Just...wow

I am writing this post on an iPad while traveling. I am so technologically stupid that I cannot figure out how to link something. Let's just say that being #33 in the Kindle store with Random Acts of Crazy and reaching #20 on Nook yesterday (35 or so now) has been a wild ride, and I don't need to link anything right now except my mouth to a nice glass of wine. ;)

Many readers found my book on ARe, so that was a lovely surprise, and my Kobo sales are up as well. iTunes needs to get with the program and approve my book for sale -- I uploaded it on May 22!

"It's Complicated," my next book, is aptly titled! Readers get a ton of Mike, Laura, and Dylan, but also plenty of Darla, with a touch (oh, don't you wish it were a real touch!) of Joe and Trevor. You get to meet Sam and Liam as well (the rest of the band) and wait until you see how Josie discovers that in some small way, Darla's very big personality takes over part of Cambridge.

At the heart is Alex and Josie's story, as the ensemble of characters all find their place in the world, fighting against the constraints of fear and expectation.

Again, I say thank you, and stay with me for the ride. It's a wild one, and oh, so fun!

Where to buy Random Acts of Crazy -- 6 stores now! (Minus iTunes. Boo.)

You can now get Random Acts of Crazy, on sale for $.99, at:

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Kobo

Bookstrand

All Romance eBooks

Smashwords

Apple takes for-freaking-ever to approve new books (3-4 weeks sometimes!), so I'm sorry, iTunes buyers. Maybe try one of these other options if they work for you? Or just wait for an announcement when Apple finally puts RAOC up for sale.

RAOC is currently #197 in the entire Kindle store, and #23 in the entire Nook store, so THANK YOU SO MUCH to my wonderful readers! Please spread the word and let your friends and fellow readers know about the sale -- the price goes to $3.99 soon!

The Cheap eBook Romance Deals -- Random Acts of Crazy Featured!

A huge shoutout to The Cheap eBook for featuring Random Acts of Crazy on their Romance Deals for today. THANK YOU!

One nice thing that sets them apart -- they feature NOOK deals as well as Kindle deals. I know that NOOK owners can feel a bit shunted aside sometimes by all the Kindle love out there. :)

LOTS of great books on their site, too, from freebies to $.99 deals.

Check out their Facebook page as well - 8,500 fans!

#106 in Nook store for Random Acts of Crazy! New Adult romance

Random Acts of Crazy has reached #106 in the Nook store with 138 sales yesterday. Reports that some indie authors are finding their books "pinned" to the #126/7 spot had me worried, but so far, so good.

On the other hand, in March my book Maliciously Obedient ranked higher the day it sold a similar amount, so -- hmmmm. THAT book eventually made it to #6 in the entire Nook store, so let's hope Random Acts does, too.

If you haven't bought Random Acts of Crazy for your Nook or Nook app, please buy it now before the price goes up to $3.99!

I love my readers, and thank you!

Does B&N Manipulate Bestseller Lists?

Hugh Howey has an intriguing blog post on his website today about whether Barnes & Noble manipulates its Nook book store's selections. A variety of writers, including Liliana Hart, Maya Cross, and Selena Kitt, have reported that their romance novels just...stop in terms of ranking.

Ranking measures where, in all the books offered in a store, an author's book is. So, for instance, a #100 rank means a book is the 100th most popular book in the store -- beating out all but 99. That's FABULOUS.

As I write, for example, my new book Random Acts of Crazy is in the 700s on Amazon and the 140s on Barnes & Noble. Not too bad!

But as Hugh writes:

The most recent victim is Maya Cross. Maya reported on KBoards that her new release LOCKOUT was sitting at #5 in the Nook store. Her first book, LOCKED, soon began to shoot up the lists. But when it hit #126, it stopped. It didn’t go any higher. Even though it was selling very well.

This was only mildly suspicious until she woke up the next morning to find the former #5 bestseller, LOCKOUT, sitting at #126. LOCKED, meanwhile, had dropped to #127. The two books sat side by side, pinned, selling more than the ranking would indicate. And poor Maya watched as her sales gradually diminished due to the lower visibility.

I should point out here that many indie authors are expert at reading sales numbers from sales rank. We’ve shared enough data and collected our own as we move through the lists, so that even as the numbers required to hit certain rankings grows over time with the growth of e-books in general, you can tell when something is amiss. At this point, it was cause for alarm.

But then a pattern emerged.

Read more at Hugh's site.

The problem for authors is obvious: you lose visibility. The higher your ranking the more "also-boughts" your book goes into. In other words, when a book is popular the eBook store "pushes" your book as a suggestion to readers -- like you! You're exposed to books that other readers have bought that are similar to the books you buy.

As ranking is halted, artificially, by retailers like B&N, it deprives readers of choice.

No one wants that. 

I'll watch these trends carefully, and if my book's ranking gets "stuck" at 126/7, how very suspicious that will be.

Random Acts of Crazy now on Nook!

Get Random Acts of Crazy on Nook ! $.99 for a limited time only!

Random Acts of Crazy is live on Amazon now!

Buy Random Acts of Crazy on Amazon for just $.99 for a limited time!

What do you do when maybe -- just maybe -- you don't have to choose?

I never intended to pick up a naked hitchhiker wearing nothing but a guitar. A guitar. Really. I don't collect guys like that (don't ask what kind of guys I do collect), but when you spot a blonde, tanned, sculpted man with a gorgeous smile and his thumb poking up and practically begging you to stop – you stop.

And I definitely never thought I'd be staring into the bright blue eyes of Trevor Connor, the lead singer for Random Acts of Crazy, an indie rock star I followed like the slobbering fileshare fangirl I am. How he came to be nude and lost six hundred miles from home is quite the tale, but how we fell in love is even more unreal.

Because someone like Trevor Connor, headed to Harvard Law next year, isn't supposed to want someone like me, a rural Ohio chick majoring in Boredom at Convenience Store University who is all curves and frizzy blonde hair and manners so unpolished they have sharp edges that make you bleed.

But he did.

When his best friend, Joe Ross, the bass player for Random Acts of Crazy and a man who makes Calvin Klein models look like Shrek, drove eleven hours through the night to rescue him, though, it got real complicated. It's one thing to like two different guys and be torn. 

What do you do, though, when maybe – just maybe – you don't have to choose?

* * *

Random Acts of Crazy is a standalone, full-length novel featuring Darla Jo(sephine) Jennings, the 22-year-old niece of Josie Mendham from the Her Two Billionaires series. It has, like many New Adult novels, an exploration of sexuality for the three main characters, doesn't shy away from mature content, and Darla has a sailor's mouth. 

Random Acts of Crazy is just $.99 for a limited time!

Regular price for this full-length novel will be $3.99.

As a thank you to my fabulous readers, I'm pricing this at just $.99 so you can grab it now at 75% off. Please spread the word, write a review, and tell your reader friends!

Stay tuned for future posts when it goes live on Nook, iTunes, Kobo, All Romance eBooks, and Bookstrand!

Thank you so much -- consider posting the following Tweet to help readers find me! @jkentauthor

PLZ RT: Random Acts of Crazy is live for just $.99 now! Grab this hot, conflicted New Adult romance (with a twist)! http://tinyurl.com/prj8qnx

Uploaded and waiting...

Upload day for any author is a BIG DEAL. Writing a novel, especially a freaking 344-page GINORMOUS BOOK is, indeed, the hardest part of any book's development. But then there's editing, and plot changes, and revisions. Then copyediting from 2 or more people -- and going in to revise. Final proofreading. Sending the files to the formatters. Finding errors. Waiting for emails back and forth. Cover design and the inevitable back and forth to tweak and perfect. Writing the blurb/description. Making sure the files all pass the various eBook retailers' tests. Getting covers in the right resolution and file size (different eBook retailers have different requirements). Getting a print version done (I'm working on that, slowly, for ALL my books).

And then you just press SUBMIT and you're done, right?

Ah, no.

Now you have to wait until the book is approved and published. Create a newsletter to reach readers who subscribed to the New Releases list. Add the new links to the books in the newsletter. Make sure the email list is up to date. Then hit SUBMIT.

And you're done?

Nope.

The whole process is AWESOME and amazing, but then the marketing begins. tweets. FB statuses. Guest blog posts. Paid advertising (if you can afford it).

And the high of watching people buy, read, and enjoy your books. I get a LOT of reader email asking, breathlessly, the DAY AFTER a new book comes out -- "When's the next book coming out? I can't stand to wait!"


Man, I love you too. But let me rest a bit, you know? ;) As a reader, I have TOTALLY DONE THAT to an author (Selena Kitt's Temptation/Confession/Grace trilogy made me beg her to finish Grace as fast as possible), so I get it on both sides LOL!

And yes, Josie's book is coming in late June, for sure, 100 percent, no worries. It, too, will be 300+ pages.

THANK YOU to my readers for being on this journey with me. As Random Acts of Crazy makes its way through this process, know how blessed I feel by all of you. <3

Meet Joe from Random Acts of Crazy

And now it's time to meet Joe, Trevor's uptight, model-perfect best friend:

Joe

I'd spent the better part of the last two hours this morning being chewed out by Trevor's mom, who kept asking where he was and demanding I put him on the phone as I catapulted myself as fast as possible through the lost journey down I-76 in the bowels of Pennsylvania and, now, Ohio. I had the set of clothes he'd abandoned in his basement, along with his iPhone and wallet. Idiot.

Of all the fuck-ups Trevor had been involved in, this was easily the biggest one and it tasted a little too much like one of those Hangover movies, which are very funny in a frat-boy way but that leave much to be desired when you're the friend who has to rescue the main character. If this woman Darla had a Capuchin monkey in that little potting shed where Trevor was snoring behind her, then that was it. I was done.

Darla came out of the shed, closed the door and smiled at me like a crazy, wild woman. What the hell had Trevor gotten into? This place looked like something out of My Name Is Earl. This wasn't funny anymore. Eleven hours of driving had been bad enough. Doing it alone, listening to all of the recorded lectures for my health care law class, which I had to get an A in, in order to secure my spot at BC Law, had been bad enough. But showing up here and being ocularly devoured by this curvy, bouncy chick who had just bagged Trevor was over the top.

Ruining one of my brand new shoes on her porch made me resent the trip even more. Most of all, though, I knew that Mrs. Connor was going to rip me a new asshole if I didn't get Trevor home immediately. Of all the parents among my friends, the Connors were the most controlling. Trevor didn't care, but that's because most of us wanted what our parents wanted for us. He didn't.

It was seamless and easy to just say, “Sure, OK, what do you want me to do?” But Trevor was different. Trevor was a wild, wild beast. The kind of guy I admired and wished I could be, but who scared me, too, because I couldn't grasp how my best friend since kindergarten had turned into a complete stranger when it came to everything music. Once we started our band it was like a demon rose up from him and made everything irrelevant – unless it was music. Our music. Playing bass was an afterthought for me, something I squeezed in so I'd have an excuse to hang out with Trev. At first it was just us – he played guitar and sang, while I fumbled around and taught myself how to do some basic chords. We added Trev's next-door neighbor, Liam, and a drummer from the debate team at the neighboring high school, Sam.

A band was born. Trevor drove everything, though, from the rehearsals to gigs to just being a fucking maniac about it. He was like Tucker Max on the prowl for pussy – except Trevor wanted sound. Harmony. Awesomeness through the chords and the lyrics and all of it, like a man possessed. Getting high after practice was the only way to get him to come down.

That he stole all my stolen peyote and ended up naked wearing only a guitar held some sort of symbolism, but right now I couldn't dissect it. Literary essays weren't high on my priority list.

She wouldn't stop staring at me, this Darla chick, standing in the sun with her mouth open a bit, lips glistening. I got that a lot. Women kept calling me all sorts of names like a young Patrick Dempsey, only cute, or 'that Italian dude from Vogue'. My parents had pushed me into modeling but I didn't like it. Too much attention – not my style. This whole mess with Trevor was too much attention, Darla now openly watching me, making me think she was a little unhinged.

I could see what Trevor saw in her, though, There was something kind of magnetic about her. She wasn't particularly our type – as if we had a type. We didn't really have much choice in the women that we interacted with – it was more whatever was there, like eating at a buffet and thinking that those were your only choices, ever. There were no women who looked like her at school and when she said, “How about we go get a cup of coffee?” I had a feeling she didn't mean Starbucks.

Trevor snorted awake just as she said the words and then sat up, his rock hard dick poking out from under the thin blanket. He looked just like he'd looked the night of his party, completely naked, a smattering of hair down his chest thickening where it thickened on all of us. The fucker had that perfect athlete's body completely effortlessly, never needing to work out like I did. He just could jump on a bike and go for a hundred mile ride or take a kayak out for a ten mile journey without conditioning his body in between. It filled me with instant rage to think how effortlessly everything came to Trevor – even wild women.

“Hey, Trev, fancy meeting you here,” I said. Darla snickered.

“Oh, God, Joe, you're here.” If that was supposed to be a tone of gratitude it wasn't even close.

“Yeah, about that,” I said, pulling out my phone. “Your mom is psycho right now.”

“Fuuuuuuuck,” he groaned, holding his head in his hands.

Darla walked back into her...whatever you call this shack, and motioned for me to come in. I walked in. Cool little place she built, actually. Did she live here? Is this how it worked in trailer land? A chicken half-flew past, some kind of guinea hen that looked starved. A kitten followed it. It was missing one leg and had a pink bow around its fluffy white neck, like a quality control reject from the Hello Kitty factory.

Darla stood with her back to us, off to my right, while Trevor leaned back and plunked his head on the pillow, grinning madly at me. I rolled my eyes and looked for a place to sit down. There wasn't any so I just grabbed a spot on the floor, on a carpet square that reminded me of kindergarten. She had a bunch of them strewn in neat little patterns around the floor. I guessed this shed was about what? 8'X8'? Something like that – no bigger than the one we used to store our tractor mower in at home. If this was her home then Trevor and I were worlds away from Sudborough.

She opened a can, the snick of a seal being broken, and then I watched her do something with a manual can opener. They still make those? I heard the sound of water pouring and then the slow gurgle, a sound I knew from my Grandma's house. It was a coffee maker, the kind that used a basket filter and had a pot. Not like the one at home – we used the Keurigs now or Mom pulled out the espresso machine.

Trevor looked at me and said, “What the hell happened to me?”

“I don't know, man,” I said. What the hell did happen to you? I thought. “Like I told you, you took all that peyote.”

“You're the one who got it,” Trevor protested.

“I got it out of the evidence room. I didn't think you'd sit down and eat all of it.”

“All of it? I really ate all of it? I thought I must be remembering that wrong.”

Darla turned around, her eyes wide with surprise. “You ate all of it?” she asked Trevor. He just shrugged. Whipping around to me, she asked, “How much was there?”

“I don't know.” I held my hands up to try to indicate the size of the bag and Darla started choking with laughter.

“Holy shit, Trevor! No wonder you were high as a fucking kite when I found you and that was...how long? Twelve hours? More than that? After you went missing. You're crazy.”

The look he shot her was more intimate than anything I'd ever seen him give anyone, including me, his best friend. “It got me here, didn't it?” he said.

She softened and smiled back, matching his affection. “I hope,” she said, “it won't take another giant bag of peyote to get you to come back.”

Publishing in just a few days! Watch for the email from me and itf you're not on my New Releases email list, join here!

Cover reveal for Random Acts of Crazy!

Random Acts of Crazy

I never intended to pick up a naked hitchhiker wearing nothing but a guitar. A guitar. Really. I don't collect guys like that (don't ask what kind of guys I do collect), but when you spot a blonde, tanned, sculpted man with a gorgeous smile and his thumb poking up and practically begging you to stop – you stop.

And I definitely never thought I'd be staring into the bright blue eyes of Trevor Connor, the lead singer for Random Acts of Crazy, an indie rock star I followed like the slobbering fileshare fangirl I am. How he came to be nude and lost six hundred miles from home is quite the tale, but how we fell in love is even more unreal.

Because someone like Trevor Connor, headed to Harvard Law next year, isn't supposed to want someone like me, a rural Ohio chick majoring in Boredom at Convenience Store University who is all curves and frizzy blonde hair and manners so unpolished they have sharp edges that make you bleed.

But he did.

When his best friend, Joe Ross, the bass player for Random Acts of Crazy and a man who makes Calvin Klein models look like Shrek, drove eleven hours through the night to rescue him, though, it got real complicated. It's one thing to like two different guys and be torn. 

What do you do, though, when maybe – just maybe – you don't have to choose?

As my Aunt Josie says sometimes, "It's always complicated."

* * *

Random Acts of Crazy is a standalone, full-length novel featuring Darla Jo(sephine) Jennings, the 22-year-old niece of Josie Mendham from the Her Two Billionaires series. It has, like many New Adult novels, an exploration of sexuality for the three main characters, doesn't shy away from mature content, and Darla has a sailor's mouth. 

Publishing within a week!

Josie and Alex's first kiss

So many readers have been asking about Josie's book (coming in late June!), so here's a little excerpt. Dr. Alex Derjian is the OB resident on call at Laura's birth, and in this scene Laura's been laboring a long time, it's the middle of the night and Josie can't sleep. The scene before involved, well, Alex seeing Dylan's naked ass (loooong story), so there's a little context:

Coffee. She needed coffee. Shaking Dylan, who jumped up and shouted, “What? Push?”, she realized how dog-tired they all were.

Josie leaned down. "I'm getting coffee. Want some?”

He just shook his head and closed his eyes, curling himself into a barefooted ball on the wooden legs of the visitor's chair, head shoved against a pillow. The chair folded out into a little bed but he'd rejected it for reasons known only to him. She wasn't about to pry.

The elevator ride down was eerie, the sounds of groaning women in labor and beeping machines cut short as soon as the elevator doors shut. Downstairs, she found a 24/7 coffee shop and grabbed a horrible cup of java that would at least buy her a little alert time. On impulse she bought two, wondering if she could find Alex and offer him a peace offering.

Anyone who came face to face with Dylan's naked ass – no matter how strong and hot it was – needed a little something else strong and hot as a consolation prize.

Finding Alex proved remarkably simple, for as she waited for the elevator doors she heard that steady baritone behind her. “Josie?”

She turned to find him standing there, holding two cups of coffee. Uncertainty clouded his features, and then his eyes twinkled with mirth. “You just got coffee,” he said, pretending to toast her with the cup in his right hand. “I was coming up with this to give you.”

Could he be even more perfect? Apparently. “And,” she answered, gently knocking her own cup against his, “this is for you.” Eyes locked, they smiled at each other, the coffee burning her hand as they just stared. Maybe that burning sensation wasn't only from the hot liquid in the cup in her hand. Hot fluids were pooling in other places, too.

“Great minds think alike and all that,” he said, not breaking the look. She knew he had about five hours left of his twenty-four hour shift, and he looked tired, but there was an energy in him that she admired. Competence and decency emanated from him, even in the blue scrubs. His name tag was askew, hanging from his shirt pocket like an afterthought, and his messy hair made her want to see it in bed, sunlight streaming behind him, naked and sleepy, with her next to him, covered in their scent.

If he could read minds she was in trouble.

She had a feeling she was in trouble no matter what, though, because as their look deepened she felt herself falling, unsure where or how far, but definitely falling into a state she'd never been in before, her body and mind ready to leap right into something that should be carefully thought out.

And the last thing she needed to do right now was tear any of her attention away from her best friend, who was asleep, dilating, and about to experience the worst pain of her entire life. In the middle of all that, what was Josie doing?

Flirting.

Bad friend. Bad, bad friend.

“We have a coffee surplus. Want to go sit down and get wired and jittery together?”

“Get some Mountain Dew and No-doz and we could cure cancer in two days.”

“We could do great things with uninterrupted two days together,” he said, nodding solemnly.

The elevator dinged and the doors opened. Alex gestured for her to get on first, and she fumbled to push the button for the fourth floor, hands full of coffee cups, but she made it.

“You can tell you're a nurse.”

She snickered. “A real nurse would make out with you between floors.” Did she just say that? Her mouth wasn't supposed to blurt that out. It was a thought! A thought! The line between thinking and speaking eroded after 1 am.

“Is that an offer?”

“Do you want it to be?' Stall. Buy time, Stop inhaling his scent. Stop watching his arms flex with those coffees.

What was he doing? Alex bent down and set the coffees on the floor, then approached her, two steps all he needed to be in her personal space, making her breath so hard to manage she worried she'd faint from lack of oxygen. Autonomous body functions continued, to her surprise, including a decidedly distressing flood of blood to her nether regions, which engorged and flowed, making her wet for him and wondering how to get out of this with her dignity intact, without throwing herself all over him.

“I don't play games, Josie.” His eyes bored into her and she gasped, confirming that her respiratory system really was functioning right now, thank goodness. His hands came out to touch her shoulders as the elevator crept up, slowly, the seconds feeling like minutes. “Games are for people who don't know what they want.”

Alex showed her exactly what he wanted next, arms wrapping around her shoulders, one hand sliding against the throbbing skin of her neck, his soft palm caressing her pulse at the jawline, mouth bending to her, upper body curling down to take her with impossibly lush lips that met hers with a sense of welcoming that was almost unbearable in its simplicity and grace.

He didn't push. This wasn't a kiss of overriding passion, which she expected, but instead one of invitation, of orientation, even. It said, “Hello,” not “Take your pants off.” The former confused her. The latter she knew all too well. And then it shifted, moving decidedly into pants territory. As his lips explored her, her hands splayed against his shoulders, feet standing on tip-toe to embrace him better, the distant ding! of the elevator's ascent registered and interrupted their embrace as the doors began to open.

Feeling like an errant schoolgirl, Josie pressed her fingers to her lips as he pulled back, a smile creasing his face and making those damn eyes even more appealing, the look he gave her piercing her heart, as if he really cared for her and this wasn't just some strange attraction that came at the worst possible time – ever – in her life.

No one entered the elevator, thank God, and she nearly kicked over two of the coffees in her haste to pull away and make sure no one caught them. Why she felt the need to hide this, to be discreet, was beyond her. Habit? Fear? Embarrassment? Nothing computed as she watched him bend down effortlessly, dipped to the floor like a man about to propose, except his hand held java instead of a diamond ring.

Likewise, she bent down to retrieve her coffees and looked to him for reassurance, for direction, to know what to do next. His fixed stare made her smile, the grin a reflex that came from a deeper look at the relaxed calm, the knowing joy in him that he somehow transmitted to her.

That look she knew, but not personally. A touch of it was in the way Mike smiled when he talked about Laura.

New excerpt from Random Acts of Crazy -- Meet Trevor!

Random Acts of Crazy is publishing within 2 weeks, so here's your introduction to Trevor Connor, lead singer for the band and the man standing on the side of the road naked:

Trevor

This was not Sudborough, Massachusetts. Not even close. That was all I knew when the splinters of my smashed guitar snapped me partway out of the pleasant haze I’d been in. I gently turned my thoughts in a careful circle, trying to place myself in time and space.

I'd been at home after doing a few shows around town as April came to a close, mostly bars where my parents knew the owner and in their pinched way, informed me that it would be“most beneficial” if I would find the time. After I played a few songs that confused them, I finally gave in—gave up—and settled into Bob Seger and AC/DC to meet their oldies-but-goodies needs.

Nothing like a bar full of overweight, drunk doctors, lawyers and finance people in their 50s looking to rock out. That Nicole Kidman movie with the fake, robot wives could have been set in Sudborough. Bet they didn't because it was a little too close to the movie script and the producers freaked right the fuck out, running for Logan airport before the Mom-bots got them.

God, how I needed a hit of anything to get away from that. So it was even better when a few friends from high school had gathered in my basement after that gig.

After the initial preening that came from being a senior at an Ivy or near-ivy, our chests puffed out like being on the debate team was akin to hunting mammoth with spears, my buddies settled down, brains full of Joe's internship at Ropes & Grey this summer, my acceptance to Chicago law, and Judy's Rhodes scholarship. The less-successful among us, instantly castrated into beta males, shifted down a few levels to their baser natures and found that one, small speck of social space where competition didn't matter: substance.

Well, drugs, actually. Peyote. 'Shrooms. Some pot. Coke galore. A little K2, which I wouldn't touch. Why use synthetics when the natural stuff was smooth and fun? And a little acid.

Someone even brought a Costco-sized bottle of NyQuil. Ooo, we were slumming.

Bored out of my fucking mind, even on a few hits of acid and a half a bowl, I realized I was bored not because there was nothing to do, and not because there was no one to do (Judy was an unofficial guy, and had banged everyone else, so I was holding out for Except That Guy status, a fact I weirdly prided myself on… but that made me wonder why I was proud of not getting laid). I was bored because my entire life was one big string of boring events chained together to make a necklace of boredom.

A garland of ennui. A rope of grindingly painful nothingness with which to hang myself.

God, even the word “ennui” sounded boring.

I realized I live in a world of full-of-shit people who don't know they're full of shit and they just perpetuate the shit by making...more shit. And once I take my final exams in the next two weeks I’ll graduate with my bachelor's degree, head off to Chicago for three years of masochism re-branded as law school, and the transition to pod person will be complete.

Instead of keeping that cycle going, I'd grabbed this guitar, stripped naked, and eaten the entire bag of mushrooms Joe had stolen from the evidence room when on a tour at a precinct in Boston, part of a criminal law class. A stroke of genius, really – what better way to subvert the dominant paradigm than to shed designer labels, bespoke suits, and get high as a fucking kite to escape it all?

What a rebel.

And now I was wedged on the floor of someone's shitbox, that someone being a frizzed out, juicy young woman with breasts like a porn star's, a voice like a redneck combined with Katie Couric, and what the fuck was on my neck?

And why was my dick covered in splinters?

Blink. The glow from a streetlight was shining in the car in that surreal way highways can lend, stripped of buildings and trees and anything resembling civilization or nature, its own little category of space. This woman's face stared at me from above, expectant, as if she'd just said something to me and needed an answer.

MENSA me said, “Huh?” My hands were a bit numb, but when one brushed against my rock-hard boner, that got my attention. What was I doing on the floor with my ass scratchy and cold, peppered with splinters and my best appendage standing straight up at attention (ten HUT!) pointing at this woman?

She wasn't just any chick, either. As my eyes came into focus and my feet decided to stop being nineteen yards long and covered in marshmallows, I got a better idea of whose car I was in, and why my ass felt like it was colder than it should be, pressed against the floor. Shit. Was that a hole in the actual bottom of the car?

The light made her hair glow. Glow, I tell you. Or was that the 'shrooms? Not sure. Either way, after I impressed her with my erudite, “Huh?” I followed it up with, “Wanna fuck?”

She grinned. “Well, ain't you suave? I don't fuck anything that wears a collar. That really helps to maintain standards 'round here. It's a shame other folks in my family don't have the same rule, because Uncle Jack's permanently disabled from that goat he...” She winced. “Oh, nevermind. You don't know me well enough to hear that story.”

“I'd like to know you,” I said, the words oozing out like slime. Sexy slime. Like sensual slime designed to cover her and draw her into my world of primordial arousal ooze. The exact idea wasn't really clear. My hands reached up and unclasped the collar. She was right. I was actually wearing a collar, which I pitched into the field by the side of the road, because if that was an obstacle to getting sex right now, off it went. Ta ta! Buh-bye.

Then I noticed the cotton balls in my mouth, and how her hair was actually – literally – on fire at the edges. With tiny snakes flicking flint to make the fire.

Laughter. “OK, there, Trevor.” She knew my name? “But first, how 'bout we get your ass off the ground. You're no more than three inches away from road rash.”

I wasn't imagining it; as she reached out to help me up, my buttock peeled off the floor and I saw it – a rusted-out spot about five inches around. Little grey rocks and tar mocked me.

“You have the strangest accent. Am I in western Mass, in some pocket of the Berkshires where people talk like this?” Or, worse – stuck in Hampshire College at some linguistics experiential conference?

What the fuck? her face said, but her words were a bit more measured. “Trevor, you're in central Ohio right now.”

“Ohio?”

“Right.”

“Corn fields?”

“Yep.”

“First state with the caucuses that piss off New Hampshire every election cycle?”

“No, that's Iowa. Ohio is the state that pissed off the Democrats in 2004 and Karl Rove in 2012. We're fair and balanced that way.”

“Ohhh. That one,” I answered. Got it. “How far from Mass am I?”

“You're Catholic?”

Either I had just found the stupidest, hot and voluptuous woman with burning hair in the state of Ohio, or I was stuck in an endless loop of Groundhog Day, as written by Douglas Adams.

“Mass, as in Massachusetts.”

Peals of laughter from her, a sweet set of notes that made my already hard erection reach out just a bit more, stretching tall, as if seeking her. “You're about as far from Massachusetts as I am from financial solvency.”

“That close, huh?” Rubbing my head, I realized it hurt on two levels. A bump from the car's sudden stop, and a deeper ache. The pain of being massively hungover. Another quick memory of the last time I could remember: 'shrooms. Peyote. Red Bull and espresso with local raw cream (ah, Mom and her insistence on organic purity) and Chilean pisco. It all coursed through my veins, pounding through my eye sockets.

And my favorite appendage.

“How did I get here?” Staring down at my body, I realized I really was completely, and utterly nude, my body floating through air without any encumbrances. Not even a condom. I was never nude like this unless I was in the middle of having sex with someone. Even then, the girls at BU were a quick-n-dirty bunch, so the actual span from being in a state of complete undress to wearing a dick sock was measured in nanoseconds.

To be fair to them, sometimes so was the intercourse.

But I made up for it with the next round. And the next.

On good nights, a fourth. My voice might be well-known, but my refractory period was legendary.

Not that I'm bragging.

But I am.

“I have no idea how you got here, Trevor,” she said, trying very obviously not to stare at my package. I liked her for that. Then I was offended, because what's wrong with my manhood? It deserved to be ogled. A glorious contribution to the world of erections, it definitely stood out from the crowd.

And stood up right now, pointed at her. A lucid whisper in my brain told my hands they should cover it anyway, despite its glory, and I gave it a quick attempt. Then I looked like I was just jacking off, and that wasn't the impression I was trying to give. So I gave up, my head clearing by the second and not liking what I was realizing.

Except for her.

“What's your name?” I asked, now really getting a look at her.

“Chippy Pete.” She deadpanned, as if there were some inside joke I was supposed to understand. Ohio had some really strange naming conventions for women.

“Uh, OK...?” I asked, my voice rising. Her face fell, though, as if I'd disappointed her. Some deep sorrow came out of her skin, as if it were a dementor, seeping into my heart and making me feel like an ass. I didn't know what I'd done, but I felt really awful suddenly, and wanted to make it up to her. But we were sitting in a cheap rustbox on the side of some interstate in Ohio and I was naked.

My only option? To reach over and kiss Chippy Pete. Because when you're coming down off 'shrooms and NyQuil and find yourself naked in a car older than you, 600 miles from home, a kiss is about the only thing that can make it all better.

My New Releases schedule for May, June and July

I've been getting fabulous reader mail from many people who ask (rightly) where Josie's book is. The first in the Menage Match, Inc. series was scheduled for April, but my release schedule has changed.

As you know, the Her Two Billionaires series was a series -- so the books came out faster, but were shorter novellas (except for the mammoth ending!). Many readers and reviewers have given me input on wanting full novels rather than novellas.

The only problem: it means a longer wait for readers.

So...here's what you can expect from me over the next three months:

May: Random Acts of Crazy is coming! This is a first-person novel telling the tale of Darla, Josie's 22-year-old niece back in Ohio, and Trevor and Joe, members of her favorite band, Random Acts of Crazy. The book is nearly 350 pages (!!!) and you learn so much about Josie's past. Read more about it on my blog.

June: JOSIE'S BOOK! The first in the Menage Match, Inc. series [please note -- Menage Match was renamed to It's Complicated, which came out in July] comes out, and it's a big book as well, like Darla's. You get to "see" the birth of Laura/Dylan/Mike's baby (and wait until you learn the name!) and meet Dr. Alex Derjian, an obstetrician who has his sights set on Josie. Madge, again, plays a role in this one (and it's not what you think!).

July: Suspiciously Obedient comes out as part of the SUMMER Insatiable Reads Tour. Mike orders Jeremy to go to Iceland to watch over Lydia and he obeys. Oh, my, does he obey... We have nearly 30 authors this time, in genres ranging from erotic romance to New Adult to BBW romance and more.

I hope this helps you to know what to expect and when. As with ALL MY NEW RELEASES FROM NOW ON, I'll send an email announcing the publication on all the ebook stores, and the book will be only $.99 for a limited time. This is a big old THANK YOU to readers who sign up for my New Releases email list, so you can get a bargain when the book first comes out.

So look for an email from me in the coming weeks when Random Acts of Crazy is let loose!