Six Sentence Sunday with Rach

Welcome back to Six Sentence Sunday!!!!!!!

I was going to post something from my WIP, but decided to give you all another little taste of An Affair Across Times Square this week. So here it is...

          “What do you want me to do?” Her words shook as she spoke. She surfed so close to the edge. So close to coming apart that just a few strokes of a hand would send her spiraling out of control. God, how she wanted to be out of control.

          “Slip your panties off.”

Well, there it is. Your little tease of spice to heat up your Sunday morning. I hope you enjoyed it and that we'll see you back here real soon. 

~ Rach

'Tis (almost) the Season!

I'm very happy to announce that my next book will be out in just a couple months from Loose Id! It is a holiday book, which was so much fun to write. 

I just came up with the title a few days back and I wanted to share it all with you. 

Spicy with a Side of Cranberry Sauce. I'm very excited about this book and can't wait to share it in all its glory with you. Here's the premise...

When Mason goes home to his mother's for Thanksgiving, he's determined to make sure to help her through the first post-divorce holiday without much heartache. Ever since she split from his jerk of a father last year, she's been walking around like the shell of the vibrant woman he once knew. So when she calls him in a panic with a list of things she's forgotten at the store, he braves the only nearby store still open the day before Thanksgiving. He sees the last can of cranberry sauce and is on his way to get it when a beautiful blonde in black biker boots slams into his cart. Boy, did he not see that one coming. 

Amy's a bundle of nerves this holiday season. It's the first time her father's been willing to celebrate since losing his wife over a decade ago. She's thrilled that Dad's finally ready to rejoin the land of the living, but she's terrified that one little misstep and he'll never celebrate anything again. She's praying it wasn't a mistake talking him in to accepting an old flame's invitation for Thanksgiving, and dreading what could go wrong. So when the sexy man she bowled into at the supermarket turns out to be Martha's son, she has no idea how to focus on holiday cheer and keep her desires in check. 

I hope that sounds as exciting to you as it does to me. The book was a lot of fun to write and now I can't wait for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Guess I'll have to get through Halloween and book edits before then. 

So, what do you think of the title, everyone? Has it intrigued you?? I hope so. Let me know your thoughts. 

Check back soon for updates on the book and don't forget to check out my first erotic romance, An Affair Across Times Square featuring two lawyers on opposite sides of Times Square and a murder trial. 

Talk to you soon, 

~Rach 

Fifty Shades: A New Perspective

Hi everyone, 

I know that the Fifty Shades trilogy by E.L. James has been talked about ad nauseum, but I wanted to offer up something new that I don't think has been discussed before. 

I don't want to talk today about the specifics of the books, or whether they were "good" or "bad" or "well written" or how much money James is making, or the characters in the books or even the plot lines. I want to discuss something I've noticed about the industry since these books have hit the shelves in the states. I had never heard of these books until a few weeks after coming back to the US in May of this year and suddenly, it was all anyone was talking about. The books were in K-Mart and Walmart as well as all major booksellers, nation-wide. 

And here's what I've noticed in the past two months. The ramifications for the industry of erotic romance (my industry) is changing before my eyes. No longer is erotic romance shelved off on its own in the book stores. It's not hidden behind other books, it's not secluded in one corner, it doesn't make up the "naughty" section of an otherwise "upstanding" and "respectable" book store. 

In Barnes & Noble, there are three front-facing racks of "New Romance" one full rack is the standard paperback size ranging from Historicals to Paranormals and everything in between. The second rack is Harlequin and all of this month's titles. Again, ranging from Paranormals, Erotic Romances, and Suspense. Between these two racks is a third I haven't really seen before. The top row of this rack is new romances in hard cover. There are only 7 of these. Below that are trade-paperback sized books. If you've seen a copy of any of the Fifty Shades books, this is the size that they were published in. Of these 24 covers, eight are erotic romance. Many of these books are also modeled after the cover of the Fifty Shades Books - dark covers with the pop of one element to attract the reader's attention. 

This means that out of 24 new romances on this set of shelves, 1/3 are erotic romance. This is unprecedented. I don't think I've ever seen it before. 

Is EL James the best writer since Jane Austen? Probably not. But that's okay. I've seen a lot of negativity surrounding this book the past few months, and people will always criticize, that's normal. But for those of you readers and writers in the industry of erom, or romance in general, I just wanted to share what I have seen that I think is a direct result of the Fifty Shades trilogy. So for that, I thank EL James and her publisher for helping to make this genre more widely-read and for helping to bring erotic romance to the forefront of the industry. 

Romance According to Rachell: The countdown

I hope you all didn't miss me too much last week. My rugrats were keeping me very busy. 


I have an official release date for the release of An Affair Across Times Square. So I'm here to celebrate with you! The release date is exactly five weeks from tomorrow. August, 21, 2012. Let the countdown begin! 


To celebrate this event, I put up a little snippet of the book on my website. Click here to read the excerpt. 


There's also a bit on that site about the process and idea for An Affair Across Times Square. So I thought I'd share a little more with you all about the book. Here's the little teaser that goes along with it...

Layla Morgan is tired of getting into trouble, and getting hurt. And she fears her wild nature is going to strike yet again. But maybe this time, she’s finally met the guy that can stand close enough to touch her inner flames, and not get burned. The man across Times Square seems enthralled by her wildness instead of scared in the face of it. He can’t seem to look away as she shows him just how much fun she can have… with herself.

After one glance of silky skin and talented fingers, Tyler Lachlan doesn’t stand a chance of resisting the delicious distraction of the mystery woman from the Marietta Hotel. He’s sure there’s more to her than her sultry voice and mahogany thighs, but he doesn’t know if he’s willing to risk his career to find out.

Could what began as a voyeuristic affair across Times Square develop into something more? 

And what better way to celebrate than by giving presents???? I'll be doing some giveaways here and on some other blogs over the next five weeks. I'm still scheduling my guest blogging spots, but check back here next Monday for the schedule and even maybe the first of my give-aways. 

~Rach 

Romance According to Rachell: New Cover

Good morning bloggerverse and welcome to the Divas of Desire! 


This week I want to share something awesome with all of you (don't you feel special?) I got my cover art! My artist's name is Valerie Tibbs and she rocks my socks. It's very difficult for an author to let someone visualize something that's been living inside your head for so many months (or years). In my case, Tyler and Layla were partly based on a model and an actor, so I had images in my mind of what they should look like. 

I was asked to give physical descriptions and some other information to the cover artist and also put in a decent-sized excerpt from the book for inspiration. I sent her a spicy little scene from the first section of the book and it did the trick! The cover is gorgeous and nice and hot! It's a great realization of the characters inside my head and inside the book. 

I quite like it and I hope you will all feel the same. So without further ado, here it is...

What do you think?