stealth UPS guy was stealthy...

[lagilman]

and now I have a Box o' Books!

For those of you who like a little paranormal romance in your reading mix, I present "Anna Leonard's" newest, The Hunted


When Beth Havelock is approached by a handsome stranger on the streets of her New England home, she has no idea that he is a selkie, one of the sea-faring shapechangers. All Dylan knows is that she is the one he was sent there to find, drawn from his ocean home to the confusing, complicated world of humans.

Neither of them know that someone is watching them. Someone who wants what they have - and will not stop until they are dead.

BN.com / eHarlequin eHarlequin e-book

So for those of you who didn't gt enough romance on Valentine's Day, here's a hair of the dog that, hrm, smooched ya. :-)

All you have to do in order to win a copy before it's on sale is tell us the most romantic thing you ever did (for someone else, yes). Contest will run until Monday, March 8th, and a jury of deeply biased judges will pick the top three responses.



ObAd:

Also available:

DREAMCATCHER - an e-novella BN eHarlequin
THE NIGHT SERPENT (digital only) BN eHarlequin
MIDNIGHT CRAVINGS (an anthology, hardback and digital) BN

And coming in May: FIREBREAK -- an e-novella exclusive from eHarlequin

Comments

[nick-kaufmann.livejournal.com]

Congrats!

[rflong.livejournal.com]

Sounds great. Congratulations!

[barbhendee.livejournal.com]

This looks like so much fun! And I like the "From here to Eternity" cover.

You've probably been asked this before. If so, forgive me. But why the pen name?

[lagilman]

Two reasons, both of them totally business-minded:

1. These are paranormal romance -emphasis on the romance - rather than fantasy with an element of romance to them. I wanted to clearly signal to readers what they'd be getting, rater than risk people being annoyed at being 'duped' into reading something with a HEA. Purely PR-related.

2. I wanted to draw a clear line between these, which are lovely fun but written for a line that has a very short shelf life, and my other work, which (hopefully) backlists forevern'ever. Purely sales-related.

But that's also why it's always been an open sekrit: nobody's trying to hide the fact that I wrote them (and had a lot of fun writing them, in fact).

So, you going to enter the contest? Wee seem to have an awful lot of unromantic people around here... maybe if I fess up to the most romantic thing I ever did?

[barbhendee.livejournal.com]

Oh, I would love to hear the most romantic thing you ever did!

Gosh, I've been married to JC for twenty-five years and you've met him . . . he's not exactly a romantic kind of guy.

But for my entry, here goes:

We're not religious people, but JC really, really like the fun elements of Christmas/Yule. He loves the decorations, the food, the friends, and I do the holiday cooking quite often. For the Yule celebration of 2001, we'd been invited to some friends for a gathering and dinner. I offered to bring a decent bottle of wine. JC was really looking forward to it.

That morning, he woke up with his throat so "on fire," I took him to the emergency room. He had strep. I took him home and made up our living room futon, and then I called our friends to tell them we could not make it.

JC was really disappointed.

I had not gone grocery shopping, and there was almost nothing in the house to eat (except a good bottle of wine), and all the stores were closed because it was Christmas Day.

I dug through the freezer and found some hamburger to thaw. Then I went out and found an open convenience store, and I bought orange juice, canned green beans, and boxed doughnuts.

I made a fancy meatloaf and green beans for dinner.

I put on the holiday music, and I piled his presents on his make-shift bed. We had "Yule" together, and then we shared our holiday dinner in bed.

Does that seem romantic?

[lagilman]

Romance is between the two people involved (the trick is if HE thought it was romantic, and I bet he did...)


I'm a Romantic at heart (a pragmatic Romantic, but a Romantic). I once spent my entire lunch hour searching for just the kind of candy my then-sweetie adored, so I could surprise him with them on a bad day.

The second-most romantic thing I ever did was buy a domain name. :-)

[barbhendee.livejournal.com]

Oh, doing a search for favorites candies for a sweetie is very romantic! It is a romantic kindness.

Maybe romance is all about finding some sweet little thing that will make someone else happy or loved?

Or it could be sexy lingerie?

Bahahahahaha!

[slimequeen.livejournal.com]

Ooh, a selkie romance. I love, love, love selkie stories.

Do we post our entries here in the comment thread?

[lagilman]

yep, post away!

[slimequeen.livejournal.com]

My husband, Jason, always made it clear that he looked forward to having kids someday. I was a bit more hesitant. With Jason in the Navy, I knew I'd have to single-parent and cope on my own.

Sure enough, soon after he started on sea duty, I suspected I was pregnant. I waited until he had an full day of duty on the ship, and then I took the test. Positive. ACK. I immediately called my mom. She squealed and almost had a heart attack.

I spent the rest of the day debating how to tell my husband. I had to tell him. First of all, I'm rotten with big secrets. Then there was the fact he would be going on sea trials within a week and going on full deployment the next year.

I didn't tell him on the phone that night. I kept cool, somehow. He arrived home the next morning.

"I was going through some stuff from our move and found something you've been looking for for a few years," I told him. "I stuck it in your underwear drawer so the cats wouldn't get it."

"Really? What is it?"

"You have to go see," I said.

We went into the bedroom. He opened up the drawer. I had made a full drawing with big words reading, "You're going to be a Daddy! Next March!" and used ribbons to fasten the pregnancy test to the sheet. He held it up and just stared, then set it down and turned to me, sobbing. My big six-foot-four lug of hockey-playing sailor man, sobbing.

Yep. That was pretty special.

(The deployment happened much sooner than planned and he was gone for six months of my pregnancy. He returned home in time for the birth. Our son turns 5 on the 30th of March.)

[wood-dragon.livejournal.com]

Congrats! Can't wait to devour this one too. :-)

As to romance. Well. Personal experience with romance has been ... lacking. So I offer what I did for a friend.

A & D rented a cabin (with hot tub) for their honeymoon. My wedding present to them was a picnic basket of goodies - among them: crunchy peanut butter, crackers, smarties, wine, a travel Scrabble game and water pistols. I'm told the pistols were put to good use. :-)

[diannelamerc.livejournal.com]

The only paper folding I've ever managed has been a box and some cranes. But I found a guide online to folding an origami rose that can be turned one way into a cube (or the other way back out to a rose). I bought shiny red paper and spent an entire day trying to figure it out. I finally managed to make a presentable version of it to give as a stealth anniversary present for a not-entirely-public romance. :)

[(Anonymous)]

Romantic?

Send flowers to my (then) spouse at his workplace downtown on Valentine's Day, with the poem on the card: "Grow old along with me, the best is yet to be...."

(It would have been more romantic if he'd recognized the quote and not just said, "yeah, thanks.")

[galeni.livejournal.com]

Oh. Wasn't logged in. Better now.

*still hiding under a rock*

[neko-san.livejournal.com]

I have this filed more under bizarre friendly gesture instead of romantic. Anyways, when I was in college, someone mentioned how nice it would be to wake up and have a flower pinned to his door. I thought "Ah, I can go better than that", and one night I went out with a empty bag, collected all the different sorts of flowers I could find all around campus, and pinned them to his door. It took a number of trips (and lots of pins!) to cover his door, but I figured whatever was done between 1AM and 5AM was good enough. The next day he was, indeed, happily boggled, and was wandering around trying to figure out who would have done it. I 'fessed up, because I'm horrid at keeping secrets, but it seemed to have made his week. =)