Babes in Toyland II

Maura Anderson, Jeanne Barrack, Raine Delight, Melissa Glisan,

Wayne Greenough, Michelle Hasker, Dawn Montgomery and Skylar Sinclair

Genre: Mystery, paranormal, historical, contemporary, romance, erotica

Price: $7.99

http://www.aspenmountainpress.com/babes-in-toyland-ii/prod_103.html

Blurbs:

Eight authors, eight winter holiday stories written for a total of more than 400 pages and over 130,000 words. Starting from a sweet mystery and ending in torrid romances, this book has something for everyone in it.

Who Offed Holiday Spirit by Wayne Greenough
Thanet Arthur Blake has a new mystery to solve when a little boy asks him to locate Holiday Spirit. With a reputation as a walking hearse, not too many people are willing to take to Thanet, that is until they find out who he’s looking for. Seems a lot of people have been touched by Holiday Spirit. Will Thanet be able to find Holiday Spirit before its too late?

Christmas Ink by Skylar Sinclair

Christopher Kringle, son of the Kris Kringle isn’t interested in carrying on the family business. He’d rather help the citizens of Wadeville as their doctor. When a special patient is brought in after a motorcycle accident unusual things start to happen including a curious itching on his butt. Kandi Cane had a terrible accident, and healing is going to take some time. If only she didn’t have to have an attack of unreasonable lust every time a certain doctor was nearby. But how does she tell a perfectly normal, handsome man that she isn’t quite human?

Devon Falls: Sticky Magic by Raine Delight

Preserving an ancient bloodline sends a man in search of his mate in the town of Devon Falls. Devon Falls hardly looks big enough to give second notice too, but when Marc ends up in a specialty candy shop run he changes his mind. The woman helping him select a gift for his mother is just the person he’s looking for. Can he convince Jenna they were meant to be?

Festival of Lights by Melissa Glisan
In a time and culture most have forgotten, meet Jacob and Saka, an unlikely pair. Jacob is a scholar and Saka a female warrior intent on protecting his family. When war hits, Saka takes protecting Jacob and his people seriously and will die protecting them. Survival is a miracle against a vicious enemy, but not nearly as miraculous as the love she has for Jacob or the lamp in the temple that doesn’t run out of oil.

Christmas Belle by Dawn Montgomery

In the realm of magic anything can happen, but can a kiss cause the end of the world? Belle thinks so. Kissing Roarke has cast a spell of unimagined magnitude. Guilt eats at Belle for causing the freezing of human and fae alike. Loving Roarke has caused this. Can they find a way to reverse the spell? And what will become of her love for him if they do?

Heart’s Desire by Michelle Hasker

Aine has a talent for giving people the desire of their hearts. All she asks for is help, one time, when another seeks their heart’s desire. When Aine is followed by a couple of thugs, Adhamh rushes to protect her. What he doesn’t expect is the flare of desire and vague sense of familiarity he feels in her presence. Given the choice of his own heart’s desire, finding the person who turned him into one of the living dead, or staying with Aine, Adhamh finds the decision isn’t as easy as he thought it would be.

The Game by Jeanne Barrack
A trip to his grandparents’ cabin for some quiet alone time to get to know Sheri better is all Dave wants. He doesn’t expect the company of their roommates, Frank and Marci. Nor does he expect they’ll be snowed in, unable to obtain the provisions missing from their rustic surrounds. But those aren’t the only surprises he discovers. Follow Dave and Sheri as they learn more about each other and their cabin mates while they play “Strip Dreidle” to while away their time and engage in some extraordinary sexual adventures.

Gift of the Holly King by Maura Anderson

A wiccan priestess is trying to recover from an accident that left her “changed”. Retreating to a quiet, wooded hide-away she explores the area and discovers an ancient holly tree. And imprisoned within is the Holly King, destined to relive each year the disastrous battle that locked him locks him in the tree. Kayleigh doesn’t expect to find love with an ancient spirit, but how, oh how, is she to keep loving him when he’s banished from her realm for months at a time, with no hope of communication?

All eight stories are NOW AVAILABLE AT
www.AspenMountainPress.com

Aspen Mountain Press is thrilled to release Babes in Toyland II, an eight story anthology.  This amazing collection has more than 134,000 words and 400+ pages.

Authors include:

Maura Anderson,

Jeanne Barrack

Raine Delight,

Melissa Glisan.

Wayne Greenough,

Michelle Hasker,

Dawn Montgomery,

and Skylar Sinclair.

If you like a little mystery, or a little history, or a lot of hot love, you’ll find something you like in this anthology!

A US Magistrate Judge has protected the privacy of countless individuals when he refused to allow federal prosecutors access to Amazon.com purchase records. Judge Stephen Crocker ruled  the First Amendment affirms a citizens’ right to keep reading habits private.

The judge said, “…investigation into the reading habits of Amazon’s customers could frighten countless potential customers into canceling planned online book purchases.” Additionally, “The subpoena is troubling because it permits the government to peek into the reading habits of specific individuals without their knowledge or permission…. It is an unsettling and un-American scenario to envision federal agents nosing through the reading lists of law-abiding citizens while hunting for evidence against somebody else.”

Score one for the good guys.  One doesn’t have to be liberal or conservative to appreciate the protection of an individual’s privacy over legal purchases.

Join the blazingly hot writers from Aspen Mountain Press in the Realms of Love Chat Castle Monday November 26 at 9 PM EST/6 PM PST. There will be give-aways galore so come on down and spend an hour with some interesting writers of your favorite romantic fiction genres.

Jeanne Barrack, Maura Anderson, Michelle Hasker, and  JM Snyder from Aspen Mountain Press chat with YOU Monday. Jeanne will chat about the upcoming anthology Babes in Toyland II, Maura will share with us tidbits about Del Fantasma: Texas Tea, Michelle will chat about her Plain Brown Wrapper release, Kate’s Muse and J.M. will chat about the storm of new releases she’s had and will have at AMP!

Jeanne Barrack says: I’m a native New Yorker, born and bred in Brooklyn, married for thirty-odd years (and they have been odd) to my high school sweetheart. Is it any wonder I became a romance novelist? I now live on a mountain top in rural Pennsylvania.

Although we haven’t been blessed with children, we’ve had the pitter-patter of little Tibetan Terriers paws throughout our married life. Tibetan Terriers are called the “good luck” dog and they have been for us.

I play guitar and studied voice privately with a coach from Juilliard. I sing everything from folk music to Grand Opera - in ten languages including Gaelic and Hebrew.

My day job involves music therapy for seniors. Over the course of many years I have been inspired and astonished by the wealth of knowledge and experience of the elderly. Imagine meeting a survivor of the sinking of the Titanic and someone who actually knew Tyrone Power!

Maura Anderson says:  As the oldest child in a family of hugely prolific readers, I was hooked early on the wonders of worlds unknown and information at my fingertips. When I discovered Johanna Lyndsey in my teen years, I was hooked on romances.

Though there have always been stories winding their way through my thoughts with the constant refrain of “what if…”, a few bad experiences with school creative writing classes caused me to never give them voice beyond my own daydreams for many many years.

My profession is software testing. I’m actually what’s called an SDET (Software Development Engineer in Test) for a major software company which pays my bills nicely and provides a lot of challenge and technical work, even if it does eat into time I might like to spend writing.

I have a lot of hobbies - my geeky day job seems to demand a creative craft outlet to balance it and it’s often joked by my family (at least I think it’s a joke) that I need to found a 12 Step program for craft-a-holics. I knit, bead, make chainmail and beaded jewelry, quilt, make stained glass, and cross stitch. This is only what I currently do!

In 2004, after I had sold a non-fiction book (on software testing, fancy that!), I decided to actually try my hand at romance and erotic romance writing. So now my spare time is filled more with writing projects than with crafts, but I’ve sold my first erotic romance to Aspen Mountain Press and am working away on more.

I live in a wonderful rural community outside of Seattle, Washington with my amazing husband, Chuck, and our son Morgan. I also have an adult son, Jonathan, who is in college and not living at home (but is thankfully close enough to visit). We share our home with 7 indoor cats and an African Grey parrot as well as our backyard with a feral cat colony that we care for.

Adding to my rather diverse background, I am also a Wiccan High Priestess, an elder in my spiritual community (Mohsian Trad, for those who are curious).

Even with all the draws on my time, I still manage to read about a book every day to two days. I believe reading is my lifelong addiction!

She loves vampires and things that go bump in the night, so it’s no wonder her creations are truly paranormal. While most people only dream of finding love, Michelle’s characters find it, but in the most unexpected places.

Michelle lives in Pennsylvania with her husband, four children, assorted animals, and overactive imagination.

Michelle’s favorite quote:  So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable.   Christopher Reeve

says:  I’m a writer. More specifically, I’m a self-published and e-published author whose interest lies in gay erotic fiction. Why? Why not? I write what’s in my head and I guess that’s just how my mind works. You’ll find that my stories run from contemporary to science fiction, because I like a variety of different genres, but the characters are all gay men. They’re just who I like to write about, and who I’ve found my fans like to read about. And I don’t shy away from the sex, either (though some people say I don’t write enough). Gay erotic romance, you could call it. Works for me.Currently I live in Richmond, Virginia, and hold down a full-time job as an office manager for a consulting firm. I have two very spoiled cats named Jelly and Jono. On those rare occasions when I’m not writing or editing or marketing my books, I like reading (mostly fantasy, sci-fi, and non-fiction, though Stephen King is my favorite author), visiting Civil War historical sites, watching TV (movies, old shows such as The A-Team or The Dukes of Hazzard or M*A*S*H, the History Channel, and American Idol), writing letters, and playing video games (I’m a Legend of Zelda fanatic).I graduated from George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. While there, I was the Fantasy Editor of The Fractal, our campus sci-fi/fantasy journal. After graduation I started my own speculative fiction webzine, Disenchanted, published quarterly for almost two years. Though it was mostly fantasy, I began to explore gay fiction in the last few issues. At some point I stumbled upon slash fan fiction and, as they say, I never looked back.