The Dynamic Trio - Blog

Christmas is coming around fast and I have only one rule - I DO NOT GO TO THE MALL AFTER DECEMBER 1st! Why not? Because little old ladies will kick your butt in the mall if you snatch that last goody off the shelf! Just kidding - I actually love this season, though I’ve seen a few grey haired scuffles in my day…and my mother-in-law, who is a cool 74 years old, always wins!

One of my favorite things about the holiday season is music. I especially love the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. My favorite song is Christmas in Sarajevo.

To watch the video click here: Trans-Siberian Orchestra (low bandwith in case you’re on dial up) or Here (for higher connection speed and better clarify)

This song just makes me feel all…Christmas-sy (I know it ain’t a word, but you know what I mean) inside. Not to mention the guys who play the guitars aren’t bad lookin’ - You just can’t beat talent AND good looks!

What’s your favorite holiday song? Tell us and have your name entered in a drawing for your choice of a complimentary download or print copy of one of my new or upcoming releases. The winner will be announced Thursday, December 7th.

Tootles - fa la la la la, la la-la laaaaa,

TJ
www.tjmichaels.com
www.myspace.com/tj_michaels

If you like paranormal stories of shape shifters, witches, vampires and wizards or futuristics set on far away planets look no further. Try a book written by one of the Dynamic Duo.

Lauren Dane

TJ Michaels

Shelley Munro

That’s taken from my front porch in about three seconds because it’s 15 degrees and I was cold! Not a lot of snow but just beneath it is ice. About three inches thick.

I know that folks from parts of the country who routinely see snow laugh at Seattleites when it snows here and everything simply stops. But we have steep hills and essentially no infrastructure for big snow storms like we had last night. And oh did we!

The problem wasn’t so much the snow as the three inch thick sheet of ice beneath it. I am so glad my husband worked from home yesterday because it took some people up to seven hours to get home from work last night. There was also a Seahawks game and apparently there are people STILL on the freeway trying to get home! They’ve closed the freeways on and off, people abandoned their cars and some people just slept in them at rest stops and park and rides!

Anyway, pretty much all schools in Western Washington are closed today so we’re all here, tucked up and warm. The kids are watching Ice Age and the wee monster is tormenting them. All is right with the world, LOL.

I get to keep my title for Threat of Darkness! Yay! This makes me very happy, I love that title. I’m 28 thousand words into Chased and starting something else in between that’s been stewing in my head for three months. But of course Chased is my priority (I promise Angie!). I lurve me some Marc Chase!

I love color. There’s nothing better than walking outside and seeing the explosions of color available from Mother Nature. Today is a great case in point. It’s a fine sunny day here in New Zealand with a brilliant blue sky - you know the clear bright blue I mean? A few fluffy clouds dot the horizon. The grass is a bright green since we’ve had lots of rain lately. The trees on the reserve where the dog and I walked this morning are various shades of green, ranging from light to dark almost black/green. The flax is flowering at the moment. There are a couple of varieties and some of the flower spikes are a brilliant red while others are a dull yellow. The glint of the sun on the pond and estuary changes the color of the water from gray to silver in places. and finally, the pohutukawa trees are coming into flower - the bright scarlet flowers popping out with more and more appearing each day. Soon the ground around the trees will be red with the fallen filaments from the flowers.

I tend to choose color for my clothes and you’ll seldom see me wearing black or white. In fact walking down Queen Street in Auckland during the lunch hour or in London’s busy commericial center is boring and depressing - all those black suits! Ugh!! During the lunch times when we worked in the pub all you could see was a sea of black.

One of my favorite ads on television is the M & M ad where they have the changing colors of the M & Ms appearing in waves. The singer on the ad sings about color my world. I always stop to watch this ad because the colors fascinate me and I quite like M & Ms, too!

My favorite color is blue but I love purple, pink, green and red. Oh, and the photo above - that’s a shot of me in a wild flower meadow at Crater Lake National Park in Oregon.

In fact color is a scientific business these days and is used to determine personality. Check out this site for details. And finally, because I couldn’t resist here’s an article where you can learn about your sex color personality.

What’s your favorite color?

I’m glad to say that the TJ On A Tangent Newsletter and Sneak Peek pages, where we’ll continue our training of gorgeous hunky men, are coming along fabulously. There’ll be lots of contests beginning the first of the year around the theme of Training Red Vixen’s Rough Rider! Woohoo!

Also, stay tuned for information on the Dynamic Three Chats featuring Christina Brashear (Owner of Samhain Publishing) and Sasha Knight (Editor Extraordinaire for Samhain). We’re working on a couple of other live chat goodies, too. We’ll keep you posted.

So what’s up with my daughter’s jewelry making? She just got a shipment of beautiful genuine gemstones and is designing some high quality necklace and bracelet set. If you like genuine blue or green jade, green or peach aventurine, amethyst, moonstone, agate, garnet, tiger’s eye, etc., then we’ll have something for you!
Sooooo, what am I up to? I’ve spent the weekend doing nothing but vegging and enjoying my family. Did I get any writing done? Nope! Did I get any proposals finished? Nope! Outline a new story? Hell no!

Holidays, in my way of thinking, are for hanging out and being grateful for your loved ones. So, that’s what we did-hung out. And thanks to my goofy child, I have a new funny to share with you.

Christmas is coming and that means the Chevy Chase movie ‘National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation’ - you know, the one where Chevy Chase has so many lights on the house it looks like a space ship is landing over top of it?

Check out a 30 recap of that movie…and be prepared to laugh: http://www.starz.com/features/bunnyclub/christmas_vacation/index.html

Tootles,

TJ

I just got news from my editor at EC that they want to contract Threat of Darkness! Sadly, I may have to change the title but I’ve gotten less sentimental about my titles over time (after having to change them from time to time). This one is Jayce’s story and a menage. I’ve created a new world and characters that I’m pretty excited about exploring over time. Mei is Aine’s daughter, thought long dead and her other husband is Card. More about him later.

No other info for now, I’ll know more as it goes on.

My poor husband is now the sickest person in the house as my daughter and I begin to feel better. I can breathe about 30% of the time and my throat doesn’t hurt nearly as much. I did throw the turkey in the oven Thursday, it seemed a waste not to. Shoved some garlic cloves into the skin and meat, basted it every 45 minutes to an hour. It turned out quite nice. I had plans to make potatoes au gratin with leeks but that was way more energy than I had so I’ll make them soon, perhaps with a roasted chicken.

Finished Born in Death, Valley of Silence and Cold as Ice in the last few days. I really liked the whole Nora trilogy. For me, it was far more paranormal than romance so I wasn’t as agitated by the balance tipped by story over romance. In fact I enjoyed it more that way. BID was, as always, a fabulous read. I’ve given up thinking that Nora is going to miss one day with this series and just accepted that she’s like the magic eraser (her and Elizabeth Lowell for different reasons) I think they’re magic, could be made through a compact with satan but they work perfectly so I don’t question what’s in them. I liked Black Ice better than Cold as Ice but they were both very enjoyable reads.

I’m also halfway through Fallen Idol - Shelley kicks butt on this one as usual.

I’ve also gotten a lot of work done on Chased and I hit 25 thousand words by the time I closed my laptop last night. Uh, Marc has turned out to be kind of kinky. Yep. That first sex scene was fourteen pages long and took place in three different venues. This one is probably going to end up hotter than Giving Chase and Taking Chase but Marc has been a surprise to me and to Liv.

I think if I feel better tomorrow, I’ll haul out the Christmas decorations and do the house. The kids are very excited about it.

Oh and I got my January RT yesterday - Vengeance Due got 4 1/2 stars! Giving Chase got 3 but the review was really good so hey, all right, that’s good too, LOL. I never imagined when I started this in mid 2004 that it would be this cool (or emotionally gut wrenching either). I have so very much to be thankful for this year.

I wasn’t sure what to blog about today. I don’t have any news (apart from Fallen Idol coming out on the 29th) and things seem fairly ordinary at home. The only excitement we’ve had recently is my husband going to the dirt shop to purchase soil for his garden and cramming it into his work van. He’s frightened to open the rear doors in case it all falls out since it’s loose dirt. Or I could tell you about the dog thinking the two painters that came to look at the house were going to steal her bone and trying to shift it. The bone is almost bigger than her. See what I mean - not that riveting!

I thought I’d get back to basics. Why do you read romance? What is it that keeps you reading more?

The happy endings do it for me. I’m a sucker for a happy ending. I like the predictability of knowing that the hero and heroine are going to end up together. It doesn’t matter whether they are battling sea monsters, aliens or the neighborhood bully who lives at the corner of the street - in the end, love will triumph.

I like visiting new worlds without the discomfort. If I want real and gritty I book an overland holiday! I love exploring the question of “what if”. What if there really was magic and witches, wizards and vampires were part of our world. (Can you tell I’ve finished reading Thrice United? Run, don’t walk, to get your copy. Lauren has done it again - produced a wonderful read with characters that stay long after “the end”) I love to believe in magic.

Why do you like reading romance?

This is a photo of me at the Antarctica Centre in Christchurch from our recent holiday. I’m pretending to be down at Scott Base with the penguins but notice the handbag and tevas? What can I say - I have a vivid imagination and that’s why I’m a writer.

And in case you wanted to know what happened to the dirt - it’s early Saturday morning here in New Zealand. My husband has backed up his van as close as he can to the garden and opened the doors…

I’m arriving at Ellora’s Cave next week on Wednesday 29 November. I hope you’ll be there to meet me. I’m in love, but the one I love wants another. I work hard, traveling the galaxy, and try to forget…

Fallen Idol
by Shelley Munro

Space captain Rafi Mura has a guilty secret. He loves his best friend Roberto “Bob” Azam in a romantic, sexual kind of way. Not that he’s fool enough to confess since friendships have died for lesser reasons.

Bob is a renowned Sex Idol champion who has fallen on hard times after a tricky Kama Sutra move leaves him badly injured. Now dubbed the Fallen Idol all Bob wants is to reconcile with his former partner Fifi and regain her love.

Rafi is horrified when circumstances throw them together. Temptation. Promises. Stupid promises. He wishes he’d never agreed to help Bob prepare to go out on the sex circuit again.

Each sensual touch places Rafi constantly on edge and he hungers for more. Much more. Rafi needs to walk away yet he can’t bear the thought of anyone else training with Bob, touching his lover. Each lingering stroke, each compelling kiss is pure torture. Rafi doesn’t know what to do. He can’t admit the strength of his feelings because he’ll lose everything—lover and best friend—but he can’t help thinking that guilty secrets have a way of biting the unwary in the butt.

Reader Advisory: This is a same gender novel

The deal is officially made - I’ve sold a book to Harlequin Spice that will appear in an anthology called, What Happens In Vegas in March of 2008! Stripped is the story of Dahlia Baker, an MBA student who also dances at a burlesque lounge and obviously a contemporary.

Even better? I’m in the anthology with three other fabulous EC authors - my dear friend and partner in crime - Anya Bast, Jodi Lynn Copeland and Kit Tunstall! This marks my and Kit’s first NY sale and also Spice’s first anthology.

I’m beyond thrilled, I’m excited and freaked and relieved too.

And on top of that, I contracted a new book with Ellora’s Cave, Ascension which is paranornmal romantic suspense!

AND! I have two books releasing today - Chase Brothers: Taking Chase from Samhain and Witches Knot: Thrice United from Ellora’s Cave. Busy month and lucky woman!

I watched an English cooking program on TV last night. A pub in Berkshire, England, called The Fat Duck, has been named in the top ten restaurants in the world. One of their prize winning recipes is Snail porridge. The idea, according to the chef, came to him when one of his workers was raving about fish porridge and he was thinking about snails. He wondered “what if?” and snail porridge was born.

I immediately thought “Yuck” and watched with horrified fascination while the chef made up porridge and turned it bright green with the addition of herb and garlic butter plus stock from the snails. He then briefly sauted the snails, poured the bright green porridge on a plate, popped the snails on top and garnished it. I’ll admit the final product still wasn’t my cup of tea, but it did look interesting. Here’s the recipe in case you’re inspired.

It made me think of the unusual things I’ve eaten in the past. I have eaten snails before (in my pre-vegetarian days) and frogs legs. (they taste like chicken). I’ve tried crocodile when I was in Africa. The cooking method makes a difference. One lot I tried was very tough! I’ve watched everyone else eat various game meat such as zebra, buffalo, and gazelle at Carnivores in Nairobi. When we were in Mexico we purchased dried grasshoppers at the market and ate those. They weren’t very nice since the legs got stuck in our teeth.

What’s the most unusual food you’ve eaten?