To celebrate, enter to win a fantastic treat!
A signed ARC of HOT PROPERTY before it hits stores and a $50 Amazon Gift Card!

You know the drill. Post a comment and come back Sunday to see who won!
If outside the USA, winner receives Amazon Gift Card only!

So let me ask you … just to give you something to post today, how do you feel about the trend of my covers leaning towards hot, bare chested men? Since that’s what you’ll be seeing for the next … oh year or so, LOL!

Julie here…the winner of the 6 May Blaze books for picking the best potential Blaze title is…Stacy~, post #1, for ENTICED! Stacy~, drop me an email with your snail mail addy so I can get Amazon onto sending your prize! julie @ julieleto . com. Thanks everyone for playing!

Over the past few months, in preparation for our move from California to Oregon this summer, I’ve been methodically (and ruthlessly) cleaning out each and every room in the house and getting rid of “junk stuff”. After living in the same house for 19 years, I have to admit that we’ve certainly accumalated a whole lot of junk, too. Stuff that we never should have bought or kept in the first place because we never used it! Yes, we’d become pack rats!

So, wanting to start out fresh and clutter free in Oregon, I decided that it was time to clean house in a big way. And I did. Out went furniture we no longer used/needed, clothes we no longer wore, games we no longer played, home decor that was outdated, crystal I never used, the girls in-line skates and razor scooters, TV, VCR, bread maker, Legos, blankets, books, comforters, curtains, artwork, craft stuff, cassette player, electronic gadgets, an old PlayStation that the girls no longer use, night stands, curio cabinet, candlestick holders, teapots (I have a collection and I weeded it out considerably), floral arrangements, Don’s golf stuff he no longer used . . . and a whole lot more. In fact, I had boxed up so much stuff while cleaning out the house that I had to rent a storage unit for it all until we had a garage sale!

Well, the yard sale was this past weekend, and what an experience it was! I advertised that the yard sale would begin at 7 AM, and by 6:30 AM cars were parked on the curb waiting while I put everything out on the driveway. As soon as I was done, they literally swarmed and overwhelmed me as they rummaged through my junk. These people were clearly die hard garage sale-ers and me, my daughter, and a neighbor who was helping out, could barely keep up with the steady flow of cars and people who came by. By noon, we were exhausted . . . and we did this again on Sunday, too. All in all, I sold $1,000 of “junk” – and that just goes to show you just how much stuff I had out there to sell! As the saying goes, “your junk is someone else’s treasure”, and that certainly held true this past weekend.

So, for the past few months it’s been “out with the old”, but not necessarily “in with the new”. Now that I’m loving the clean, uncluttered look inside my house, my new motto when buying something new is “quality not quantity”. This motto has helped me to not buy new junk just because it’s pretty or cute. From now on, anything new that is brought into our house has to serve a distinct purpose, or I’m not buying it.

OREGON UPDATE: For those of you who’ve been following my move to Oregon, we’ve yet to sell our house in California. The real estate market here is so bad, and getting worse each month that passes. We recently made the decision to rent our house here, and rent something up in Oregon until the market changes in a more positive way. I figure that will give us time to figure out where we really want to live in Oregon and find just the right house for us. The girls and I plan to join Don in July. That’ll give us time to get settled in and get my youngest daughter prepared for her new high school, and my oldest into college. All in all, we’re still very excited about the entire move.

Back to garage sales. Have you ever had a garage/yard sale? And if so, what was your experience – good or bad? And do you enjoy going to garage/yard sales to find great deals, or are they just not your thing?

Edited: Today, my editor and I came to an agreement on my title, which you can see in the sidebar. I wanted to wait for the blog, but alas, when a good idea hits, you must run with it. Yes, I titled the book myself. You can thank the TV show, Charmed, for my inspiration.

I didn’t want to rewrite my entire blog, so I’m posting it as if I didn’t have a title…but then I made some revisions, LOL! You’ll see where. There’s a contest in here…so keep reading!

As you can see from the little bar graph on the sidebar (down below the covers) I’m well into the second half of my next Blaze. I’ve sent my editor the first half, which she’s read and given me revisions on. My deadline is June 1, and if all goes well, I’m going to make it with time to spare (ha! Time to edit at the end, I mean!) Anyway, when I spoke to Brenda this week, she asked me to start coming up with titles.

Ugh.

I hate coming up with titles. You see, some books have titles before I write them. In fact, my third book, GOOD GIRLS DO! (and as far as I know, I was the first author to use that title, btw, though it’s been poached many times since) was sold on the title. I didn’t even have a story yet!

When I have a good title, it comes to me early on. Sometimes, they are tweaked (Exposed was actually Maximum Exposure–the hero’s name was Max and Private Lessons was Private Dancer) and other times, Brenda titles them herself. (Looking for Trouble and Up to No Good were entirely hers, though they were absolutely perfect for the books.) I rarely can title a book myself if I’m this far into the story and the title hasn’t come to me. The working title is “ONCE IS NOT ENOUGH” but Brenda doesn’t think it’s sexy enough and she’s probably right. It’s also kind of long.

My new Blaze is a sequel to STRIPPED (my title,) my August 2007 Blaze that won the Reviewer’s Choice for Best Blaze from Romantic Times magazine. I’d like a one-word title to go with its sister-book, but I’m not holding my breath. One-worders are the toughest titles to find. But I’m not going to be picky.

I need a title!

Well, I needed a title…SOMETHING WICKED will be the sequel to STRIPPED. But, since this will be fun anyway, let’s come up with some random Blaze titles! I’m asking the May Blaze authors (and possibly my editor if I can swing it) to come by and determine the winner…who will receive a copy of the May books!

# Indulge Me (Harlequin Blaze, 393) by Isabel Sharpe
# Nightcap (Harlequin Blaze, 394) by Kathleen O’Reilly
# Up Close and Personal (Harlequin Blaze, 395) by Joanne Rock
# A Sexy Time of It (Harlequin Blaze, 396) by Cara Summers
# Fire in the Blood (Harlequin Blaze, 397) by Kelley St. John
# Have Mercy (Harlequin Blaze, 398) by Jo Leigh

To get your creative juices flowing, click here to read all the Blaze titles in 2007 and 2008 (with props to the authors!) to give you an idea of what kind of titles make it in the line.

* Beyond Breathless by Kathleen O’Reilly
* Letting Loose by Mara Fox
* Untouched by Samantha Hunter
* Jack and Jilted by Cathy Yardley
* Release by Jo Leigh
* Her Book of Pleasure by Marie Donovan
* Jinxed by Jacquie D’Alessandro
* Hitting the Mark by Jill Monroe
* Don’t Look Back by Joanne Rock
* At Her Beck and Call by Dawn Atkins
* Hot Moves by Kristin Hardy
* Private Confessions by Lori Borrill
* Beyond Daring by Kathleen O’Reilly
* A Breath Away by Wendy Etherington
* Just One Look by Joanne Rock
* Slow Hand Luke by Debbi Rawlins
* Reckoning by Jo Leigh
* Take On Me by Sarah Mayberry
* Coming Undone by Stephanie Tyler
* Sex as a Second Language by Jamie Sobrato
* The Haunting by Hope Tarr
* At His Fingertips by Dawn Atkins
* Bad Behavior by Kristin Hardy
* All Over You by Sarah Mayberry
* Beyond Seduction by Kathleen O’Reilly
* Ex Girlfriends’ Club by Rhonda Nelson
* The Man Tamer by Cindi Myers
* Double Dare by Tawny Weber
* Kiss and Dwell by Kelley St. John
* Hot for Him by Sarah Mayberry
* Risking It All by Stephanie Tyler
* Call Me Wicked by Jamie Sobrato
* Shadow Hawk by Jill Shalvis
* The P.I. by Cara Summers
* No Rules by Shannon Hollis
* One Night Standards by Cathy Yardley
* Men at Work by Colleen Collins, Karen Kendall, Cindi Myers
* The Ultimate Bite by Crystal Green
* Taken by Tori Carrington
* The Cop by Cara Summers
* Ghosts and Roses by Kelley St. John
* She Did a Bad, Bad, Thing by Stephanie Bond
* Hard and Fast by Lisa Renee Jones
* Doing Ireland! by Kate Hoffmann
* Stripped by Julie Elizabeth Leto
* The Defender by Cara Summers
* Pick Me Up by Samantha Hunter
* Underneath It All by Lori Borrill
* Kidnapped! by Jo Leigh
* My Secret Life by Lori Wilde
* Overexposed by Leslie Kelly
* Swept Away by Dawn Atkins
* Shiver and Spice by Kelley St. John
* The Naked Truth by Shannon Hollis
* If He Only Knew… by Debbi Rawlins
* My Front Page Scandal by Carrie Alexander
* Flyboy by Karen Foley
* Shock Waves by Colleen Collins
* Cold Case, Hot Bodies by Jule McBride
* For Lust or Money by Kate Hoffmann
* Sex Bomb by Jamie Sobrato
* Dead Sexy by Kimberly Raye
* Dangerous… by Tori Carrington
* Wild Child by Cindi Myers
* Feeling the Heat by Rhonda Nelson
* Tall, Dark, and Filthy Rich by Jill Monroe
* A Blazing Little Christmas by Jacquie D’Alessandro, Kathleen O’Reilly, Joanne Rock
* Strokes of Midnight by Hope Tarr
* Talking in Your Sleep… by Samantha Hunter
* Baby, It’s Cold Outside by Cathy Yardley
* The Big Heat by Jennifer LaBrecque
* What She Really Wants for Christmas by Debbi Rawlins
* One Wild Wedding Night by Leslie Kelly
* My Guilty Pleasure by Jamie Denton
* Bare Necessities by Marie Donovan
* Does She Dare? by Tawny Weber
* At Your Command by Julie Miller
* The Tao of Sex by Jade Lee
* Tex Appeal by Alison Kent, Kimberly Raye, Cara Summers
* My Wildest Ride by Isabel Sharpe
* Shameless by Tori Carrington
* Primal Instincts by Jill Monroe
* Your Bed or Mine? by Kate Hoffmann
* Burning Up by Sarah Mayberry
* Getting Lucky by Joanne Rock
* Shaken and Stirred by Kathleen O’Reilly
* Off Limits by Jordan Summers
* Beyond His Control by Stephanie Tyler
* What Happened in Vegas… by Wendy Etherington
* Coming Soon by Jo Leigh
* No Stopping Now by Dawn Atkins
* Drop Dead Gorgeous by Kimberly Raye
* French Kissing by Nancy Warren
* One for the Road by Crystal Green
* Sex, Straight Up by Kathleen O’Reilly
* Putting it to the Test by Lori Borrill
* Indulge Me by Isabel Sharpe
* Nightcap by Kathleen O’Reilly
* Up Close and Personal by Joanne Rock
* A Sexy Time of It by Cara Summers
* Fire in the Blood by Kelley St. John
* Have Mercy by Jo Leigh

I’m still in Florida, so I thought I’d leave you guys with an exclusive, Plotmonkeys-only excerpt of my new book SLOW HANDS.

The reviews have been great so far:

4 1/2 stars from Romantic Times
“Filled with humor and heart, Slow Hands (4.5), by Leslie Kelly, is a complete delight…. The cross-purpose conversations and situations that result are laugh-out-loud funny. The romantic entanglements are highly emotional, and the large cast is expertly handled.”

5 Stars and a “Recommended Read” from Missy at Fallen Angels Reviews
“Leslie Kelly…is a masterful storyteller and this book is one of her very best….. It’s so good to see Ms. Kelly writing Blazes again because this book is one of her hottest books to date. Jake is as sexy as sin and one that I wouldn’t mind running into one day soon, but also the most gentlemanly man I’ve read about in a while. I’m very anxious to see what this author can do with the next book in this series because the hero will have to be a very special guy to outshine Jake.”

I think you’ll like this one. Sure hope so!

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
A bit of background…
Rich girl Madeline Turner has purchased a guy she thinks is a gigolo, to prevent her stepmother from cheating on her father. Determined to resist him, she’s soon worn down by his charm.

Paramedic Jake Wallace has no idea this sexy woman who bought him thinks he’s selling more than a single date. And by the time he figures it out…it’s far too late to get Maddy out of his heart. And his bed.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Her place was unbelievably elegant. Dripping with expensive furnishings. Beautiful. Rich-looking.

And about as cold a room as he’d ever seen.

It was entirely suitable for the ice princess of the financial district. But not for the woman who’d grabbed him by the shirt and shoved him up against the wall of that pub to kiss the lips right off his face.

Maddy was watching him, having stepped inside ahead of him to punch a few buttons on a security alarm panel. There was a glimmer of hesitation in her expression, as if she really cared what he thought about her home. Why she’d care about the opinion of a blue-collar rescue worker, whose single piece of art in his apartment was a an eight-by-ten framed picture of a Dalmatian on a fire truck, he had no idea.

“Well?”

“Wow.”

She wrapped her arms around her waist and stared around the room, obviously noting his unenthusiastic response. “My sister decorated it for me,” she whispered. “I just don’t have the knack for that sort of thing. Or the vision.”

That figured. From what he’d heard so far, he had absolutely no interest in ever meeting the sister. Especially not if she envisioned this when she looked at Maddy, who she obviously did not really know at all.

“Great view,” he mumbled, meaning that. She did have an amazing view of the magnificently lit Chicago skyline. One entire wall of windows ran the width of the living room, laying out the city below as if he was looking at a galaxy of stars from above.

She perked up, smiling broadly. “Isn’t it? That’s why I bought it. Well, that and the bathroom.”

Bought it. She owned this icy masterpiece. Not her father, not her family. She didn’t just rent it. The woman he’d taken out for wings and beer had enough money to actually purchase a place like this.

He’d known that. Logically, he’d known. Still, the meaning of it had at last completely sunk in.

His feet suddenly felt leaden. For the first time since the moment they’d met, Jake felt the slightest bit intimidated. Uneasy at the stark, irrefutable evidence of how different they were.

There was no way he could keep up with this. Nor would he ever even want to try.

“What’s wrong?”

He threw off the momentary unease. Tomorrow maybe he’d think about how unsuited they were for one another. Tonight, well, they were perfectly suited in the only way that really mattered. He’d could definitely keep up with her in other ways.

Starting in her bedroom.

“Nothing.” He gave her a wolfish smile. “So where is this three-man bathtub?”

“Hey, none of that kinky stuff,” she reminded him with a saucy wink. Then she turned and sashayed down the hall, kicking her cute, strappy sandals off her feet mid-stride, as if not wanting to waste time once they reached the bed.

He followed, not in any hurry, because they had all night. But still unable to stop himself from lifting his shirt over his head and tossing it to the floor with her shoes.

She led him into a darkened room, flipped on the light, and spun around to gauge his reaction. But when she saw him standing there in just his soft, low-slung jeans, she froze as if she’d never seen a man’s body before.

“Oh, my God.”

The sexy woman actually licked her lips while her gaze greedily roamed over his bare chest and shoulders. She looked even hungrier than she had when their waitress had deposited a pile of nachos in front of her tonight.

“I never imagined,” she whispered, lifting her hand toward him. She didn’t step closer, merely scraping the tip of one finger down his throat, until reaching the hollow of his throat. There it remained, connected by the tiniest strand of static-charged air to his raging pulse. “I’ve never seen a more beautiful man.”

Jake half-groaned and half-laughed.

“I mean it. You’re beautiful. You should be on display somewhere, dipped in bronze. You’re so hard, so strong.” She ran her hand down his chest, letting her pink-tinged nails rake lightly across his abs. She didn’t pause, caressing him until she reached the waistband of his jeans, which hung low on his hips. Visibly swallowing, she added, “Yet so lean too.”

“You’re killing me. You know this, right?”

She ignored him. “I’d pictured…when I went to the auction, I’d figured you’d be skinny. Elegant. Not…not like this.”

He barked a harsh laugh. Skinny he was not. And elegant he’d never even tried to be. “I work out sometimes. Not out of vanity, out of necessity.” There was no way Jake would put somebody’s life at risk by letting himself get too out of shape to do his job. He lifted gurneys–usually with heavy bodies on them–every single day. He squeezed into small spaces in collapsed buildings, he often hauled around some back-breakingly heavy equipment. Those things mattered–possibly mattered enough to be the difference between life and death to an injured person. Staying in top physical condition was an absolute requirement for his own safety and for his patients.

“Is it a necessity that your shoulders are as broad as my legs are long?”

He chuckled, glancing down at those delicate, sexy legs, in such perfect proportion to the rest of her, despite her claim that they were too short. “I think that’s a bit of an exaggeration.” Then he reached for her hips, cupped them and drew her close. “But I’m willing to examine them, up close and personal, just to make sure.”

“I’d hate to ask such a sacrifice of you.”

“What can I say? I’m a nice guy.”

Maddy, who’d been inching closer as they engaged in the light, verbal foreplay, tilted her head back and watch him intently. “You are, aren’t you.”

“You make it sound like it’s a bad thing.”

She shook her head. “You’re a contradiction, that’s all. I don’t know that I understand you.”

“Understand this.” He said nothing more, bending down to cover her mouth with his. Slipping his hands into her hair to cup her head, he licked her lips, demanding access.

Maddy opened for him, her tongue meeting with his in a warm, slow exploration. Different from the crazy-hot kiss outside the pub. Different…but just as good.

Their bodies melted together in fluid grace, rather than heated, crazed grinding. Her softness cradled every hard place on him, molding to his chest, his groin, his thighs. Every delicate curve offered warmth and welcome and pure feminine invitation.

“Jake…” she whispered against his mouth, though he knew she had nothing to say. Nothing that really needed to be said.

They’d talked a lot since they’d met. Now it was time for their bodies to do all the communicating.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

This book won’t be in stores or at online retailers like Amazon until later this month, but if you just can’t wait and want it NOW you can get it right this minute from eHarlequin–at a discount! (And, like Amazon, they offer free shipping of orders over $25.)

And if you click the link below, it will take you to the eHq page where you can read an additional excerpt and “glance inside the book” a very cool new eHq feature.

Slow Hands Harlequin Blaze

I always imagined myself as a convertible kinda gal - the wind blowing through my hair as I drive around, sunglasses on, sexy hair, music blasting, etc. That’s the fantasy and not a particularly well written one either. Why, you may ask? Because I just came home from an hour plus drive in my husband’s convertible. It’s 9:15 PM. We live in New York. The temperature at the moment is 63′ and my hands are frozen. We were at a Bat Mitzvah. I was wearing a dress I adore - sexy and black. Short - mid thigh. And get this - my first pair of Jimmy Choo sandals. Yes, a huge huge splurge. I was really psyched to go visit with my college friends’ and share their daughter’s Bat Mitzvah. I even thought I looked … if not hot, then at least pretty darn good for a 40-something year old.

And then my husband decided to open the top for the ride home. I should be happy he didn’t do it for the ride there, because then I would have arrived with windblown hair standing on end. Not exactly the stuff of fantasies. So we drove home in 63 degrees NY weather, wind whipping around my head, my husband’s suit jacket over my shoulders and my bare legs shivering the entire way home. I’m also a headache girl which means loud noises and whipping wind WILL cause a headache. But he loves his convertible and I love him, and I want to be the girl of his dreams, you know? So we do the convertible thing and as much as there are parts of it I don’t love, I really DO love driving in the car with him.

And on the positive side, we blasted music and sang. Did you know Sirius Radio has a Neil Diamond Station? I didn’t. Now I do. So we listened to Neil. We sang. We had fun. Oh … I have Neil Diamond tickets at Madison Square Garden for August 13th. That’ll be a future blog! I hope he sings more best of Neil oldies, but we’ll see.

So back to convertibles. CAN they be the sexy ride we write about even in reality? Not sure. But every once in awhile, I like to pretend I belong in one.

The winner of Leslie’s Disney Jungle Madness Friday is…

TAMMY! Message # 27!

Congratulations!!! Please drop me a note at author@lesliekelly.com and give me your snail mail addy and let me know which book you’d like so I can get your prizes out to you.

And now, since the theme of this week’s contest is Disney, here are a few naughty Disney treats.

First, a link: WARNING: This is not kid safe. Not work safe. But oh, man, is Aladdin HOT or what?!? (And I love Prince Erik’s tattoo!)

When you’re finished drooling, feel free to come back for a completely irreverent list of what happened AFTER the happily ever after… (I’d love to credit this, but don’t know who wrote it!)

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THOSE DISNEY CHARACTERS?

We have all grown up knowing and loving the characters produced by Walt Disney and his successors at the Disney company. From Mickey Mouse to Aladdin, Disney has always given us something to laugh at, someone to cry for, something to hope for and a star to wish upon.

Now, however, is has been revealed that the stars of these memorable cartoons may not have been the paragons of hope and happiness we always thought they were. Here, for the first time ever, are the fates to have befallen many of your favorite Disney characters.

MICKEY MOUSE - died of venereal disease after visiting multiple prostitutes because Minnie said “No” for 50 years.

DONALD DUCK - served as a main course at Epcot’s China Pavilion.

PLUTO - caught by dogcatchers, put to sleep after he was never claimed.

GOOFY - assassinated during first term as President of the United States.

SCROOGE MCDUCK - died in extreme poverty after being audited by the IRS.

HUEY, DEWEY & LOUIE - involved in an underground child pornography ring.

SNOW WHITE - fell for the “apple trick” again.

DOPEY - ’nuff said.

SNEEZY - died of pneumonia with Jim Henson.

GRUMPY - executed after gunning down 15 people in a local McDonalds.

HAPPY - killed by insane gunman at a local McDonalds.

DOC - was sued for malpractice, lived the rest of his life living under bridges and eating out of used cat food cans.

SLEEPY - never woke up.

BASHFUL - now a stripper with the Chippendales.

MARY POPPINS - shot down over Iraqi airspace.

CHRISTOPHER ROBIN - male prostitute, died of a heroin overdose.

WINNIE THE POOH - had a heart attack caused by a cholesterol level of 570.

PIGLET - gunned down in a Mafia hit.

RABBIT - died of an aneurysm while watching over his garden.

EEYORE - committed suicide.

ROO - smothered to death by Kanga.

KANGA - put to death by the state.

TIGGER - accidentally bounced off the edge of a cliff.

ALICE (OF WONDERLAND) - institutionalized for life.

THE MAD HATTER - died of mercury poisoning.

DORMOUSE - drowned in a teapot.

THE QUEEN OF HEARTS - guillotined during the revolution.

TWEEDLEDEE & TWEEDLEDUM - died of excessive weight loss at a fat farm.

SLEEPING BEAUTY - slept until 1986, contracted AIDS from “Prince Charming.”

CINDERELLA - killed by stepsisters and stepmother in a jealous rage.

PINOCCHIO - is now a very comfortable Ottoman.

JIMINY CRICKET - died after impacting a windshield at high Speeds.

FIGARO - strung tightly on a Les Paul guitar.

DUMBO - sucked into the engine of a 747.

PETER PAN - Christopher Robin’s lover, committed suicide in despair.

TINKERBELL - caught by some kid who forgot to punch holes in the lid.

BAMBI - shot by NRA member with an AK-47. His body was never found.

BALOO - is now decorating the floor in front of a fireplace.

LADY & THE TRAMP - sold to a Cantonese restaurant.

101 DALMATIANS - sold to the Ringling Bros. Circus, were eaten by lions.

THE RESCUERS - involved in cancer research.

TRON - someone pulled the plug out by accident.

CAPTAIN EO - had a leak in his spacesuit.

JESSICA RABBIT - backup singer for Guns ‘N Roses.

THE LITTLE MERMAID - caught by Mrs. Paul’s Inc.

ALADDIN - was caught stealing one too many times, is now being traded nightly at Leavenworth for a pack of menthols.

I can’t exactly remember when I met Kathleen O’Reilly, though I’m pretty sure the connection was made through Julie Kenner, who is a mutual friend and fellow Blaze/Temptation writer. What I can tell you is that Kathleen is one of the nicest, funniest, most talented writers I know and I’m so thrilled to have her here in the jungle, talking about a topic near and dear to my heart. I love wordsmithing! And there are some lines in here that are just priceless…read carefully, jungle friends. Welcome, Kathleen!

Wordsmithery
By Kathleen O’Reilly

I have a love-affair with words, especially the wild and kinky ones. I like words that surprise me, that whisper in my ear, that crook a finger and say, “follow me…” My favorite authors are the clever ones that know how to use words, how to misuse them for best effect, and how to make me sigh with envy.

As a writer, words are the only tools we have. We must build a world with mere words, we must beget a whole pedigree of humans with our words, we must intrigue the reader using nothing more than the smallest of building blocks — words.

Yet words can be arranged and rearranged to great affectation, or affection, depending on which cunning-linguistical coterie you prefer. There are the classic stylists like Nabakov:

“I pushed her softness back into the room and went in after her. I ripped her shirt off. I unzipped the rest of her. I tore off her sandals. Wildly, I pursued the shadow of her infidelity; but the scent I traveled upon was so slight as to be practically undistinguishable from a madman’s fancy.”

There are the great bawds, like Shakespeare, who had ever so many word-tricks up his sleeve. “Oh, when she had written it (a letter), and was reading it over, she found ‘Benedick’ and ‘Beatrice’between the sheets.” Even the simplistic, “I am stuffed,” can assume a more insatiable meaning, if you mind wanders in those directions, as mine is wont to do.

The list of wordsmiths go on: Dickens, Twain, C. S. Lewis, Douglas Adams, Dorothy Parker, and oh, my, I’m being obtuse, how could I forget the great Dr. Seuss?

One of my favorite form of word-play is taking the expected and twisting it into the novel. We all expect: “Her skin was pale and silken, shimmering in the moonlight.” We do not expect, “Her skin was pearls dipped in moonlight,” or, if this is a paranormal, and the hero is a were-hog: “Her pale skin was pearls before swine.”

Cliches are especially rife for the mistaking. “Looking in the mirror, she examined her butt, and forty acres and a mole sadly stared back at her.” I could go on, ad infinitum, eternally, to infinity and beyond, but I only have a limited number of words handy.

When you choose the words to preen your scene, there are mean words that will lash at you, wrenching you out of your comfort zone, squeezing your mind until it explodes, charging and pummeling, pummeling and charging, thrusting and driving until you cry out for relief.

And if angry-words are not your cuppa, there are pretty words that sing out on the muted page, honeyed words that slowly fall from the writer’s imagination, dripping with a soothing rhythm, floating just beyond the tried and true, leaving the reader breathless, poised with anticipation, awaiting that next….small…set of letters.

I love words, all of them, the good, the bad, and the ugly. I have the Describer’s Dictionary, Descriptive Word Finder, Zounds!, Swearing, the Synonym Finder, Roget’s Thesaurus, sexicon, and the Dictionary of Allusions at my fingertips because my brain can be lazy without the proper stimulus (usually Red Bull). I am a mere lexiconologist in training, but my current favorite sexy, lexiconologist is Stephen Colbert. On that note, I’ll leave you with this:

Julie here again: In case you haven’t noticed, Kathleen has a new Blaze out this month…if you click the cover of Nightcap, you’ll go to Amazon where you can buy your very own copy! Her books consistently get awesome reviews from some of the toughest review sites. And I think she rocks…so go out and buy a copy for yourself, if you haven’t already!

I’m in Florida right now and at some point during this next week, I’ve promised the girls that we’ll do a Disney day. (Probably MGM because it’s their favorite.)

Anyway, I thought I’d do a little gift-by-request. Just leave a comment with your name and the name of your favorite Disney character–hero, heroine, princess, prince, villain, whatever. I’ll do my VERY best to pick up a little something with that character on it, and send it off to you, along with a book of your choice from my backlist.

Sound good?

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Okay, I just want to cry. I just spent the past hour on a big long post recapping American Idol this season, my favorites and why they’re my favorites, who I want to win and why (all the while saving my post as I did this), and then I hit “publish” to get the blog lined up to post in the morning and POOF, it completely and totally disappeared. Everything in the post — GONE. I’m devastated. And it’s 11 PM at night and I’m exhausted and upset and there’s no way I can recreate that post when it took me an hour to get it just so.

So, I sincerely apologize for this shortened version of what once was a big, long blog on this season of American Idol. That said, for those of you who watch American Idol, who do you want to win? I’m rooting for David Cook!

I think it’s pretty common knowledge that scent memory is very powerful. Research shows that while scents and odors don’t conjure memories more effectively than visual or auditory cues, odors tend to be more emotional.

I totally agree.

There are certain Italian restaurants that I love the minute I walk in the door because of the smell. If it smells like my Nana Carolina’s (pronounced Cahr-o-LEE-na) kitchen, that’s a very good thing. My favorite thing about making a big pot of spaghetti sauce on a Sunday is to leave the house and then come home an hour later because my whole house smells like garlic and tomato. Mmmm….

It’s not just food smells that are powerful. I know that for me, the smell of incense at church is powerful, too. I never did like that particular smell, but it certainly transports me back to grade school, where our church and school didn’t have air conditioning and any holiday that called for incense pretty much meant someone was going to pass out.

One of my favorite scenes in one of my favorite romantic comedies was in the Meg Ryan/Kevin Kline movie, FRENCH KISS, when he took her to his childhood bedroom and showed her the project he’d done as a kid about the smells of herbs and flowers in the wine his family produces at their vineyard. She amazed me at how she could take a sniff and identify the scent…but I really loved the sensuality of the scene as she drinks the wine and then tells him what she tastes. The currant! Love that scene. Very powerful and sweet and yet, really sexy. (If you haven’t seen this movie, rent it! It’s really awesome.)

I bring this up because I’m currently writing a heroine (Josie Vargas, who appeared in last year’s Blaze, STRIPPED, which btw, won Romantic Times Magazines Best Blaze of 2007 award) who works with scents. She’s not an aromatherapist (though I did write one of those back in PURE CHANCE) but she does know her herbs and will use them to her advantage. That means I’m doing lots of research as I write about scents and such and it’s hard for me to apply that knowledge sometimes because truth be known, I have a horrible sense of smell.

Back when we lived (briefly) in Georgia, we had a gas stove. I would get home early…around 4pm. My husband would get home at 6pm. He’d immediately walk in and smell the rotten eggs that alerted us to the fact that our pilot light went out…me? I didn’t smell a thing. That was very scary.

So a scent has to be really powerful to be familiar to me, but I love smells. I love my neighbor’s gardenias, which are in bloom right now and smell divine. I love certain perfumes and colognes, though I don’t wear them myself. My old favorite was Must de Cartier. It had a strong vanilla scent, which is irresistible to me. I loved Cinnabar and Opium, for obvious reasons! Spicy and exotic and powerful…not to be worn much in the summer here. These were winter scents.

So it really helps me to go out and buy oils or herbs that I can press my nose right up against in order to experience the smells I’m writing about. I’m heading to a spa-type, new age store tomorrow to do some stocking up. Exotic, erotic smells work best when writing a Blaze!

So, what scents do you love? Not just perfumes or colognes, but the every day smells that bring a smile to your face or a memory to your mind?