Anya Bast

Happy Friday, all! Want a shot at winning a copy of Witch Fire and Witch Blood? Head on over to Fire & Ice and comment on my first blog post. I’m talking about finding magic in the mundane today.

Cynthia Eden offers one of her amazing stories in this new anthology, Belong To The Night, (Uhm, can I belong to the guy on the cover, please?)

“The Wolf, The Witch, and Her Lack of Wardrobe” by Shelly Laurenston:

Jamie Meacham has enough trouble controlling her supernatural abilities. There’s no time for lust, or for Tully Smith, even with his smoldering amber eyes. But Tully’s grappling with his own animal instincts as a powerful shifter-wolf, trying to protect all his territory-including a certain sassy witch-from vicious rivals.

“In the Dark” by Cynthia Eden:

FBI agent and leopard shifter Sadie James’ undead ex, Liam, still arouses her deepest desires, distracting her from tracking the brutal rogue shifter who is terrorizing Miami. By teaming up with Liam, Sadie has a better chance of solving the case, but as passion consumes them, she stands to lose more than just her heart.

“City of the Dead” by Sherrill Quinn:

Dori Falcon is a witch with a plan: get to New Orleans, locate her missing brother, and recover the Eye of Bastet, a mysterious and powerful amulet. Her plan never included falling for sexy Cajun copy Jake Boudreau; but without his help, she may never find the demon who has her brother, and the key to her family’s survival.

And Shelli Stevens has a novella in Sexy Beast VII!

Big and bold, primal and powerful, these men have a seductive sensuality that no woman can resist. Come enter their world of carnal desires and wanton sexuality…if you dare…

“Chanku Challenge” by Kate Douglas

When Beth and Nick first discovered the amazingly sensual power of their Chanku birthright, the desire to mate was fierce and uncontrollable. But Beth remains haunted by an event from her past, and she must confront it in order to accept her new life and find the happiness she so desperately seeks…

“Eye of the Beholder” by Anitra Lynn McLeod

Terrified at the rumors of her new husband’s hideous disfigurement, Larra of Rellmon fears the night and his approach. But as the hooded Dauer caresses her body Larra’s shivers of terror become quivers of ecstasy, and under cover of darkness she willingly submits to complete sexual surrender…

“His To Reclaim” by Shelli Stevens

Five years ago Gemma gave her heart and soul to a fellow werejaguar only to have him disappear. Now Hunter has come back and kidnapped her on her wedding day in order to make her his again, and he will tempt, tease and taunt her body to the heights of hedonistic pleasure to get exactly what he wants…

Oh, Monday, the bane of us all. I don’t have to go into a job today, since I work at home. Still, it’s one of those mornings. You know, the kind where you drop everything you pick up and nothing seems to go right. Everything is just out of sync for some reason. And, boy, my internet connection does NOT like me today.

Yet…today is Monday! THE Monday when Between Fire & Ice: Women Writing in the Shadows kicks off! And that just makes the day so much better.

Alyssa Day starts things off with a post on new beginnings and there’s prizes! So, go on over and help us christen the new blog. Yasmine, Alyssa and I want to see you there.

As for me? Well, I’m going to do my best to kick this day into gear and lose that out-of-syncness. I have edits to do on Cruel Enchantment. I can see the end of the second draft and that makes me happy. I also have to clean my toilets, which makes me not so happy, but, hey, that’s life. Sometimes you have to clean toilets.

I’m thrilled to announce that I’ll be participating in a joint blogging effort with authors Yasmine Galenorn and Alyssa Day! Fire and Ice: Women Who Write in the Shadows. Alyssa will be blogging on Mondays, Yasmine on Wednesdays, and I’ll be taking Fridays. The blog officially kicks off next week.

I hope to see you all over there! I think this will be a lot of fun. 🙂

I’m eyeball deep in revisions to Cruel Enchantment at the moment. I’m trying to get this book pretty much finalized so I can work with a clear head on Jeweled, a different book. Working on two books at once makes me nuts, so I try really hard not to do that. I guess I can only keep one world in my head at a time.

I did take part of Sunday off to go swimming, though. Man, it is H-O-T here. Whew. And it’s that sticky, humid kind of hot that suffocates you right when you step out the door. I’m not a huge fan of the heat, unless the heat happens to be in Mexico and my butt is on the beach. This is the kind of hot that makes you want to stay inside, the kind of hot that makes me look forward to autumn…which is rolling in surprisingly fast. I blinked and the summer went *poof*.

Next month Hot for the Holidays will release (September 29th). This anthology features stories from Lora Leigh, Angela Knight, Allyson James and myself. My novella, Sweet Enchantment, will be your first taste of the Dark Magick series. I posted an excerpt of Sweet Enchantment on my site, if you care to check it out.

January 5, 2010 is the release date for Wicked Enchantment, the first full-length novel of the Dark Magick series. I’ve posted the first chapter on my site, if you want a sneak peek. I had to trim this excerpt up a bit, though, because I realized belatedly there was a whole bunch of spoilers for Sweet Enchantment in it. That’s the pitfall of writing stand-alone novels, I guess.

I can’t wait to introduce you all to Piefferburg. Essentially it’s a resettlement area for the fae, in a reality in which the fae are real and the human population knows about their existence. In this world humans both fear and are fascinated by the fae. With the help of the Phaendir, a order of druids, the fae have been captured and are being held in a large, warded territory of the United States. Of course, the fae want OUT of Piefferburg. That’s their overall struggle in this series–how do the fae break out of Piefferburg, how do they defeat the Phaendir, and how do they deal with the humans who so fear them? As an added complication, there’s internal strife between the Summer Queen of the Seelie and the Shadow Royal of the Unseelie.

The Dark Magick series is action-packed paranormal romance. If you enjoyed the Elemental Witches series, you’ll like this one too.

In other news, Taken, my verra hot menage a trois romance from Samhain is now available on the Kindle. And next month is RAW. Anyone going to be there? I’m really looking forward to it.

I found the Mammoth Book of Paranormal Romance (I have a short story in it) at Fnac in Brussels.

The market in a small town in Bordeaux. Once a week every village has a market day. Vendors come in the morning and set up stands with fruit, cheese, vegetables, wines, meats, fish, clothing. You name it, there’s probably a stand selling it. The food all looks yummy. Of course I wanted to buy everything.

It’s required that you have mussels and frites when you go Belgium. They kick you out if you decline. 😉 We had our mussels and frites at the North Sea.

And me stuffing my face with the best Belgian waffle (with cream) that I have ever had in my life.

You may notice that almost every photo has something to do with food. Can you say TREADMILL? I can.

The winner of the copy of LAID BARE is…….

Booklover1335

Congrats!!! Please drop an email via the contact form on my site or email me at anyabast (at) gmail.com

I’m still catching up from being on vacation, you all! I have a metric ton of email to answer and a prize or two to send out. I finished up edits on Wicked Enchantment yesterday, so I should have some time to get my act together this week. Thanks for being patient with me.

Kinda sorta back, anyway. I’m home from our vacation, the longest and best trip to Europe, we’ve ever taken, but I have edits to do on Wicked Enchantment so I’m still not blogging and Twittering up to my usual strength.

We spent a little over a week in Bordeaux, France with my father-in-law’s family. He rented a big house where we all swam, played ping-pong, relaxed, and ate way too much of very good food (and drank a lot of very good wine).

After that my husband, daughter and I went up to Belgium where we spent a little over a week visiting my mother-in-law. My husband is Belgian, so we try to go over there at least once a year to see the family. Good thing our three-year-old seems to be a natural traveler. This was her second time crossing the North Atlantic. I’ll try and find a couple pictures to post in the next few days (edits willing).

Until then, have a contest.

Lauren Dane’s LAID BARE released this week. Want a shot at winning a copy? Sure you do!

Leave a comment for a chance to win. You have until Monday to enter. That’s when I’ll pick a winner. Tell me what you’ve been doing during the last three weeks I’ve been gone. What have you been reading? Looking forward to the kids going back to school? What’s up with you these days? Let’s get reacquainted.