In the past, New Year’s Eve was always bittersweet. I spent Christmas with my adoptive family before returning to my lonely condominium in Toronto. By the time New Year’s Eve arrived, I’d be itching for human contact. So I’d do what I always did when I craved a connection. I’d walk to Lobby, my favourite club. On New Year’s Eve it was difficult to get in. But on this particular evening, as on most nights since I became a club VIP, I was welcomed by the bouncer, who directed me to skirt the long line and enter the building. I approached the bar and ordered my favourite drink – a double shot of Laphroaig, neat, with a side of spring water. Within five minutes, I was sitting on a banquette near the wall, sipping Scotch and scanning the room. My criteria for female companionship were simple. I preferred tall, leggy blondes but would occasional approach a red head or a brunette. I liked women who were attractive, confident, and intelligent. I avoided those whose mannerisms hinted at self-esteem issues or overt aggression. I also steered clear of women who arrived at Lobby in packs, since I found it tiresome to…

To say this has been an eventful year may be a grand understatement. Between political, social and natural events, there’s a tremendous amount to feel distressed, and maybe even saddened over. With the final hours of 2012 dwindling away, it would be tempting to allow the weight of this year’s challenges to sit vulture like on our shoulders. But what if we took just a moment – maybe until the end of that cup of tea or coffee you’re enjoying – to look back and find things that happened this year that we’re thankful for? Here, I’ll start us off: ·I’m thankful for everyone who bought my books, and particularly thankful for those readers who took the time to review them online. Nothing both humbles and motivates me more than to know someone’s out there rooting for my characters. (It’s also mildly terrifying, but I’m going to tuck that under the ‘motivating’ part of this point.) ·I’m thankful for all the hard work of my editor, and all the editorial staff, at Carina Press. It’s easy for a new writer to fall to pieces during the editorial process, but it’s so much easier to keep it together when you work…

Really, I couldn’t have planned it better. My paranormal romance, titled A TASTE OF ICE, was released yesterday, December 31 … right in the heart of frigid winter. A TASTE OF ICE is set in a snowy, desolate, historic town in the Colorado mountains. The funny thing is, when I sold my paranormal romance series, The Elementals, to Berkley Sensation/Penguin, the winter release date for A TASTE OF ICE, the second in the series, was set long before I had ever turned in the manuscript. How perfect that turned out to be! One of my goals in writing The Elementals was to change the locations for each book to best suit the storyline of the hero and heroine I feature in each. I really didn’t want to keep them all in one place, and I wanted to expand beyond an urban setting. LIQUID LIES, the first book in the series, takes place in beautiful Lake Tahoe. The third book, coming 2014, will take place … well, I can’t really say because it would give away a major plot point from A TASTE OF ICE, but let’s just say it’s someplace exotic and warm and far off the California coast (hint…