sleeping bassets

sleeping bassets make everything better

So do library books

hummingbirds

potatoes

a good writing day

XXOO

Julia

Three Musketeers and Julia

The BBC is putting out a new Musketeers show.

Oh, y'all. I have been in love with the Musketeers since I was a kid. D'Artangan can go hang himself, really. He's the least of them, to me. I love Athos with his angsty past, and Aramis with his Lord give me piety but not yet and Porthos with his utter lust for life. I love the literature, but I love the movies even more.

I love Oliver Reed as Athos and Richard Chamblerin as Aramis. My favorite Porthos is Gerard Depardieu, from the 1998 Man in the Iron Mask. I just found out about the 2011 version with Matthew Mcfayden as Athos. Trust me, I have a date with it. The worst D'Artangan is undoubtedly Gene Kelly, dancing his way through France.

I love buckling swashes. I love the clothes and the hair and the heaving boobies. I love that Richelieu has been played by actors as varied as Charlton Heston and Tim Curry. I love sword battles of epic proportions.

If you read any of my historicals, no matter the era, there's probably something of the Three in there. The story stands the test of time, after all.

What are some of y'all's favorite period pieces.

Anyhoo, go look at my website for some fun new stuff. And enter your email address at the bottom to join my newsletter. This month's giveaway is a 25.00 amazon gift card

XXOO

Julia

not so snippet sunday

I should be posting a snippet

It's raining. Cold. I want a nap

Have a puppy

Eeeeeeeeeeeee

Drive Your Truck has sold to Dreamspinner! It's slated for January-ish.

Woo

Julia

Once upon a BDSM

Hey y'all!

I have some exciting stuff coming up! I know a lot of y'all think cowboys, smoke jumpers and shifters when you think Julia. A lot more of you have asked me to give you a little more warning when a Julia book is going to have BDSM in it. I love the genre, but have limited myself to mostly spanking and bondage because much more and it's not a julia book anymore, you know?

So I decided to give myself a new pseudonym to work with. I'll be promoting the books here and on my Julia twitter etc, but when you see Minerva Howe (Minerva was my gran's middle name, Howe is my father-in-law's mom's maiden name, which I love). I think both are appropriate, because both my grnadma and Ms. Howe were way ahead of their time, and in control of their sexuality. I admire that in a woman of any era.

So, with that in mind, I have my first contract as Minerva! Resplendence has accepted my book Chosen Wolf, a story about vampire Paul, who has a pact with a pack of werewolves. Each generation, Paul gets a new Guardian from the pack. In return, he gives some of his blood to the pack to make them stronger. Modern werewolves, though, aren't sure Paul even exists, and Brantley is certainly not going to give up his comfy life to be someone's wolfy bottom boy. Right?

Check out RSP here. My books is slated for release in July!

Yay!

XXOO

Julia

Can't be in NOLA at the big RT booksigning?

Yeah, me either

Here, have a NOLA moment anyway

XXOO

Julia

TBT

Dream Dice is out tomorrow

Torquere has my Dream Dice coming out tomorrow!

Don't forget to go get it! I'll remind you and put up a buy link asap( Edited: click here to buy!)

What's your favorite roleplaying/board/dice/card game. Heck, what's your favorite drinking game? Name one in the comments and win a chance at a free copy of my earlier gaming title, Under the Moon!

XXOO

Julia

New releases!

hey y'all

Elemental Ops 2: Teamwork is out at Changeling Press. Did you know?|

Ice and Keon are working to protect their dragon charges, while Ice's elemental ops team shows up to help. Problems is, the guys keep bonding with the dragons!

Find it here!

Right now it's only available at Changeling, but they have all the formats and it's so easy to email stuff to your Kindle!

Coming this Wednesday from Torquere I have Dream Dice.

Thayer buys a set of gaming dice at comicon. He doesn't count on them being magical, or on them leading him to his very own barbarian, Erlich.

check it out on Wednesday at www.torquerepress.com. I'll put the cover up on Wednesday!

XXOO

Julia

From the Dreamspinner meet

Me, Amy Lane, BA Tortuga

KC Wells and me

Me and BA and Andrew Grey

Portland's Chinatown

Our yarn stash from Knit and Purl in Portland

XXOO

Julia

My new tagline

Hey y'all! After talking around with a bunch of writers and readers, I changed my tagline. I know, it seems like a tiny thing, but I finally feel like I found one that really means something to me.

Love the skin you're in.

Partly I chose this because I write shifters. Lots of them. When I'm not writing shifters, I write a lot of people who wear a unifrom or a costume for a living, whether it's a cowboy or a cop or a military man or a BDSM club worker. All of these things translate to the skin you wear.

But I also chose this line because for the first time in years, I'm free to be happy in my own skin. I'm out to all my friends and family. I'm free to marry my girl and she can marry me. We're not beholdin' to anyone else but our dogs. I love my life.

So I couldn't think of better tagline for me.

XXOO

Julia

Snippet Sunday

Here's a bit from my upcoming release from Changeling Press, due out Friday.

"Did you call your team?" Keon asked Ice, who sat next to him on the floor.

"Uh-huh. They're coming. You look like shit, baby." Those icy blue eyes moved over him, Ice obviously worried.

"I'm a little drained." He patted Ice's leg, listening to Damien rumble. His dragon was furious -- both because of the small army of soldiers waiting in the town at the base of the mountains for Sergei to return, which you know, tough to do after being reduced to a grease spot, and because someone had been in the keep, had tried to hurt the babies.

No one hurt his clutch. No one.

Ice tugged him up and stood, lifting him. "Come on, baby. Jeez, I don't even know where you sleep, really."

"No? What kind of boyfriend are you?" He had to tease. They were more like... dragon-bonded fuckbuddies. Right?

"Uh, well, up 'til now I've always been a sucky one. We'll see how it works with you." Ice's pale eyebrows gyrated. He pointed to the huge doorway that marked his rooms. The bed was huge and soft, the fireplace always blazing.

"Wow. Way nicer than Chi's little sleeping area." Ice put him down on the bed.

"I live here. You were an uninvited guest. Now we'll make sure you're comfortable, too."

"Gonna keep me?" Ice stripped off, reminding Keon that he'd faced the bad guy naked. That had to be macho on his part, right?

"Uh-huh."

"Good deal." Ice grimaced. "My team might be pissed. We just lost one team member a few weeks ago. Now me, as well?"

"How many are coming and are they going to shoot me? I don't like that." It had happened a few times in his tenure as dragon guardian and it wasn't fun.

"No shooting allowed. There should be five. No, four. Spider is the one who left. Jacques, who we call One-Eyed Jack. He's a Cajun. Gig is the tech guy. Shannon is the big Irishman, and there's our surveillance guy, Chino."

"Is Ice your real name?" Had he slept with a man whose name he didn't know? No. No, they hadn't slept at all. They'd fucked.

"No." Ice shrugged. "We all have call signs. Mine is as much my name now as any, I guess."

That explained why little Chi had used that when he and Ice had bonded then. Whatever name Ice used for himself was the name baby dragon Chi would understand.

"My name is really just Keon, just like my father and my grandfather."

"No shit? I'm not named after anyone. I was three months old when someone dropped me off at a local Catholic church." Ice sounded so matter-of-fact.

"I was taken to learn how to take care of the babies at five, but life was different then." The middle of the nineteenth century had seen many children pressed into labor and he'd been lucky, blessed.

"I guess so. How have you lived so long, man? Not to be nosy, but, well, I am nosy."

"It's the dragons. They can't live without their bonded, so we live as long as they do. You'll live until Chi dies and he has hundreds of years left to him."

"Wow." Ice seemed to mull that over, chewing his lower lip. "What about Damien?"

"He's in his prime. We have at least six hundred good years before we start to get tired." And then they'd settle in, spend a near eternity quiet and lazy. Maybe he'd get fat.

"Holy shit." Ice blinked, vibrating a little, his skin going two shades paler. "That's... Seriously?"

"As far as I know, yes. I mean, accidents happen, but when the couple I replaced went to ground, they'd been active for nearly a millennium." Was that bad?

Ice grunted like he'd been hit. Huh. Maybe it was a lot to take in.

The boys are dragon guardians and elementals, and they have a ball protecting their charges.

Find them here!

Coming soon!

I have two books coming out in May. Dream Dice is out May 15 (cover is still pending approval) and it's a wee novella about a gaming geek who buys a set of magical dice at a comicon and ends up with his very own barbarian.

Then I also have Elemental Ops: Teamwork, which I think might come out a week from today O.O -- Just saw it on the coming soon. I knew it was May but didn't know it was this next week.

Here's the cover for it.

You can find it here!

Don't forget to go buy it next Friday. I'll remind you then! Teamwork is the sequel to Elemental Ops: Ice, which has elementals, dragons, and some hot lovin'. That one is here.

You can also find it on Amazon and ARE!

XXOO

Julia