Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Release Day!

So, I've been all over the net blogging and posting and talking about Just Right releasing today... but neglected my own blog! :)

I mentioned on Facebook that I think release day is even better than my birthday! Partly because I'm far past the age of getting brightly frosted cupcakes, new bikes and wearing a tiara at school! Now birthdays are dinner of my choice (which, don't get me wrong, is just fine!) and something nice from Steady and a homemade card from Ruckus and Finicky. But it also means one more year older and facing the reality my butt is NEVER going to look like it did when I was 20.

Release day on the other hand means my beautiful book cover and name splashed all over, people e-mailing me telling me how they can't wait to read it, people reading excerpts and telling me how great it sounds, etc. I feel appreciated and creative and... fantastic! So, yeah, I like release day better! Because you know what... I got dinner of my choice to celebrate today too! *G*

Here's the blurb and an excerpt from Just Right!

Photobucket

To be a good bad boy you have to find just the right girl…

ER nurse Jessica Bradford is a good girl. Okay, more like a reformed bad girl. She’s determined to be the woman her late father wanted her to be. And she knows she should be with someone like Dr. Ben Torres-- in charge, dedicated, selfless. The tall, dark and handsome part is just a bonus.

So Jessica agrees to keep Ben out of trouble after he’s suspended from the hospital for punching a belligerent, drunk patient in the emergency room. She’ll get the needed recommendation from the Chief of Staff for the promotion she wants and she’ll have a great reason to spend more time with Dr. Perfect. But suddenly she’s got a problem. Outside of work Ben’s not so dependable, or perfect after all…and he’s even more tempting than before.

Ben’s done being everybody’s hero. What’s being a trauma surgeon ever gotten him but horrible hours and a bunch of responsibilities that make his life complicated? His sudden time off from the hospital is not only overdue, it’s a blessing. Which he intends to enjoy fully.

Jessica can’t believe Ben is acting more like a kid in a candy store than a man who’s about to throw his career away. Even more, she can’t believe that she still wants him like ice cream wants hot fudge. She tries her best to keep him out of trouble—except “trouble” is all Ben’s interested in.

And suddenly Jessica’s having trouble remembering why that’s a bad thing…

Excerpt:
There were five words that Jessica hated to hear from her brother.
“Jess, I need a favor.”
Yep. Those were them.
She closed her eyes. “Come on, Sam. I had a long day.” She wanted to prop up in bed, watch Seinfeld reruns and eat a pint of Peanut Butter Passion.
“It’s important, Jess,” Sam said, his tone the one he used for coaxing shy women out onto the dance floor. “I tried to handle it, but I need your help.”
The tone always worked on curvy blondes.
Jessica was not a curvy blonde.
“I’m…busy.”
“Dry your hair and get dressed,” he said. “I told you—it’s important.”
Jessica paused with the comb halfway through her straight brown hair and stared at the phone receiver in the mirror. How had he known her hair was wet? That was weird.
“I said I’m busy.”
“No. You said I’m, then there was a long pause before you said busy.”
She scowled. “So?”
“So, that pause means you were trying to think of a good excuse because you can never quite bring yourself to lie about it. You’re at home. It had to be taking a shower, doing laundry or cleaning the apartment.”
Jessica bristled. “I do other things here than…wash things.”
“Yeah, but if you were really doing anything important you would have actually been busy and you would have just told me what you were busy doing instead of using the noncommittal, generic I’m busy.”
Jessica was thrown off for a moment by her brother using the word noncommittal.
Showing off her own impressive vocabulary, she replied again, “So?”
“I need your help. It should be enough that I say it’s important,” Sam said, moving on from the “busy” conversation, probably bored by now with the topic that wasn’t directly about him.
Of course, important could mean almost anything with Sam.
It could mean he was a few dollars short of getting in on a poker game. It could mean that he needed a place for a couple of buddies from out of town to crash for the weekend. It could mean that one of the girls he’d flirted with had taken him too seriously and he needed an emergency wife to get the girl off his back. Jessica sighed. She hated playing Sam’s wife. He always wanted her to be bitchy and she always ended up feeling bad for the girl.
“It was a really long day at work.”
And it was all because of Ben Torres.
Rumor had it he had been suspended by the Chief of Staff and the hospital attorneys were riled up trying to figure out how to troubleshoot the situation. There were charges pending as well. Manslaughter for Ted. Assault for Ben.
Not that any of it affected Jessica directly. She was an ER nurse. There were more surgeons, there would be more accidents and more patients. But she couldn’t get Ben out of her mind…or suppress her insane urge to make sure he was all right.
“I heard,” Sam said.
Of course he had. Sam was the head paramedic on the best ambulance crew in the city and he not only worked with the ER staff regularly, he was also friends with many of them, including Ben. Matt Taylor, the ER doctor on Ted Blake’s case, was a poker buddy of Sam’s.
“I’m tired and—”
“Shame on you, Jessica Leigh Bradford,” Sam broke in. “I’m your little brother. Your only brother.”
The only part was right. The little part not so much. Sam was younger than Jessica by five years, but she didn’t even come up to his chin.
“I’m not in the mood for this.” But she knew that she didn’t sound convincing. She’d always been a sucker for the little brother bit. Because he was right. He was her younger brother and she felt responsible, even now when he was twenty-five and definitely a big boy.
“Too bad.”
“What is it?” she asked, trying to soak a cotton ball with skin toner with one hand while holding the phone with the other.
“A babysitting job.”
She frowned, forgetting the cotton ball for a moment. “Did you say babysitting?”
“Well, first, do you have a sexy dress?”
Jessica forgot about the toner, cotton ball and everything else. “Excuse me?”
“You’re going to need to borrow one then,” Sam said. “And high heels. Do you have high heels?”
His tone suggested that he sincerely doubted it.
“Of course I do.” They were way in the back of the closet somewhere, but she was pretty sure she still had them.
“What about the dress?”
“I have a dress, Sam.”
“But is it sexy? It will have to be sexy. Maybe you should call Marcy.”
This called for a dress from her friend Marcy? Marcy didn’t dress in anything that didn’t reveal cleavage and lots of it. What in the hell was going on?
“Sam, maybe you’d better define babysitting,” Jessica said grimly.

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Read more!

Saturday, March 20, 2010

Reader's At Home Conference

Thought maybe you'd all like to know about this event! I will be participating! It's a month away or so, but wanted to let you know so you could look forward to it like we are!





What do tons of authors, tons of prizes, tons of hotties and tons
of readers have in common? They’re attending the first ever
Readers at Home Conference! During the week
of April 26-30, authors and readers will converge on Lucy Monroe’s blog, to
celebrate their favorite genre – romance!

We are giving away Swag Bags to the first 50
readers who register for the conference. To register, all you have to
do is send an email to
Lucy Monroe
with your name and mailing address (for the
Swag Bag) stating your intention to attend the RAH Conference. The
Swag Bags are for conference attendees only and we are trusting that
you truly intend to attend the conference and interact with the
authors and other readers on the blog. :) Lucy is shipping the Swag
Bags at her own expense, but many authors have
donated loot for you all, and each Swag Bag will have a free book
inside
.

Yes, that's right - the conference is FREE. How cool is that?

Every day there will be multiple authors visiting and guest blogging,
with new posts going live every 3 hours between 6 AM and 6 PM. Lucy
will post a hottie who is definitely hunky enough to be a cover model
and there will be daily drawings for multiple prizes
(more than 50 over the week!!!), including dozens of signed books, a
B&N gift card, a t-shirt, 3 prize tote bags filled with books and
goodies (from Sue G at BTRB and Becke Davis), free online
subscriptions to Affaire de Couer magazine and 2 more Swag Bags given
away each day. What could be better?

Hope to see YOU there!

Readers at Home Conference Sponsors
~ Guest Blogging Authors ~
Elizabeth Amber
Jules Bennett
Jenna Bayley-Burke
Leigh D'Ansey
Jami Davenport
Kate Davies
HelenKay Dimon
Diana Duncan
Cynthia Eden
Kimberly Fisk
Barbara Freethy
Tricia Jones
Nicola Marsh
Kaylin McFarren
Susan Meier
Elisabeth Naughton
Erin Nicholas
Lorie O'Clare
Rick Reed
Maggie Robinson
Patti Shenberger
Gabi Stevens
Kay Stockham
Helen Scott Taylor
Karen Van der Zee
Mary Wine
Other Readers at Home Conference Sponsors
(donated prizes, items for the Swag Bags, etc.)
Affaire de Coeur
Borders True Romance Blog
Monica Burns
Christie Craig
Lori Foster
Donna Grant
Faye Hughes
Margaret Mallory
Becke Martin
Lucy Monroe
Alexis Morgan
Laurie Ryan
J.L. Wilson

So, while a bunch of us are at RT going crazy, you can be visiting
with some of your favorite and some brand new authors - wearing casual
clothes, ditching the makeup and your shoes. Oh, that? I envy! :)
Lucy Monroe



Friday, March 5, 2010

Some stuff you should know!

Okay, I blog. But I don't necessarily blog here. Because I feel like I can't keep up and I hate that! I blog at the Nine Naughty Novelists, of course, and over at Samhain when it's my turn. But I'm going to make a better effort and keeping stuff up here. I guess I want a place to talk more about my books and how they went from ideas to actual books!





So, let's talk about the next book coming up. I'm counting down to March 30th when Just Right will release. I love this book. It was the fastest, most fun write I'd had up to that point. Jessica and Ben were very real to me early on which made their story easy! And they had heat... which is always fun!





I started Just Right not knowing that it would lead to a series. Never done a series before. But I do love them as a reader. Then as I wrote and got to know the other characters I knew that was where this was going to end up.





Sam, Jessica's brother, and her sister, Sara, both show up in Just Right. And both need their own stories! Sam's story comes out in June. Just Like That is about him and Danika, the only woman to tame this playboy! And then Sara finally admits that she's in love with Sam's best friend, Mac, in Just My Type in September! So, 2010 is going to be fun and I'll be spending a lot of time with the Bradfords! Good thing I like them so much!

Here's some stuff you might like to know (or not...)

Jessica is the oldest. She is five years older than Sam and ten older than Sara.

Their mother left when Sara was two and their father was killed when Jessica was 20. Sara was only ten and so Jessica took over the guardianship of both her siblings, truly raising Sara. They are close, but Jessica is very protective of Sara, spoiling her rotten, and easily exasperated with Sam, who loves playing the irresponsible playboy role where no one really depends on him for anything.

Their dad, David Bradford, founded and ran a center for troubled teens up until he died and the three siblings took that over and continue to run it with his trust.

Ben grew up as the only child of a missionary physician. He spent many of his younger years in Africa with his dad and then went back after medical school. His dad was completely devoted to his work and died in a plane crash in Africa when Ben was a teenager. His mom died about a year before our story starts.

So, there's some baggage. But there's a lot of fun too! Check out the excerpt at my website for example: www.ErinNicholas.com