Merry Christmas!

One of my favorite Christmas songs done to perfection by the Gloucester Cathedral Choir - In the Bleak Midwinter. Have a safe and happy holiday.

Guest Blog at The Rainbow Studio!

Talking about my contribution to Ellora's Cave's Naughty Nooner freebies! And there's a drawing for an AllRomanceEbook gift certificate! Check it out at http://therainbowstudio.blogspot.com/2010/12/love-at-first-sight.html.

Have a fabulous day!
Shayla

Winner of the Roses Day 8 Contest!

Christine (Chirth7@), come on down! You are the winner of a $15 gift certificate to AllRomanceEbooks! I'll contact you by email for your information! Congratulations and thank you for playing!

Thanks to everyone who answered. I hope all have a fabulous and safe holiday season! And keep checking out the Roses Colored Glasses December calendar for more articles and contests!

Shayla

Music For the Writer's Soul: Marcia Ball

I first heard Marcia Ball in the mid-90s. One of her songs, Blue House, was on a compilation CD called Blues Women Today. I really enjoyed the song and started keeping an eye out for her albums.

Then along came Memphis in May. Every year, the first weekend in May rocks the Mississippi River with the Beale Street Music Festival. I don't remember exactly which year--maybe 1997--my little sister, my ex-sister-in-law and I did a last minute what the heck and headed to Memphis. The big reason for the trip was to see Kenny Wayne Shepperd, an up and coming artist from Louisiana. But guess who else was on the lineup?

Marcia Ball. I fell in love with her voice, her energy and her obvious joy in her music. Wikipedia quotes the Boston Globe in describing her music as "an irresistible celebratory blend of rollicking, two-fisted New Orleans piano, Louisiana swamp-rock and smoldering Texas blues from a contemporary storyteller." I couldn't describe it better.

The trip that year started my love of Memphis. You can't beat the food, the fun and the music. They don't claim to be the home of the blues for nothing. Many of my novels are set in Memphis because of my infatuation with the town. And some of Marcia's music is usually ringing in my ears while I write them.

Try listening to Play With Your Poodle and not tap your toes...



Rose's Colored Glasses December Calendar Day 7 contest: For a $10 iTunes or Amazon.com gift card, post in the comments an artist who has inspired you. Winner will be announced on Saturday, December 11th.

Winner of the LLAP Contest from Roses Colored Glasses Day 3!

Winner of the LLAP/Twitter contest on rosescoloredglasses.com Day 3 is Michelle L! Congratulations! And thanks to everyone who played!

Michelle, I'll contact you by email for your choice of ebook from my backlist!

Shayla

Contest Winners!

So many great entries from people thankful for wonderful things. Family, friends, safety of service members--home and abroad, pets, Thanksgiving off--finally, having a job, kids leaving the nest, waking up each morning, health, happiness and a Kindle (I can relate! *cackle*).

Wonderful entries! But you really want to know who won, right? So here goes. I'm thankful for Randomizer.org for taking the choice out of my hands.

The prizes were:

Prizes

Grand Prize: $25 gift card to Amazon.com or Barnes and Noble.

2nd Prize: Signed print copy of
Joey W. Hill's Rough Canvas
(hot m/m BDSM)

3rd Prize: Signed print copies of
THE COST OF ETERNITY
ETERNITY
(The complete Eternity Series)

Bonus Drawings: Winner's choice of one of my ebooks.

 

And the winners are:

Grand Prize: $25 Amazon or Barnes & Noble Gift Card - Brandy W.
2nd Prize: Joey W. Hill's Rough Canvas - Jean P.
3rd Prize: Shayla Kersten's Eternity series in print - Brandi M. R.
Bonus prize #1: Choice of one of my ebooks - Tara W.
Bonus prize #2: Choice of one of my ebooks -Perpetua

Congratulations, everyone! I'll email you for details of where and what to send!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Wishing my fellow Americans a happy, healthy and safe Thanksgiving! To everyone else, I hope you have a happy, healthy and safe Thursday!

I'm off to Momma's for family time with her, the siblings and nieces.

Don't forget to enter my Thanksgiving contest for a chance to win a $25 gift card. Details on my contest page at:  http://shaylakersten.com/shaylacontest2.htm.

Turkeys, Thanksgiving and a Contest!

This time of is always hectic and it's even more so since I went back to work full time. As crazy as things get, I think about the things I'm thankful for.

1. As always, I'm thankful for my family. Too many people dread the holidays because of the stress of family gatherings. My mother and younger siblings, my nieces and niece-in-law, are fun and I enjoy being around them, spending time together. They make the holidays something to look forward to and not dread and I'm very thankful for that!

2. Writing. Although the return to full time work has severely cut into my writing time, I'm still thankful for my only creative outlet as well as the readers who honor me by reading my books. I'm also thankful that a lot of those readers like my books. *cackle*

3. The evil day job. Unfortunately a necessary evil. I'm thankful for my staff making the transition smooth and relatively painless. I'm grateful my Evil Boss hasn't been that evil. And I'm really thankful for the full-time paycheck and benefits!

So on to the contest...

Thanksgiving Contest!

Go to my contest page at http://shaylakersten.com/shaylacontest2.htm. Find the turkeys on my website. Tell me which pages you found the turkeys and what you're thankful for!

(Hint: There will be three turkeys.)

All responses will be entered in a random drawing for the prizes. Contest will run from Monday, November 22 to midnight US CDT Sunday, November 28.

Bonus drawing #1: Post the link to my contest page on your favorite social media (Twitter, Facebook, etc). Paste your link in the form with your answers from above.

Bonus drawing #2: Stop by the Literary Nymphs Thanksgiving Day M/M Only Weekend Chat and give me a shout out! Put my name in the subject so I find the entries.

Everyone is allowed to enter all three drawings.

Because of gift card terms of use, the grand prize is limited to US residents. All other prizes have no geographical restriction.

Prizes

Grand Prize: $25 gift card to Amazon.com or Barnes and Noble.

2nd Prize: Signed print copy of
Joey W. Hill's Rough Canvas
(hot m/m BDSM)

3rd Prize: Signed print copies of
THE COST OF ETERNITY
ETERNITY
(The complete Eternity Series)

Bonus Drawings: Winner's choice of one of my ebooks.

Winners will be notified via the email provided on the contest entry. They will also be announced on Monday, November 29th, on my blog.

Good luck!

Time Flies!

But I'm not sure it's because I'm having fun... *cackle* I just noticed I hadn't blogged in two and a half weeks. No idea where the time went. Working full time seems to have created a time warp of some kind.

However some of the time was really fun! High points of the last two and a half weeks...

My last post was about the release of RIVER OF NEED (TN Cop #4). So far, I've had some wonderful feedback from readers. Love that!

Big highlight! Wicked! The Broadway musical about the real story of the witches of Oz opened in Little Rock on November 3. My sister--who never wins stuff--won tickets to opening night and invited me to go with her. Freakin' awesome show!

The 1939 film The Wizard of Oz began airing on TV in the US before I was born and it seems I watched it every year from the cradle on. I'll never see the show in quite the same light again. The clip below is from the Tony Awards with the original Broadway cast and only shows a small part of the sheer awesome known as Wicked.



I finished and submitted my short free story to Ellora's Cave. Haven't heard anything from my editor yet. I hope it passes muster for the Naughty Nooners freebie series. It's a glimpse of ICING ON THE CAKE's Jeff and Ollie three months later tentatively titled ACQUIRED TASTE (Thanks for the title, Debbie! *cackle*)

I started a new story on November 1st as yet another attempt at the annual writer phenomenon, NaNoWriMo. NoNo is an attempt to write 50k word novel in a month. Considering today is the 13th and I'm barely 4k into the story, I'm guessing I won't make it again this year. Work has me drained in the evenings and my weekends have not gone as planned. But hey, I started a new story! This one has a BDSM theme and the idea is begging to get out. I have to make time to let it. The book is tentatively titled AFTER HOURS.

Oh, and I had an offer on another short story--my lesbian vampire one. I'll wait to go into details until the contract is signed.

So a lot of good things going on. I just wish they'd figure out how to come up with 36 hour days!

Most of today has been dedicated to resting. Guilt plagues me when I do this but sometimes it's necessary. I've been on the go and out of the house every day except one for the last three months. Hard to believe I've been back at the full time EDJ that long already. Things are going better than expected there. Me being the pessimist I am, I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. LOL Kind of like I keep waiting for someone to tell me my publishing career is all a joke. *cackle*

Hope life is treating you kinder!

Hugs!
Shayla

New Release: RIVER OF NEED, TN Cop #4

Woo hoo! I love new release days! Too bad the evil day job beckons and I can't stay home to play on the interwebz. *slight pout* But even the EDJ can't get me down completely 'cause it's new release day!

RIVER OF NEED
Copyright © SHAYLA KERSTEN, 2010
Book four, Tennessee Cops
Ellora's Cave

BLURB:

Two years after their breakup, Detective Kyle Shelton didn’t expect to see his lying, cheating, closeted ex. Especially not behind bars for prostitution. Bailing him out is one of the stupidest things Kyle has done in a while. Although letting his ex back in his bed probably ranks higher on the dumbass scale.

Dustin Eldridge’s lying about his sexual preferences has left him with nothing. Literally. He’s lost his home, his family, his job and, worse, he’s lost Kyle. On the streets, with no one to turn to, he’s resorted to selling his body to survive. Then Kyle—of all people—comes to his rescue. Dustin can’t fix the past but maybe there’s hope for a future.

Unless Kyle really believes Dustin added serial killer to his resume along with hooker.

Note: For maximum reader enjoyment, we suggest also reading Hidden Force (Tony and Ryan) and Hidden Hands (David March) where these secondary characters were heroes.

EXCERPT:

“Kyle!”

Bleary-eyed from too little sleep and too many case files read, Detective Kyle Shelton looked for the source of the familiar voice. “Ryan.” He waved a hand in acknowledgement as Ryan Nilsson moved across the squad room.

Maybe the vice squad had picked up some information on the string of murders haunting the city. The humid heat of Memphis made the murder rate rise in the summer. Some people called it the killing season. The homicide division certainly stayed busy.

Ryan stopped near Kyle’s desk. “Tony said you’d probably still be here.” Homicide detective Tony Costa was Ryan’s lover and he was leading the Cross-Eyed Killer investigation.

Stupid name for a serial killer, but the press had a field day when a witness had spilled the beans on the killer’s signature—crosses painted in blood over the victim’s eyelids. Kind of like absolution or last rites.

Kyle glanced down at the files spread out over his desk. “Yeah. I keep thinking I’ve missed something. There has to be a connection somewhere between victims. They appear random, but something has to set off the killer.”

Two men, one twenty-two and one fifty; a woman in her thirties and an eighteen-year-old boy. No evidence of anything sexual, none of the victims apparently knew each other.

Not the same religion even though the killer’s signature appeared to have religious connotations. Only common factor was the location—near Union and Vance and from Third to the river—and the killer’s signature. They couldn’t rule out copycat killers either.

Kyle looked up. “Got something for me?”

“Not about the murders.” Ryan’s frown and the furtive way his gaze darted around the room made Kyle think this conversation needed a little privacy. “Got a minute?”

“Sure. Come on.” Kyle pushed away from his desk. Leading the way, he headed toward an empty interrogation room. He ducked into the observation side so no one could eavesdrop. With the door closed behind them, he leaned against the wall. “What’s up?”

“Dustin Eldridge.”

Kyle’s breath caught in his throat but he forced air into his lungs as he faked nonchalance. His breakup with Dustin had been wrought with agony and repercussions. He hadn’t talked to him or even heard his name in nearly two years.

“What about him?” An ache started in the pit of his stomach. Please don’t let him be dead… As bad as the relationship ended, Kyle still had feelings for the asshole.

“He’s been arrested.”

Not dead. Shock mixed with relief. “For what?”

“Prostitution.”

Kyle opened his mouth but nothing came out. His mouth snapped shut. After taking a deep breath, he tried again. Finally, the only thing he could think of popped out. “Are you sure it’s the same Dustin Eldridge?”

“Yes. Remember Tony and I hung out with you two a few times.”

“Right.” Of course he remembered, but his brain couldn’t conceive of his debonair, urbane lover being accused of hooking. “Any basis to the charges?”

Ryan grimaced as he half shrugged. “He propositioned an undercover. Got him on tape.”

“Fuck.” With rubbery knees, Kyle moved to the nearest chair. Dustin always did have that effect on him. Too bad he was… “Wait. Man or woman?”

“What?”

“He propositioned a man or woman?”

"Man.” Ryan’s brow crinkled in a half frown. “Why?”

Kyle had never told anyone the main reason for their breakup. “He was married. We broke up because he was married. Something he forgot to tell me.” And Dustin’s wife had caught them.

“Oh.” Ryan shook his head. “I would have never…”

“Yeah. Me either.” Kyle took a deep breath. “Well, thanks for telling me.”

“No problem. I didn’t want the name to surprise you on tomorrow’s blotter report.”

“I suppose his wife’ll have him out by tomorrow.”

“I don’t think so.” Ryan’s hesitant tone made Kyle look up at his friend. “I’m guessing they aren’t together anymore. He listed his address as none and he looks like he’s been living on the streets.”

A sudden swell of emotion nearly brought Kyle to his feet, but he forced his body to stay put. He didn’t want Ryan to notice how his words affected him.

In his dreams, Kyle wanted Dustin free of his wife, even wanted him back. But being with someone closeted and on the down low was not something Kyle could live with. Ever.

“When’s his bail hearing?”

“First offense—no hearing. He’ll be released as soon as he can cough up the standard bail. But if you get him out, I doubt you’ll ever see him again. Or the bail money.” Guess Ryan wasn’t fooled.

Ryan was probably right, but Kyle couldn’t leave Dustin in jail. His mind rushed through a million scenarios—from happy reconciliation to Dustin skipping town—but he forced his thoughts to focus on the task of getting his ex-lover out of jail.

“Thanks for letting me know.” Kyle took a deep breath. He didn’t know what to expect or how he’d react to seeing Dustin again, but he was about to find out.