Still a "new release", here's a little excerpt from "Breakaway":

They’d just finished a dinner full of talk and laughter, teasing and flirting, when three women appeared beside their table. “Jase Heller!” one of them said with a big smile. “Can we get your autograph?”


“Uh...” Hell, he did not want to do this, but he was never rude to the fans. “Sure.” He cast an apologetic glance across the table at Remi.

“Here.” The woman dug in her purse and pulled out a pen. “I don’t have anything for you to sign, so you can do it right here.” And she pulled down her low cut top so Jason could sign her chest, just above her left breast.

He gulped and tightened his jaw as he tried to sign without really touching her. It probably was no accident when she moved and her breast brushed against his arm.

“I saw you play against the Bruins last week,” one of the other women said, stepping up for her autograph. In the same place. “You got two goals.”

“Um, yeah.” He signed again and turned to the third woman, and when he’d finished signing her chest, she took the pen from him, took his hand, turned it palm up and wrote a phone number on it. Jesus.

“I love watching you play,” she purred, making intense eye contact, making her words sound dirty.

Jason swallowed, forced a smile and shot Remi a look. She sat there, stone-faced, mouth tight, hands clasped around her drink. She lifted one eyebrow at him.

The three women seemed in no hurry to leave and kept chatting until he finally said, “Sorry, ladies, but my girlfriend and I are just finishing dinner.”

The three women shot baleful looks at Remi, as if they hadn’t even noticed her sitting there until that moment, and finally left.

“Sorry,” he muttered, reaching across the table for her hand. “That never happens.”

“Really.”

She didn’t sound convinced.

“Well, it happens sometimes. I’m sorry, Remi.”

“Don’t apologize. It’s not your fault.” But she looked pissed. “And I’m not your girlfriend.”

“I had to get rid of them somehow. Let’s go,” he said, getting up from the table and holding out a hand to help her up. They emerged from the restaurant to a flash bursting in front of their eyes.

Oh, no. Not again.

“It’s okay,” Jason said, turning her from the photographers. He muttered under his breath. Jesus. What were they doing hanging around Navy Pier, for God’s sake? He never would have anticipated they’d be there, looking for someone to photograph. And Remi was already annoyed.

“I guess we’re done here,” he said. Damn. They’d been having such a great day.

“Yeah. I guess.”

He shot her a sideways glance, walking down the sidewalk, holding her hand, remembering the last time he’d tried to take her back to his place. “Will you come home with me?”

She stopped. They faced each other. She looked so pretty with that big scarf wrapped around her neck. “Will the paparazzi follow us there?” she asked.

“I don’t know.” He glanced over his shoulder. They seemed to have dispersed. “I don’t think so.”

“Will you wash that phone number off your hand?”

After a blink of his eyes, he burst out laughing. “Yes.”

She inhaled a long slow breath, then nodded and relief slid through him. “Okay.”

Not much to report on the reading front!  Still working on Yours, Mine and Howls by Kinsey Holley. I'm loading up my ereader for the trip to LA next week, anticipating reading time on the plane. I probably won't get much reading done while I'm there though!

The WIP is progressing nicely albeit slowly the last few days because...I'm working on a sex scene.

I'm generally a very fast and prolific writer, overall, but I have to say that sex scenes slow me down considerably. Why is that?

I've heard of readers who skip over the sex scenes in racy romance novels and I recall hearing about an author (I WISH I could remember who) who said, please don't do that, I spend a lot of time on my sex scenes.

I agree.

Even for those readers who aren't comfortable with the bedrooom door open sex scenes (who probably aren't reading my books, aside from possibly my MIL) I would really appreciate if you read them in my books. In my books, the sex scenes are pivotal. They're important turning points in the book, often, points where the characters are at their most vulnerable, when they share things they otherwise wouldn't. I want these scenes to be emotional, moving, and yes, erotic - because arousal is another emotion.

I spend a lot of time not only on the mechanics of the scene - who touches whom, where, and how - but the emotions involved, the visceral feeling, the thoughts each person is having while this is going on. I spend a lot of time describing their deepest fears, their most intense emotions. Let's face it, these are often some of the most emotional moments of our lives, especially when it comes to the love stories of our lives. Yes, there are other emotional moments in life - moments of death, betrayal, suffering. But love and sex are definitely up there with those intense emotions and I want readers to experience that along with my characters, which is why I take so much time to make every movement, every word, every emotion the best it can be.

So please don't skip the sex scenes because yes, I spend a lot of time making them the best I can.

Here's a little peek at the manuscript I just sent off to my editor, Power Shift. For those of you following along this is Gabe's story - Gabe the master Dom from Power Struggle:



Reagan stood on Gabe’s deck beneath the moonlight and starlight and the intensity of his gaze, his dark blue eyes as deep and mesmerizing as the night sky. The way he looked at her, the power and compelling strength, made her want to drop to her knees in front of him. Which horrified her.


Clearly Gabe liked to be in control―the tension snapping between them over that had been obvious from the moment they’d met. And she was determined that never again was a man going to tell her what to do, to take over everything, to control her life. Never again was she going to be trapped like that, at someone else’s mercy.

But then―she studied him, the breeze lifting his dark hair just slightly, the moonlight highlighting the silver at his temples, his expression not fierce or forbidding, but rather gentle and warm and intent. And she wanted to laugh at her fears, because this was far from him controlling her life or trapping her. This was one night with one attractive man, which she’d had many times since she’d been divorced. It was her choice to be there, nobody was forcing her, and why did it have to be different than any other time she’d been with a man? Why couldn’t she just enjoy it?

She ignored the faint suspicion inside her that said oh hell yeah, this was different, this man was way different than any other man she’d ever met in her life. This was not the kind of man she should be spending time with, all forceful and overpowering. This was the kind of man she should be staying far, far away from, the kind of man who could be her downfall. She should be with someone like Kevin—kind, gentle...nice. But Kevin didn’t tempt her like Gabe did. And so she focused on her rationale for why she could do this―one night. Hot attraction. That’s all.

“I like it when you laugh,” she said.

His eyes darkened even more. “I don’t laugh very often.”

“I know.”

“You’re saying I’m a bad-tempered son of a bitch.”

She smiled. “If the hardhat fits...”

So despite my excitement at finding out I could buy all the new books I want from the Kobo store, I haven't started reading any of them yet, as I need to get caught up on my Naughty Nine reading list. A few weeks ago I read a couple of Juniper Bell books, and this week I'm reading Yours, Mine and Howls by Kinsey Holley. I believe I have one by Kate Davies and a fairly new one by Erin Nicholas I need to read also! Those'll be next!

I've been making great progress on this WIP! Right now I'm working on another hockey hero story. The hero of this story is Tag Heller, the brother of Jase Heller in Breakaway. I plan to submit this story as part of the O Canada theme at Ellora's Cave. Unfortunately I didn't check the submission guidelines closely enough when I started it and only discovered yesterday that these stories should have a maximum word count of 45,000 words. I'd planned this story to be 60,000! So now at 13,000 words, I'm realizing I need to pick up the pace a bit!  But that's okay. It's kind of funny that a while back I was struggling to write longer stories and now I seem to have no trouble with that!

On the weekend I heard back from my critique partner about a manuscript she was looking at for me, and was so happy and relieved to hear that she loved it. That manuscript will be with my editor shortly!  That was another one that I started out trying to write a little shorter - aiming for the 60,000 words and it ended up 70,000! Oh well. It had to be that to tell the story. I've mentioned before that I'd done a couple of workshops and read some books to try to help me write longer stories. I think the result of this is that my characters have improved a lot. I think the last few books I've writte that have turned out longer, have had more complex, three-dimensional characters with many more layers than I used to write. I think. I'm often not the best judge of my own writing!

Usually I say FINALLY on release day but in this case, I just found out MONDAY that today is release day!!! I thought it was a typo and my editor meant MAY 18. But no...it's today! Yay!

You've been hearing me blog and Tweet about Breakaway for ages, and here it is! Read more about pro athlete romance heroes today at Nine Naughty Novelists - do you like them, or not?

I'm giving away a copy at my Facebook page - so come "like me" (I hate saying that!) and leave a comment for a chance to win.
Also if you join my newsletter group, I give away a copy of every new release to one newsletter subscriber




Here's a little excerpt from Breakaway:

“You’re not my type,” Jason said.


Huh? She blinked. “Okay, then.” She started to stand but he grabbed her hand and tugged her back down, almost onto his lap.

“I mean…you didn’t used to be my type. Hell.” The corners of his mouth turned down. “I sound like an idiot. I am an idiot.”

Her heart softened. She relaxed onto the couch, his arm around her waist, and it felt sooooo good.

“You’re not an idiot,” she said with a little laugh.

“Yeah, I am. Bah.” He shook his head, mouth tight. “What I mean is, I’m not normally attracted to cute little blondes.”

Cute little blonde? Yeah, that was her. How she wished she had mile-long legs and big boobs and full lips like Brianne Haskett. Stephanie Seymour. Laetitia Casta. All those other Victoria’s Secret models who looked like that.

No, she was teeny weeny, skinny, flat-chested, with wispy blonde hair.

But Jason seemed to find her attractive.

She tilted her head to one side and regarded him through a rum-and-lust haze. “You’re kidding. Right?”

“No. I mean…” He looked confused. “I’m not kidding about not usually being attracted to cute little blondes. But you’re…cute.”

She laughed. Shook her head. Wished for another drink.

The crazy thing was, he was exactly the type of guy she was attracted to. Not just physically—big guys had always appealed to her, maybe because she was small—but she also liked his smile, his wide mouth and how it tilted up at the corners even when he wasn’t smiling, the fact that he was gorgeous but wasn’t all hung up on himself and the most important thing—he’d dumped a supermodel!

Dammit. What the hell was going on here? She looked around a bit frantically, now hoping Delise would show up and rescue her. But Delise was nowhere in sight. And Jason was right next to her, touching her, his big body radiating heat. He smelled good, like he’d just showered, a fresh masculine scent of shampoo and men’s shower gel, and a faint shadow of beard shaded his jaw. Yum. She wanted to bite him.

Whoa. She blinked. Her mind was in the gutter. What kind of responsible, big sister/school teacher was she?

He put a big hand on her cheek, cupping it, and she melted into a liquid puddle of lust on the red leather banquette. “You’re sweet,” he said, almost sounding surprised. “Okay. We’ll just stay here for a while. We can talk here.”

She nodded.

“You’re a free woman,” he said with a sexy smile. “And I’m a free man. We should both be celebrating. Why not together?”

She took in a long, slow breath. “Why not?” She smiled at him.

“Here’s the deal,” he said. “I’m not ready to settle down. I like you. We could have fun together.”

“We could.” Oh lord. What had she just said? She closed her eyes briefly, then focused on him and firmed her lips. “I’m not ready to settle down either. I just got my freedom. I’ve had enough responsibility. All I want is to have some fun.”

Even as she said the words, a small niggle of guilt wormed its way into her conscience. Was it true? Was that really all she wanted? She’d been mature, responsible, dependable for so long…did she even know how to just have fun?

She wanted to find out.


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If you didn't see my ecstatic Twittering this past week let me just share my joy with you!! I discovered that I can buy books from the Kobo store that work on my Sony reader. And the Kobo store has the books I want to read, that the Sony store doesn't. I still don't entirely understand why that is, apparently some kind of geographical restrictions set by publishers, but can I tell you how much that annoyed me (Grrrrrr) that I could not buy the books I wanted. Favourite authors, new authors...I could go to the bookstore and buy the print book. But why should I have to do that?
I don't know why I never thought of visiting the Kobo store sooner. I have a Chapters membership which gets me a discount off print books in store and online and I've made good use of that in the past. Now...not so much since I buy mainly ebooks. I feel a little bad about that, because I'd like to support my local bookstore and Chapters was awesome about carrying my print book Friends With Benefits when it came out. (It's sold out!! Yay!! Must go see if they've ordered any more...) Anyhoo, I got an email from Chapters about some sale and there was a link to their Kobo store, so I had the idea to check there. I had no idea what format Kobo readers use. Turns out it's EPUB, which totally works on my Sony. Excitedly, I searched for books, and found the ones I've been wanting- Jill Shalvis and Julie James, to name two. Even more excitedly I made my purchase, downloaded it, opened it in Adobe Digital Editions, transferred it onto my reader and opened it up...voila!  I had my book! And it was even cheaper than the Sony store!!!

Well you can imagine how my TBR "pile" has grown!! Will report back next week!

After another one of those weeks wondering if this is it, I'm done as a writer, I'll never write again,  I'm happy to say-  it's back!

I don't have those self-doubts as much as I used to because I've been through this a few times now. That feeling of thinking I should be writing...but I don't want to. I have ideas but none of them excite me. I have a few projects I've started that I could go back to. I did go back to them. They didn't excite me either.

This usually happens when I've been writing like crazy and yes, I've just completed a few manuscripts and I guess somehow my brain just needs to rest and regenerate or something. I wanted to write something fast and easy, something that doesn't take a lot of research or planning, something hot and sexy and fun. Even that seemed beyond me, though I'd started something that I thought fit the bill.

This morning I woke up early (except for the Daylight Savings Time thing - losing an hour REALLY annoys me, but maybe it wasn't so bad because I wasn't writing something and didn't feel that urgent need to GET UP OUT OF BED AND GET WORKING which I usually feel) so I lay in bed for a while and started thinking about the story I'd started and a few hot scenes came to mind and...whoa! I was inspired!

And I wrote nearly 4000 words today on that story. Yay!

Today instead of sharing what I'm reading (which hasn't been much this week due to a very busy week!) I'm sharing my Romance Trading Card with you. This whole Romance Trading Cards got started as a way for authors to help promote their books at the RT Booklovers Convention and I along with my blog companions the Nine Naughty Novelists, got pulled into the fun of it! The fabulous Kim Killion at http://www.hotdamndesigns.com/ designed this one for me and I thought I'd share sneak peek here. Tonight at the Samhain Cafe some of the other Naughty Nine will share their cards too and we're even going to give away a Naughty Nine set (soon as they're printed, that is!) including the much-sought-after (we hope!) The Zillionaire Vampire Cowboy's Secret Werewolf Babies!!


Here's the front and back - this is Jason Heller from my upcoming release BREAKAWAY:

So what do you think?????

Was it last week I said I was going to start work on a new story? Ha! That never happened. This was one of those weeks where the "business" of writing interfered with the actual writing. Preparing for the RT Convention in Los Angeles and all the promotion that goes along with it consumed a lot of time this week. (Are you going to RT? I sure hope to meet with a lot of people there!) I was also consumed by another round of edits on Breakaway, which had to be done by March 2, and by another round of revisions on a manuscript my agent has. So the story idea I was working on last weekend never got off the ground. But as I write this, the promo whirl has slowed, the edits are turned in to my editor, the agent has the revised manuscript and likes it and...maybe today it will happen!

This week I've read two books by author Juniper Bell - first, Go Wild, a super hot book set in a cold location. This book has the best "meet cute" scene I've read in a long time!  A quick but great read.

Then I read Training the Receptionist also by Juniper. I loved this story! It's so different - told in first person which I'm sometimes not fond of, but the narrator's voice was funny and a little snarky. Another hot little read!

Well, there's not much I can say about the WIP because there is no WIP. :-) Okay, not entirely true. I do have a couple of projects I started some time ago that are "in progress". Last week I did do more work on the characters in one of them, using what I've learned recently from the books and workshops I've done. I found that they worked pretty well and my story was on target, which was encouraging. I didn't actually do any writing on the story though, as the week was completely taken up working on promotion materials for the upcoming RT Convention. This topic pretty much took over my life! My goodness, this is a big deal! And being my first time at RT, with no experience to guide me, I'm really just winging it here. But the whole convention will be  learning experience in so many ways, that's how I'm looking at it!
On the weekend, I did manage to snag a few of the ideas tumbling around in my head and put them together into a story idea that I'm now getting anxious to start writing. I've fleshed out my characters, got my basic story idea down, done a little research and I think I'm ready to start writing - today!

To celebrate my upcoming release Breakaway, here's a little teaser excerpt:

Remi was close. So close. Everything inside her pulled up and tightened and twisted in near painful ecstasy.


She heard bells ringing.

She rode Jason, sliding her hands into her hair, her breasts rising, Jason’s fingers working magic on her clit. So close.

The ringing sang in her ears again. “Jesus,” Jason said. “Is that your doorbell?”

“No. Don’t be silly.”

She shifted forward, frowning, trying to pick up that feeling again.

A loud pounding reverberated through the house.

“It is the door,” Jason gasped, hands on her waist. Remi paused, breathing hard.

“No. It’s my heart. Feel it.” She took his hand and pressed it to her left breast and he made a noise deep in his throat.

The hammering sounded again, this time accompanied by shouting voices.

Remi paused again. Dammit! Now it was gone, the elusive orgasm. Although, it was her third of the night.

What was going on?

“There is someone at your door!”

“There can’t be.” She squinted at the clock beside the bed. “It’s three A.M. Who would…?” She clapped a hand to her mouth. “Oh dear god!”

“What?” Jason’s brows snapped together. He was still hard inside her.

Remi’s mind scrambled. She rolled off Jason and off the bed, eyes darting around the room for something to put on. She scooped up Jason’s shirt from the floor. It was so big she couldn’t find the armholes and she started toward the door as she fought her way into it.

“Remi, who is it?” She glanced over her shoulder to see Jason getting out of bed too, and the sight of his body, all bronze skin and incredible muscles, slowed her feet and distracted her for a couple of heartbeats. He grabbed for his pants and started jumping into them as he crossed the room.

Remi hurried down the hall to the front door, which vibrated under intense, rapid percussion again. She heard a feminine voice calling, “Remi! Are you in there? Remi!”

She peeked out the window and saw—oh god—Delise standing there with two uniformed police officers. Blue and red lights flashed from a car parked at the curb in front of her house. Remi thunked her forehead against the door, hand on the deadbolt, and drew in a long breath. This could not be happening. Could. Not.

She twisted the lock and opened the door just as Jason arrived behind her, chest bare, pants undone, hair standing on end.

The police and Delise burst into the small foyer.

First another message about contacting me:  I am still having problems with the info@kellyjamieson.com email address. People are telling me it isn't working. I've tested it myself and sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't; however if you do get a reply from me and try to reply again, the email address is wrong. *Sigh* I will try to get this fixed ASAP. Meanwhile, if you would like to contact me please leave a comment here at my blog, I get all of those and can contact you back. Thank you and my apologies!

I finished Anybody's Baby But Mine by Susan Elizabeth Phillips about a week ago. As with all her books, I really enjoyed it. Great tension between hero and heroine

And last night I finished Pride and Pleasure by Sylvia Day. It's been a while since she'd had a historical romance out. I really enjoyed this one as it was somewhat different from her others. She always writes kick-butt heroines, even for historicals and often heroines who are not innocent virgins, so this one was a change from that and yet, certainly not a wimpy doormat heroine either.

Monday morning and YAY! It's a holiday! So I'm at home today. Am I writing? Er...no. Having finished my WIP last week, including a few passes through it to tidy up some loose ends and add a little layering, it has now been put away to rest. Along with the  NINE other completed manuscripts I have sitting there in my computer.

Well truthfully, most of them aren't just sitting there. Five of them are out on submission at various places.

I did write this week, though, because it was my turn to write my chapter of the next Nine Naughty Novelists serial story. Oh I had so much fun writing it! It was just fun - exciting and exhilarating and energizing. It reminded me why I love writing. And I can't wait until it's ready for everyone to read, I think it's going to be another good one!

I also worked on edits this past week for Breakaway AND I got a print galley for Lost and Found to review so I started that. And I'm mulling a few ideas over in my head, deciding what to work on next.

And since I just got my cover for Breakaway here's a first peek at it:

I quite love it!! That's Jase, pro hockey player, and Remi, sixth grade teacher.

AND...

I have a print anthology out today!! This is the "Wet" series at Ellora's Cave which includes my novella, Sexpresso Night. Here's that cover:

Woo hoo!!

I mean me, I'm the bad blogger, not "Blogger". :-)

I forgot to blog on Wednesday about what I'm reading (Pride and Pleasure by Sylvia Day).

Here's a song I'm loving right now:

Last week I blogged about returning to work on my chef story and I'm happy to report that it is FINISHED!!! Wrapped it up Saturday night, bang on 80,000 words. It still needs quite a bit of work, there are a few things I'm not entirely happy with yet, but I had to put it aside for now as I got the first round of edits for my next Ellora's Cave release, Breakaway.

Did I announce that here? I can't remember!  Just got the signed contract back last week, so probably not! This is the story you may have read about here I referred to as my "hockey story". It's about a sexy pro hockey player. I love hockey and always wanted to write a book about a hockey player and I did and now I finally get to share it!  Here's the unofficial blurb:

Schoolteacher Remi just saw the last of the younger siblings she raised leave the nest and she’s not handling it very well. Pro hockey player Jason just broke up with his girlfriend because she got too serious. Jason isn’t ready for responsibility. Remi’s had enough responsibility. They’re both ready for one hot night of fun.


When Jason finds out Remi’s a school teacher, he wants nothing more to do with her. Remi thinks he’s kind of acting like a jerk who never called her after their one hot night together. He’s rich, famous and plays a game for a living. But as they spend more time together, their feelings for each other change and Jason manages to convince Remi they can still have fun together. And they do. Despite paparazzi and “puck bunnies” asking him to autograph their breasts, and despite disagreements over Remi protecting her siblings too much and bailing them out every time they need something, Jason and Remi continue to see each other—but it’s just for fun.

But somehow fun and games grow into love. Remi has always wanted a family of her own and she’s finally found the man she can have that with. This time Jason isn’t afraid of commitment, not when it’s with Remi. But their happiness is threatened when they both have to get serious, take responsibilty and make some sacrifices.

Stay tuned for new about a release date!

This week I read a couple of long awaited books by two favourite authors:  Loose Ends by Tara Janze and Call Me Irresistable by Susan Elizabeth Phillips.

I have loved Tara Janzen's Steele Street series, sooooo much and I am so sad that it's over, much as I couldn't wait for this book to be out. My only complaint about this book was not enough romance and maybe a bit too much action. Tara's knowledge of weapons has me in awe. A little more JT and Jane would have been nice.

And  also enjoyed Call Me Irresistable. Great characters, including the many secondary characters (and there are lots) some laugh out loud moments and some heartstrings tugged.

I bought a new book to read, Sylvia Day's latest historical, Pride and Pleasure, but when I went to read it I discovered another SEP book loaded onto my reader that I must have bought a while ago and never read - Nobody's Baby But Mine. So that's what I'm reading now!

Back working on my chef story this week. I haven't progressed the story a whole lot, but I have added to the word count. Using some of the things I've learned in the last few months from the books I've read and the workshops I've done, which I've talked about here, I did a lot more work on the characters in this story.

Then I went back through the story and found places where I needed to develop those characters more. Added, lines, added scenes. I'm pretty happy with how it's working out so far. So I've added about 10,000 words to what I had before and wow, I'm ready for a crisis! 

This story is loosely connected to one of my stories I finished a while back, With Strings Attached, and my hero and heroine from that book make an appearance in this one. I would love this to be a series set in my fictional town.

I've mentioned before how motivating it is to get to this point in a story - 3/4 done! But the last scenes are also the hardest to write, at least I find. So, even though it feels close to being done, I know it will take longer to write the last quarter of the book than probably the first three quarters all put together. Wish me luck!