Well, ok then. Love the post title! lol
Not a gardener myself but as a mom, I'm guessing doing that with you son just added to the fun.
New direction, huh? Can't wait. The beginning still sounds exciting and I know will lead to a fabulous story.
Some are having trouble finding NE locally, so I've shared mine with just enough people to have them ALL running to Amazon and B&N to get the whole I Team collection. I definitely don't want to miss the interview. You always make those so fun.
Hope you have a great weekend. We're are trying to pack in as much fun as we can into these last days of Spring Break. Also making sure to find time to read.I'm still reading Sweet Release, and though I usually don't read historicals, you may just convert me! :)

It's me, Beanbag:

First of all, I got the book! Wooo hoo! Thanks -- it made an otherwise not-so-great week a lot better.

I'm not an urban homesteader because I have a very brown thumb, but people here in the LA suburbs are all about the chickens. Two of our neighbors have chickens and one of my best friends does as well. They're easy to tend (my grandparents had them so I remember that) and they lay about an egg a day when they're happy. And the eggs are definitely delicious. My DH isn't interested for us, but I heartily support that endeavor.

Thanks for the man-titty. Another boost. And good luck with the garden. It's a worthy pursuit for those who don't kill all plantlife. I think that's my superpower. :(

Beanbag Love

PS: I just gave a recommendation of Surrender and Untamed to a friend on another message board who was looking for Highlander stories. I know she'll love them.

Hi, Kara — Yeah, I'm not sure what man-titty and gardening have to do with each other, except they both lead to new life, one in the form of pregnancy and the other in veggies.

When Benjy was little, he was my "garden buddy." Now it's more the reverse. He's 6 feet tall and can do the hard physical stuff while I come out and harvest and nibble.

Sorry to hear that people are having trouble finding the book. That's a bummer. Most places will special-order it for readers if they ask. Thanks for inspiring your friends, though. :-)

I hope you're enjoying SWEET RELEASE. It's hard to jump from one sub-genre to another that you don't normally read, so thanks for trying. I have converted people both directions before. But skip CARNAL GIFT and read RIDE THE FIRE next if you aren't gagged out by SWEET RELEASE.

Hi, Beanbag! I'm so glad the book reached you. Sorry, though, that you had a not-so-great week. Hopefully with the weekend things are looking up.

Bummer about the brown thumb. I bet if you had someone who knew how to do this stuff, they'd be able to teach you. I'm LMAO about the "superpower" comment. That's a unique superpower. Mine is tripping, falling and bumping into stuff.

Glad you enjoyed the man-titty. Seriously, I could eat that man for lunch.

And thanks for referring people to my books. Word of mouth means everything. I really appreciate it.

Back to Zach and Natalie...

Nice eye candy! We grow tomatoes and some salad greens, but our yard is quite shady, acid and very rocky, so we can only garden where we've added soil. Haven't gotten around to building veggie beds yet, but hopefully some day. Looking forward to the interview!

Hi, Linda — He is nice eye candy, isn't he?

It sounds like growing food on your property would be an enormous amount of work!!! Sometimes it's not worth it. Hopefully, you'll be able to have that veggie garden one day.

The interview was lots of fun, I must say. Those guys make me laugh. Yes, I know I invented them but they feel like people to me, each of them distinct from the others. :-)

Very nice eye candy! I just had to pop by and let you know I just finished Naked Edge and all I can say is WOW! This was an amazing book and I loved it! Great romance and equally great suspense and holy megawatt hotness!!!! Thanks for making my Saturday reading so enjoyable.

Hi, Book Pimp Blogs — can I call you BPB for short? — I'm so happy to hear you enjoyed the story. YAY! And I love that phrase: holy megawatt hotness. I think I'll ask my publisher to put it in the front matter of my next I-Team book. Seriously, that's awesome.

Thank you! I cherish the feedback.

I'm so jealous! The HOA doesn't let us do composting at all; even having a small composting drum on the back deck is against the rules. I love gardening but I don't get to do all that much out here, as the gardenable area (even that is explicitly specified) is relatively small. I've always wanted to do more though, with a few egg-laying hens of my own. I'm a bit too much of a wuss for bees though! I love having them around to pollinate but having them concentrated near by would give me the shivers.

And yay for Zach and Natalie progress! And as always, hooray for man titties too. =)

Wow, Rachel, that seriously sucks! When I bought this house, I made sure it didn't have an HOA. That would drive me nuts! Of course, I have to put up with my neighbor's partying...

They now make indoor electronic composters. Not sure if you've heard of or seen those. But they're less than $300 (most big compost bins are more than $200), and you can put it in your garage. No one will suspect that you are (gasp!) composting.

Did you ever see the Simpsons episode where the guy does pocket composting? Sorry, I just thought of that. LOL!

Glad you like the man-titty. I'm thinking of enhancing Mondays (which suck as a rule) with man-titty.

Hey, y'all — What do you all think about Man-Titty Monday? I could devote my blog each Monday to outstanding eye candy just to help us all get through that most awful day of the week.

I love it! Man-Titty Monday! Truly inspired. Can you start this Monday? Spring break will be over, and I'll need all the help I can get.
I am not at all 'gagged out' by Sweet Release. Should finish it tonight in fact. Ride the Fire is the story I've really been wanting to read, but I have this thing about reading books in order, not skipping books, etc. However, I guess I can make an exception if the author ok's it. LOL

Kara, I will start this Monday in honor of the terrifying end of Spring Break.

Mary G would tell you not to skip CARNAL GIFT. But...

Here's the story:

I wrote it. I loved it. I thought it was better than SWEET RELEASE. Then my editor called, said she thought it was great, except that it was 100 pages too long and wouldn't fit in the covers, which had already been printed.

I couldn't cut it, so she did it. And when it was done, it wasn't the story I wrote. I've never read it, never even opened it since then.

Among the things that were edited were the plot thread that makes the hero heroic. At least that's how I see it.

Still I love the characters. Fionn and Muirin, who should have had their own book. Ruaidhrí, who hopefully will have his own book one day. Jamie and Bríghid. Poor Ailís.

So you have my permission to skip it and then go back to it if you want... or to read it. Just know that what you read is not what I wrote.

Did that make it any clearer or easier? LOL!

Wow, it wouldn't fit in the covers? Seriously? I guess frustrating doesn't begin to express it, huh?
If you thought your 'version' was better than Sweet Release, I want to read that!
May move on to Ride the Fire for now. My apologies to Mary G. :)

Hi, Kara — Yes, it was awful. I think I cried for a month. And with me, that's actually possible. I was SO bummed and SO royally pissed off.

Enjoy RTF!

Gotta tell ya Pamela, this blog certainly put a smile on my face this Sunday afternoon!! And I'm casting my vote for more "Man-Titty Mondays. "Eye" candy just happens to be my favorite kind.

I don't have a green thumb but I do try and plant several tomato plants each year. Need those cherry tomatoes for a quick fix! My dear sweet Poppy had a big garden every year and I always loved to help him. Loved the fried okra, corn on the cob and pickled cucumbers the best! Now that I'm a grownup (sorta), I'm sure I would be more appreciative of his broccoli, spinach, green beans and squash.

I'm in agreement with MaryG - don't skip CARNAL GIFT. Pamela, I've read your author's note and now your post here BUT it's still a very very good - excellent is more like it - read and far beyond so many others out there. With so few PC books to read, no way was I going to miss out on a single one! And I told Kara the same thing. I hope I get the chance to one day read Carnal Gift as you originally wrote it.

Soooooo, wow - a whole new direction for Natalie? Might this story involve a Mexican drug cartel? I thought of this immediately when I read your blog. These cartels are playing such a wicked part in our news these days.

See ya tomorrow on Cecile’s blog. Sounds like a ton of fun!!!

I'm glad to have made you smile, Oklanannie. Man-chest does that for me, too. When I was in high school studying Spanish, the first word I looked up on my own was "chest," and then "sexy." LOL!

Cherry tomatoes are the best! A bite of sunshine, I always say. My grandfather fed his family of six kids and his wife and himself from their garden. He was still growing veggies when I was a kid and a young adult. Amazing.

I hope you get to read CG the way I wrote it, too. It isn't available that way except via email from me. LOL! I think I still have it somewhere. Almost 500 pages long.

Well... Natalie's story involved the drug cartels from the beginning. So that hasn't changed. What has changed is how/when she meets the hero and under what circumstances. :-)

See you tomorrow on Cecile's blog — and here for the first-ever Man-Titty Monday.

Nice pic ;). I go back and forth over whether I will put in a garden. It's been such odd weather here. Either it's snowing or the wind is blowing so hard, everything gets blown to the neighbors yard. I LOVE growing my own food and it tastes soooo much better than anything you can buy. I'm lucky, we have an organic farmer's market in the city I can go to twice a week starting next week. I just need to get off my butt and do it.

Catch you tomorrow!

My goodness Pamela, where are you keeping all those yummy men? And, do they do your yard work? ;)

We are HUGE gardeners in this house. I LOVE my veggie garden. We have raspberries and strawberries, too. Our specialties are tomatoes, zucchini, cucumber, butternut squash, pumpkin, cantaloupe, green beans, peas, broccoli, peppers and lettuce. I also do tons of canning and jam making. Strawberry-Blueberry and Vanilla Spice Peach are my favorites. I could go on and on about this topic. I love digging in the dirt.

Diane

Wow. I check this blog everyday. I turn my back & there are 3 posts!!
What's this about Mary G & Carnal Gift. Am I getting a Carnal Gift cause my birthday's not till July LOL. Love the pics. I am lucky to be married to a guy with a green thumb. We have flowers, vegetables & my fave, a herb garden. At the end of the summer, we cut the various hernb & dry them for the winter. My fave is lemon basil. It's light & less bitter than regular basil & tastes great in salads & in my spaghetti sauce.