Kate Pearce

I’d like to introduce a friend of mine to you.  Restoration is the first published book from my buddy Caron Kamps Widden. She describes the book as women’s literary fiction which I think sums it up very well. It’s a very moving story about a man struggling to rebuild his life and restore his house while dealing with everyday kind of problems with teenagers and family that we all face.

I first met Caron at a writer’s class held in our local community center. I always remember her because she was the only person who had the nerve to ask the tough question-”well what if my writing really does suck-how will I know and when should I give up?”
I admired her honesty and her wacky sense of humor and always enjoyed the snippets of her work she shared with us along the way. Caron’s book was published on June 1st and is available from Hilliard and Harris Publishing  www.Hilliardand Harris.com
Caron’s website is at www.caronkampswidden.com if you want to pop over there and find out more.
Congratulations, Caron-obviously you can now rest assured that your writing definitely doesn’t suck!

I’m never sure whether to be delighted when school is out or horrified. I no longer have to drag three unwilling teenagers out of bed and into the car complete with all their belongings, so that’s a definite plus. But then they are just ‘there’ at home, either sleeping or complaining there is not enough food in the house. (Off on a tangent here but isn’t it weird? Teenage girls start getting super picky about what they eat, teenage boys eat anything that moves and then some.)

My little routine gets disrupted for a while until they settle down with each other or decide to make long visits to their friends which again is fine by me. Apparently our house is boring and other people’s parents are far more exciting and spontaneous. I tell them it’s hard to be spontaneous when you have four kids between the ages of 4 and 17. Finding something they all want to do together is virtually impossible.

I’m thinking a cruise might be worth trying soon. They are all captive on the ship but you don’t have to know what they are doing. Sounds ideal.

Mr Kate and I have a big wedding anniversary coming up in August (20 years)-and yes, I was twelve when I walked down the aisle. We’re hoping to do something exciting and interesting and romantic-(I’ve already vetoed the trip to the Ferrari factory in Italy which ain’t my idea of romantic.) We’re waiting on various ducks to fall into place before we can decide exactly what to do (have I mixed my metaphors here?)

Of course, my idea of romance isn’t quite the same as Mr Kate’s. Once when I was pregnant, he took me to London to see a show. Now I love musicals-love them. Instead we had second row seats for “Misery”-it was a great show but when Sharon Gless sawed off the author’s leg and dumped it in a bucket two foot from my nose-I almost threw up. But it’s the thought that counts right? and Mr K is very thoughtful.

Actually, it’s amazing he is still talking to me after the last two weekends when I’ve taken him on a wild goose chase to get tickets to see my all time favorite band Steely Dan-twice to the wrong concert venue…How was I to know that there were two stupid pavilion ampitheaters in my area? Okay so I jumped to a conclusion and didn’t actually read the instructions-but I tried. he should know by now to double check everything in my life that actually deals with reality.

Hope everyone is enjoying the new format for the website. I’m really pleased with it. I’m starting some promotion for my upcoming book release Planet Mail on July 5th-that’s July 5th people-the day after that big celebration you insist on holding! (I’ll pretend all those fireworks are for me!)

I have a couple of friends to promote bookwise, so those posts will be coming up during the week -when I work out how to downsize the covers! (Technophobia rules!)

Mr Kate and I had one of those trying conversations with our 17 yr old son over the weekend. We thought he had decided what he wanted to do at college but a couple of months ago he started making these vague snuffling noises which indicated that things might be changing. And they have. So after preparing ourselves to pay up the big bucks for college, he’s now thinking he might go to community college and take it more slowly.

I love my kids but I can’t say I understand them. After this particular conversation, Mr Kate and I started fantasizing about what it would be like to choose our children rather than just be given them-(and yes I know it’s our DNA causing the problems here but so what).

We ended up creating what can only be described as a potential gold mine. Our new online contest -FantasyKids.com. If you can have fantasy football, baseball and PBR why not take it a step further?

Here’s how it works. Each parent gets to pick a child. The child has to be a) of an age to actually be your child so for example Mr Kate and I can’t pick Brad Pitt or Sigourney Weaver-too old to be ours unfortunately.
b)The child has to be a real living person.

For example. Mr Kate decided our new eldest son would be the 20 year old Formula One driver Nico Rosberg. Why you might ask? Because he seems like a nice presentable young man, he’s already earning enough money to keep us in luxury for the rest of our lives and-well this is a fantasy right?
I decided I’d pick Emily Hughes the Olympic figure skater who seems like such a nice girl.

Anyway to accumulate points in the game, your fantasy child is rated in a number of key areas: talent, earning potential, press, looks, gifts given to family etc etc-(obviously we are still working the details out here). Points will be given for wins, big checks, good public appearance. Points will be removed for appearances in the bad tabloids, excessive bling or tackiness, eloping etc
As the proud parent, you can track your new child’s achievments and glory in them and then track their lows and feel grateful that you don’t have to deal with them in real life.

So who would you pick and why?

Well, that’s a slight exaggeration, but I did manage yet another technical snafu this week. Why is it that people (and when I say people I mean Mr Kate and the other younger male versions of him in my family) who are technically able always tell you that it’s impossible to do stupid stuff like, a) wipe the internet, b) destroy the world wide web c) mess up your ipod by just pressing a button.
Well I disagree. If you have technophobia like me, it’s perfectly easy to do any of the above without even trying.
In an effort to prove to Mr Kate that I was perfectly capable of using iTunes all by myself, I uploaded it to my new computer. somehow, during this process, (okay so I just happened to have my ipod connected at that moment because I was re-charging it-like I’m always being nagged to do) it deleted my entire song library…

Then of course I had to ask Mr Kate to help me. He came over with that familiar-god you are such an idiot-smile on and managed to retrieve my files and reload them. When I recounted the tale to my sons they all wore the same look…

Strangely enough, my 4 year old daughter decided to check out my computer the other day and when I came back she had managed to delete a whole manuscript of mine. Luckily I was able to save it with undo-but nice to see that she has obviously inherited my talents.

In other news-the website is due for a major overhaul as I just couldn’t work out how to combine Regencies, futuristic vikings and modern cowboys onto one front page. Mr Kate is hard at work on the site as I speak (well actually he’s off riding his horse but you get my drift)

Check out the fabulous new cover from Ellora’s Cave for Planet Mail on the front page of my website-if you click on it you get the bigger badder version. I am so pleased with it. He looks like such a nice erm healthy young man doesn’t he? here’s the link because I know most of you never go over there anymore and have probably forgoten it!
http://www.katepearce.com/

One small thing-I finally decided to call my website what it is-an erotic romance writer’s site. It’s taken me a year but the promote thyself woman! classes as administered by various friends and other writers are starting to make me feel able to call it what it is and be proud of myself.

We had a small earthquake last night. it was strange because normally they feel a bit like a train running through our house. This one was more like a pick up the house and shake it vertically kind of feeling. Apparently it was only a 3 point something, so no big deal.

Oh and waving at Christian and Charlie! Glad you like the car and make sure you keep Ceri informed of what I’m up to!

Don’t you just love this cover? Congratulations Lori-I can’t wait to read it!

When Del Montgomery�s boss sends her to the Missouri Ozarks in search of a legendary pottery pig, her mission seems simple: figure out which of the clueless locals has the pig, convince them to sell it for peanuts, and then hightail it back to Chicago. Local auctioneer, Sam Samson, could be the perfect secret weapon in her search� as long as he never figures out what she�s really after. But is it possible to resist a tall, dark, gorgeous guy who�s as sly as he is sexy?

Everything about Del turns Sam on, from her city sass to her delicious cleavage to her habit of twitching her nose when she�s about to tell a whopper. And she�s been telling a lot of them. Still, Sam knows a true babe when he sees one, and he�s not about to let Del slip away�
Read an Excerpt     Order from Amazon

++++++++++++

Five Stars from SingleTitles.com

�Lori Devoti has burst out on the romance scene with her second hilariously entertaining book LOVE IS ALL YOU NEED.

LOVE IS ALL YOU NEED is an amusing love story that will tickle your funny bone and warm the cockles of your heart. Lori Devoti�s witty way with words and her clever sense of humor ensures that you will close this book grinning ear to ear!� 5 Stars �Donna Zapf, SingleTitles.com
Four Stars from Romantic Times BookCLUB Magazine

It’s been a busy week. My daughter was sick and I spent three days with her tucked in my bed while I tried to write and deal with my other three kids. At one point I felt like I’d never see the sun again and every time I closed my eyes, all I could see was the white outline of my computer screen. Not healthy, not healthy at all!

But good things are happening too. My short story, “Changing Rooms” was accepted for the Virgin Black Lace anthology ‘Wicked Words-Sex and Shopping’ which comes out in Nov in the UK and December in the U.S. Anthologies are a great way to get your name out there. I often find a new author when I pick them up.

And as I mentioned-Ellora’s Cave offered me a contract for “Planet Mail” and are moving so fast that I’ve already got my first set of edits back on it! That’s a bit weird because I haven’t really had much time to detatch myself from the original yet. Usually it’s a while before something comes back to you and it’s easier to edit it because it all sounds new and possibly exciting. But this is my job now so I’d better get used to it! I suspect all the famous EC authors are off having a great time at the Romantic Times convention so my poor editor had to make do with me.

News of a different sort. I ended up doing my traffic school course on line and it was quite difficult to get my old brain working hard enough to process and remember all the stuff. I ended up taking notes which helped me pass the final exam by the skin of my teeth. Hurray! Now I just have to concentrate on not getting another ticket.

On Saturday, I was supposed to spend a nice day with Mr Kate up at the Infineon race track enjoying Ferrari hospitality and a cocktail party in Napa Valley. Unfortunately, I ended up looking after my poor daughter instead. Apparently Mr Kate had a lovely day…

This is a picture of Mr Kate’s new car. It’s a Ferrari Challenge Stradale-which I’m sure means a lot to most of you. Let me give you the girl’s view of this amazing car. (If anyone wants to know the real (boring) technical details mail me and I’ll ask Mr Kate) It’s fast, it’s sexy. It has great seats and when you go out in it people think you might be someone famous. It’s good for my ego and I like to pretend I bought it for him.
Mr Kate quite likes this idea and says I can buy him his next favorite car which is a Ferrari F40 from my massive earnings as a writer. After I’d finished laughing, which took a while, I said, ‘sure, why not? And let’s make it an Enzo’. Unfortunately, I think he believed me so I’d better stop blogging and start writing-help!

First off a big shout out to my friend Jan Conwell whose first book came out this week with Triskelion publishing (you all know my lousy computer skills so don’t expect a link yet) Her book is called LUCKY BREAK and its a romantic contemporary slightly suspenseful fantastic read.

I was lucky enough to get to read it in its younger days so it will be fascinating to read the edited version and see just how many of my wonderful suggestions Jan wisely chose to ignore (just kidding, Jan)
I wanted to get this up and out while I go and figure out how to download the cover and blurb for you all. (again you know I have severe techno-phobia) but I’ll get it up there I promise! Or better still check out my links page, click on Jan Conwell’s blog and she can tell you all about it herself!

Speaking of my lack of computer skills-I ended up lacking a computer this weekend. My computer fried…it was a horrible moment as Mr Kate tried to work out what had gone wrong with it and I tried to stop blubbing like a 5 year old-pathetic I know.
Luckily they managed to save the motherboard so all my files were fine but I lost a lot of other things and have spent most of the last few days trying to find passwords, bookmarks, email addy’s etc.

So don’t forget-LUCKY BREAK BY JAN CONWELL FROM TRISKELION PUBLISHING-go get a copy now you won’t regret it!