages, and this itch won't be treated by any over-the-counter ointments. I need to write, yo!  The only casualty to this recharging is my body, which is currently aching in places I didn't know existed and is, according to my guesstimates, approximately five pounds lighter than it was when I stepped off the plane a week ago. The reason for all of that can be summed up in two words: Aleksandr Voinov.

You see, Aleks is a resident of this fine city, and is not a big believer in doing things halfway. When I asked him to show Eddie and me around London, I had no idea that we would be seeing a month's worth of London in the space of a week. No joke. Since we've been here, we have:

1. Visited the Churchill war rooms.
2. Toured the London Museum, the British Museum, the National Army Museum, the Maritime Museum, the Museum of Natural History, and the science museum.
3. Attended a play in the West End, which starred James McAvoy, and yes we met him afterward (squee!). 
4. Explored Piccadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square, and God knows where else.
5. Visited at least half a dozen bookstores.
6. Seen Big Ben (sorry, the clock tower containing the bell that is called Big Ben), Parliament, Westminster Abbey, and the Thames from several angles.
7. Logged God only knows how many miles on the Underground (aka, the subway). 
8. Saw Django Unchained.
9. Visited a Templar church, an old church near the spot where William Wallace died, and the Salisbury Cathedral.
10. Visited the Roman baths in...Bath.
11. VISITED FREAKING STONEHENGE.
12. Visited, boarded, and didn't get kicked off Cutty Sark.
13. Got high off chocolate fumes at M&M World in Piccadilly.

In a week. One. Week. All of this while moving on trains and our own feet (plus a bus for the stuff outside London).  Because Aleks has, in his own words, turned sightseeing into an extreme sport. (For the record, he's been as thrilled as we are whenever a bench comes into sight and we have the chance to sit for a few minutes, so we're not the only ones with slightly tender hooves.)

So how is London? 

Well, it's big. It's crowded. It's kind of terrifying in some ways because it IS so big and crowded. And I really, really, really don't want to leave.  Kind of weird when you consider I've never been a fan of cities, and even Seattle grates on my nerves after a while, but I like this place. I've only been here a week and I'm already planning my next visit this summer. Never thought I'd say this about a huge city, but I could totally live here. 

But what the hell is a travel post without some pictures, am I right?  We've already taken a good 1,000 or so photos, and I'm finally getting my butt in gear and cropping them, resizing them, etc.  So stay tuned...photo post is coming very, very soon. 

And just to tide you over until I have a chance to post all of those pics, here is a shot of my husband being...well...

NOW AVAILABLE: Take It Off (Market Garden #2)

Take it Off, the sequel to Quid Pro Quo, is now available from Riptide Publishing, Amazon, and AllRomance Ebooks.

High-end Market Garden rentboys Tristan and Jared have found their niche. Men are willing to pay good money to watch Tristan tease Jared, and the two of them seduce London’s elite with sex and power games. 

Except Tristan is less and less interested in getting money out of the johns these days. He wants his partner in crime, and he wants the seduction to be real. But is Jared just in this for the pay? 

When Rolex, the john who started it all, returns to Market Garden, the boys jump on the opportunity to service him—and each other—for a fresh pile of cash. Rolex isn’t the only one itching for a rematch, though. Jared’s been waiting for a chance to get back at Tristan for teasing him so mercilessly the first time. 

And for a former stripper, revenge is a dish best served extra hot.

Stay tuned for more Market Garden stories!

A Prelude to Paris: The Clampetts Dine Out

So the other night, Eddie and I were feeling exceptionally lazy.  Well, not really exceptionally lazy, but lazy enough we decided to go out to dinner. (Yeah, definitely not exceptional. We do that all the time.) Point being, there were plans for food consumption that took place outside of our home.

Now, I no longer work on much of a schedule. My deadlines are calendar dates, but there's no Monday-Friday going on here. Eddie also works on a weird schedule. As a result, we've both lost all sense of time when it comes to keeping track of the days of the week.  As a result of that, our lazy pursuit of cooked-by-someone-else dinner wound up happening on a Friday night. The one that happened after Valentine's Day, too.

Surprise, surprise, all of our favorite spots were packed. We wandered around for a while, and eventually stumbled across a strip mall that contained three eating establishments.  The Texas Roadhouse was, in true Friday night fashion, absolutely jammed with people.  The second place was a diner that had numerous open tables, but looked like it had three varieties of food poisoning on the appetizer menu. The third was both uncrowded and appeared to be in the health department's good graces, so we picked that one.

So we parked the car, trudged in out of the falling snow, and requested a table for two.

The hostess gave me a look that said, "Are you...sure?", but she still dutifully gathered the menus and wine list.

And that was when I looked around.

And realized we were so, so out of our element.

You see, hunger had blinded us to most things. We were starving by this point, and only cared about whether we could be put within arm's reach of food in under ten minutes, and whether or not that food was fit for human consumption.  We paid no mind to the atmosphere, the ambiance, the crowd, the prices.

And as she led us deeper into the dimly lit restaurant, I realized we had just sauntered into a very nice French restaurant.  You know the type. The kind that has its wine list printed in single-spaced small font and it's still longer than the menu by three or four pages. The kind that has several recommended wines listed under each entree. The kind where respectable couples dressed in designer clothes huddle around single candles at small tables draped with white cloths, and talk about big client accounts and Maximillian III's piano lessons and how ghastly expensive it is to fill up the Escalade.

Yeah. That kind of place.

In other words, not the sort of establishment for a couple of overgrown teenagers with casual clothes and no sense of social graces.

And when I say casual clothes, I don't mean we were wearing business casual from JC Penney, or last season's slacks with scarves that didn't quite match.

I was wearing a T-shirt from the Sturgis motorcycle rally.

Eddie was wearing a WWF wrestling T-shirt.

Yeah.

I'm fairly certain we couldn't have stood out more without getting ourselves summarily tossed out into the snow.

And that was just our choice of clothing. Naturally, things continued to spiral downward.  I'm fairly certain an elderly woman fainted when I informed our waiter that we don't drink wine.  I can only imagine what people thought when they saw me sipping Pepsi out of a brandy snifter like a goddamned hillbilly.

You think I'm kidding?

Nope.

We ordered by way of pointing at the menu rather than butchering the French words, and found ridiculous reasons to giggle uncontrollably over our bread and appetizer. Really, it was ridiculous, so there's no point in trying to explain it. Suffice it to say, we were giggling like idiots.  Like, "couple of stoners talking about Spongebob" type giggling. A lot. We weren't loud (c'mon, we're not that bad), just....giggling.

And, I mean, Eddie's a cop and a Sailor, and I'm an erotic romance author. When either of us discusses our jobs, there's usually a fair amount of inappropriate-for-mixed-company language involved. That's just the way it is. There is no better soundtrack for that sort of conversation than the soft orchestral music of a mostly quiet upscale restaurant that has profanity acoustics. You know the type: where conversations don't project beyond each individual table unless someone says something like "fuck" or "vagina" or "Obama." Then regardless of actual volume, it's like you just said it into a megaphone, and people start clutching their pearls and gasping into their wine. Or looking like their laxative just kicked in.

The food was absolutely amazeballs. Seriously...awesome. So good, in fact, that we plan to go back. As I said to Eddie--and apparently some nearby diners heard me--"We need to invest in some pants, because we're coming back to this place." I'm sure everyone who works or eats there is thrilled.

Fortunately, though, the couple sneering at us from the other side of the room gathered their expensive jackets--and her Totally Freaking Real Coach handbag--and left before we were halfway through our meal. And we had a waiter with a really good sense of humor. Seriously, there is nothing funnier than a waiter in a Nice French Restaurant (tm) laughing like Beavis over a comment you made, and in fact, we ended up friending him on Facebook so we could regale him with photos from our upcoming trip to Europe.

And I have to give the dude a hat tip: He brought us chocolates with our check, but couldn't confirm whether they had any kind of nuts in them, which meant Eddie got to eat both of them. I playfully gave the waiter a hard time, which he took in stride, but then he came back to the table with another chocolate, which he had cut in half to make sure was nut-free. Awesome!  Though I'm fairly certain the couple sitting behind me was unamused when I exclaimed that our waiter was exceptional for bringing me a, quote, "neutered chocolate."

So in the end, we had an absolutely amazing meal, generally made asses of ourselves, and made a new friend.  But the story isn't over quite yet. In fact, I think it's only the beginning.

You see, in under a month's time, Eddie and I will be traipsing across the ocean to Europe. And while we're there, we'll be taking our undignified American butts into Paris, where we will eat, drink, and be merry.  After this dry run of attempting to be grownups in a French eating establishment, it's safe to say we will also most likely horrify the Parisians, embarrass the Americans, and mortify our traveling companions.

It's inevitable, my loyal blog minions.

And yes, when it happens, there will be a blog post. And most likely photos.

Stay tuned...

Childfree: I'm Not Selfish, I Just Don't Want Kids.

Recently, I've read a few articles by people regretting the fact that they are childless. The common thread seems to be people who've chosen to delay marriage and child-bearing in the interest of pursuing careers, traveling, or what have you. Then they reach their mid-forties, realize the ship has sailed, and thus...regrets. And I've had conversations over the last few years that have included such things as "you're in your 30s now, you can't wait too much longer" or "how can you possibly put your career ahead of a family?"

The thing is, my husband and I aren't waiting. We've been married for a decade now, and we aren't delaying a family for the sake of living it up while we're young or devoting ourselves to our careers. We're not childless, we're childfree.

The fact is, we don't want kids. Full stop.

And we're not alone. Other articles I've read recently have discussed being childfree, but if there's one thing in those articles that makes my teeth grind, it's "I'm too selfish to have children."

Well, maybe you are, but we're not. We're not foregoing children because we want material things, or because we don't want to give up our creature comforts. It's not the sacrifices or the long hours or the fact that you have to put children ahead of yourself. It's not the prospect of balancing a career and a family.

We simply...don't want kids.

Yes, we do travel a lot, have expensive hobbies, and devote a lot of time and energy to our careers. This is not the reason we don't have children, though. Rather, it's a byproduct. It's a fact that raising children is expensive and time-consuming, and those of us without children naturally aren't going to be faced with that, but correlation does not equal causation. We didn't forego children so we could have time and stuff.

And to be clear, I don't hate kids. Yes, my husband and I will sometimes grumble about some brats, but the vast majority of the time, our irritation lies with the parents. For example, on a plane, I am infinitely patient (and quite sympathetic!) with the infant who's screaming because of ear pain, or the toddler who's exhausted on a red-eye or scared because of turbulence. I'm decidedly less patient with the eight year-old kicking my seat for three hours while his mom is wrapped up in a book (true story).  I don't bat an eye at a noisy, rowdy birthday party in a family restaurant, but I'll grind  my teeth over a couple of kids being, well, kids in a bar where there shouldn't be anyone under the age of 21.  I can deal with the kid who bumps into me and says "excuse me", but not when the parent glares at me for having the audacity to be in her kid's way.

I fully understand kids aren't going to be quiet and still all the time, and wouldn't expect them to be. The whole "children should be seen and not heard" thing is bullshit. Kids have energy. They're still learning their way around life in general. They don't yet understand appropriate behavior for all situations, and even when they do, sometimes they forget, or they're tired, or they're hungry, or whatever. I was a kid once too. I understand.

But I also understand my own limitations. I know all too well what I can cope with and what I can't.

Last year, I went to some author conventions for the first time. Like you would imagine any conference or convention would be, they were teeming with people. Some strangers, some not. And anyone who was around me at those cons last year may or may not have noticed that, on several occasions, I disappeared for a while. Sometimes I went back to my room. Sometimes I found a quiet corner in a restaurant. At least one time, I just went out to the parking lot. Why? To decompress. Catch my breath. Be alone for a few minutes or even a couple of hours. When I got home, I didn't leave the house for a day or two, and didn't want to be around anyone except my cats and my husband.

I love the conferences, don't get me wrong. I'm looking forward to attending several this year. I just know when I'm reaching sensory overload and social critical mass. When I need to step away and collect myself. As long as I make sure to give myself that downtime, I'm good to go. If I go too long without it, I get overwhelmed, and it's not good.

More than once, during those momentary recesses from socializing, I've caught myself wondering how I would handle that if I was a parent. I've seen how difficult it is for parents with similar personalities to mine, and how much they struggle to meet their children's needs when they themselves are desperate for some time to regroup. Is it selfish to acknowledge that this aspect of my personality would make me a miserable parent? No, I really don't think so. My attitude is not "kids would tire me out, so forget it," so much as "I'm not wired for constant social interaction, and I'm afraid that would be detrimental to my ability to adequately fulfill the needs of my children."

Kids have needs. They deserve parents who are equipped to fulfill those needs. I don't believe I am, so...I'm not a parent.

But all of that being said, it does still boil down to one simple thing: I simply don't want to have kids.  I'm happy with my life. My husband is my family, and of course we have our parents, siblings, cousins, etc. We're content. Neither of us feels like anything is missing.

We're certainly not incapable of love or of forming emotional attachments. Though perhaps one sign that we are not wired for parenting: neither of us gets excited over the sight of a baby, but just watch what happens if we see a kitten. "It's different when they're your own." Not necessarily, and I'm not about to gamble with a child's happiness to see if it's true. Does that mean there's something wrong with us? Maybe, maybe not. Whatever the case, my maternal instinct is calibrated for pets, so I have pets. Everybody wins.

Finally, a rather staggering number of parents have, when they've learned I'm childfree, confided in me that if they had it to do over, they would have done things differently. None of them are suggesting they don't love their kids, nor have any of them wished their kids didn't exist. Rather, when stepping back and looking at their lives objectively, they realize they would have made different choices if given the opportunity. The younger parents say they would have waited 5-10 years. The older parents say they would have had their kids 5-10 years earlier.

More than a few, though, have said they wouldn't have had kids at all. Many have said they never even thought about whether or not they wanted kids. It wasn't optional. Having children is what you do. (Anyone who's been married for more than 17 minutes can attest to this: the second the rings are on, so is the pressure.)

Are all or even most parents miserable? Absolutely not! Most parents I know are blissfully happy and wouldn't trade their families for the world, and I'm thrilled for them. The less enthusiastic testimonies simply opened my eyes to the fact that it's not always sunshine and roses.  The stark reality is that parenting is not an easy task, it's not a light commitment, and it's not for everyone.

To sum it up, a mother I know gave me this piece of hard-earned wisdom: "Unless you are absolutely over-the-moon excited about having kids...don't."  And I think that's very sound advice. Kids deserve better than to be an obligation. They deserve to exist for better reasons than "it's what you do." Or because you want someone to visit you in an old folks' home one day, or because you want to pass on your genes, or because you want to carry on your family's name.

I'm not over-the-moon excited by the idea of having kids.  Neither is my husband.  In twenty, thirty, forty years, will we regret it? Who knows?  But quite honestly, I'd rather regret that I didn't have children over regretting that I had them.

So... we're not having them. And we're happy.

It's that simple.

NOW AVAILABLE: Something New Under the Sun, The Mayfield Speakeasy

Two releases this week!

First up is Something New Under the Sun, the sequel to A Chip In His Shoulder, available from Riptide Publishing.  Also available on Amazon, AllRomance, Rainbow Ebooks, and Barnes & Noble.

 Liam Lansing is heir to a prominent family of bio-modified vampires. That is, until he chooses the wrong lover and is cast down to the Gutter to scrape for his life. 

Daniel Harding is heir to Cybernetix and a prince of the corporate Sky. That is, until his ideology drives his father to put a price on his head, forcing him into the Gutter. 

But Daniel and Liam won’t vanish meekly into the smog. Together, they plan to rip open the hidden corruption that runs the Sky—for vengeance, for justice, and for hope. They strike against the corporations in a daring raid. When everything goes wrong, Daniel must betray his core beliefs to save the man he loves and protect his dangerous secret. Only through courage in the face of death—or worse—might he and Liam change the world they live in and create something new under the sun.

Also, the Something New Under the Sun blog tour begins today. Comment to win a book off my backlist plus a $10 Riptide Publishing gift card!  Dates and info here.

 Second is The Mayfield Speakeasy, a short Noir-themed novella as part of the NOIR Pax from Amber Allure. Can be purchased individually, or buy it here as a group with stories by DJ Manly, Lynn Lorenz, AJ Llewellyn, and Vivien Dean. Additional links will be added to my website as they're available.

Walter Mayfield has his hands full. He’s trying to keep the peace between his brothers, but at least the cops don’t bother him much about his illegal speakeasy. After all, the place is frequented by members of two volatile gangs, and as long as Walter can keep them from killing each other, the cops leave him alone. 

That is, until Detective Joe Riordan comes through the door. But Joe ain’t interested in what’s being poured. He’s got three dead bodies, and all three of them are connected to one of Walter’s brothers. 

Walter keeps the detective away from the speakeasy and cooperates as best he can with the investigation. Trouble is, he’s taken a whole different kind of interest in the detective. An interest that’s very mutual. 

But no matter how much Joe and Walter like each other, the investigation threatens to disrupt the fragile peace in the Mayfield Speakeasy as well as tear apart the Mayfield family. And there’s also still a murderer on the loose, and Joe and Walter need to catch him—or her—before another body turns up...

NOW AVAILABLE: Quid Pro Quo

(Quick reminder, there's still time to enter my New Year's contest and win books!)

So I am ridiculously excited to announce that Quid Pro Quo, a short story written with Aleksandr Voinov (SQUEE!) is NOW AVAILABLE!!  This erotic short is the first in the Market Garden series, which will consist of longer stories (romances!) as well as shorts revolving around a high-end sex club in London.

10,000 words of dirty fun and power play! Currently available from Riptide Publishing, Amazon (Kindle or Paperback), and AllRomance.

For the past six months, Jared’s been selling sex at Market Garden, a London club that caters to the better-off. But business is slow in the run-up to Christmas, when businessmen and bankers are too busy bickering over bonuses to rent themselves a little high-class action. 

Though Jared’s wallet finds the downtime unnerving, the rest of him rather enjoys the opportunity it gives him to admire Tristan, an old hand in the club whose reputation usually sees him well-booked. Jared has been crushing on Tristan for months—he’s no more immune to Tristan’s cockiness and confidence than the johns, and those are just Tristan’s inner qualities. 

Just as Jared’s about to chat Tristan up, a businessman asks for something a little different: he wants to book them both. They agree—and Jared finds himself going from crush to mind-bending lust as he’s made the pawn in a sexual power game. Tristan shows him how a pro handles a john while delivering the top-shelf sex for which the Market Garden is so rightly renowned.

NOW AVAILABLE: All The King's Horses

All The King's Horses is now available from Samhain Publishing!  Also available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Diesel ebooks, and Bookstrand. Additional links will be added to my website as they're available.

Sometimes your last nerve is the strongest link to forever. 

Amy Dover’s dream to become a professional horse trainer hasn’t come without a price. Career pressure, combined with a difficult marriage to an oppressive husband, has sucked away every last bit of joy the horses used to bring her. 

At her husband’s untimely death, she packs her truck, heads over the Cascade Mountains, and takes a job as a farmhand. Yet even in the presence of the creatures she loves the most, her emotional wounds are too deep and wide to recapture what she’s lost. 

Dustin King senses there’s something off about his new farmhand. She’s undeniably attractive, but for someone who knows her way around a barn, she’s unnervingly indifferent toward horses. Especially the pair of Tennessee Walkers he’s just rescued. Instinct tells him that no matter how hard she tries not to care, the horses and the woman need each other. 

As Amy and Dustin bond with the traumatized horses, something unexpected happens. The sparks between them ignite into a night of stormy passion. As Amy’s soul comes back to life, though, she feels the pull to return to her old life. She just hadn’t planned on having someone to leave behind. 

Warning: Contains two people who set the sheets on fire every chance they get… well, except when they don’t get anywhere near a bed. Which is more often than not, because, hey, when you want it, you want it. Book also contains a lot of lost souls, four-legged and two-legged alike, who made the author cry a few times, and seriously, she doesn’t do that. Like, ever. You’ve been warned.

Now Available: From Out in the Cold

Yep, two releases in a row! (and one more on Christmas Day!)

From Out in the Cold is now available from Loose Id, LLC. It's not on the third party sites yet, but I'll add links here as they're available. (Also, the website's gotten a bit of a facelift -- have a look!)

Neil Dalton’s foundation is already cracking. Grief, guilt, and PTSD have ruled his life since a terrible crime tore his world apart last year, and he’s dreading a holiday visit with the family he simultaneously needs and resents. Then someone from his past shows up and rattles that shaky foundation right out from under him. 

First a war nearly destroyed Jeremy Kelley. Then his family threw him out when he needed them the most, and now he’s barely holding on emotionally. He spends his last dollar to get to Chicago and prays his former best friend doesn’t leave him out in the cold. 

Together, Neil and Jeremy spend the holidays with Neil’s family in their hometown of Omaha. They struggle to deal with families, flashbacks… and feelings that haven’t even begun to fade since their last failed attempt at more than friends. As they try to repair their fractured psyches and rebuild damaged bridges, they rely on each other more than ever, but they can’t deny the mutual attraction that’s existed since before they were both emotionally battered and scarred.  If they couldn’t make it work back then, how in the world can they pull it off now?

Now Available: O Come All Ye Kinky Holiday Anthology

The O Come All Ye Kinky Holiday Anthology is now available from Riptide Publishing!  It's available in paperback or ebook, and can be purchased from Riptide, Amazon, AllRomance, and Rainbow Ebooks. I'll be adding more links to my website as they're available.

20% of Proceeds Benefit the NLA-I Domestic Violence Project(details)

Christmas is a time of love and joy, and the New Year is a time of renewal. But they are also times of stress and strife, family drama, pressure and heartache—a potent mix of high expectations and conflicted emotions. Add in power exchange relationships, kinky gift swaps, and unconventional love in a sometimes unforgiving world, and you have a formula for a sizzling anthology of stories that tug at your heart.

From Ava March’s forbidden Regency love among men, to Katie Porter’s scorching hot contemporary tale of two women discovering holiday happiness, everyone will find a favorite here. Pervertible toys abound: Lambda Literary Award finalist L.A. Witt’s candy cane, Jane Davitt’s wrapping paper and tape, and Alexa Snow’s Christmas candles all please and delight. Newcomer Elyan Smith and fan favorite Kim Dare both celebrate New Year’s Eve with romantic flair and kinky fireworks, while bestselling author Joey W. Hill’s poignant story of love lost and regained will lead you home.

Whatever your desires, we invite you to explore new fantasies and old with these eight kinky tales of holiday happy endings.

Also, keep an eye out tomorrow -- From Out in the Cold will be released!

More shiny new cover art!

The blurb isn't quite ready to go yet, but here is the cover for the sequel to A Chip In His Shoulder, Something New Under the Sun:

Due out late January 2013. More info to come.