COMING JUNE 20, 2008

Magnificent Men of Munich

Teddi Turns On

BLURB:

No one’s going to take advantage of Teddi Howard again, including the Munich tour operator who screwed her over when he reneged on their contract. Her only option is to face the little weasel. 

Nothing stands in the way of the prominent, German businessman David Stiefle, especially a woman. No way is he ever getting involved, even if she is the sensual Mrs. Howard. 

EXCERPT:

David Stiefel’s eyes kept track of the copper-haired female while he rolled up the sleeves of his striped shirt.  The woman was oblivious to the stir she created as she strolled through the crowded O’Hare Airport Business Class Lounge.  He stroked an index finger over his lips and studied her sleek figure in form fitting slacks.  The appealing rear view was too good to miss.  The pleasure of not seeing a panty line forced him to shift in his chair to adjust for the sudden pull in his jeans. 

She bent over, hung her jacket across the chair back, and glanced over her shoulder at him.  Their gaze held as a smile tweaked the corner of his mouth.  He crumpled the wrappings from his beef sandwich and knew he’d just been offered dessert.  Now all he had to do was make his move. 

As his good luck would have it, right there on the floor, just a few meters away was an airline ticket dropped by some unsuspecting person.  Ha, unsuspecting, his Aunt Hilda.  He knew that delicious looking woman had done it as a ploy to meet him.  

He stood and paced off the few steps, never taking his eyes from her.  He stooped, scooped up the packet, and walked the few extra feet before he glanced at the name printed in bold marker across the front. When he held it toward her she fumbled with her purse and carry-on as if she didn’t know she’d lost such an important set of documents.  Very cool.  

Standing in front of her, he leaned down just enough to catch her scent.  Shalimar.  His favorite. 

“Bitte, Frau, are you missing something?”  He liked the way her eyes widened as if she were surprised.  She was good. 

“Thank you.”  She reached out a slender hand.  Thank God there wasn’t any of that garish nail art so many women seemed to prefer.

To see the beautiful cover, please click HERE.

Be sure to check out my website for an interesting contest to celebrate the release of TEDDI TURNS ON.

Sloane Taylor
Sweet as Honey…Hotter than Hell
Francine On Fire www.aspenmountainpress.com
www.sloanetaylor.com   www.myspace.com/sloanetaylor

Comma Usage

Simple Rules for Using Commas

1.  Use to separate items in a series, even if the items are groups of words.  A series is three or more items.

    Example: Bullets flew over our heads, ricocheted off the walls, and broke windows.

Use a comma before “and” when you get to the last item in the series.  Doing so prevents possible confusion.

    Example: Soil types include clay, loam, coarse sand, and gravel.  (Without the final comma the phrase would read “coarse sand and gravel” and would make one wonder if the soil is coarse sand mixed with gravel, or if it were two separate items.)

2.  Separate two or more adjectives preceding a noun with a comma.

    Example: She repainted the large, pink room.

    In nouns where an adjective acts as a part of the name no comma is needed.

    Example: Big horn sheep, electric light.

    If you’re not sure, test by placing the word “and” between these sorts of nouns.  If it sounds awkward, don’t use a comma.

    Example: Big and horn sheep

3.  Use a comma before “and”, “but”, “or”, “nor”, “for”, and “get” when they join the parts of a compound sentence.  Remember a compound sentence is two or more simple sentences.  A simple sentence has a subject and a verb.

    Example: John ran track, and Mary cheered from the stands. (Subject: John; verb: ran; conjunction: and; Subject: Mary; verb: cheered.

    Compound verbs and compound subjects generally do not have commas separating them, unless they are items in a series (see number 1).

    In the above example we could alter the sentence slightly to have a compound subject: John and Mary cheered from the stands. 

    We could also alter it slightly to be a compound verb: John ran track and afterwards cheered from the stands.

4.  Commas set off phrases that interrupt sentence flow. 

    If the appositive (means the same thing or person), direct address (a specific name in dialogue), or a parenthetical expression (words and phrases such as “in my opinion”, “of course”, “by the way”) comes at the beginning of the sentence, use a comma afterward; if it comes at the end of the sentence, use a comma before; otherwise use a comma on both sides of the expression.

    Example: Willie, my brother, lives two states away. (appositive)

    Example: “John, duck!” (direct address)

    Example: “Based on the criminal’s past history, in my professional opinion, a sentence of five years probation would be appropriate.” (parenthetical expression)

5.  Other standard comma usage.

    a) separate items in dates

    b) separate items in addresses

    c) after salutations in a letter

    d) after the closing of a letter before the signature

    e) after a speaker is finshed speaking in dialogue add a comma just before the end quotation marks before the dialogue tag

DO NOT INSERT COMMAS when you take a breath.  This creates comma splicing which you should avoid.  If you follow the guidelines set above, you’ll have few, if any, comma errors.

Tonight I had a pleasant surprise.  I received a phone call from a customer who “lost” her e-Book in cyber space, her hard drive, some nebulous file path.  I totally empathized with her because I’ve done it too.  You know what I mean.  You go to save a document and instead of the folder you planned on it being in, it ends up in something like “My Documents” or some other auto default your computer has.  You know you just saved the darn thing, so why the heck can’t you find it?

Well, E. was very sweet.  She asked me to help her out as she exceeded her download attempts.  She had a problem and I was able to help…YEA!

So, we’re discussing where these darn files go, and I’m emailing her the file for Cold Warriors and I ask her, “How did you hear about Cold Warriors?”

“On Pat Cromwell’s site.”

Once we were sure her book was where it was supposed to be and we hung up, I went to Pat Cromwell’s.  What a delightful site.  But what impressed me more was her dedication to I/R e-Books.   Double kudos to Ms. Cromwell for the support of I/R stories and e-Books.

A happy customer, a happy publisher, all because of a web link.  You never know where someone might find you.

Author: J.M. Snyder Artist: Celia Kyle ISBN: 978-1-60168-110-2 Genre: Contemporary M/M Publisher: Aspen Mountain Press Publication Date: 06-06-2008 Sexual Content: M/M

Will Moore is a detective with the Richmond City police department. A case he was involved with went down badly and he was given a month’s sabbatical to pull himself together after the death of his informant, a young man named Teabag with whom Will had let himself become involved.

Back on the force now, Will finds himself drawn to another street punk, a hustler named Corey, who seeks police assistance to protect his “boys” from a violent attacker. Though they work well together, Will can’t seem to shake the feeling that he will eventually fail to protect Corey… the same way he failed to save Tea.

Click here to read an excerpt.