Rekindled is Live!

I have so much to share with you this post! Okay, here goes...

First off, Rekindled is officially live on Amazon. It will appear in the near future on Barnes & Noble, Kobo and iBooks (Apple), and in paperback as well. Woot! I'm so excited for you to read Alex and Grace's story.

Secondly, I've bundled the first three books of the Titanium Security Series, for those of you who prefer box sets. This first set includes Ignited, Singed and Burned, for $5.99.

Thirdly, I've received the rights back to 4 of the 5 books in my Suspense Series, and have revised them. Some are already up for sale in both digital and paperback, and hopefully all of them will be available in both formats by next weekend.

Here are the gorgeous new covers and the scoop on the new editions: 

Book #1, Out of Her League: has been heavily revised, and I'm offering it for $0.99 until the end of the month. It's basically still the same storyline, but stronger and tighter.

Book #2, Cover of Darkness: has not been changed at all, since my publisher still holds the rights and will continue to do so for several more years.

Book #3, No Turning Back: same story, only tighter.

Book #4, Relentless: ditto, although it's not expected to be up at retail sites until late next week.

Book #5, Absolution: my favorite book of the series! I've tightened it and tweaked a few things. I love the cover image of Luke with his distinguished head of gray-streaked hair, and Em wearing her long wig while she faces her brave battle with breast cancer.

I hope you love this new look for the Suspense Series as much as I do! I'll be holding a Facebook and Twitter party to celebrate the release of Rekindled in about 10 days, so stay tuned for more details!

Until then, happy reading.

Kaylea :)

A Rose By Any Other Name

Writing has been...challenging lately, to say the least. I've had my confidence shaken a few times in the past couple weeks, but I'm determined to keep plugging away anyhow. I've been thinking a lot about how my writing career started, back when the goal was simply to GET published. As it turns out, getting a contract is still as tough as it ever was. Sometimes it feels even tougher.

If you've been reading my blog at all, by now you know that I'm a gardener. This picture to the left has a place of honor in my little slice of paradise. Out of Her League was the first book I ever published, and it was under the Crimson Rose imprint of The Wild Rose Press. In honor of receiving the contract, I went out and shopped around for a red rose tree, something special to commemorate my first sale. This rose is called Black Cherry, and its blooms were described as "deep crimson red". And darned if the first blooms didn't appear the week that Out of Her League released, in August of 2008. *cue Twilight music*

Right now I'm plugging away on another short novella requested by one of my Carina Press editors for my other pen name. And when I take a break to recharge my muse throughout the summer, you can be sure I'm going to stop and smell the roses

Christmas Molasses Spice Cookies

I was at Christa's house last night because she invited me over to bake cookies, and I got an extra surprise because Bryn was in town for a visit too. Rayne was working a night shift, so all of us ladies sat around the kitchen chatting and laughing while the snow fell outside and carols played from the stereo in the family room. It was pretty magical. You should have seen the house! It's a pale yellow Victorian with a wrap-around veranda, and twinkling with swags of white Christmas lights. With the light snowfall we got yesterday, the place looked like something out of a Christmas card. Christa's got three trees done up, one decorated entirely with baseball ornaments, and the inside smells like fresh cut cedar boughs she took from her yard and made into a garland on her banister. Her border collie-cross Jake was running around with his reindeer antlers on, and loving all the attention we gave him.

While we baked we got to talking about Bryn's story (Cover of Darkness), which is coming out the end of February. I don't want to give any spoilers away, but Bryn seems pretty happy with it so I was tickled pink. But I have to tell you, she's not much of a cook. Or a baker, for that matter (don't you dare tell her I said that, because I'm actually a little bit afraid of her). She pretty much supervised and finished off a bottle of wine while Christa and I did the work until I made her do some of the measuring. We made four different kinds of cookies and a batch of sinful rocky road brownies, and then Bryn gave us all a belly dance class workout. It was a blast!

My favorite recipe follows, which Christa graciously gave me. She's a real sweetheart, and looking forward to getting married next November. I can't wait either!

These cookies are great fresh from the oven, but they're just as good up to a week later if you keep them in an air tight container. Enjoy, and Merry Christmas from Christa, Bryn and me.

Christmas Molasses Spice Cookies
Ingredients:
2.5 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp baking soda
0.5 tsp salt
2 tsp ground ginger
1 heaping (and I mean heaping--heck, just put in 2) tsp ground cinnamon
0.5 tsp ground allspice
big pinch of cracked or coarsely ground black pepper (don't wimp out on me, it's worth it!)

1.5 sticks (0.75 cup) room temp butter
1 cup packed light brown sugar
0.5 cup molasses (not blackstrap!)
1 large egg

0.5 cup sugar for rolling the cookies

Method:
-preheat oven to 350
-combine flour, baking soda, salt, ginger, cinnamon, allspice, and pepper
-using a mixer, beat butter, sugar and molasses until smooth and creamy
-add egg and beat for 1 minute
-add dry ingredients and beat slowly until flour and spices disappear (make sure to scrape bottom of bowl to get everything evenly combined)
-dough will be very soft, so divide in half, wrap each piece in plastic wrap and chill for at least one hour
-put "rolling" sugar in a small bowl
-using one half of dough at a time, cut/break into 12 pieces and roll each into a smooth ball between your palms (Bryn wanted no part of this step!)
-roll each ball in sugar and place on parchment/Silpat lined baking sheet (Christa and I both use Silpat sheets and we love them, FYI). Don't put them too close together because they'll spread out.
-dip bottom of drinking glass (wine glasses in our case :)) in sugar and press down on each ball of dough until they are between a quarter to a half inch thick
-place sheet on center rack of the oven and bake 12-14 minutes, or until tops of cookies are set, then transfer to cooling rack and cool to room temp if you can wait that long
-the cookies will be crunchy around the edges and chewy in the middle. Yum!

Out of Her League Wins First Place!

I'm thrilled to announce that Out of Her League has won first place in romantic suspense category of the 2009 Volusia County RWA Laurel Wreath contest.

It beat out entries from several highly accomplished authors, but what tickles me the most is that the judges chose an e-pubbed book as the winner for the category. Sometimes it feels like e-pubbed authors don't get recognition or respect from other sectors in the publishing industry, so it was nice that my entry (and my publisher) was taken seriously. And, they liked it! They really, really liked it :) I greatly appreciate their support.

Plus, two fellow Greater Vancouver RWA chapter mates placed along with me. Susan Lyons placed second in the long contemporary category with her erotic romance She's On Top (Kensington Aphrodisia), and Mary J. Forbes won the short contemporary with Their Secret Child (Silhouette).

Out of Her League playlist

I'm going to be posting a few things regarding my books as we get closer to my next release date in February. Character interviews, recipes they like to cook (or eat, in Bryn's case--she's a terrible cook). I cleaned out my iPod today to make room for my new WIP, and thought I'd share some of the songs from my first book, Out of Her League.

You may recall in an earlier post I find having a playlist for my current book or even some songs particular for a certain character in that book really helps get my creative juices flowing. Even now when I'm driving and a song from one of my playlists comes on the radio, I'm instantly transported back to that book and its characters. Kind of neat, actually.

So, here are some of the songs I kept around for when I needed inspiration for Out of Her League:

-Every Breath You Take (The Police--theme song for Seth and the whole book, really)
-Nights In White Satin (The Moody Blues--this was for Luke and Emily's flashback scene where he shows up at her door in the middle of the night in the pouring rain)
-Interstate Love Song (Stone Temple Pilots)
-Kickstart My Heart (Motley Crue--this always makes me think of softball because it played during warm-ups in Canada Cup one year when I was starting against Team Australia. Trust me, it was a memorable--if short :)--experience. So I used this for writing the scenes where Christa is catching during the game.)
-Ghost (Live)
-All We Are (Kim Mitchell--for the ending climax scene with Rayne taking down Seth)
-I'm Ready (Bryan Adams--this is Rayne's theme song, because it took him a long time to become a happily ever after kind of guy. Only Christa could have brought that out in him.)

If you've never tried the playlist trick of jumpstarting your creativity, give it a whirl. I bet you'll find it helps when you get stuck!