I'm up for book of the month!

Wickedly Wanton is up for April book of the month at Sizzling Hot Books. If the mood moves you, please vote on the right hand side for me. I'd appreciate it!

Rough waters

Not the story--life. No matter how one plains things out, life has this annoying way of not doing what you want.

Haven't given up, haven't stopped writing, and Seduction of a Proper Lady is (was) going smoothly. But when I can't even keep my eyes open long enough to make dinner let alone plop before the computer to write, it make for uneven progress.

About a year ago

It was about a year ago when I received a contract for my first short story. It was in the Once Upon a Time anthology, entitled Inamorata.

I was thrilled with both the story and the fact that it sold! Now I'm working hard on my second full-length Regency menage, Seduction of a Proper Lady: A Regency Menage Tale. And I'm still thrilled that I'm writing and these stories are selling!

Happy Easter!

Busy last few weeks, but wanted to take the time out to wish you and yours a Happy Easter!

2 great reviews!

Sizzling Hot Book Reviews said this about Wickedly Wanton
...combines a little Dominant/submissive leaving you breathless and enthralled. Never would one suspect desires such as these to fall upon young ladies of this time...Wickedly Wanton lives up to its title. The sex is hot and heavy between the threesome and nothing is taboo. I think if you like extremely racy reading then be sure to pick up Wickedly Wanton by Kristabel Reed.
Read the whole review here.
This is a great site for new books, I highly recommend it!

Long and Short Reviews gave Wickedly Wanton 4 Cherries
Throw away your expectations of just what a proper English woman is and enter Ms. Reed’s version of Regency England. You’re sure to be shocked and more than a little intrigued. From the first sultry moment to the last steaming sentence, you’ll be entertained and engaged by the vivid characters and intense storyline. Never has history been so hot!
Read the whole review here.

Friday recipe: Vanilla birthday cake

I was asked to make a vanilla cake with chocolate frosting for a friend's birthday. The only problem is, she's on a diet. Now she wasn't specific in it being a healthy cake, and since it is her birthday, she might not care. However, as her friend, what kind of a friend would I be if I didn't at least try to help her stay on her diet?

Let me tell you, diet vanilla cake-not easy to find! A quick search produced many chocolate recipes, and while I'm all about chocolate in its many delicious forms, she was very specific. So what in my wandering searches did appear? A healthy baby food site.

Vanilla Cake adapted from a recipe for diabetic cooking

Ingredients:
1 cup all-purpose unbleached flour
1/2 cup pastry flour
1/4 cup sugar (thought about substituting apple sauce, but used unrefined sugar instead)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup plain yogurt
1/2 cup buttermilk
2 tablespoons canola oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 egg whites

Instructions:Preheat oven to 350ºF. Spray an 8" X 8" baking pan with low-fat spray. Sift the dry ingredients and set aside.

Whisk together wet ingredients in a mixing bowl. Add the dry to the wet and mix until most of the lumps are gone. Pour mix into the pan and bake at 350ºF for 30-35 minutes or until knife or toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

You may add all ingredients together if using a stand mixer - just be sure to mix up the dry for about 30 seconds to ensure the soda and powder are spread out.

Hump day?

Where on earth did that saying come from? I don't know but in looking it up I did find this which made me laugh:
The absolute BEST day of the week, the day of maximum hope that maybe, you might make it out of this week alive. A particularly good hump day can last you the rest of the week, and by Doomday morning (Monday) you survive by anticipating hump day. Nothing goes wrong on hump day

I tend not to agree with that last bit but it's all interesting.

First Chapters

Suck.

I've redone this chapter twice but am finally happy with it. But the opening chapter is the most important. Why read further if you don't like chapter one?

After changing POVs once, I'm really pleased with the way its turned out. Plus it makes the next chapters easier to write, since they flow from chapter 1.

Friday recipe

I use AllRecipes.com often...very often. I love finding new recipes by simply going to their site and clicking on whatever I'm in the mood for-crockpot, soup, desserts, etc. Last week I found Zesty Slow Cooker Chicken Barbecue. Put me in the mood for summer! Didn't use bread but a fork, which was slightly less messy.

Ingredients
6 frozen skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
1 (12 ounce) bottle barbeque sauce

1/2 cup Italian salad dressing

1/4 cup brown sugar

2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

Directions

1.Place chicken in a slow cooker. In a bowl, mix the barbecue sauce, Italian salad dressing, brown sugar, and Worcestershire sauce. Pour over the chicken.

2.Cover, and cook 3 to 4 hours on High or 6 to 8 hours on Low.

Nutritional Information

Amount Per Serving Calories: 300 | Total Fat: 8.1g | Cholesterol: 61mg

Social Netowrking: Commenting on blogs

There's a very good reason as to why I don't often comment on blogs. It's not that I don't read them, I follow many (entirely too many) blogs and try to read at least the blurb every day. But only about 5% of the time do I click to read more.

Why? 

• No time in the morning to read them and many aren't updated that early anyway. But, if you schedule your post to go live at 6AM or earlier, then I'll be there. :)
• No time at night to do more than skim the blurb Blogger so helpfully provides. Once I get home, make dinner, deal with the day's crisis, walk the dog, and whatever else I have to do, I write. Getting at least an hour of writing time in per day is extremely important to me. Of course I'm not the only writer with this problem, but I've yet to juggle it all into a workable juggling act.
• Do I write? Or do I make online friends? Difficult choice.
• When I do manage to sneak online at work, the graphics (pictures, covers, etc.) are entirely too graphic for my workplace. Getting on at lunch is one thing--getting on with a bunch of mostly naked people in various positions is another. I keep my professional and home lives very very separate from what I write and read.

How does everyone else manage it? Inquiring minds need to know!

World Building

I hadn't realized that it needed to be done, I don't write paranormals or futuristic stories but yup...it's necessary anyway. World building.

Oh, sure, I've heard the term before, but always with the paranormal set. Who knew I'd need it for a Regency story? But historicals have their own world, one I thought well known enough not to bother. How wrong I was!

Dress, speech, travel, servants, tradition, customs, and even location are integral to the story. Everyone who reads a Regency story knows the world--right? Wrong. The problem isn't the well-known aspects of Jane Austen's world, it's what she never wrote about. Those are the things that interest me. Those are the things I want to write about. Those are what's important to world building.

Not just streets and balls and dances, or even etiquette and speech patterns. No, what's important is knowing both the history of the place, and the history of its people.

Without the people, there is no place.

So yes, world building in a paranormal means creating these things from scratch. But world building in any story means knowing those things (but not necessarily using them) as if you made them all up from scratch.

Historical settings

In plotting my newest books, I wondered if setting it in Napoleon's Paris would work. The only Regency romances I've read that take place in France involve the English as spies working against Napoleon. I eventually decided against it, for now at least, but wondered...

Is that too unusual a setting? Is that something most Regency readers won't read?

I've been doing a lot of reading over at the Unusual Historicals blog so naturally I'm all about different settings, but is this one too different?

Friday Recipe

Still on my soup kick and will be until it's officially warm every single day! I might have long to wait for that, but I'm willing. I'm so over winter and this constant cold!

Last week I shared the recipe I made for sausage soup. If anyone ever wonders where I get the majority of my stuff, it's AllRecipes.com just be sure to check the box that says: Show recipes with photos. Mostly because I like pictures.

Toscana Soup:
Ingredients
12 links spicy pork sausage, sliced
1 tablespoon vegetable oil (I used olive oil)
3/4 cup diced onion
1 1/4 teaspoons minced garlic
2 tablespoons chicken soup base
4 cups water
2 potatoes, halved and sliced
2 cups sliced kale
1/3 cup heavy cream (I used cream, but the 1/2 the fat kind. I don't know if it changed the taste/texture but it was much healthier!)

Directions

1.Preheat oven to 300 degrees F (150 degrees C).

2.Place sausage links on a baking sheet and bake 25 minutes, or until cooked through. Slice into 1/2 inch slices.

3.Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Saute onions until translucent; add garlic and cook 1 minute.
4.Stir in broth, water and potatoes; simmer 15 minutes.

5.Reduce heat to low and add sausage, kale and cream; simmer until heated through and serve.

Amount Per Serving Calories: 271 | Total Fat: 21.7g | Cholesterol: 72mg