Me… Out and About
Happy New Week and Happy New Month!
This has been a busy few days with the annual book expo at the Jacob Javits Center. It was a bit tiring but also nice to see so many out and so much excitement going on about new and upcoming books. I was able to snap quits a few pics with my phone so I’ll let another collage do the talking for me here.
It was great to see come of my friends getting to sign copies of their books like Falguni Kothari with BOOTIE and THE BEAST and Eileen Palma with her debut WORTH THE WEIGHT. Also check me with the amazing Loretta Chase and do you see the legendary Ms. Brenda Jackson and Ginger Jamison and is that Tiffany Reisz and Megan Hart? Oh yeah! And down in the corner, yes that is THE Billy Idol. I know, insert earworm here. LOL. We had so much fun. And I’m totally blaming Falguni and Alyssa Cole for the Batman/Spiderman pic. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
I’m excited to say that I’ll be signing copies of my books (Through the Lens, Seduction’s Canvas, Threads of Desire & Bounce) this month at The Romance Festival put on by my RWA/NYC RWA chapter and being held on June 14th at the historic Morris-Jumel house in Washington Heights in New York City from 1-4:30. The admission is free and there will be readings from the authors as well as some exciting talks and the books from many NYC authors available for purchase. If you’re in the city on that day please come on out and see us. Check this great line up:
The Morris-Jumel Mansion
65 Jumel Terrace
(between West 160th & 162nd Street)
Admission is FREE!
Guest Speakers:
Anna DePalo (USA Today Best Selling Contemporary Romance Writer: The Romance Genre)
Elizabeth Mahon (Scandalous Women: The Lives and Loves of History’s Most Notorious Women)
Carol Ward (Director Morris-Jumel Mansion: The Loves of Eliza Jumel)
Panel:
For Love and Liberty:
Multicultural and LGBT Love Stories during the American Revolution
With – Stacey Agdern, Alyssa Cole, Lena Hart, and Kate McMurray
Tours of the Morris-Jumel Mansion will be available throughout the day!
Oh and finally this bit of coolness: My book is being featured on Tuesday June 3rd 2014 at eBookSoda, a new readers’ site where they’ll send you ebook recommendations tailored to your taste. www.ebooksoda.com. Check me out! Yay 🙂
Have a great day!
All the best,
KMJ
With This Thread… now in PRINT!
So this slipped right by me.
Sometime while I was sleeping or some such thing, Threads Of Desire became available in PRINT! *Blows Horns!* *Throws Confetti!* I’m so happy to now have all of my books available in both e-reader versions and in print for those who’d like a physical book. This makes be beyond thrilled.
Thanks so much to all who have supported me.
You can pick up Threads of Desire the Print Version here.
Have a fantastic day!
All the best,
KMJ
NOLA… a pictorial
So instead of getting all wordy about my time in New Orleans last week at the fantastic Romance Slam Jam Conference and then the incredible RT Book Lovers Convention I decided to let pictures do the talking for me with a few collages.
First up a collage from Romance Slam Jam. I’ll say it here once again… I can’t thank the amazing Farrah Rochon enough for inviting me. I feel like I made so many new friends and I got to speak on my 1st ever panel with the super talented Yvette Hines and Sienna Mynx. Talk about a great moment and one that I’ll always cherish. Not to mention signing next to our keynote speaker Angie Daniels. Holla! I’m already looking forward to next year in Dallas!
Next up was the RT Book Lovers Convention at the Marriott. Wowza! Talk about a grand time. Over 2000 attendees and 700 authors. There are still friends I’m connecting with online that I didn’t get to see in the crowd. But I’m sure grateful for those that I did. Can you spot some of your favorite authors in this group?
I was so happy to have my 1st ever RT signing here and to sit next to the wonderful USA Today Bestselling Callie Hutton. There were so many amazing authors in both rooms and I was proud to be among them. I’ll also be forever be grateful to my friends who came by to see me at my spot and put on their best fan faces for pics. You all are the very best and we had a fantastic time. Thank you all so much. I can’t wait to whoop it up again.
Now where are my shrimp and gravy? I’m starting to feel a little put out after not having them for over a day. Hmph. seems a girl’s gotten a tad spoiled.
All the best,
KMJ
The Sweetest Hangover…
Hello all! It’s been so long. I’m home from my back to back conferencing and have a huge conference hangover complete with laryngitis from all the talking at high volumes. But I had a fabulous time and now I’m happy to be back home and ready to focus once again on family and my writing. This week I plan on sharing lots of conference pics as soon as I’m coherent enough to put them into some order. But first I’m going to work on waking up and then it’s off to restock the fridge with my (Yay! She’s back home) DD. It’s so nice to have my family of 4 back to together again. I’m amazed at how French my daughter has become. She really did so well and I’ll forever be grateful to her wonderful host family in France who are now a part of our family too.
Ok I’m off for now… Leaving you with a pic of me my at my 1st RT Booklovers convention signing….
And a general recap from Bubba Gump on all I ate while in NOLA (winks to my friend who will totally get this joke). Seems I never met a po’ boy I didn’t like.
All the best,
KMJ
Bounce is in print! (and I get a bit embarrassing) …
Let’s all hold hands for this shall we?
It’s finally here! Bounce is available in print and I’m a little over the moon about it!
So much so that I’ve gone and made a totally embarrassing unboxing video to express my feelings (no one was home and I had a not so bright idea about documenting a moment). Um, yeah, there’s a reason that I don’t do public speaking and you’ll all get to see it now. But at the encouragement of my Dear Son who was either moved by my video or wants others to share in his mother’s silliness I’m going to take a leap and go ahead and share.
Hey, I may not be blessed with the gift of gab, but I am happy to finally have my 1st step into self-publishing now in print as well as digitally available to share with all of you. Thanks so much to everyone who helped make this happen. I will forever be grateful. There are too many to mention, but I would like to give a heartfelt special thanks to the amazing Ms. Lauren Dane for her beautiful cover quote. I am so honored. Also a special thank you to Irene and Julie for their wonderful quotes. You ladies are fabulous!
Thanks, Thanks and more THANKS! This has been quite the journey.
BOUNCE with me people!
Available in print here
All the best,
KMJ
When Bootie met the Beast… an interview with author Falguni Kothari plus a giveaway!
Today on ye old blog I’m so happy to have my RWA chapter-mate and friend Falguni Kothari here to speak about her writing, life and her latest release Bootie and the Beast. Hi Falguni Thanks so much for being here today. It’s a real treat.
First off can you tell us a bit about your latest work work Bootie and the Beast?
Thank you for having me here, Kwana. The treat is mine, believe me, as I’d love to tell you all about the Beast.
As you can probably tell from the title, this book is a delicious metaphor of the traditional “Beauty and the Beast” with a voodoo/fate-tweaking bootie thrown in instead of a rose. (There is a rose involved but only as body art.) So, Bootie and the Beast is the story of Diya “Beauty” Mathur, a slandered Indian supermodel, who on her father’s angry insistence must hideout for a couple of weeks in Krish “the Beast” Menon’s Dallas lair. Beauty and the Beast have a long, bickering history and this cozy little marooning gives them a chance to deal with past issues.
Blurb:
For supermodel Beauty Mathur, life is one giant pink-colored party. For numbers man Krish Menon, life is all about control. She is vivacious, winsome and has a devil-may-care attitude. He is balanced, beastly and abides no nonsense. She jets about the globe, drenched in designer labels and inspires princely men to act out fairytales for her. He growls instead of talks, snarls instead of asks, and no one on the planet makes the Beast growl or snarl louder than Beauty Mathur.
Yet for all their differences Diya and Krish are friends—the rarest of friends.
When Diya gets embroiled in a shocking scandal that not only threatens her reputation but her single-and-fabulous status too, Krish steps in to protect her like he always has. But something is different this time. The Beast has a secret and Beauty will not rest until she peels it off him. The meddling has an unexpected result: it changes the status of Beauty’s relationship with the Beast forever.
Buy link: http://www.falgunikothari.com/bootie-and-the-beast.php
What inspired you to write this story?
Diya is a secondary character in my debut romance, IT’S YOUR MOVE, WORDFREAK!
Even as an MC’s BFF, Diya Mathur was amazing and fun and the minute I put her in Wordfreak, I knew I had to give her a center-stage story. When Krish Menon (brother to Diya’s BFF, Alisha Menon) made his appearance, it was like a gong went off in my head. OMG! I thought, the BFF and the brother…the fashion model and the numbers man…how perfect. And it was…is perfect.
Do you feel your works are more character or plot driven?
Definitely character-driven. I always imagine the characters first. Flesh them out in my mind and the plot/issue they have to deal with comes in after.
What made you choose this genre to write in?
I love to read about HEAs and get unrealistically ticked off when a book refuses to give two people who are perfect for each other a happily-ever-after. It’s fiction, for heaven’s sake! You can allow fictional characters to be happy no matter what insane thing you have to do to get them there. I think it’s the Bollywood diet I’ve been on all my life. Bollywood cinema is big on romances and Shah Rukh Khan, the King of Romance, gives me the shivers.
This is a favorite of mine. Care to share the story of your “overnight” success with my readers?
I don’t know about “overnight” but yeah, sometimes it feels like that. About 5 years ago, my mother shook me out of my I-am-a-homemaker-and-mother-of-two-and-therefore-satisfied-with-life bubble by insisting I DO SOMETHING for myself. I got married young and did not finish college, so I thought why not jog down that road as I love reading and learning anyway. I decided to start with a couple of online classes at the community college, see if I could in fact study and give tests again. Surprisingly, all the online classes that I liked had something to do with literature or writing. I started with short and sweet courses, not too taxing. One of them was “How to Write a Romance Novel.” It was so much fun that I took another one on Grammar. By this time, I was hooked and had about half a manuscript down. A year later, I finished the manuscript and a friend who had read it pushed me to publish it. “There’s no harm in trying,” she said. “At the most, you’ll get rejected. What’s the big deal in that?” Other than my ego, nothing was wrong with that. But I put on my “brave woman” pants and looked into publishing protocol and found that in the US, I’d need an agent first. I didn’t consider e-pub or self-pub only because I thought until I know the business I’d rather have someone else deal with it. Of course, I was rejected—23 times for Wordfreak—but I did not get dejected as it was all too knew for me. Sometime amidst those rejections, I visited family in India. There, another friend suggested I chuck my manuscript at publishers in India, as my book was so “Indian” even if it wasn’t written in a typically Indian way. So, I did. And a few months later, Rupa Publications, India’s leading publisher, sent me my first contract. And that’s my success story. I know I have been luckier than most in many ways and believe me I do not take my fortune for granted for a minute.
What a wonderful story is perseverance. I love it! Lastly, can you share with my readers what we can expect next from you?
I am in the process of finding a publisher for my Urban Fantasy, a project that speaks to my soul, and is quite aptly called Soul Warrior: The Age of Kali. This story is what I got when I injected the Indian epic, the Mahabharata, with a heavy dose of the Avengers.
What am I working on? My current WIP is an unconventional love story between three soul mates.
Three soul mates! That sounds really exciting. Thanks so much for being here today and best of luck with Bootie and the Beast!
Folks you all can keep up with Falguni here:
website: http://www.falgunikothari.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/falgunikothari.author
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/F2tweet
Blog: http://falgunikothari.blogspot.com
Also Falguni has a great giveaway going on right now. Please be sure to click and enter for a chance to win a Kindle!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Thanks again!
All the best,
KMJ
Bounce…coming soon in PRINT!
Happy Monday and Happy New Week Folks!
Can you believe it’s the end of March already? Even though I know I’ve been incredibly busy, still I feel like I’ve spent the first part of the year in a state of hibernated slumber and I’m just now opening my sleepy eyes to 1/4 of the year gone.
And since I’m now waking up to Spring I might as well wake up with a smile. Please join me in celebrating the cover reveal of the PRINT version of BOUNCE coming soon to an e-tailer near you (that would be Amazon, but doesn’t e-tailer sound cool?).
Thanks so much to Mae from Coverfresh Designs once again for the amazing design work. And a huge thank you to the fabulous Lauren Dane for my fabulous cover quote. Talk about a dream come true!
Bounce with me people!
All the best,
KMJ
Threads Of Desire-the secret scenes
Happy New Week folks!
I’m ready to dive into my current WIP. It’s a fun one about a reluctant bride and a surprise be groom. But I woke up thinking about Gabby, my heroine from Threads of Desire and what’s she’s up to. I do that at times as if my characters are real people out there in the world. Gabby was such a fun character to write since she had such a big voice in my head that sometimes could not be contained. But in writing there is this thing called editing and it’s up to the editor to contain that voice and like many writers I keep a file of my deleted scenes so I thought I’d share a bit of Gabby with you today from a (secret) deleted early scene from Threads of Desire to give you a little glimpse into her world. I hope you enjoy it.
Crap. It’s your own stupid fault for getting into this mess, Gabrielle Russell thought as she once again tried to scoot out of Donovan’s too tight grasp. It was hot, both inside and out, with this sudden burst of a summer heat wave and Gabby was starting to feel like she was suffocating from all the plastic covering the woman’s suits in the sample closet that they were currently pressed into the back corner of. Her lip curled. It was downright sordid the way they were tucked back there making out like every couple from every made-for-TV movie where the wife gets her revenge in the end.
It wasn’t that Donovan was such a bad a guy, or that he was married. Oh, God no, definitely not married. Without the proper sanctioning of his mama, the girl’s meatball recipe passing muster, and probably the purchase of a home lot right next to his parents’ out on Long Island, there was no way Dono was walking down the aisle. He was too much of a mama’s boy for that.
Suddenly the vision of Dono’s mother bursting through the hanging plastic, shears in hand, gave Gabby a shudder. True to form, Donovan took it as a sign that he was hitting the right spot, his tongue lapping quickly at her ear. Sadly, he was not. “Oh I love it when you shake that way, baby,” he murmured.
Gabby’s eyes rolled heavenward, where she spied cracks in the ceiling and a water stain near the steam pipe in the shape of a canned ham. She let out a sigh and worked on giving a number to Dono, tagging him mistake #97in a long line of many. Her lip twisted again as she started working on a way out of this closet and out of this mess.
Dono had been eyeing her on and off (okay, mostly off) for the three years she had been working at his father’s company, Zenia Fashions. (Side bar: if you have to put the word fashions on the tail end of your company name chances are it isn’t all that much of a fashion company.)
“You sure you don’t have some Italian in you?” he’d ask in an attempt at flirting, taking in Gabby’s toasted caramel skin, his eyes squinting at her naturally curly hair and the freckles that sometimes peeked through her foundation.
“No, Donovan, I told you before, I’m a Black girl. You know, African-American. Sorry to disappoint you but, nothing any more exotic than that.” Gabby was sure if someone traced far enough back in her family tree they’d probably find all sorts of ethnic backgrounds dangling off limbs, but who had the time—and besides, she was not about to jump through genealogy hoops to placate ol’ Dono.
But with her recent diet Dono had upped his interest, going from the gloss over to the “I’d definitely tap that” in the space of a few weeks.
Gabby had gone from a size 18 down to a curvy 16 that she could jackhammer into a stretchy 14—which on her tall frame was something she could work with like she was mother effing Naomi Campbell. Well, that was if the foundation garments were right and the attitude was in check.
Either way, she’d been feeling swanky having picked up said sausage skirt off the rack in the so-called “regular” department (as if the week before she’s somehow been an irregular species) and said yes to his lunch offer—after all, he’d promised it would be a business lunch.
And they had talked business. Dono knew that when she’d been hired by his father, Giovanni, he’d pulled her in with a promise of a new line and an updated look, but Giovanni had continued to blame money troubles, price point, sourcing, or just anything and everything, and as of now the whole thing was put on hold. Gabby was ambitious and wanted more than anything to bring Zenia into the here and now, thus pushing her own name out of low level obscurity. She’d had enough of the slinky fabrics and out there prints. It was time to move on. But it seemed no matter what she tried she couldn’t get away from the back room and the unglamorous life of fashion on the D list.
Rule #87: At steak lunch, go easy on the steak and even easier on the bread. You’ve been on beets for weeks and your brain is muddled. You’re liable to go for anything—such as looking goofy and nodding with a stupid steak and bread grin on your face when your boss’s son runs his hand from your bare thigh on up to your Spanx. You will only feel like a fool when you end up in a closet with sequins on your behind.
For a half a second Dono shifted and the lapping tongue went from inside her ear to just behind it to that sensitive little section that made her nerves tingle all the way down to… oh freaking hell. Her mind did a jump and instantly she was no longer in the sample closet of Zenia Fashions at 1407 Broadway—no, she was over ten years back in the past in an oversized walk-in at the posh Dean of Admissions house at Bonnersville State. Gabby frowned, trying hard to push the memory aside, silently cursing the fact that it came back so easily.
Mistake #1 in the long line. Head of the line. Well, maybe he wasn’t mistake number one, no, she wouldn’t give him that (that honor would have to go to her ill-advised crush on a particular ’90s icon with a penchant for high tops both above and below), but Nick was the one who always came to mind when the numbering started. The one that had hurt the most, but still the one that had taught her the best.
Nick had made her that weekend. Changed her. Took her from the naive girl who thought there was actually a man out there for her, one who she could trust in this world, and turned her into the always jovial though jaded woman she was today. There was no trust. No real love. At least not for Gabby. It was the same ol’ same. Use what you got to get what you need. Get in, get out. Keep it moving.
Gabby sighed as Dono’s hand shimmied up toward her breasts. She moved back involuntarily, hitting plastic covered polyester, and her lips curved into a wry smile as she thought of her own stupidity. How in the hell had she done it again? Coats at her back and a hard man at her front. The first time, she’d welcomed it. She’d been young, naive, and living in the land of hope. But all that had come of it was her ending up pulling lint off her ass and squelching down humiliation as Nick left her with a sorry shrug and nothing more than a “how do you do” in the stark light of day, blaming it on the alcohol, the circumstances, whatever. Yeah, she knew better.
She bit at the inside of her cheek. It would probably be the same with Dono. To guys like him she wasn’t an outside type of girl. Not one to show off to friends or bring home to Mama. But yet, here she was. Stuck between a pipe and a hard place.
You can get your copy of Threads of Desire by just clicking here or on any of the links on the right. Thanks.
All the best,
KMJ
Breathless… Interview with author Sofia Tate plus a Giveaway!
Today on ye old blog I’m super thrilled to have my chaptermate and friend Sofia Tate here to talk about her debut BREATHLESS FOR HIM out July 1 from Forever Yours. Thanks so much for being here on ye old blog today, Sofia. It’s a real treat.
Thank you, Kwana. It’s my pleasure!
First off can you tell us a bit about your current work?
BREATHLESS FOR HIM is a contemporary erotic romance about a billionaire named Davison Berkeley, who comes from a wealthy society family in Manhattan. One night, he retrieves a glove that he lost at a trendy bistro, and the instant he meets the coat check girl, Allegra Orsini, the spark is ignited-he is instantly drawn to her. For Allegra, the feeling is mutual. Allegra is the daughter of a butcher in Little Italy. She is also an aspiring opera singer and a graduate student of voice at a Manhattan conservatory. The lingering trauma of an event that happened to Allegra when she was five years old will affect her relationship with Davison, as will Davison’s ex-girlfriend, Ashton Canterbury.
What inspired you to write this story?
The basis of the story is a short story I wrote when I was studying for my MFA degree in creative writing. One evening in my fiction workshop, my professor gave us a story prompt-two left gloves. We had five minutes to write a story about them. I developed the story and titled it “Hearsay,” a word that plays a prominent role in the opening chapter. Basically, the first chapter of BREATHLESS FOR HIM is that story.
What made you choose this genre to write in?
Years ago, I tried writing a book in the vein of Bridget Jones’ Diary, but my heart just wasn’t in it. Around 2010, I wrote about 100 pages of a paranormal romance. Then I started buying RT Book Reviews every month to learn more about the romance industry. I read a review of SINFUL by Charlotte Featherstone and bought it immediately for my Kindle. After reading it, I knew I finally found my niche in erotic romance, but instead of historical erotic romance, I knew I’d be better at writing contemporary.
Tell us a bit about your writing schedule. Are you a Plotter or a Pantser?
I’m a plotter, but I don’t use a whiteboard or Scrivener. I write in a notebook, always using these red Pilot rolling ball extra fine pens I get at Staples-I guess you could say that’s my superstition. If Pilot ever stopped making them, I’d be devastated. I usually write at night, but I also write during the day when I can.
This is a favorite of mine. Care to share the story of your “overnight” success with my readers?
BREATHLESS FOR HIM had already been rejected by two publishers last year before I got the offer from my editor at Forever Yours. It took exactly a month between submission and the offer, which I think is mind-blowing and I’m still in awe of it all.
Who are some of your favorite writers that have influenced you? (sub-question) What book is currently on your nightstand or e-reader?
Charlotte Featherstone, Eden Bradley, Samantha Young, Raine Miller, Sylvia Day, Logan Belle, and Kate Pearce. I just finished reading Collide and Pulse by Gail McHugh. Gavin Blake-oh my! That man….
What advice would you give aspiring writers?
Hone your craft. Take writing classes. If you’re an aspiring romance writer, read RT Book Reviews. Go to the RT convention. Join RWA and your local RWA chapter. And READ! Read both in the genre you want to write in and outside it.
Right now, I’m working on Book 2 in my Davison & Allegra series, DEVOTED TO HIM, which will be out December 2 from Forever Yours.
Yay! I’m so excited to hear there will be a book 2 on the way! Throws confetti!
Thanks so much for being here today. It’s been a real pleasure. And now for some extra fun, Sofia has agreed to give one lucky commenter a copy of BREATHLESS FOR HIM, so comment away! Winner will be announced on Friday!
Sofia Tate can be found:
And you can pick up your copy of BREATHLESS FOR HIM here:
All the best,
KMJ
Author photo credit: Katana Photography
Thrilling Thursday & a Winner on ye old blog!
So this is the face of a creature that can care less about it the weekend coming.
Honestly, this has pretty much been Jack’s bored expression for the past few icy weeks, give or take a centimeter or two of fur in the eyes. If he could talk I’m sure all he’d say at this point is, “could I please have some warm sun, green grass and a haircut?” As for the days of the week and the rest of it? He cares not at all.
But me, I do, because the fact that it’s Thursday and this particular Thursday means that Scandal is coming back to TV! “Whoo to the OMG Hoo!”
And then as an added bonus I also get the opportunity to pick a winner in Irene Preston’s cool Mardi Gras Mask giveaway and thanks to Random number generator (since I couldn’t get Jack to show any picking enthusiasm) the winner is….
Angela Smith! Congratulations Angela. Please send me an email (just click over at my contact page with your contact info). And thank you so much to all who left a comment!
Enjoy Scandal tonight! I hope you all will be watching 🙂
All the best,
KMJ
