Sometimes He Appears

I'm doing a short series on Tumblr about finding the perfect person to cast as a character after the fact.


Part 1 -Reinier Barhydt


Part 2 - Winston Matthews

Here's What You Missed on Tumblr

My Tumblr Avatar

I have to say I really like tumblr. Twitter is not for me at all and I like to use facebook more for close family and friends than writing stuff. But tumblr seems to work for me.  One great thing is that you not only share your own thoughts but can easily reblog things you love and share them with your followers.  I've mentioned Coverspy already but some of my other favorites are:

• Bookshelf Porn - Photo blog of lust worthy shelves of books.
• My Daguerreotype Boyfriend  - LOVE LOVE LOVE this. Thier Slogan is "Where early photography meet extreme hotness"
• Doctor Who Crafts - Yes there is a whole tumblr devoted to Doctor Who inspired crafts!
• Some of the other members of the romance community I follow: Mfred - Librarian Extraordinaire and Authors Zoe Archer and Olivia Waite

Here is what you missed on my tumblr recently:

• I've started something called "I Don't Plan it but Sometimes He Appears" - Where I post pictures of casting possibilities for our characters. Part 1 is Nikolaj Coster Waldau as Reinier.
• I reblogged a particularly nice photo of a historically hot guy taken in 1847 by Louis Adolphe Humbert de Molard and a blog on our favorite poet John Donne.
• I posted my Beach Reading List. I can't wait to dive into these new to me authors!

Here, There and Everywhere

Check out all the places you can find us on the net.

RT Book Reviews have an exclusive look at the making of In Deep, how we work together and why we chose the setting.  There is also a never before seen excerpt.

Check out our Holiday wish to readers at The Romance Readers Connection.

Chloe Harris is a Complete and Total Fraud. Find out how and win goodies at Seductive Musings

Another chance to win a copy of In Deep & Secrets of Sin is at Coffee Time Romance & More
Featured Contest Author

Aphro Blogging - A Hard Man to Love

UPDATE AGAIN: The Aphro Site is back up! So come check out the post!
UPDATE: The site is temporarily down. I'll let you know when the blog and contest will be reposted
Here is the pic of Daniel Craig that to me says "A Hard Man to Love"

After you comment on B's post hop over to the Aphrodisia Authors Blog.

I'm talking about how I love heroes that are hard to love and giving away another copy of Secrets of Sin.

A Hard Man to Love  - Oh and a really Yummy Picture of Daniel Craig is included for your TGIF enjoyment.

Coffee Anyone?

I'm blogging today at Coffee Time Romance. 

Stop by and Take a Sip of a Caribbean Brew with Chloe Harris

Bringing Sexiness To Queen and Country

Today is the UK Release Day for Secrets of Sin!

Tell all your friends across the Pond!

Where the Hell Have You Been and What's Been Going On?

Well let's see DH and I cleaned out the garage this weekend...Oh you mean what's been going on with Chloe Harris,  quite a few things. (Notice how I completely ignored that first question, that's because I don't have a good answer.)

There is a great interview with Barbra up at Erotic Romantic Crush Junkies. The Giveaway runs until the 28th so check it out. 

I'm representing Chloe Harris on Goodreads please stop by and be our friend or ask any question you can think of at the Chloe Harris Q&A discussion group. 

Some big news is that Connor's book has a title. In Deep will be out in Dec 2010. No cover yet but keep your fingers crossed for a good one. I sent them a picture of Vennessa Kelly's  Sex and the Single Earl and said please dress the cover hunk like this.  You can find a blurb on In Deep on both the Website and Goodreads.   

We've gotten a few great entries in the Hot Guy Contest and are extending the deadline to 3/26. Check out where he's been seen so far on the Facebook FanPage.

That should be enough to keep you busy for a while. ;) 

So what's been up with you? Yes you, tell me what you've been up to lately.

What's Up with the Strawberry Flowers Perfume?

The strawberry: "Doubtless God could have made a better berry, but doubtless God never did." - Dr William Butler, 17th century English writer

Everything in the Hot and Huge prize pack has a reason for being there. The Strawberry Flowers Perfume by Fresh is one of the gifts I'm really excited about. As Barbra will tell you,, she has a "nose like a truffle pig" so scents are something you'll find mentioned throughout Secrets of Sin and the sequel coming in December.  Strawberries are part of Emiline's scent.   

It's on her lips.

Emiline’s full rose petal lips were slightly ajar. Goodness, he still remembered what it was like to kiss them, how gentle they were, supple, trembling under his shortly before she’d melt in his arms and arch her body into his. And they tasted like sweet strawberries, seductive, yet innocent.

 And in her hair.

Whatever she wore, she looked like an angel, especially now that she had her hair down, her still wet, wild curls that fell down her back. He knew they smelt like strawberries. Small wood strawberries, like the ones he gathered when he was a boy back home.

And it can be your scent too when you submit a picture of the Hot Cover Guy to the Facebook Fan Page.

What about you? What's you favorite Scent? Do you like when scents are mentioned in a romance?

Win another copy of "Secrets of Sin"

Hi,

I'm guestblogging over at K&T about real life things influencing your writing illustrated with an example from behind the scenes of Secrets of Sin.

I'll be giving away one copy of Secrets of Sin!

Good luck!

Another Chance at Winning Secrets of Sin

Hi all I'm blogging today at The Season about a book I love on my Keeper shelf and giving away three copies of Secrets of Sin!


The Season

Win a Copy of Secrets of Sin!!

Today is the very first chance to win a copy of Secrets of Sin!!

I would love it if y'all would help me out by coming over to the Aphro Blog and commenting and/or spreading the word. 

And even through I'm giving copies away I'm also giving you FIVE REASON NOT TO BUY SECRETS OF SIN.

Happy Holidays!!!

Happy Holidays!! 

We wish everyone a happy and healthy holiday season filled with both comfort and joy. 

In the new year we will be back and ready to celebrate the release of Secrets of Sin with lots of news, guest blogging and giveaways.


See you then!

Look Inside Secrets of Sin!!

The Look Inside feature for Secrets of Sin is now available at Amazon.com.

You can now read the first few pages and also pick a random page to check out! So cool!

Popovers and Hardbackers

What’s been going on lately you ask? Well let’s see…



I’ve had a sneak peek at our Debutante feature in the next “The Season” ezine /newsletter. I couldn’t be more thrilled! Beverley Kendall does a fabulous job with her site. Please check it out and run don’t walk to buy her debut novel Sinful Surrender.


If you need a stocking stuffer for a reader in your life, check out the Hardbacker @http://hardbacker.com/. This durable adjustable book cover comes in lots of great colors and protects your paperback and disguises the cover if your care about that kind of thing. It comes in both trade and mass market sizes. I received one as a gift and I love it.

Right now my hardbacker is keeping safe my 15 year old copy of Teresa Mederios’s Thief of Hearts. I have the honor of kicking off a new feature at The Season –Blog where guest bloggers review one of their old favorites. I’m re-reading the book now and hope to have the review ready to post in January so stay tuned.

Anything else? Nothing book wise but with my other love cooking I did
successfully make popovers on the first try! Popovers were featured the Christmas classic I watched over the weekend, Remember the Night .
DH loved them. I’m not a huge fan of the internal texture. The entry right under popover in the Joy of Cooking was Yorkshire pudding. Now I’m obsessed with finding an occasion to make Roast Beef with authentic Yorkshire pudding. The only meal I normally host at Christmas is breakfast and that’s not quite breakfast fare.

But enough about me, what about you? Got any good stocking stuffer ideas for readers or writers? What’s your latest food obsession?



I forgot to note that comments from me will be slow. Day Job has now blocked blogspot. I can get to the blogger dashboard but not the blog itself to comment. :(

Blogging with the Big Girls Today

Chloe is blogging today, and on the 11th of every month at the Official Aphrodisia Authors Site.

Stop by and show your support and talk about the things you love and what turns you on.

Please Allow Me to Introduce Myself...

Twitter - Aliens with Language Translators

When I first signed Chloe Harris up for Twitter, people said ‘OMG! You’re going to love it!” I thought great this will be fun and it won’t take too much more time since you can have your tweets post as your Facebook status. But so far it’s just okay. I understand the importance of Twitter for promotion in this “New Media” world but I’m not in love with it yet. Then again I’ve never been good at being a social person so maybe it's just me. LOL

I think a lot of other people are still finding their way with it too. A lot of the tweets seem to be personal conversations between a few people that I can’t follow because either I don’t follow all parties or there are too many other tweets in between. And I can’t comment on those because it’s their personal conversation. Some people I follow tweet so much others seem to get drowned out by their verbosity. And there seems to be no clear consensus on just how personal or mundane a topic can be and be okay to be tweeted by a published author being followed by fans and other industry professionals. Some get very personal and day to day and that is certainly just fine as many many people seem to tweet that way.

Don’t get me wrong I have had some fun on Twitter. I have been able to tweet here and there with a few authors that I either have met in person before or know from loops I’m on. I’ve tweeted a little with my favorite book/gift shop in town, The Paper Skyscraper. The owner is so witty and it was fun it to let him know how much I love some of the things I've gotten from his store. And I made contact with the wonderful site The Season- Historical Romance Releases. I really enjoy her tweets and she now has information about the release of Secrets of Sin for 1st quarter 2010. All those are very good things.

But then there was the patchouli incident. It all started when I got curious about the guy that did my tattoo 15 years ago. I looked up his site and was looking around at some of his latest work and there was a very well done portrait of a little girl named Patchouli.

I loved being Southern and I have many Southern hippie friends. And that was just so stereotypically southern hippie I thought it was hilarious. Another thing about some Southerners is that we tend to enjoy self deprecating humor. You can’t make us of us but we love to poke fun at our own eccentric-ness.

I often struggle to find things to tweet so I thought hey what a funny little thing to post on Twitter and Facebook. I thought others with a similar sense of humor might get a chuckle also. And some did. On both Facebook and Twitter, some thought it was odd and wondered if the child in the tattoo was born in the 60s or recently and some like me weren’t fond of the scent. But someone I follow and that followed Chloe Harris because we are both part of the romance world tweeted back that it wasn’t that strange of a name and patchouli was a lovely plant.
I tweeted back that to me a name like that says hello my parents are hippies or from Boone NC.

Now if you don’t know Boone it’s a beautiful artsy place in the North Carolina Mountains. Go if you have a chance and check out Rachel Rays $40 a Day episode before you do. Anyway I can tell you from first hand experience that Boone has a large population of individuals who only wear natural fabrics, do not eat meat, advocate for the legalization of marijuana and who favor the scent of patchouli. So that was what the last bit of my tweet was based on.

After I tweeted that, I stuck around for a minute more then when to bed.
The next morning I was able to see that after turned the computer off she tweeted @Chloe Harris that she was from TN not far from Boone and was one of those hippies of which I spoke and didn’t I put my foot in my mouth.

I was a little taken a back but at that point there was no use in me tweeting anything back to her. First, it was too late. The twitterverse had moved on to many many bigger and better things. Second, I knew better than to act defensive on such a transparent medium since I had just read an article about a blogger that lamented that she let the instant nature of Twitter lead her into acting rashly.

Honestly I didn’t agree that I had said anything wrong. A little snarky maybe but nothing I didn’t stand behind. What I thought I said was naming your child Patchouli would make the general public think hippie. I didn’t say being thought of as what the general public might see as hippie-ish was bad thing at all. As I said before I’m a Southerner with a self deprecating sense of humor and I have first hand knowledge of which I speak so it was all meant in a loving “bless their hearts” kind of way.

But here’s the thing, she didn’t know that. She doesn’t know Me or that I’m only part of Chloe Harris. Hardly any of the Twitterverse does. The profile says Chloe is from both NC and Austria so she might have realized I might have been to Boone. But I’m sure there was no way she would have ever remembered seeing my pervious tweets about my friend Wes, who all that know him lovingly call “old hippie man”. Then it hit me. The people reading your tweets have no context to filter your comments through.

So with that revelation, what I choose to do was send her a DM (Direct Message) and try to provide some context to my tweets. I explained I was born and raised in NC, I love Boone and go to the mountains once a month to visit a friend that’s a die hard hippie. I don’t know if she saw it. There was never a response and I noticed she no longer follows Chloe Harris. Which I have no problem with; you can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube and it’s her right not to follow Chloe. The romance community is a big place and not everyone in it is going to see eye to eye with everyone else. That’s life.

By now you might be marveling at how long this post is and you might be asking yourself what my point is. My point is that maybe its better went tweeting to the masses to tweet like they’re all aliens with language translators. They understand what you’re saying but might not have any idea where you’re coming from.

Has anyone else out there learned a New Media lesson from Twitter, Myspace or Facebook? Please Share your knowledge!

Just A Bit of News

The Chloe Harris Author Page is now up at amazon.

Secrets of Sin has also been marked down to $11.20 on pre-order!

Get it while it's hot.

It Was Lust at First Read

What I’ve been thinking about lately is beginnings, specifically beginnings of books and who you meet first.

I started and almost finished a book over the weekend, The Madness of Lord Ian MacKenzie by Jennifer Ashley. Best thing I've read in a long time. You meet the hero first and let me tell you the first ten pages blew my socks off! I was so attracted too and fascinated by the hero I was hooked very very quickly. It was love, or at least lust, at first read with Lord Ian. :)

I have read perfectly wonderful books where you meet the heroine first. In both Secrets of Sin and Connor’s story you meet the heroine first. In Secrets of Sin, Emiline is meeting with her lawyer on a very important matter and in the sequel Jaidyn is meeting with Madame Poivre with her own very important matter.

In Mary Jo Putney's latest, , Loving a Lost Lord, (which I would recommend and really liked except for the bollywood ending) neither the Hero nor Heroine are in the first scene. The first scene establishes the world for the new series.

Ashely's book made such an impact and hooked me so fast I started to think that you should always meet and hero. But maybe it’s not really about whom you meet but about what’s happening or even where it’s happening.

Is it more effective to draw you, the reader, in with your attraction to the Hero, with the character in the biggest crisis or with the world itself?

(For those that might have seen something similar from me on a loop I belong to. What can I say my kid is going to college on Saturday, my time is short.) lol

Cover Story

I had a whole blog planned titled "What I Did on My Summer Vacation". But when I checked the Mail today the cover flats for Secrets of Sin had arrived and I couldn't wait to show y'all!

It's not camera ready art just my cheap scanner but still you get the idea. The Bare torsos are suppose to sell well. I love the royal purple. Not to mention a quotes from a wonderful historical writer like Diana Cosby and one of the queens of Erotic Romance, Kate Douglas.

Manic Monday

by Barbra

So... the blog is mine. What to do? What to do? Hm...

This morning I sent the manuscript off. Wow, what a feeling! I've been pretty busy the last days proofing and editing the sequel to Secrets of Sin.

Not having Noelle around to remind me, I forgot to post the Sun Fun and - believe me - I feel very bad about it. I'll try to do better from now on.
To make up for it, here's the Sun Fun I should have posted yesterday. No kitty stuff this time. I thought variation is good!



I should relax now. Only... it's not that easy. I guess you have to learn to relax just like you have to learn to work. It takes a lot of discipline, too. I find my thoughts straying to all the other things I still need to do. But I think I've earned a little time off.

Maybe a list will help me with that.
1) cinema
I posted about that already. No need to bore you to death with that. I'll probably be frightened to death tonight when I see 'Drag Me To Hell'. Tomorrow I'll go see 'The Proposal' with a friend, and on Wednesday I'll go and watch 'Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince' with a friend and her son.
2) book
Maybe there's one among the many I have and that are waiting to be read that I won't throw against the wall.
I've been looking forward to reading the latest Carrie Vaughn (Kitty and the Silver Bullet, Kitty and The Dead Man's Hand). They're already a little dusty because I've ordered them some time ago. Now would be a good time to start on them. This would actually go hand in hand with the next point, which is:
3) sunbath
Hey, it's 105° outside! Has been for 10 days now and still no thunderstorm in sight! I might get a nice tan. I look like a walking corpse... I'm in dire need of sunlight. When the white of your eyes is darker than your skin color, you should get a tan.
4) manicure and pedicure
Actually I did that already this morning. The pedicure was a little painful because I haven't had time to cut my nails for three weeks. So I kept pricking myself with those claws I have. But they (toenails and fingernails) look good now. I couldn't bring myself to cut my nails, even though I keep hurting myself (well, the Princess loves the hard massage and the marvelous scratching she gets from my claws). So that's actually a check.
Hm... but typing with those claws sounds awful. All that tick-tick-tick... Ahhh! *lightbulb* Maybe I should just stop typing!

Yep. Better go!

I'll talk to you tomorrow!

Edit:

It started raining. No sun for me. You know, I'm not quite sure if I should take this personally or not, but every time I have the bikini on and that sticky suntan lotion on me the sun decides to go hiding behind heavy clouds. It's probably just a coinicdence. Many coincidences over the last years... Perhaps I should try and lose some weight.

So I'm back at the puter. Nah, I'm not working if that's what you think. I've created a new char (for those of you who don't know yet, I'm a hack and slash junkie). The High Elf rocks. Nothing can stop that pretty lady. Now I have a Seraphim. Takes a little to get used to. For the first time I actually have to drink healing potions.

Another edit:

Just came home from cinema. I think I'll sleep with the lights on today. Just to make sure there are no shadows anywhere, you know.
Where is that teddy bear? Princess? Get on the pillow. Quickly. I'll be right there. Just need to find that teddy to cuddle with also.