Hi all.  It’s my day to blog as Cassie Ryan over on the Aphrodisia authors blog, so I posted a beefy excerpt of Vision of Seduction over there.

Please head on over and check it out and leave me some comments so I don’t feel like I’m blogging to myself…lol!

Cassie/Tina

I’m doing a happy dance!

Vision of Seduction, which releases on July 29th, just received a 4 Star Review from Romantic Times Booklover’s Magazine!

Here’s the review:

Ryan has built a marvelously detailed world of congenial, sensual people populating a warm, symbiotic planet. Alpha Grayson is just the right match for beautiful, spirited Katelyn. Scorching-hot sex scenes leave nothing to the imagination. This is great summer escapist read.

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Summary: Seer Katelyn Hunt isn’t sure what to make of the mysterious, sexy gentleman who’s been recently frequenting her New Age shop. But when a small army of men attacks the store, she loses consciousness and awakens on another planet, one that feels oddly familiar.

Prince Grayson de Klatch believes he’s found the seer who will help save his beloved home of Tador, a planet that is rejuvenated by sexual energy. In finding her, he also believes he’s found his life mate. But will Katelyn remain on Tador once she realizes why Grayson brought her there? What’s more, will she forgive him? (Aphrodisia, Aug., 256 pp., $12.95)

—Bella March

Today is Tuesday, which means I have some type of writing group tonight–in this case, Desert Rose RWA.  They meet across town near ASU and a group of us carpool out there together.

There’s just something about spending some time with other writers that recharges your writing batteries and keeps you going.

I’m sooo close to being done with Triangle of Seduction!  I’m reworking the Triangle ceremony and the Big Black Moment and then I have some overall smoothing to do along with a few critiques from my wonderful crit group–the Butterscotch Martini Girls, to take into account.  I’m hoping to have it mailed off and done before I go to New York in a few weeks.

Unfortunately, I won’t be able to meet with my editor, Audrey LaFehr, while I’m there.  But for good reason–she’ll be in Italy on her honeymoon!   So, how great is that?  I hope she brings back some great pictures!  But I do have a meeting set up with my agent, Paige Wheeler, so that’s a very good thing.

Well, before I head off to Desert Rose tonight, I have several hours of writing ahead, some critiques I owe to my group and some various and sundry other errands, so I’d better get to it!

Cassie/Tina

I used to dread Mondays back when I worked in Corporate America.  In fact, I dreaded them so much, I would sometimes literally make myself sick with stress on Sunday because I knew Monday was coming.

I’m sooooo glad that’s a thing of the past.  Don’t get me wrong, I do now and then miss the steady paycheck of the non self-employed and I regularly miss the health care benefits any time we have to go to the doctor, but I’m happier overall and that’s more important than those things!

Anyway, since I’m not going to RWA Nationals this year, my husband offered to let me horn in on his upcoming business trip to New York in a few weeks so I can still meet with my editor and agent this year.

I’m pretty excited about the trip.  I really do like those one on one pow wow sessions with Audrey and Paige and I can really get a feel for how my books are doing, where my career is going and all the rest.  But I’m also excited because I get to go to New York!

I haven’t been out there since I was sixteen-years-old.  I was going on the American Musical Ambassadors band tour and we all met up in New York before we flew off to visit thirteen different countries and play concerts there.  It was an amazing trip, but you can imagine we were under heavy supervision and didn’t get to see much of New York.  So, while the hubby is off working and when I’m not meeting with Paige and Audrey I plan on seeing the sites!

We are staying at a hotel right across from Central Park and I definitely want to do the boat tour around the island so I can see the Statue of Liberty and all of that, not to mention see Central Park itself and Times Square and anything else I can shove into a very short two days.  I’ll also have the evening and night that I fly in, but that won’t leave much time for much beyond making it to the hotel, dinner and getting used to the three hour time change.

Does anyone have any suggestions for great things to do around where I’ll be staying?

Tina/Cassie

Yes, I’ll admit it.  I was a band geek for most of my life, and damned proud of it

And I even went to band camp–NAU Summer Music Camp–from the time I was going into the sixth grade until I was a camp counselor my first two years into college.  In fact I have a ton of very fond memories of my time up there.  Not only was it great to get out of the Phoenix heat and hang out up in Flagstaff with the pine trees and the cooler temperatures, and get to play some terrific music, and see all the really cute guys who went, and get to see friends from previous years, but it was also a fun chance to live in the dorms and get away from home.  Sort of a taste of independence where you were treated like an adult every summer.  And my few years as a counselor were even more fun–in fact, I remember doing a “briefs” raid on the male counselors…lol.  Ahhh, memories.

Why am I frolicking down memory lane all of a sudden?

My kidlet and his best friend are headed off to NAU band camp early tomorrow.  Now, this will be the third year for my kiddo–and I guess it’s even weirder because he’s going to be in the 9th grade this year, which is really strange for me.  I mean, I remember high school like it was yesterday!

Yes, I do realize that I attended my twenty year reunion back in 2006, but it feels so recent that I was just starting high school and going through everything he is!  And now, my baby, my little guy, who is now taller than me is…getting older and dragging me with him!  WTH?!? 

Just seems very odd I suppose, because I don’t feel old enough to have a kid in high school.

But I digress.  Anyway today will be filled with laundry and packing lists and getting munchies for the dorm, and listening to my son and his friend practice their chair audition music all day.  And since the hubby is traveling and doesn’t get home until late tonight–I’m herding cats…er…organizing the boys on my own.  Fun, fun, fun. 

But before all that–I’m off to write and then have a quick lunch with my sister and niece.

Does anyone else have kids going off to camp and/or high school?