Happy Release Day!

It’s HERE!!! Release Day!!! YAY

Today my first Cowboy story is out! I know, I’ve been talking about this one for a bit but I’m pretty excited, have been ever since I was asked to write for the anthology. You see my story is coming out in an anthology but it will also be available on its own! Very exciting.

So without further ado, I’ll give you the cover and the official blurb.

Official Blurb:

Eric is an orthopedic surgeon volunteering his time with the Justin Sports Medicine program, traveling the rodeo circuit two months out of the year. Underneath it all, though, he’s a cowboy at heart and not just because he was born and raised in Texas. He’s a cowboy at heart because Ben Greene, champion Saddle Bronc rider, owns his heart.

They haven’t put words to what they’re doing, even though they’ve been together for almost a year. But when Ben is bucked off during a ride, resulting in a season-ending injury, both these cowboys might have to finally acknowledge what they have and what they mean to each other.

You can buy it separately Here

Or as part of the Fever Anthology

And for being so wonderful here’s a little excerpt:

Eric stood watching the monitors, arms crossed, forehead furrowed in a frown as he watched the Saddle Bronc event play out on the TV screen in the trailer. This was his fifth year with the Justin Sports Medicine team. He was lucky enough to work for a practice that encouraged philanthropic work and the owner was a huge rodeo fan. So Eric got to spend two months out of the year traveling with the rodeo and treating injured cowboys. His run always ended at the Silver Spurs Rodeo in Kissimmee, Florida, where he called home. It was the most enjoyable two months of his year.

His heart sped up as they announced the next rider. Ben Greene. The chattering around him seemed to fade away as he watched the cowboy mounting up in the chute. Not just the cowboy anymore, Ben was his cowboy now, had been for almost a year. Ben gave the nod and burst out of the chute, hanging on to the bucking bronco with all his might. Eric whooped out loud when the buzzer sounded and Ben loosened his hold on the rope. He watched as the pickup men rode up beside Ben and helped him get off the bucking horse safely.

Within seconds it was clear the ride had not gone as well as it looked. Ben was holding on to his shoulder and it was all Eric could do to keep from running out to the ring. Eric ran his hand through his dark hair in frustration. They would bring Ben to him; all he could do was wait and watch the screen, his heart in his throat.

He didn’t have to wait long. The commotion outside of the room was enough to tell him that Ben was on his way in.

“I don’t need to see the Doc, my arm’s fine.”

Eric had to repress a chuckle; that was his Ben, the absolute worst patient ever. He looked up as Ben walked in the room and did his best to put on a stern frown. At least Ben had the sense to look sheepish, his blue eyes focused on anything but Eric.

“So, cowboy, wrenched your shoulder again?”

“Just tweaked it some.”

Eyeing Ben’s shoulder, Eric walked around before coming to a stop in front of him. He took advantage of his height and glared down at Ben. “You know the drill; gonna need you to take that shirt off.”

Crossing his arms, his best ‘I’m the doctor you must do what I say’ look on his face, Eric just arched an eyebrow at Ben and waited. With a roll of his eyes, Ben huffed in exasperation and started unbuttoning his shirt.

Have a great week, see y’all on Friday for our last stop in Italy: Venice.

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KH

Friday in Florence and Pisa

Friday in Florence and Pisa

Back again, and fitting that it is rainy and crappy outside because that’s how it was when we visited Florence, rainy and crappy. But we soldiered on because we had things to see and places to go.

First stop, was the David. Florence as a whole has really strict picture taking policies and rather than run the risk of getting thrown out – we opted not to take pictures and bought postcards instead. So sadly, I have very few pictures of Florence and most are of outside structures.

We bypassed the line and bought our tickets from one of the street vendors, saved us a three and a half hour wait, which obviously was totally worth it. Went in to see the David – OMG is it massive! My kid was especially intrigued by the fiber optic cables they have to monitor the cracks in the sculpture. Really interesting.

Then it was on to the Ponte Vecchio – a famous bridge that has NEVER fallen despite wars and numerous natural disasters. It’s lined with shops selling gold and silver.

After that it was the Uffizi Gallery – famous for all the Botticelli paintings – like the Primavera and the Birth of Venus. It was just so amazing to see those paintings in person and not just in a book, I’m so glad we got the opportunity to do that.

We stayed in the guest house of a private villa in Montevarchi. We stayed there last year when we were driving back from Sicily. I couldn’t recommend it more, family is very nice, place is clean, and she had made dinner reservations for us for both nights! Both nights were multi-course traditional Italian dinners – the first night we tried Beef Carpaccio for the first time and the second night we both tried rabbit for the first time. I’d have the rabbit again (it was an amazing rabbit ragu cream sauce), I’d probably skip the Carpaccio (just not that into raw beef).

It was on to Pisa the next day. We opted NOT to climb the tower in the interests of time AND none of us were too keen on climbing 300 steps to the top. So we walked around it, took loads of pictures, walked around the cathedral, bought some stuff in the gift shop and then ate lunch in a café in view of the tower.

I would love to go back to both places someday. So we shall see.

Next up – Venice.

Have a great weekend. Don’t forget, my next short, Ready to Ride, comes out next week. I’ll make a post about it on Wednesday, that’s its release day.
Until then – TTFN

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KH

Our view from our room in Montevarchi

The Ponte Vecchio

View from the Ponte Vecchio back toward the Uffizi Gallery complex

View of Ponte Vecchio from the Uffizi Gallery – the one picture we WERE allowed to take

The Palazza Vecchio

The Cathedral (under construction)

Where we ate dinner the second night – FABULOUS /

Santa Maria Della Spina – in Pisa

The Cathedral at Pisa inside the Piazza dei Miracoli

The Leaning Tower of Pisa

Inside the café where we had lunch

Tuesday in Rome

Part Two of our Trip to Italy

After our night in Verona we traveled to Rome. I had booked us a room at the Imperia Suites. They were fabulous. We had a great room, they were extremely helpful, gave us a map, told us how and where to get to the Metro, labeled all the important sites on the map, and even gave us recommendations for lunch and dinner both days. And let me tell you, dinner the first night was AMAZING – hubs said it was the best piece of veal he’d ever had in his entire life!

Anyway, onto the pictures. I’ve actually included a couple shots my kid took, because he takes pictures of really interesting things. So without further ado.

Our first stop – the Colosseum

An exterior shot – kid shot

An interior shot

The Forum – which we had tickets to go into but decided not to, we could see most of it just by walking around it.

The Parthenon

Inside The Parthenon – really the pictures just don’t do it justice, it was breathtaking.

The Spanish Steps – we bought a postcard of this so we would have one shot of them empty because they are NEVER empty.

Trevi Fountain – I really liked this, although it was very crowded. (but then everything was)

The entrance to The Vatican – kid shot

One of many interior ceiling shots – kid shot

A statue in the Vatican – I had to – you know for ~reasons.

Another ceiling shot.

Unfortunately no pictures of the Sistine Chapel because they said no pictures and we like to follow the rules most of the time

Next stop : Friday in Florence

Have a great week, don’t forget my new short Ready to Ride comes out on June 5th. I’ll post links and all the official stuff next week.
TTFN

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KH

Memorial Day

I hope everyone is having a healthy, happy, and safe Memorial Day.

While you’re enjoying the swimming, the barbecues, the movies, your families, take a moment to remember WHY you’re enjoying all of that.

Because of the sacrifices of so many that have come before.

So if you get the chance, take a moment and say thank you to a service member or their family because our freedom is what they protect with their sacrifice.

Enjoy your day everyone.

And thank you!

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KH

Thrilling Thursday

First, my big news, I have a cover for Ready to Ride. Isn’t it gorgeous? Also, it comes out on 5 June, 2013. It will be part of an anthology and also available separately. Will post more about that probably next week.

Now – FINALLY onto my trip to Italy over Spring Break. Due to the insane amount of pictures and sizes and such, I’ll confine my posts to one locale per post – which means there will be about five posts in total.

First stop: Verona – home of Romeo and Juliet. Or as my husband liked to continually remind me the entire time we were there – a FICTIONAL couple. *sigh* Seriously though, we enjoyed our stay here a great deal and if I ever get the chance to get back to Italy I wouldn’t mind spending more than just one night here.

The weather was kind of crappy, it rained that evening, but we still got to see the castle and had a really great dinner. The next morning we got up went to Juliet’s Tomb, her house, and tried to find Romeo’s house – we never did find it but we did end up on Dante’s Street. Having read Dante’s Inferno back in high school, I found this highly entertaining.

We stayed at a Best Western and it was really nice and they had a HUGE breakfast spread the next morning. We checked out before we went sight-seeing and had to pay for parking which limited our time exploring but seeing as how we had to drive to Rome it all worked out.

My husband was extremely frustrated over not being able to find Romeo’s house – it was on the map, but there were no signs and the street signs weren’t helpful. But no matter, we enjoyed our time there, got some great pictures and then it was time to move on.

Hope you enjoy the pictures!

Next week – Rome!

Have a great weekend.

<333

KH

On the entrance to Juliet's Tomb

The Castle

Juliet’s Famous Balcony

The Wall where you can leave a message or a lock for Juliet declaring your true love. You might remember this from the movie Letters To Juliet.

Dante’s Street

Dante Himself

Just Another Manic Monday

Our stuff is gone, on its way to Virginia and my stress level has decreased dramatically. Can I get a hell yeah? HELL YEAH!

Of course now there is new stress – trying to get all the last minute things done before we actually leave in a few weeks. Stuff like school records, medical records, paying our final vet bill : (((((( etc.

The most common phrase heard in our house the past week? “We don’t have that. It’s on its way to Virginia.” I had to go buy pot holders!

All that aside, I fully intend to start and FINISH my posting of pictures from our trip to Italy before I leave. I will start this Thursday so stay tuned.

Now onto the really great news. I have a new story coming out! It’s called Ready to Ride and it’s coming out in the Fever Anthology next month from Torquere.

Here’s the unofficial blurb:

Eric is an orthopedic surgeon volunteering his time with the Justin Sports Medicine program, traveling the rodeo circuit two months out of the year. Underneath it all though, he’s a cowboy at heart and not just because he was born and raised in Texas. He’s a cowboy at heart because Ben Greene, champion Saddle Bronc rider, owns his heart.

They haven’t put words to what they’re doing together even though they’ve been together for almost a year. But when Ben is bucked off during a ride resulting in a season-ending injury both these cowboys just might have to finally acknowledge what they have together.

I’m super excited about this one!

That’s all for now.

Have a great week!

<333

KH

Thrilling Thursday

Busy Busy Busy.

The first car is shipped – YIPPEE!

The movers come on Monday – WOO HOOO!

But we are SO not ready – BOOO : (

I just finished a Cowboy story I plan to submit to BA Tortuga’s Fever Anthology *fingers crossed*

Other than that – I can’t really concentrate on any writing things until after the movers are done next week.

We still have to pack (our stuff that we’ll need for the next two weeks), make our donation runs, clear out some final clutter and a hoard of other miscellaneous stuff.

HOPEFULLY after next week things will calm down and I can get back to semi-regular posting.

Just wanted ya’ll to know I’m still alive, I haven’t forgotten about pictures from Italy and I wish you all a fantastic weekend and a Happy Mother’s Day!

<333

KH

Oh and the hubs and I saw Star Trek Into Darkness last night and it was AWESOME – the dialogue was clever and fun, the action was A++ and the drama was even better. Can’t wait to see it again!

Not Another Manic Monday

As a lot of you know, we had to say goodbye to our beloved dog Cordy yesterday. In light of that, the trip pictures are postponed indefinitely because the next two weeks are going to be full of move stuff and frankly, I’m just not up for it.

Instead, I’m going to share some pictures of Cordy throughout her life with us. And I’m totally not going to apologize for the size of the pictures.

Have a good week.

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KH

Update

This is just a quickie. There will be no picture post this week. RL has kind of jumped on me with both feet and not in a good way. The hubs is under the weather and leaving Sunday for a week-long TAD. The child has developed allergies including a stuffy/runny nose & itchy rash on his arms. The moving company somehow did not have any phone number for us except the emergency US number for my parents – which is hard to believe because I saw the paperwork we filled out and we gave them both our cell numbers AND our home phone number, so go figure. And our dog is sick. Really sick, like she may not make the move back with us sick. So frankly, uploading pictures has been the absolute last thing on my mind.

Hopefully next week will be a better one.

Have a good weekend.

<333

KH

Just Another Manic Monday – Mini Post Trip

I’m back and Italy was ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS. Honestly, I cannot say enough good things about it. We had so much fun and saw so many things and took TONS of pictures – which I will download and post some of them later this week.

Unfortunately now that I’m back, real life has slapped me right back into reality and I am barely staving off panic LOL. Exactly one month from today the movers come to pack us out O__O.

Three weeks from this week, we ship our car.

So many things I have to do – and soccer starts up this week, first practice is tonight, first game is this weekend – exciting for all of us because the kid moves up a league.

What that means for my blog….I will try to keep up the bi-weekly posts but I honestly cannot make any promises. Chances are it will drop down to one post a week (possibly some weeks without any ) and then move back up to two once we get settled later this summer.

As far as writing, I think I’m gonna have to let the MLR Average Joe sub pass – I’ll still keep writing the story because it’s something I’m interested in, but with the move I don’t see me making the deadline – we’ll see, but I’m not going to stress about it. Too much other stuff going on.

Working on final edits on another submission, a novella probably, I think? It’s about 20K so we’ll see. And a few fun fanfic things because sometimes my brain just needs to play.

That’s all from me for now. Look for trip pics and details later this week.

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KH