Sunday Smooch

Welcome to another LoveCats DownUnder Sunday Smooch!


Today we have a smooch from Shipwrecked With Mr Wrong by Nikki Logan, but first ...


the winner of last week's Sunday Smooch Giveaway is -- Danielle J!


Congratulations, Danielle! Can you please contact Natalie Anderson at

natalie (at) natalie-anderson (dot) com

and she'll send you a copy of The End of Faking It.

And now for today's Sunday Smooch from Shipwrecked With Mr Wrong by Nikki Logan...


Being marooned in paradise with a stunning woman should be the perfect way for a playboy to get shipwrecked. However, Rob Dalton would have chosen a slightly friendlier companion!

Prickly marine conservationist Honor Brier clearly just wants to be left alone with her birds and turtles. Physically and emotionally scarred, Honor has no time for infuriatingly attractive accidental tourists. yet, tought she won't admit it, Rob's passion for life--and for her--is reawakening her: body, mind and soul....


The Setup ... Biologist Honor Brier has been living in isolation on remote Pulu Keeling National Park since a tragedy ripped her family away from her and left her permanently scarred down her left side. One day the gods deliver her a gorgeous, bright, vital man in the form of shipwreck hunter Rob Dalton who damages his work-boat on the coral atol surrounding the island and has to come ashore to await a shepherd back to safe harbour. Alone on the island it takes a few days before hostilties between them ease. Rob charms her in a hundred ways--even when he's not trying to.

In this scene he's just witnessed the first midnight turtle-hatching of the season where one hundred leathery little turtles swarm out of an under-sand nest and scramble for the waterline.

Honor is bound by her scientific ethics not to intervene, even when giant frigate birds line the shore plucking the innocent little turtles off one-by-one. But Rob decides he's in no way bound and he rescues six little turtles that were running into the path of danger and sees them safely to the waters edge. Honor's final resistance to him melts under the tropical moonlight.

He offers her a deal - one kiss for every turtle saved.




 
‘You don’t want to kiss me.’ Honor knew the impact her scars had on people. She wasn’t hung-up about it but she was also a realist.

‘Correction, I’ve wanted to kiss you from the moment I saw you.’ Sincerity was live in his eyes but still she doubted. Maybe a kiss wasn’t such a big deal where he came from, just a bit of fun? He couldn’t know that she’d only been kissed by two men in her whole life; her first kiss when she was fourteen and then her husband. Rob would make three.

If she was entertaining the suggestion.

She swallowed. Her heart thumped an SOS in her chest but her body wasn’t listening. How good would it be to give in to her yearning, to taste him just for a moment? She imagined how his lips would feel against hers but, more than anything, she wanted to nibble her way along that spectacular jaw line. She could almost reach it from here…

In her dreams. This was just a bit of fun for Rob, gentle flirting. He was probably bored. And the best way to handle a flirt? Call them on it.

‘Fine, one kiss.’

His pupils flared and he bent his head toward her.

‘One small kiss.’

‘One small kiss,’ he nodded ‘for each turtle?’

A crazy part of her was enjoying the verbal foreplay. He was waking nerve endings she hadn’t used in a long, long time. ‘Turtles hatched, or turtles saved?’

He smiled, caught out. ‘Okay, saved.’

Six small kisses. Just kisses. Every part of her wanted to say yes and that alone rang alarm bells. He was perfection in deck shoes, funny and gentle, and all of this probably meant nothing to him. Just a bit of casual sport. It was what he did, after all.

He played.

‘Deal.’

If he was surprised, he didn’t show it. ‘Where would you like the first one?’

A wild streak she’d virtually forgotten she had surged forward. She stood straighter and looked at him fearlessly. ‘Cheek.’

He smiled, leaned in excruciatingly slowly and brushed gentle lips across one flushed cheek. They were cool and soft against her flaming skin. He smelled of sea-salt and moonlight. She could survive this…

‘Next?’

‘Other cheek. That’s two.’

‘Thank you, I can count.’ He leaned to her other side and moved his mouth slightly against her other cheek. Lingering. The scent of warm man eddied around her. It was like a natural stimulant.

‘Three and four?’

Honor took a deep breath. Only two chaste kisses and her heart was ready to beat right out of its cavity. She closed her eyes and every other sense kicked into overdrive. She felt him lean in, the air around her humming at his approach. His lips touched one eyelid and then the other. Soft, slow and delightful.

She’d felt his smile against her first eyelid but when they fluttered open, he wasn’t smiling any more. And he’d shifted closer, almost touching her chest with his.

Mustn’t lean forward… She’d never felt such a burning desire to close a gap in her life. She raised her hands up to his chest to stop herself from doing precisely that but feeling the hard heat of his chest through his shirt only reminded her how long it had been since she’d felt a man’s heartbeat under her fingers. Her lips.

Five.

He didn’t need to say it. Wordless, she tipped her head sideways, exposing the long length of her neck. The good side. She pointed to a spot just next to where her pulse beat its fevered tattoo.

He leaned in closer and held her steady with one large hand on each arm. Then he slowly moved toward the place she’d identified. Honor let her heavy eyelids close again, breathless with anticipation, then felt him pull away. Disappointment ached in her throat. When she opened her eyes, his were glittering with desire and something else.

Speculation.

Before she could react, he twisted and narrowed the space between them and then pressed his mouth against the other side of her neck. Right on the leathery patchwork of her scars.

Shock stiffened her body and sensation assaulted her. She pushed away instinctively, but he held fast. Surgery had done nothing to reduce sensation where the grafts had been applied. If anything, the still-healing skin was hyper-sensitive. Electric currents shot out from the warmth of his mouth as he lazily kissed his way over her damaged skin. A lifetime of emotions surged through her—panic, desire, confusion, sorrow—but when his tongue got in on the act, her legs gave completely away.




Shipwrecked With Mr Wrong is an April 2011 release for the RIVA line (UK), and a June 2011 release for Sweet (Aust/NZ). Have you ever been to an island (secluded or otherwise)? Nikki has a copy of Shipwrecked With Mr Wrong to give away to a lucky commenter.


Come back next Sunday, when the winner of today's giveaway will be announced -- and a smooch from Her Innocence, His Conquest by international guest Jules Bennett will be posted!

Knocked down seven times, get up eight.

Reading: Just Breathe – Susan Wiggs

Watching: Guinea Pigs jump

Making me smile: Rellies visiting from Sydney




You’ve read books where every word is pitch perfect. Where the characters are so real you feel as if they are speaking directly and only to you. When you reluctantly read the last page – that final sentence – the ending stays with you, a warm knowing feeling. There’s a lesson to take away and it found its way to your heart big time. Last night I began reading Susan Wiggs’ Just Breathe. In the first chapter we learn that the heroine has already been through the wringer: needing to leave her family and hometown, discovering problems with infertility, suffering knockbacks with her job, helping her partner triumph over cancer. This woman is strong, courageous, intelligent, caring, loyal. She faces her challenges head on and conquers them. Nothing can keep her down.

Then her world falls apart.

Writers know we shouldn’t be kind to our characters. What’s a good story, after all, without problems to solve? Without people we aspire to emulate when times get tough? And those kinds of heroes aren’t limited to fiction. When I’m navigating a particularly rough patch, I have looked to persons – real or not – from whom I can draw strength. I have asked myself: What would he/she do? How would they find the grit?

Do you draw from people you admire for guidance, attitude, tenacity when the road ahead looks bleak? Are they real life persons, like role model celebrities, your parents, even children? Have you ever faced a personal trial and wondered how Such-and-Such from That Fabulous Book would handle it?


Two things are for sure. The human spirit is an amazing source of inspiration.

And I can’t wait to see how this Wiggs book ends!

Universal Panacea - Winner!

Thanks, everyone! I've had a lovely time reading all your fascinating responses to my blog!

And now I've drawn the winner from my trusty bucket of names on paper and the winner is -

Kristina Knight!


Kristina could you please get in touch with me on
sharon (@) sharon-archer (dot) com
to organise a copy of my latest release!

Universal Panacea

Good Health In A Jar!

by Sharon Archer


Reading: Diana Wynne Jones, Fire and Hemlock

Watching: Frequency

Making me smile: Clever Professor Thomas Holloway!




I’ve just been on the most wonderful few days away at the lighthouse on Bruny Island, Tasmania, with fellow LoveCats, Rachel Bailey and Nikki Logan, and our friend, Alison.


The quarters were cosy and fun and graciously old-fashioned – a delightful cross between staying at my nana’s place and visiting a working museum. And there were treasures that, as a medical romance writer, I couldn’t resist!

The first was a small ceramic pot that had once been filled with Holloway’s Ointment. This excellent multipurpose salve boasted that it was for The Cure of Gout and Rheumatism, Inveterate Ulcers, Sore Breasts, Sore Heads and Bad Legs.

Surely a must for every household medicine chest – and indeed it was in the 1800s.

The man behind the jar was Thomas Holloway. Born in 1800, he was apprenticed to a chemist at age sixteen. But his true genius was in marketing. Thomas began selling his ointment in 1837 and became an extremely successful “patent medicine merchant”. A born entrepreneur, his ointment and pills were advertised in newspapers around the world and offered full printed directions...in any language, even in Turkish, Arabic, Armenian, Persian or Chinese. The products were offered for sale by nearly every respectable Vendor of Medicine through the Civilized World.

In the wonderfully flowery prose of the nineteenth century, one advertisement assures us that the invaluable unguent acts by stimulating the absorbants to increased activity by preventing congestion and promoting a free and copious circulation in the parts affected, thence speedily and effectually it ensures a cure.

So what did this wonder lotion contain? One reference I found suggests one of the ingredients was opium, another reference, that it was mostly beeswax and lanolin.

Whatever it contained, Thomas's ointment and his pills made him a very, very wealthy man and he went on to become a philanthropist endowing the Holloway Sanatorium and the Royal Holloway College (now part of the University of London)....

But that's a subject for a whole other blog!

So have you got any treasures with wonderful descriptive prose you'd like to share? Or perhaps you've seen an advertisement in an old newspaper for a miracle cure that took your fancy?

I'll give away a copy of my latest release, The Man Behind The Badge, to one commenter!

A Tribute to Diana Wynne Jones

by Emily May

There are a few authors whose books I absolutely love, whose books I collect and reread and reread. Georgette Heyer -- of course! -- and Jenny Crusie, Lois McMaster Bujold and Diana Wynne Jones. Alas, this week came the sad news that Diana Wynne Jones has died.

Jones wrote both young adult (which are my favourites) and adult novels. Her writing is beautiful, quirky, whimsical, and her young adult books are a brilliant mixture of magic and everyday life, menace and humour.

If you haven't read any of Jones' young adult books, you've missed something! If you'd like to discover the magic of her writing for yourself, here are some of my favourites. These are the ones I reread every year:


The Magicians of Caprona -- this is my number one favourite! Set in an alternate Victorian Italy that is awash with magic. It's one of Jones' young adult Chrestomanci series.





Witch Week -- another Chrestomanci book, this time set in a boarding school for witch orphans in a world strangely like our own...






Howl's Moving Castle -- a fabulous book about a perambulatory castle, an (apparently) evil wizard, and a (definitely) evil witch who turns a young girl into an old woman.





The Lives of Christopher Chant -- the story of the young nine-lived magician who will become Chrestomanci (in an alternate Victorian England) -- if he doesn't stop losing his lives...





Charmed Life -- the tale of the young (orphaned) magician who'll be the next Chrestomanci -- but his lives are vanishing too! Is someone else using them up?





Of course, there are other fabulous ones. The Power of Three is one of the first books by Diana Wynne Jones that I ever read, and is at the top of my pile to be read again this year.





And I must reread Conrad's Fate, a Chrestomanci book that went into storage not long after I bought it and has only had one reading!






It's always a joy to read a book by Diana Wynne Jones. Sadly, there will be no more of them; but she has left a marvellous legacy for us to enjoy.

Rest In Peace, Diana Wynne Jones -- you'll be missed.

If you've never read any of Jones' books, do give one a try! And if you've already discovered her, please share your favourites with us.

Sunday Smooch

Welcome to another LoveCats DownUnder Sunday Smooch!


Today we have a smooch from The End of Faking It by Natalie Anderson, but first ...


the winner of last week's Sunday Smooch Giveaway is -- Kaelee!


Congratulations, Kaelee! Can you please contact Sue MacKay at

sue (dot) mackay56 (at) yahoo (dot) com

and she'll send you a signed copy of Playboy Doctor to Doting Dad.

And now for today's Sunday Smooch from The End of Faking It by Natalie Anderson

Everyone fakes it. Don’t they?
A teenage romance-turned-nightmare has taught Penny Fairburn that faking it is the only way to go. It’s not until she meets gorgeous Carter Dodds and his bullet-proof ego that she realises how wrong she’s been!
Carter can have any woman on a plate, and likes the smorgasbord approach! But after some scorching nights with Penny, ‘no-strings’ Carter has changed his tune – Penny’s not faking anything in his bed, but getting her to admit her true feelings for him out in the real world is a whole new challenge…



Penny’s nerves tightened to one notch the other side of screaming. His lashes lowered and his smile faded. She looked down too. Now her silk shirt was wet it was both skin colour and skin tight and she might as well not be wearing anything. Even worse, she was aching… and horrified to realise it was completely obvious.

“You’re cold,” he said softly.

Yeah, completely obvious.

“The water in the jug was from the cooler.”

“So that’s the reason...”

All she could do was brazen this out. She tossed her head and met his eyes direct. “What other reason could there be?”

His lips curved. In his tanned face, his teeth were white and straight and perfect. Actually everything in his face was perfect. And in the dark tee-shirt and dark trousers he looked pretty-boy pirate, especially with the slightly too-long hair. The intensity of his scrutiny was devastating and now he’d fixed on one thing – her mouth.

She saw his intention. She felt it in her lips already – the yearning for touch. But even for her that would be insane. She didn’t like the way her pulse was zigzagging all over the place. She didn’t like the way her body was so willingly bracing for impact.

“Don’t add another insult to the list,” she said, trying to regain control over both of them. But the words didn’t come out as forcefully as she’d intended. Instead they whispered on barely a breath – because she could barely move enough to breathe.

“How can appreciating beauty be an insult?”

Penny’s pulse thundered. She was used to confident men. They were the kind she liked – pretty much bullet proof. But this was more than just superficial brashness, this was innate, absolute arrogance. He stood even closer, filling all her senses. Her blood rushed to all her secret places, and left her brain starving of all ability to operate.

His smile suddenly flashed brighter – like the way the flame flared on a gas hob when you accidentally twisted the knob the wrong way. His hand lifted and he brushed her lips with a finger. She shivered.

Shock. She was in shock. That was the problem. That was why she wasn’t resisting…

His expression heated up all the more. “You okay?”

“Mmm.”

His traversing finger muffled the words she couldn’t speak anyway. She was too busy pressing her lips more firmly together to stop herself from opening up and inviting him in. But somehow he got that invite anyway because he lifted his finger and swiftly replaced it with his mouth.

Oh.

It was light. A warm, gentle, coaxing kiss that promised so much more than it gave. But what it did give was good. He moved closer, not threatening, but with a hint of masculine spice and just enough pressure to make her accept him. To make her want more. Surprised that it wasn’t a full throttle brazen burst of passion, she relaxed. Her eyes automatically closed as her body focused on the exquisite sweetness trickling into her. It had been a long time since she’d felt anything so nice – a subtle magic that melted her resistance, and saw her start to strain for what she knew he was holding at bay.

Her lips parted – she couldn’t deny herself. His response came immediate, and powerful. She heard his sound of satisfaction and his hands moved from the steel behind to her soft body. She trembled top to toe as he swiftly shaped her curves, pulling her against him. She had to grab hold of his shoulders or she was going to tumble backwards. The kiss deepened again as she felt the wide, flat planes and hard strength of him. Her neck arched back as he stroked into her mouth. She lifted her hand, sliding her fingers into his thick hair. He showed no mercy then – bending her back all the more as he sought full access – kissing her jaw and neck and back up again to claim her mouth – this time with confident, carnal authority.

She shuddered at the impact, felt him press closer still. Sandwiched between him and the cabinet, she was trapped between forces as unyielding and demanding as each other. Yet she had no desire to escape, not now.

The arrogance of him was breathtaking. But not anywhere as breathtaking as the way he kissed. It was like he was determined to maximise pleasure for them both and the control she usually held so tight started to slide as her own desire mounted.

He was silk-wrapped steel and she wanted to feel all of him against her, slicing into her. She wanted him. Wanted like she hadn’t wanted anyone in a long, long time. Okay, ever. Hungry for his strength and passion, she kissed him back – melting against his body, delving into his mouth with her tongue, so keen to explore more.

And he knew. He lifted his hand from her waist to her breast and oh so lightly stroked his fingers across her violently taut nipple.

She felt the touch as if her skin was bare. And it burned too hot.

She jerked back, ripping her mouth free from his. Their eyes met, faces inches apart. A flare of something dangerous kindled in his – different to the earlier fury but just as frightening for Penny. She pushed as far back against the cool metal cabinet as she could, breathing hard. She shook her head, the only method of communication she could manage. While he stood, rock hard, and stared right back at her.


The End of Faking It is out in the UK in April; Australia & New Zealand in May; and the US in July. Of course, you can get it online as an e-book from Mills & Boon now!
http://www.millsandboon.co.uk/books/riva/the-end-of-faking-it.htm

To be in the draw to win a signed copy of The End of Faking It, tell Natalie in the comments below, do you think it’s ever okay to fake it?


Come back next Sunday, when the winner of today's giveaway will be announced -- and a smooch from Shipwrecked With Mr Wrong by Nikki Logan will be posted!

How's The Serenity?

So, y'all might know that I went away with Nikki Logan, Sharon Archer and a friend of ours to a lighthouse keeper's cottage (the middle cottage in the picture on the left) recently for a writing retreat. Happy sigh.

And since I've been home, I've been thinking about the serenity (and now thinking of the movie The Castle because that's such a great quote!).

I moved out from Brisbane a few years ago, so my life already has less noise than some others', but there's still the garbage truck, the planes overhead, the neighbour's cars on the road and dogs barking down the street. And from inside the house, there's the internet. I love the internet, I truly do. But after being away without it for a week, I'm more aware than ever about how much it  affects my serenity.

So, I'm thinking that I need one week writing retreat away from the noises of the world every month. Which probably isn't going to happen. ;) But I do need to bring more serenity back into my life. Perhaps I need to find a nice spot around here - on the side of a mountain, maybe - and visit it once a month. I used to meditate regularly, but since I've become too busy... you guessed it, I let the meditation drop off.

Is there somewhere you go to get a dose of serenity? Something you do? I'd love to hear some of your ideas!