The Dynamic Trio - Blog

Ideas - they come in the strangest places at the funniest times. A writer’s life is never dull that’s for sure!

Mr. Munro and I were catching an Air New Zealand flight from San Francisco to Auckland. We hadn’t been on the plane long and I was settled back with my inflight magazine. It’s always the first thing I read when I get on any plane since they have interesting travel articles. Air New Zealand have this new products section and one of the items shown was a vibrating condom.

“Oh,” I said to hubby in a loud voice. “Look!” (and I have to point out hubby is always growling at me for muttering. I don’t but that’s another story. Anyhow, I spoke rather loudly.)

“What?” he asked.

“It’s a vibrating condom. Hmmm, I wonder how they test them?”

“Shush!” he said glancing at our neighbors who WERE looking at us.

“But it’s a vibrating condom!” I said. “Let’s buy one. How do you think they test them? Do you think people test them?” I asked, full of questions. The muse was at a full gallop, considering all the possibilities.

“Shush,” hubby said again. “I’m trying to read.”

“Oh, but don’t you think it would make a great story?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“All right,” I said, a trifle grumpy now. “I’ll think to myself about how they test the vibrating condom.”

“Good idea,” hubby said.

So, I did. All the way back to New Zealand I thought about condoms and how they’d be tested. I thought about the possibilities of a girl inheriting a condom company and the rest, as they say, is history. I wrote Fancy Free, a story about a girl who inherits a condom company and is heavily involved in testing…

If you’d like to learn how my twisted mind works, Fancy Free releases from Ellora’s Cave on 7 March 2008 - next Friday!! And meantime, if you’d like to read the blurb and excerpt go here.

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CONTEST: Win a download of Fancy Free. Read the excerpt on my website and answer the following question. What stopped James and Alice from making love? Email your answer to shelley munro@ gmail.com (no spaces) and I’ll announce the winner on 6 March.

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Lillian Feisty is my guest today at my blog and she has written a great post about body image and romance. Check it out here.

And I was guest blogger over at Romantic Inks. Check out my post here.

Okay, here’s the result of when I vacuumed the keys off my laptop keyboard - the keys were never found. AND when I talked to my IT guy at work about what happened he did indeed look at me as if I’d just had a four headed baby! It was almost as funny as the face I made when the keys flew up into the almighty and powerful suction of my new vacuum cleaner!

So, they’re trying to see where we can get a new ‘Q’ and a new ‘W’ key since they don’t seem to be sold separately *snort*

I’m teaching class at work so gotta run ;D I’ll keep ya’ll posted!

OH, BY THE WAY, I received edits for HATSEPT HEAT, Vampire Council of Ethics Book 3! It’ll be here in July right after Book 2 hits the shelves in print! Woohoo!

So the winner hasn’t claimed her prize and it’s been over seven days so I re-drew and this time it was for post #4 - Lori! Okay Lori, email me with your format preference and I’ll get it your way!

Just to reiterate with all of my drawings here - the winners have seven days to claim a prize or I’ll redraw. Folks need to check back to see if they’ve won or not - thankya!!

I just went to pick my kids up from school, or rather the two older ones, the wee monster is home with me all day. Anyway, my house is now filled with this:

Son #1 to Wee monster - “Why are you bothering me? I’m trying to do my homework.”
Me: “Leave your brother alone and let him finish his work.”
Son #2 “I have this Pokemon and he does blahalahababalahlalabala and has blah HP”
Son #1 - “Really? Is that *insert name of Pokemon I don’t care about here*”
Me - “Kids, leave your brother alone! Do your homework!”
Wee one - giggles and tells oldest brother to open the clamshell jewelry case she found earlier just like the tyrant she is
Text from Husband who offers to stop at market on the way home from work
I text back, promising sexual favors in return
More chaos from kids, breaking my little moment with my dude.
Me - “sigh”
Wee one - “Momma, what are those lines around your eyes?”
Me - “sigh. Wrinkles. Go away and leave your brother alone”
Wee one - “oh. Do they hurt? can we watch Max and Ruby? Can I have a popsicle? I want to wear my princess dress.”

My life? She is so glamorous

Excitement! I’ve sold the fifth Middlemarch book to Ellora’s Cave. I’m not sure of the release date for Cat and Mouse yet but will let you all know as soon as I do. Cat and Mouse features a cowboy hero and a heroine who owns a restaurant in Queenstown. Meantime, I’m hard at work on the sixth Middlemarch book.

I’ve opened a hotel. Yes, it’s true. I now own real estate space at Coffee Time Romance and you’re welcome to visit me at any time. There will be excerpts, inside info and fun discussion, news of contests and upcoming books and I hope to cajole some of my writer friends into posting some of their excerpts and covers in the Presidential Suite. Author friends? Are you there? Please come over to my new hotel, say hello and help me celebrate my opening week by posting an excerpt. To post you need to register but it’s free and only takes a couple of minutes. I hope to see you there. For all you paranormal writers out there, Coffee Time is having a special paranormal day on 27th. The Ellora’s Cave day I attended recently was lots of fun so check this out.

On 1 March I’m starting in the third Sweat for Sven challenge. I want to complete my current work in progress and make inroads on a tiger shifter story I’ve storyboarded. Is anyone else sweating with Sven?

I’ve read some great books recently. I was lucky enough to get my hands on an ARC of Lauren Dane’s Standoff. Here’s the blurb:

Cade Warden has put his Pack first for most of his life and now Warren Pellini and his thugs threaten everything he holds dear. Into that life of intense focus and increasing loneliness walks the woman he’s been waiting for.

Grace Pellini isn’t just Cade’s mate, she’s the sister of his greatest enemy and she’s been putting herself in grave danger to gather information to aid the Nationally Allied Packs. Cade is everything she could have hoped for in a man even if he is overprotective and pushy at times.

Against the backdrop of their increasing passion and deepening bond, they race against time to find a key to stop Pellini’s biological weapon. And then the stakes rise again when Pellini calls an ancient Challenge. It’s up to Grace to stand by and let her mate risk everything for his people. And his life is in her hands.

Standoff completes the series story arc and it’s a great finish. It’s no secret that I love Lauren’s books. True, she’s a writer friend, but check out her reviews. You know there’s a reason she’s selling to New York publishers now. Cascadia Wolves is an excellent series guaranteed to satisfy the paranormal fan with strong alpha heroes and equally tough heroines who don’t take any nonsense from their mates or anyone else. Each successive book is like a visit to friends since we get to see all the family interaction, their bickering and loving and the way they face a challenge. In this book we finally get to see Cade find his mate, and it’s a beautiful thing. Standoff is out from Samhain on 4 March.

Another book I’ve read and enjoyed is Another One Bites the Dust by Jennifer Rardin. It’s paranormal meets James Bond with Jaz Parks as the heroine. There’s vampires, wizards, bellydancing, acrobats and a winter festival. Jaz and her team need to retrieve a special piece of stolen equipement. I’ve mentioned the first book Once Bitten, Twice Shy before and I’m eagerly awaiting a chance to read the third book in the series. Really, this is a great series.

I love to cook food, and love to eat it. But, have you ever wondered how we came to eat some of the things we do?

For example, take honey. What’s up with that? Were people just standing around one day, and somebody said, “Hey, you’ve got diarrhea, or a nasty gash across your abdomen. Let’s try some bee vomit. Its’ sweet and doesn’t taste too bad. So, it’ll either kill you horribly, or it should help with your illness.”

Riiiight.

And what about milk? Somebody decided, let’s drink out of a cow, or a goat, or a yak? It’s one thing to give a child milk that comes out of your own boobs. Quite another for it to come out of an animal that runs around fields and smells like hell.

Sourdough bread. Yes, I love the stuff. But the way it’s made is fricking disgusting because I watch my daughter make it. Let me guess. A baker got distracted one day and said, “Hey, I forgot the bread dough out for the past few days. It smells kinda sour and looks a bit bubbly on top, but lets bake it anyway and try to eat it.” Hmmm.

And aged beef? What the hell is aged meat, really? It’s basically meat that’s been left out for days, then somebody chops pieces off of it and sells it as premium aged beef. And we’ll cook it and eat it? Yes, I’m as guilty as the next person.

Sausage? Hmmm. Who thought of stuffing chopped meat and animal fluids (like blood) into animal intestines, then cooking and serving it? And now we eat it as a staple during football season all over the country. It’s called “Brats and Beer” season at my house (only without the beer part).

Then there’s the age old favorite - cheese. It’s basically a bacterial process. But, uh, I thought bacteria was bad for you? So how in the world did we come to eat something on a regular basis that is basically milk that somebody let spoil and sit for awhile, then skimmed the floating stuff (whey) off the top, and let it sit some more. Some cheese even has mold growing in and/or around it. Yet, we eat it on crackers and have it with wine (another fermented, aka, spoiled fruit) and consider it something to serve guests on special occasions. My favorite cheese is BRIE! Love the stuff!

So, are you grossed out yet? No? Then just go to the store and read a hotdog label, then get back to me! LOL!

Okay so it’s not really a secret that I get crushes on my heroes. I’m a hero-ho. While I’m writing him, he’s number two in my heart (right after my dude, who is sort of the template in some way or other for all my heros). ANYWAY, so I’m writing Sensual Magic right now. It’s the paranormal follow up to Stripped (coming in the What Happens in Vegas antho in May!) and it’s oodles of fun to write - my favorite kind of heroine, Nell is a cop of sorts. She totally KNOWS William is meant for her even though he’s all wounded and stuff, making him irritable at times and always arrogant.

Now William has been in my head since I wrote Stripped (fall of 2006, god that’s forever ago it seems) and with eighteen months of him in my head, I’ve really got a crush on him. The other day, I was looking at something at a celebrity site like Go Fug Yourself but not one and I can’t remember now anyway. So, I came across this man and I thought, this is him.

Josh Lucas. Who can be effortlessly sexy, classy, elegant and yet, he’s also fabulous in jeans, white cotton oxford shirts and no shoes with a corona in his hand. I like that range. I like the amusement in his eyes. Now every time I write I see him and William lives inside.

Anyway, I’m sick, so this is the best I’ve got for my Saturday entry, LOL. Yesterday was a very good day though.

To wit - Undercover, my December 2 release from Berkley Heat is now up for pre-order at Amazon!

Here’s the blurb since there’s not one up yet at Amazon:

Journey to an erotic future universe of passion, danger and deceit…

As a lieutenant of the Federation military, Sera Ayers is more accustomed to giving orders than taking them. Now she must obey the one man she can’t stand—and can’t stop thinking about.

With the enemy Imperialists gaining ground, a new covert team is assembled by Ash Walker. Ten years before, Sera had lovingly submitted to Ash’s dominance in the bedroom. But when he was forced into a political marriage, she left him rather than become his mistress. His marriage now over, Ash wants Sera on his team—and back in his bed.

The third team member, Brandt Pela, has an elegance to match Ash’s savage sexuality. And when their undercover plan requires Sera to pose as Brandt’s lover, it ignites a passion among the three of them more dangerous than their mission…

And, Making Chase is also up for pre-order at amazon. It comes out in print June 24 and I’m totally thrilled. This one is the last Chase Brother book so I hope folks who haven’t read it yet enjoy it.

I’m off now - y’all have a good night!

I’m guest blogging over at Sandra Barkevich’s blog today and giving away a download from my Ellora’s Cave or Cerridwen Press backlist. I’m talking about romantic suspense and there’s mention of weeds…

I hope to see you there!

Ellora’s Cave authors are taking over the Latte forum at the CoffeeTime Romance board today with contests and excerpts. You need to register first but it’s free and they always have lots of fun there. I have a contest running for a download so make sure you enter that.

The wonderful Mechele Armstrong is guest at my blog today. She’s giving away a download and talking about the small stuff that makes for rich characterization.

And finally, I’ve sold another Middlemarch book this week. Cat and Mouse is the fifth Middlemarch book and has a cowboy hero - that’s rodeo New Zealand style!

Have a fun weekend.

If you’ve ever thought about changing jobs or careers, then this is for you! I’m wanting to relocate to Washington state and have started job hunting. A friend of mine sent me this video (warning: there is sound, though none of it is raunchy, and you may laugh out loud) to celebrate my new efforts.

I’m going to miss my old job. I’ve been here for seven years and have really enjoyed working with my customers. But in truth, there’s nothing tying me to this state. I have no family here. No friends. Nothing but work. And that’s not really a good reason to remain someplace if you’re unhappy, right? Right! So…of we go!

Check it out!

TJ

“A man sees himself in more rewarding jobs and received some not-so-subtle hints to take control of his career.”