Toy Boy!

       
The Sequel!
by Sharon Archer

The lid is off gadget box two so I’m sharing a selection in a photographic tour!

And they came into the house Two by Two!  After all, if one is good, surely more is better! 

 














This is a device for re-setting little ink-jet cartridges so you can use every drop of ink in the container!  I’ve no idea how it works but it makes my budget-chromosome super happy.






A USB stick and antenna that enable a computer to work as a television.  We got this for the trip around Australia on the motorbike.  The trip was awesome – alas the computer/television was not.  Glenn tweaked and tweaked and tweaked some more but it never worked.









 The PDA!  Very old now but an excellent gadget for many years.  The keyboard was just the bee’s knees!  I lusted after this!
 

A low-tech gadget and just what every up-and-coming golfer needs -  a golf ball monogrammer.  Surely it has to help your golf swing!












And of course, each of these gadget comes with its own cord!  Naturally each cord has different plugs so no cord can be used for multiple devices. Is there a plural noun for electrical leads – I’m thinking of coining one – a spaghetti of leads!

Any thoughts on the collective noun for leads?  Or even a collective noun for gadgets?



I'm giving away another copy of THE MAN BEHIND THE BADGE to celebrate - the paperback edition of the book has sold out on the Mills & Boon Australia website!  Other editions are still available from other sites (links on my website) and the e-Book is still available from Mills & Boon Australia.

Sunday Smooch

Welcome to another LoveCats DownUnder Sunday Smooch!


Today we have a smooch from The Man Behind the Badge by Sharon Archer, but first ...

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


Congratulations, Ju! Can you please contact Anna Campbell at

anna (at) annacampbell (dot) info

and she'll send you a copy of Midnight's Wild Passion.

And now for today's Sunday Smooch from The Man Behind the Badge by Sharon Archer...


However hard city-girl and new-doc-in-town Kayla Morgan tries, she can’t resist being impressed by the law-enforcing Tom Jamieson! But taking a bullet in the line of duty has made cop Tom rethink his work hard, party harder lifestyle – will he ever let Kayla see the real man behind the badge?

[Set-up: Kayla is the doctor-on-duty at a High Country camp draft weekend. Everything about the event is a first for her, including spending the night in a tent. Tom's family has a traditional barbecue on the Saturday night and Kayla has agreed to go. As far as she's concerned, regardless of how attracted she is to Tom, the dinner is not a date!

Tom walks her back to her tent afterwards and this is their first kiss...]



“Kayla?” Tom stepped closer to her, felt the heat of her body reaching out to his. “I’m going to step out of line.”

She looked up at him. He felt the small shudder that shook her. “Are you?”

“Yes.” He ran his finger tips up her arm. “What are you going to do about it?”

“N-nothing.”

Lifting his free hand slowly, he cupped her face, feeling the soft skin against his palm, the cool silk of her hair across his fingers. She tilted her head, offering her mouth to him.

He could feel the tension in her, watched as her lips parted slightly and she bit down on her bottom lip for a tiny second then released it so it plumped back up.

He leaned forward slowly, gave her time to stop him. Her eyelids drifted shut. Over the thunder of his heart, he heard her quick shuddering breath.

And then his lips touched hers, pressing gently and everything else became irrelevant. The sensation was electric, exquisite. He rubbed his mouth across hers slowly, backwards and forwards. The sweet softness gave under the pressure, inviting, making him want more than he should on a first kiss.

Eyes shut, he savoured the explosion of taste. Delicious. Exciting.

Her fingers wrap around his wrist. Flexing once, twice, as though she was debating whether to tug his hand away. But in the end she just held him as though anchoring herself.

He drew her bottom lip into his mouth with a gentle suction and ran his tongue over the succulent flesh. Then reluctantly let it go.

Pulling back slowly, he struggled to surface. Kayla didn’t move for a long moment, her mouth stayed offered up to his, swollen, inviting. Unbearably tempting.

Her eyes opened. He heard the shaky breath she sucked in, saw her breasts rise and fall. He clenched his jaw with the effort of not plunging back to take more. He wanted to bury his fingers deep in her hair, use both hands so he could tip her head and take their kiss to a whole new level. Pull her under into the tide of excitement that was raging through him, threatening to sweep him away.

But he had to resist. He wasn’t in this for a quick tumble. He wanted more, wanted it all. This was for keeps. The thought crystallised. She was what he wanted for his future.

Reining in his lust, he pressed a kiss to each corner of her mouth and stepped back.

“Let’s get you into your tent.” His voice was hoarse.

“M-my tent?” She sounded as dazed as he felt.

“Yeah. While I still remember my promise to behave,” he muttered as he bent to unzip the door. His fingers fumbled with the tab but after a moment he had it open. “There you go.”

“Th-thanks.” She stepped into the tent. “Goodnight, Tom.”

With a sense of desperation, he quickly zipped the door closed before he could disgrace himself by begging.


The Man Behind the Badge is out in the UK in May 2011, Australia/New Zealand in June 2011, and USA in June 2011.

To be in the draw to win a signed copy, simply answer this question!

Do you remember your first kiss?

Come back next Sunday, when the winner of today's giveaway will be announced -- and a smooch from Prince of Scandal by Harlequin author Annie West will be posted!

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!