Betrayed and desolate, Natalie finds solace in the arms of a total stranger. Conner quickly soothes her aching heart and passionately claims her soul. Nothing, however, can prepare her for the discovery of his devastating secret. Will she be strong enough to handle the revelation? And will their passion survive?

Coming July 13th exclusively to Cobblestone Press

Wow! I laughed and I cried before I got to the end of Anything After Sunday. Once I was sniffling and my vision was blurry I still couldn’t stop reading the book but, I did make a run for tissues. I so wanted to hate West for being “a sh**” but my heart was with him before the end of the book. I love the humor that was added into the story and how a number of tough subjects were handled. Samantha Lucas has found a new fan in me and I sincerely hope that Nick and Matt get their own stories. Anything After Sunday is one of my Recommended Reads for the Spring. ~Tanya Joyfully Reviewed

On a personal note, I want to thank Tanya, because moving someone to tears and laughter was my main desire when I decided to pursue getting published. You made my day. :)

Click on cover for more info. :)

My empathy is with my author friends at the now closing Triskelion. I know it's been a rocky year and that this was not the outcome anyone wanted.

Big hugs to all of you wondering about your rights reverting back and the fight you may have on your hands. I'm truly sorry. :(

1. When you are sad -- I will help you get drunk and plot revenge against the sorry bastard who made you sad.

2. When you are blue -- I will try to dislodge whatever is choking you.

3. When you smile -- I will know you finally got laid.

4 When you are scared -- I will try to calm your nerves, unless it is something silly then I will rag on you about it every chance I get.

5. When you are worried -- I will tell you horrible stories about how much worse it could be until you quit whining.

6. When you are confused I will use little words.

7. When you are sick -- Stay the hell away from me until you are well again. I don't want whatever you have.

8. When you fall -- I will point and laugh at your clumsy ass, but then I will help you get up.

9. This is my oath..... I pledge it to the end."Why?" you may ask; "because you are my friend".

Remember.......
Friendship is like peeing your pants, everyone can see it, but only you can feel the true warmth.

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Labels: meme, Thursday Thirteen

I'm going to apologize up front, my heart is consumed elsewhere tonight so this is going to be brief.

And yes, if you couldn't tell by my song of the week choice, I am deep in self pity mode. :P

I've had a half dozen people or so ask me about my garden in the last week and I realized I have stopped mentioning it. It's just, my heart wasn't in it. Every time I'd go out there, I couldn't shake the fact that I wasn't going to be here much longer.

On that note, I rented a place the other day. Not the dream house place, that one was rented- fast - it's just another mobile home in the same park I'm in now, which ultimately was what I wanted. It makes things with the boys so much easier and while everything else is so difficult, I'm glad I was at least able to do this one thing that would be easier on everyone.

It's not a great place, but it'll be mine. :)

I lost something of tremendous value recently and I'm just a mess. So confused about my heart and my head and relationships and love and marriage. It's insane, I'm forty years old, you'd think I'd know something. Anything!

The worst part, I'm pretty sure I hurt a wonderful person and of everything I've done wrong lately, that's the one I wish I could most take back. He didn't deserve it, but it taught me to be more careful and guarded...hence the All By Myself. I really think that's my future.

I swear I'm turning into this horrifying hybrid of my mother and a heroine out of one of my own stories! It's not a pretty thing.

Ok as promised, brief. Take a minute and read the next post, S.J. Willing's new book is out and I'd love it if you'd check it out. :)

Lots of love ~ Samantha

It says...

Wherever you go, go with all your heart. Confucious


Sounds like good advice to me.

Labels: confucious

As you must know by now, Tower of Secrets is out! So if you haven't rushed right over to Siren to buy a copy you should...NOW! lol :)

My next release is also my first Samhain release, One Night on a Balcony, a part of the mid summer night steam collection and will be available July 27th! So get ready to start hearing more about that.

Okay, so what about my new cover?! They've done a redesign on the Torrid Teaser covers and I got the new one! I think it's hot and I'm really excited to have the new cover. They debut the cover in August and will be alternating after that. My book TT Vol 34 comes out in September so keep your eyes open for that. :)

September is also the one year anniversary of signing my very first contract so I'm going to throw some kind of celebration. Stay tuned for those details!

Here's an OMG for you. Legacy of Fear is #18 in romance at Fictionwise! I'm kinda psyched. lol
Body, Heart and Soul is getting great reader ratings over there, but Siren seems to have moved their books from romance to erotica and poor BH&S went from #32 in romance (it had gone as high as#19) to #137 in erotica. lol And Anything After Sunday? is still hanging in at #70 in erotica. Fictionwise is kinda fun. I'm enjoying getting the reader ratings, but that's just cause I haven't gotten a poor yet. lol

I discovered Ning! I love that place! Although it's been tricky figuring it all out, but if you haven't discovered them yet, give them a try. Here's the link to my page in the Coffee Time Romance's room.

I know, I know one more place to waste time and not write! Sheesh, I'm going to start working on doing some condensing, I think I'm getting carried away. lol

Okay, last thing...are you ready?

Here's a sneak peak at my new header. I had to shrink it so the scale is a bit wonky, but you get the idea.



I'm telling you, this woman is brilliant! Not only is she easy to work with, she's smart, has extraordinary ideas, was able to deal with my insanity without losing it (I'm serious!) Did I mention she is f*&@ing brilliant!

Seriously, I can't wait for you all to see the new site, it's going to be fabulous! And if anyone is thinking about a site re-do or getting a new site done, email me and I'll give you her contact info. You won't be sorry!

That's it for now, I'm on a mini vacation this week and next so I'm keeping it simple. I'm also not blog hopping much so if you don't see me around, that's why. :) Take care, lots of love ~ Samantha

Do you dream?

I do, all the time. I mean not huge dreams like curing cancer and world peace, although I suppose those would be more worthy dreams, but I dream of peace and happiness. The song of the week, Carrie Underwood's, Wasted, speaks to my heart, speaks to my dreams. It inspires me and I can use all the inspiration I can get at the moment. :)

It's raining! Yay!!!

Do you know why I'm celebrating the rain?

Because park management finally stopped giving us the run around last week on fixing our water with their patent "oh we'll send someone out today" and finally told us the truth. Reading between the lines, I figure I'm never again having water outside.

I've lived here for five years and really I've been quite content, but they changed management recently and though I'd heard tons of stories I thought terrible about old management, they basically stayed out of our business and we stayed out of theirs and all was happy. New management...well, lets just say I have absolutely no respect for.

OMG but my dream house is up for rent!!!

Downside, it's $185 a month too much. It'd be a gamble to take it, but honestly, I think I could swing it. The real problem with it is, it's only two bedrooms and I have two boys who don't want to suddenly start sharing a room and I know they both want to live with me.

More it's important that they live with me and taking this house would ultimately be real selfish on my part cause I know them well enough to know one of them (probably oldest who's really into his privacy these days) would choose to stay here and I know he doesn't want to stay here.

So I guess the house hunt continues, but it seems like an awfully cruel twist of fate to have my home become available right when I'm finally looking for a place and then for me not to be able to have it. :(

I swear, it's one of those proverbial writer's cottages. It has no direct neighbors, sits on an acre of land, has a big porch. sigh...I'm depressing myself.

Moving on. :)

The other good thing about the rain, is it has made my cat move back in. :) In fact, she's sitting in my lap as we speak. :):):) Or, as I type I guess is more correct. lol

Oh wow, in really great news, my ex has a crush on someone else!!!!

You have no idea how much less stress there is here now and how much better we're both getting along. Thank you so much to this woman, I hope you guys live long and happy lives together! My ex isn't a bad guy, I've said it before, and I'll always say it. We were just a really bad match.

So I'm working on tweaking an older manuscript, wish me luck on that. Cause it's actually painful to want to write and not be able to, but I think I've finally come to some sort of peace with the fact that it's not gonna happen until certain things in my life settle. Moving being the main one.

Oooh, unless I went to Jamaica for a month or something. Bet I could write there. :)

Really, I think that's it for this week. I started posting on a different blog, or I should say whining. lol It's been a really good thing for me, it's a private blog I don't have listed anywhere and I just vent on it. Every time I feel anything (which is fifty times a day sheesh) I write it down. It's my true journal and it's been a great pressure release. :)

Wrapping things up, a fellow author of mine has a gift, and she shares it by giving free readings. My grandmother was psychic so I do believe that kind of git exists, though I don't follow astrology and things the way she did, but over the past six months I've been in over my head so much that I have asked her to do me several readings. (the author friend, not my grandmother. That would be too weird since she's been dead since I was 18)

She's been wonderful about it and dead on most of the time. The other day she threw what she called a one card quickie at me. I wanted to share it with you all because it's given me some hope back and to be truthful, mine was at an all time low.

You are about to see the end to a very big battle. Everything is going to change, and it will be all for the better. Cool card!

Cool card indeed. :) Have a great week everybody. Lots of love ~ Samantha

First thank you to everyone who came out to Destiny's today! We had a lot of fun, great excerpts and a couple of contest and I made it through it all without getting completely lost. lol

Big huge thank you to Ericka Scott and L.A. Day for participating, sharing their excerpts and running contests. You both made the day so much more fun!

Ok, so I've been sitting at my computer all day long today doing the chat thing and mulling over the abundance of stress in my life. I hate stress, it ages you and takes years off your life and is the single worst thing you can do to yourself, in my own opinion anyway. ;-) I'm not good at managing stress, I'll be honest, but it occurred to me today that if I don't answer an email the second it comes through, my children are not going to spontaneously combust. If I step away from the computer here and there, the world isn't going to come to an end. And if I never figure out promotion my life isn't over.

I write because I love it. I seek publication because I want to share the stories. I blog because it's fun and I'm a bit of a social butterfly and the on-line thing takes care of my shy parts. But if I start writing, seeking publication, and blogging solely because I feel pressured to do so, then not only does it take the joy out of my heart, but puts added stress into my life.

And god knows I don't need added stress. =O

With things in my personal life settling (fingers crossed) I think it's time to relax again. I used to be a very relaxed person. I took one day at a time and enjoyed it. Granted this was a couple years ago, but I want to be that again.

So that being said, I've decided to keep business hours. A couple hours in the morning and at night when I return e-mails, blog and update my site, other then that I'm going to find myself a new place to move. I'm going to settle in. I'm going to start a new garden and then hopefully I'm going to start writing again.

Most of all, I'm going to stop beating myself up for not being able to write.

The writing is a gift, an art, it can't be forced, it can't be bribed, it can't be wished. It just is. I need to remember that and I need to relax.

Happy Weekend Everyone ~ Samantha

PS why the picture of Knott's? I'm feeling kinda homesick today I guess. :(

Labels: Life, stress, work, writing