Jaci Burton’s Muse

Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there. I hope you have a wonderful day!!

I’m very thankful for all my kids and my granddaughter, who over the years have made me laugh, made me cry, have made my heart hurt and have made my heart squeeze with joy and love. I love you all and I couldn’t imagine my life without you.

And though she’s not with me anymore, and I miss her a lot, I’m so thankful to have had an incredible mom who taught me about unconditional love, about sacrifice, about giving and warmth. She taught me what it was like to be a good mother, and I will never forget her. Love you, Mom.

If you’ve Tivo’d all your favorite reality shows this week, beware. There be spoilers ahead.

First, The Bachelor. This week was The Women Tell All, i.e. they drag the end of the series out another week to suck up more money from the sponsors. Really, a boring show and nothing new revealed. So what do you think? Will he choose Shayne or Chelsea? I think Shayne is a little young for him, but I really like her. Something about Chelsea bugs me. Maybe it’s her issues with public displays of affection. We’ll see how it goes.

American Idol. Finally, America gets it right and sends Jason Castro home, who really wanted to go home anyway according to his interview last week in Entertainment Weekly. Think he purposely forgot the lyrics to Mr. Tambourine Man? I don’t know. Maybe. Either way, I’m not sorry to see him go. Final three next week and you never know how the voters are going to vote. I see a David vs David finale, but I’ve been surprised before. I love David Cook, but not sure he should win. He might be better letting some producer pick him up independently so he can record what he wants.

America’s Next Top Model - finally, Dominique is gone. She was getting on my last nerve. Actually I didn’t think any of them stood out at the photo shoot this week, though Anya did take a gorgeous picture. I really like all three of the girls remaining, so it should be fun to see who wins.

Survivor - I was falling off the sofa last night from laughing so hard.

What flaming dumbass gives up Immunity when you’re locked in with it and heading into the finale? Oh yeah…Erik. That flaming dumbass. O-M-G. Even the jury was open mouthed and laughing at him. He has to be the dumbest player to ever play this game. And the four women left standing are freakin brilliant. I applaud them all. I can’t wait for the finale because they’ve played it well.

Thoughts, opinions, disagreements?

First, don’t forget that Brenda Novak’s Auction for Diabetes Research is still going strong and will continue throughout the entire month of May! So go take a look at all the great stuff up for bid and be sure to put your bids in. I have an auction going for an autographed copy of my Demon Hunter series books, to include an ARC of THE DARKEST TOUCH, releasing Oct 28th! You can see my auction here.

Second, I’m excited to announce that Wild, Wicked & Wanton is a finalist in the Romance Writer’s Ink More Than Magic contest in the erotic romance category!

There are some rockin’ awesome books in this category, as well as great finalists in all the categories. I’m listing them all after the jump. Congrats to everyone!

Read the rest of this entry »

Just got it this morning!

RIDING TEMPTATION releases October 7th from Berkley Heat, and is the 2nd book in the Wild Riders series.

Blurb below:

He’s a biker working undercover for the Feds. She joined the Wild Riders for reasons of her own. Together, they’re burning up the asphalt and tearing headlong into danger and passion…

Ever since runaway Jessie Matthews teamed up with the gang of special ops bikers, the Wild Riders have thought of her as their kid sister. Except for Diaz Delgado. Over the past few years he’s been watching the budding of a ripe young woman. Jessie’s glad somebody finally sees her for who she is—and she’s thrilled it’s Diaz. His dark good looks and killer body have tempted her since day one.

Diaz’s unbrotherly urges have been hard to fight but the last thing he’d want to do is hurt Jessie and break up the gang. But when they both go undercover to infiltrate a group of killer survivalists, he knows it’ll be hard to keep his distance—especially when the mission takes a risky turn. Now Diaz has no choice but to open himself up to the one woman who may be strong enough to take him on.

RIDING TEMPTATION is available for Preorder at Amazon.

This cover makes me drool.

First, UNWRAPPED was chosen by the reviewers at ROMANCE REVIEWS TODAY as the Best Contemporary Erotic Romance of 2007! Isn’t that awesome? Thank you RRT! You can see all the winning books here at RRT’s Blog.

Second, NOTHING PERSONAL will release in print in June, and is available now for preorder on Amazon!

It was nothing personal, just a business arrangement.

Ryan McKay is a multi-millionaire with a problem. He needs a bride to fulfill terms of his grandfather’s will. Unfortunately, the one he chose just bailed on him and he’s hours away from losing his company. Enter Faith Lewis - his shy, devoted assistant. Ryan convinces Faith to step in and marry him, assuring her their marriage is merely a business deal. Ryan is certain he can keep this strictly impersonal. After all, he’s the product of a loveless marriage and for years has sealed his own heart in an icy stone. Despite Faith’s warmth, compassion and allure, he’s convinced he’s completely immune to her charms.

Faith will do anything for her boss, but marry him? The shy virgin sees herself as plain and unattractive, a product of a bitter mother who drummed it into her head that she wasn’t worthy of a man’s love. But she agrees to help Ryan fulfill the terms of his grandfather’s will, hoping she doesn’t lose her heart to him in the process.

But love rarely listens to logic, and what follows is anything but business.

Had a great, and busy, weekend.

Friday night my granddaughter spent the night. She’s 4 and adorable. We sat together and watched Rattatouile. Very cute movie, but about 3/4 of the way through I could tell she was getting tired (mainly, because she kept asking me how much longer until the movie was over). So I paused the movie, read her a story and put her to bed. Then I watched the rest of the movie myself. It was very cute. Hey, I love kid movies and I highly recommend this one if you haven’t seen it yet. Several laugh out loud moments.

Saturday the sun was shining. A bit windy, but the temps climbed into the high 60’s so I decided I needed to repot some plants and plant some bulbs. I had some gladiolas I’d bought to plant over at the side of the garden (my mom loved white gladiolas) so put those in (after much wrestling with tree roots that were in my way-ugh!). Then some of my house plants were looking kind of icky, so I dragged those outside, kneeled in the driveway and cut away the dead stuff and repotted one of my peace lillies. My plants are all much happier now, and so am I. But oh my legs, my knees, my back. Can you say out of shape? By Saturday night I couldn’t get off the couch without groaning. Bleh.

Sunday there was no wind and the sun was warm and gorgeous, so Biker Dude and I decided to take a ride up north to Woolaroc Museum. Nothing like riding your bike next to deer nestled on the side of the road, and seeing buffalo! The museum itself is lots of fun too.

On the ride up there, we took the back roads. We were zipping along this county road and a farmer came out of his gate with his dog at his side. The farmer waved to us and I waved back.

He was young, in a sleeveless muscle shirt, tan, nice smile, great body, and boom! A story line popped into my head. Riding on the back of the bike for a long period of time, with nothing to do but watch the scenery go by, is a great time to clear my head and think. So I thought about that farmer (who, by the way, had an awesomely beautiful house). A story began to form in my head, a heroine appeared, and the story went in all different directions. By the time we got home last night I sat at my computer and whipped out several pages of plotline.

And that’s how writers sometimes get their story ideas.

Of course I immediately tossed it in my plotlines folder, because I’m working on a book that’s due July 1st. No time to play with uncontracted stories right now.

The uncontracted ones are always the easiest ones to play with, ya know. No pressure.

This week I’ll be writing. On the contracted book.
And I’m giving an online workshop at NEORWA on worldbuilding, along with my pal Mandy Roth.
This Saturday I’ll be giving a workshop on Before And After The Sale for my local RWA Chapter.
And I really need to make an appointment to have my hair colored.
Edited To Add: My lovely Samhain editor sent me edits for Dare To Love this morning, so I’ll be tackling those first.

So how was your weekend? And what’s on tap for this week?

We get some amazing spring storms here in Oklahoma.

Here’s some pics a friend of our daughter’s took last night of the storm that passed right over Oklahoma State University. It dropped a funnel cloud down over the college, but fortunately a tornado didn’t touch down. And our daughter is finished with college for the summer so she’s back home now.

These are gorgeous pictures. And our Mother Nature is fierce, isn’t she?

I’m giving away Wild Wicked & Wanton and Exclusive on the Writeminded blog today, so head over there for a chance to win!

Also, my auction at the Brenda Novak Diabetes auction is now live, so you can bid on me now!!! (it wasn’t live until last night).

I’ve already bid on several cool items. Now I must watch them to be sure I’m not overbid. Plus there are a few more I’m keeping my eye on that I might want to bid on. No, really, watching an auction all day long isn’t cutting into my productivity at all.

It’s time for Brenda Novak’s annual Online Auction for Diabetes Research!

If you’ve never seen this auction, you really need to go and see the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of items up for bid. Anything and everything for readers and writers, from editor critique evaluations, manuscript reads, authors giving away ARCs and autographed books to just general fun stuff. There are even trips being given away! Phone calls with your favorite author. Lunch with your favorite author. And some big ticket items like a camcorder, a big screen TV, computers.

Dude…don’t miss this. And the proceeds all benefit Diabetes Research so it’s all going to a very worthy cause!

I’m participating in the auction this year and I couldn’t be more excited about it. I’m auctioning a Demon Hunter series prize pack - an autographed copy of Surviving Demon Island, an autographed coy of Hunting the Demon, AND an Advanced Reader Copy of The Darkest Touch, which doesn’t release until October 28th. So please bid on my auction!!! Click here to see my auction!

Time for me to go shopping in auction land.

Don’t forget I’m guest blogging today over at Jennifer’s Random Musings. Jennifer is giving away cool prizes all this week while she’s hosting the Writeminded Authors. So come see me!