And that's a wrap on the house

Dad signed the closing papers for his house yesterday, and the other guy signed early this morning. When I drove over today to pick up the last of Dad's stuff, there was already a big-ass crane there, with a crew removing a good many of the trees:

The worst was a big pine tree in the back yard with huge branches overhanging the roof, but the entire back yard was really a jungle. (I looked at it on Google Maps the other day from above, and it looked like a rain forest. You could barely see the house!) The funny thing is that it was an empty field when my parents moved in-- but they planted a lot of trees, and trees can grow really, really big in a half century!

I feel a little sad seeing my childhood home going on to a different family, but it's going to be a nice little house once it's renovated (the buyer was bubbling over with enthusiasm as he showed me the siding and roofing he'd picked out-- he really enjoys making houses come back to life, and it shows). I'm mostly relieved all the selling and the moving is over. I never need make that drive again unless I want to. After making the drive at least twice a week for the past three years, I'm pretty tired of it!

Anyway, I'm finally coming to the point of this post. Yes, I did have a point! I wanted to have Innocent up today, but that's not going to happen. I'm going to dig in and finish it in the next couple of days, and then get Illumination finished too. There will be a long excerpt up for Innocent tomorrow, though. I promise!

That's an interesting nickname

I found my granddad's college yearbook from 1915 online today. The picture is blurry if you try to enlarge it to a decent size (I can get a reprint of the yearbook for a mere $99, but for the time being I think I'll pass on that), but they've kindly typed out the text. It says my granddad's nickname was... Honey-dipper. I don't really want to think about what that might have meant:-P.

What I want to accomplish this year

Books that (along with Dominance and The Billionaire's Pawn) I'm hoping to get to in the first half of 2013:

Books that, for obvious reasons, I'd like to write by summer:


Books I'm looking forward to writing and will work in as soon as I can:

A nice review

Teaching Dallas got a nice review here, which said it was "very hot and sexy."

Upcoming releases, or why I suck

I got a nice comment on my newsletter today, asking me (in the absolute politest possible terms!) where the heck Gambit was. A very reasonable question. I wanted to have Illumination, Innocent, and Gambit all out by the end of this month, but unless I suddenly develop magic speed-typing powers, I think I have to admit that's not gonna happen.

As I've mentioned, my dad moved in with me recently. (He turned 96 Saturday, woot!) He's doing great, and really loves it here, but the issue this month has been that I've been dealing with selling his house. We wound up with two offers from house flippers (it's a 55-year-old house that has never been renovated, so it's going to need a ton of work), and after a good deal of haggling, we sold it. The closing will be at the end of the month.

Now I'm trying to line up a storage place for some of the stuff and move the rest of it over here-- which has involved multiple trips to his house (an hour and a half round trip) to wrap up my great-grandmom's Haviland china and other pretties, to move what pieces of furniture my teenaged daughter and I can manage, and to generally sort through 55 years' worth of stuff, some of which is treasured family memobilia and some of which is junk. Meanwhile, I'm rearranging my own house to make room for all this stuff (I have to somehow cram my mother's upright piano into my dining room, which is going to take some doing!), and I also had the handyman in for three days widening some doors to make the place more handicapped accessible.

In short, it's been a wildly busy month. I apologize most sincerely to those of you who are waiting for my series to get updated-- I know it sucks to be waiting for something and have the author drag her feet getting it out. I am really trying to carve out some writing time, but this month has been a complete disaster as far as writing goes. Here are the dates I'm aiming at right now:

Innocent, February 28
Illumination, March 15
Gambit, March 30

I will try to ease the sting of this delay by putting up excerpts as I get them ready. Check back here for links. And in the meantime, I apologize again, most profusely, and thank you for your patience and your kind emails.

SUPPLICANT is free!

I'm pleased to say that Supplicant has gone free on Amazon, hopefully permanently. It's already free everywhere else! (Alas, it's not free on Amazon UK yet... hopefully soon!)

Working on Innocent

I've been trying to get Innocent finished up. I'm aiming at about 6000 words again, and it's coming along rapidly. Today will be too insanely busy for much writing (though I got up half an hour early and wrote for forty-five minutes before the kids got up!), but I have hopes of getting it done and up by Monday or so. I just reread through what I've got so far and decided I need to ramp up the sexual tension a bit (there can never be too much sexual tension between Dom and Gabriel!), but otherwise, it's pretty good and I'm pleased with it.

I'm thinking about putting these stories up on Amazon, too. Trouble is, Amazon doesn't allow you to put up freebies, so you have to put it up at 99 cents and hope Amazon will price match down to free. I hate for anyone to spend money on it when it's freely available all over the place. But I want as many people as possible to find it, too. What to do, what to do...

New cover

Got a beautiful new cover from Go On Write for Hands On, which has long been my bestselling book and which deserves a pretty makeover!

It's not spring, but who cares?

This daffodil in my front garden is blithely indifferent to the season: