I just received the phone call that told me that Stolen Pleasures was chosen as the Reader’s Choice Winner of the Lori Foster/Kensington Brava Novella Contest!!!

And no… that’s not the surprise. Although I’m pretty damn surprised. And thrilled. My hands are shaking and my heart is racing.

I can’t wait to see which entry Kate Duffy selected as her favorite. Here’s to hoping it’s one of my blog buddies!!!

Thank you to everyone who voted for my story!! Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I can’t begin to tell you how much it means to me

I just received my prizes for winning the Golden Opportunity. (And no, that’s not the surprise. LOL)

For winning the 1st place Historical, I received money (always nice. ) and a certificate.

For winning the Best of the Best, I received WriteWay Pro, a software program for fiction novel writers.

Perhaps now I will get organized!!

… I promise.

Sorry. I’ve just been advised that the surprise will have to wait until tomorrow. I’m so very sorry.

But I love you guys. Hope you forgive me and can hang on for a little bit longer… I’m anxious too, if that’s any consolation.

Good grief!!! The blog has been spammed so much in the last four or five days. Thankfully, WP catches all of it and simply sends me a notice that it caught and deleted it, but man. Do online casinos, pharmacies, and the like really garner any sales from spam?

In any case, this problem has made it necessary for me to install a variety of plug-ins to ward off evil-doers. To give you an idea of the extent of the problem, I was spammed 14 times before noon today, up from 5 times yesterday and 7 times the day before that. In the last week, not one day has gone by without spambots hitting the blog.

WTF? Why my blog?

On a more Christmas-y note, my entire downstairs looks like Santa threw up everywhere. Hubby pulled out all the decorations over the weekend and I delegated tree decorating to my five year old son while I finish up the WORD Challenge. I was prepared for whatever the outcome was. To my amazement, he did a fabulous, Rockefeller Center worthy tree! It’s beautiful. He’s got the ornaments spaced out perfectly and varied the placement of similar ornaments. What a great job!!! Now I just have to clean up the boxes and hooks and the like and shove them back into the gargage until Jan. 2nd. *sigh*

But first… the last seven pages of my edits.

Fingers crossed that I have effectively squashed the spammers.

I should have specified that it was a non-writing related surprise!! *ducking*

I’m hoping to share it with you by late this afternoon, if all goes well.

So sorry. With the Brava thingy going on, I should have been more specific. Frankly, I’m deep into “don’t look, it’s not there” mode. Or else I’d go nuts. My stomach flops and I feel sick. If I did that to anyone else with my vague, poorly timed blog post I apoplogize and hope you don’t want to shoot me.

Keep an eye on the blog over the next day or two.

“You must remember this, a kiss is still a
kiss”. Your romance is Casablanca. A
classic story of love in trying times, chock
full of both cynicism and hope. You obviously
believe in true love, but you’re also
constantly aware of practicality and societal
expectations. That’s not always fun, but at
least it’s realistic. Try not to let the Nazis
get you down too much.

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