Psst! Want to see (and read) something gorgeous? Here’s my May historical books page and review at The Season!

“All in all, whether my heart was being wrung dry, or I was smiling, or I was fanning myself silly (because the book is HOT), every word in Mistress By Mistake (because boy does Maggie’s prose sing) kept me completely enthralled until the very end.” Thanks so much, Bev! I’ll be sleeping with the review under my pillow.

Another Twitter #MistressMonday is coming up! Last weeks winners were @kellykrysten and @sara_lindsey. And a reminder again to check the contest page on this website and enter.

Want to know why I created Jane Street as the fictional home to my mistresses? Read my first Brava Authors blogpost and find out!

Have a wonderful weekend and week ahead. I’ll be beating back the butterflies.

A little more than two weeks, and Mistress by Mistake will be released into the wild. I’ve been having fun filling out interview questionnaires for blogs–thank goodness I can write my answers instead of speak, because I think at this point I’m one long stutter.

And I can still write some updates:
1. Three more #Mistress Mondays on Twitter to win six more books, and the monthly contest continues here.

2. Elyssa Papa wrote a funny Top Ten post on Vauxhall Vixens, highlighting some key plot points to MBM.

3. The fabulous Sara Lindsey, author of Promise Me Tonight and the upcoming Tempting the Marquess, designed beautiful banner ads for both Mistress by Mistake and Tempting Eden, and they can be found flashing on the books page of Maggie’s/Margaret’s sites. They are absolutely hypnotic, LOL.

4.Improper Gentlemen is the title of the upcoming Kensington Brava anthology in which I’ll have a novella. Love the title, and my hero Sir Simon Keith is definitely improper. And unfinished.

5. But I’ll have time to finish him, because I’ve given notice at work. Unemployment here I come! Due to a two million dollar shortfall in the school district, my position was reduced to half-time next year. I probably would have been able to keep my hours, but move to another school. I decided to get out now before word reached parents that the sweet bespectacled library clerk their kids hang out with writes scorching-hot historical romances. Huge relief, but I feel terrible for all the teachers and staff whose jobs and programs have been cut and don’t have sexy heroes to stay home and write about.

So, would you quit your day job if you could? What are you looking forward to this Spring?

Charlotte lay in the cupid-infested room, nervously bunching the scarlet satin coverlet between her fingers. She would not unpack her own trunk but to pull out her tattered nightrail and robe later. She could not move in and assume her sister’s life. She didn’t even want to consume her dinner. But an hour later, the fresh-faced maid Irene was at the door informing her that supper was on the table.

Charlotte imagined it tasted delicious, but was too distracted to tell. Despite her earlier pledge, she gulped a great deal of wine in order that she might actually fall asleep in her sister’s bed. Woozy and warm, she allowed Irene to help her undress and bathe, then crawled under the covers, closing her eyes to the grinning statues. How her sister Deborah had born them all alone for six weeks was a wonder.

She slept as if dead, having the most delightful tipsy dream somewhere past midnight. But when morning came and she found her nightgown hanging from a fat angel’s head and a naked man in the bed, she knew her dream was now a nightmare.

Come play with me! April’s contest is supposed to be fun, as is fitting for National Humor Month. How could one find oneself in the position of mistress by mistake? Details and entry form are on the contest page, and you may enter as many times as you like.Tell me your scenario—silly, serious or scandalous! Three winners will receive copies of Mistress by Mistake. And every Monday is #MistressMonday on Twitter. Two books will be given away each week until relase day, April 27.

My alter ego Margaret Rowe has news too. Thai subrights have been sold for Tempting Eden (Berkley Heat, June 2010). It’s really exciting (and a little strange) to think of people reading my books in translation.

Have a wonderful week. Stay tuned for more information about the Reader at Home Conference.

P.S. 4/6/10 I’ve already gotten some entries for April’s contest. Keep ‘em coming! Congrats to Twitter winners @sarahsreviews and @armiefox for winning this week’s copies of MbMistake. And I just discovered that Mistress by Midnight will be out December 28! It’s available for pre-order on Amazon. Holy cow. I think that means from April 27 to next January, the two of me will have released five books (Margaret Rowe’s Any Wicked Thing is also out in January). And I thought I was crazy now…

Nope, this is not about nuclear disarmament. The latest: Russian rights have been sold to Mistress by Mistake! That’s Хозяйка по Oшибке according to a translating site I found. I think it’s so cool that eventually I’ll have books printed in two alphabets (Thai, too) that I am completely unfamiliar with.

Don’t forget the #MistressMonday Twitter contest. Just add the hashtag to your tweets for a chance to win MBM. Last week’s winners were @Pearl-ROOB and @shellistevens. Details of a contest right here will be posted shortly.

Brava is sponsoring a great new contest for aspiring writers. Check it out. The Brava Authors blog is being redesigned too, and eventually I’ll be posting once a month there.

Hope Spring is finding a way to you. Here in Maine we’ve dipped down into the teens and I’m freezing again. When I was a little girl, my parents always took pictures of me in my Easter bonnet in front of the brilliant yellow forsythia bush we had in the back yard. I’ve got nothing here but mud. And no new hat. Do you wear hats? The heroine of my latest novella is a hatmaker, and it’s all she can do not to stab the hero with a hatpin.

It’s the six-week countdown to the April 27 release of Mistress by Mistake, so it’s got to be #MistressMonday on Twitter! Now, I’m not really a big Tweeter, but I do know Twitter is replacing blogging as the way to get the word out. So every Monday between now and release day, I’ll be giving away 2 copies of Mistress by Mistake to 2 random people who tweet whatever they’d like, as long as they include the hashtag #MistressMonday. That means 12 books are up for grabs (yes, I know you can multiply). You remember that picture of the lovely promo books below. One of them might be yours.

Not on Twitter? No problem. Next month there will be a fun contest right here dreamed up by my promo princess Elyssa Papa for more chances to win free books.

And there’s more! Stop over this week at Juliana Stone’s 10 Days of Hunger to celebrate her Avon debut release His Darkest Hunger. MBM is one of the prizes. I’m also particpating in author Lucy Monroe’s Reader At Home Conference. She’s thought up a cool way for people not attending the Romantic Times conference in Columbus to experience connecting with authors anyway. There will be a ton of really fabulous prizes (including MBM) and people, and you can read all about it if you click on the above link. I’ll remind you again as it gets closer to the date. Have a great week!

Have you ever been to a romance conference? RWA Nashville will be my first and I’m shaking in my boots!

March 16th additions to this post: you can “look inside” Mistress by Mistake on Amazon now! Woohoo! I love the “surprise me” feature where I can try to figure out the plot so far, LOL.

I got my first review on Goodreads from a “perfect stranger” who won my book at Tiff’s Toronto RWA chapter, and she is perfect indeed. Here’s what she said:I really enjoyed this. The characters are charming, the plot sexy and fun. The sex scenes (and there are a good number!) are frank and earthy, not purple and overblown. These two have a strong sexual chemistry that they don’t bother to deny after the first few pages – it’s the rest of the relationship they need to work out

The writing is terrific and it doesn’t read much like a debut novel at all. I’d definitely read the next in the series, about one of Charlie’s neighbors in her sinful street of mistresses… Yay!

Ann Aguirre is running a contest on her blog to celebrate the upcoming release of Hell Fire and has a huge giveaway! Mistress by Mistake is one of the prizes. You can still win one right here if you register for my newsletter or sign up to follow me on Twitter, too.

I think I finished revising Mistress by Midnight, which will be out sometime in the first part of 2011. This involved rearranging 100 pages of the history between Con and Laurette, and rewriting/adding some scenes. I have come to the conclusion I could fiddle with a book forever—every time I open up an old file, I see something I could have/should have done. I love this book, though—it’s Cathy and Heathcliff with a couple of kids and without the crazy.

Here’s hoping my editor likes the changes—she already told me last week my novella Not Quite a Courtesan (in Lords of Passion, Kensington Brava, Novemver 30, 2010) is good to go with no revisions. Yay again! It was such fun to write. There’s a line in it she loves: “I will do it and you will like it.” I’m practicing saying that to my husband.

And I’ve started something new—the last novella of my Kensington contract. When I finish it, I will have completed everything I signed up to do last year. Of course, more revisions, copy edits and page proofs will be coming my way, so I’m not about to loll around in the lap of luxury (see below, although my bottom is much bigger). What’s new with you?

No, that’s not a typo. My dooryard is awash in mud, grit, ice, melted snow, unmelted snow and general yuck. We’ve had wacky weather lately and have lost power for long and short periods, resulting in two unpaid days off from school for me. I can’t decide what is worse—no hot bath or no computer access. Last week I reluctantly crawled out from under three blankets and drove around town to get warm, grab some tea at a take-out window (my hair was too hideous to go inside) and charge up my cellphone. There is no question if I traveled back in time to the Regency era, I would go insane.

Despite the iffy electricity lately, I’m close to getting finished with the revisions for Mistress by Midnight. And I’m giving away another ARC of Mistress by Mistake this month to someone who follows me on Twitter/has signed up for my newsletter! All you have to do is fill out the short form on the contest page and/or click on the Twitter button. If you’re already a subscriber/follower, you’re all set.

So, is Spring happening where you are? Tell me and make me jealous. What would you miss most if you traveled back in time?

Well, I’m home, but my brain is definitely still on vacation. For those of you waiting for me to send out a newsletter and post my contest, please wait just a tiny bit longer. (Breaking news! Correction! Newsletter has been sent and check the Contest page. I’m rallying…slowly.) I’m finding it disorienting to be back at work—it’s like the week off wiped away all my library skills, LOL.

And now that I’m in my own cozy writing room, I have page proofs to read of Margaret Rowe’s Tempting Eden to keep me busy until their deadline, March 4. The manuscript came in the middle of our trip, and I was reluctant to open it up on the shiny new blue netbook we bought before we left. But when I did—so pretty! I love the font Berkley picked and the curlicues on the chapters.

I also discovered that Alan Ayers, the artist who created my beautiful Mistress by Mistake cover, also painted Tempting Eden’s! No wonder I couldn’t decide which one was more gorgeous, LOL.

The netbook is so damn cute. It fits into my (kinda large) handbag and is light enough for me to carry and not grumble. I’m still getting used to it, but it beats dragging along my husband’s laptop on trips.

Speaking of which, the cruise exceeded all our expectations. I relaxed by the pool while my husband ATVed through the jungle to see a Mayan ruin. I made two visits to the Elemis spa (you should see my red toes!) and ate way too much. I’m not getting on the scale for the foreseeable future. I also drank my first—and last—martini.

And quite by surprise, we were asked at the last minute to dine at the captain’s table the night of the formal dinner. Here’s proof that I can clean up pretty well…or they were really desperate!

We stumbled out of our stateroom and were approached by a crew member to replace a couple who had gotten sick, so we were pinch hitters. I did manage to tell people I wrote hot historical romances—the captain looked a little shocked. We dined with folks from Georgia, North Carolina and Missouri. If they’ve found this website, hi!

So, the question of the day—are you a laptop or PC person? Anyone have a netbook and experience with Windows 7, which I have not had time to explore? Have a fun travel story you’d like to share?

I finished Not Quite a Courtesan and sent it off. NQAC is a novella which will be part of the Kensington Brava anthology Lords of Passion in December 2010. (A perfect Christmas present!) I am absolutely thrilled to be sharing the same cover with Virginia Henley and Kate Pearce! It was a lot of fun to write, and I hope my editor likes it. Here’s a snippet where Darius and Pru meet:

The man on the step was tall. Dark. Too handsome. “You!” she said. “I am glad you are here. We have business to discuss.”

Pru felt the blood rush to her cheeks. “Of course I am not!” She took a step backward. “And you are not my cousin Sophy’s husband, are you?”

In other news, I’m revising Mistress by Midnight, scheduled for Spring 2011. And I’m going on a cruise for the first time ever! We’re flying to Tampa this weekend and getting on a ship bound for two ports in Mexico. I have a new passport with the most wretchedly hideous picture you will never see. So I won’t be back to blogging until the last week in February, when I’ll spill all the details of my Courtesan Court Contest!

Happy Valentine’s Day, too. Any special plans? Have you ever been on a cruise? Any advice to keep me from falling overboard?