French Kiss video

Here's the video for my FRENCH KISS release.




You can purchase FRENCH KISS by clicking this link.

Cooking over the weekend

I had convinced myself that I wouldn't make fudge this Christmas season, but then I saw this:

...and I couldn't resist. Made it too almost as soon as I got home. It is easy to make, so if you like fudge, then this is the way to go. It turned out perfect--and very tempting to eat. You can learn more about the kit by going here:

CARNATION® Famous Fudge


In other cooking news, I made pumpkin bread. No mix this time, unless you count the can of pumpkin I use. lol Made three loaves and they turned out pretty darn good if I say so myself. So far, no cookies, but that may be saved for Christmas Eve. Got to leave Santa a few cookies so he'll forgive me my sins this year. ;-)

How is your Christmas cooking going? Do you have any traditions you always do every year? One of mine is having crab on Christmas Eve. Of course, it's in season at that time here in the Pacific Northwest.

Video Rewind

Since it's Christmas, I thought I'd share some of my books that are set around Christmas.

First up is A Christmas Wish. I'd call this one a book of my heart. Loved, loved writing this.

You can purchase A Christmas Wish at most online ebook stores or head over to Whispers and buy it here.

Christmas Gifting....

Spent the weekend shopping for Christmas, but still have some things to get. Decorating is going s-l-o-w. I think because of the number of days between Thanksgiving and Christmas I'm having a hard time getting into the groove. Of course, then I'd complain if they were too close together.

How about you? Do you have some of your Christmas shopping done? What about decorations?

Don't forget that the gift of reading is there. I hope you will check out my website and pick up one of my books this holiday season.

http://holliwinters.com/

Christmas Cookies and Candy

While checking the internet the other night for Christmas cookie recipes, I found this really neat site:

http://www.christmas-cookies.com/

I'm now on a quest to make Christmas cookies for the holidays. Probably just simple sugar cookies which I'll decorate. So far I haven't made any candy. Last year I made chocolate fudge and buckeyes. The buckeyes are to die for. They should be declared as diet busters. LOL

Here is a recipe for Buckeyes. Pretty basic. I use chocolate bark to dip them in, rather than melting the chocolate chips and maragarine. I also use real butter in the candy.


Ingredients




2 cups creamy peanut butter, (not all-natural)

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter or margarine, softened

3 3/4 cups (16-oz. box) powdered sugar

2 cups (12-oz. pkg.) NESTLÉ® TOLL HOUSE® Semi-Sweet Chocolate Morsels

2 tablespoons vegetable shortening

Directions


LINE baking sheets with wax paper.



BEAT peanut butter and butter in large mixer bowl until creamy. Beat in powdered sugar until mixture holds together and is moistened. Shape into 1-inch balls; place on prepared baking sheets. Freeze for 1 hour.



MELT morsels and shortening in medium, uncovered, microwave-safe bowl on HIGH (100%) power for 1 minute; STIR. Morsels may retain some of their shape. If necessary, microwave at additional 10- to 15-second intervals, stirring just until melted.



DIP peanut butter centers into melted chocolate using a toothpick, leaving a small portion of the center uncovered. Shake off excess chocolate and scrape bottom of candy on side of bowl. Return to baking sheets; refrigerate until chocolate is set. Store in covered container in refrigerator.

Recipe from: http://www.verybestbaking.com/recipes/121354/Buckeye-Candy/detail.aspx

Christmas and the Romance Writer....

I love Christmas!

Just something about the spirt of giving and being with family that excites me.

I wrote three Christmas themed books for Whispers. You can find out more by going here:

http://holliwinters.com/books.html

And don't forget that I am giving away a $20 giftcard on my website. Check out my contest page while you're perusing my website.

My October contest winner is........

Congrats to Carrie, who won a $25 Amazon gift card!

I love.....

One of the things I enjoy is traveling. I don’t do it as much as I used to, but I always try to make time to head over to the Oregon coast and visit. I love watching the sun dancing on the surf and the smell of seawater in the air. And I always try to be someplace where I can watch the sun set. As the sun dips below the horizon, invariably it seems to turn colors like an incandesce ball.

Whether it’s sunny or raining, it’s always fun on the Oregon coast. There is the scenery. Yes! The food. Yummy! And of course, the atmosphere that is unlike where I live. The last time I visited, I made time to go to the Oregon Coast Aquarium and see the animals. It was a cool, rainy day, but it didn’t stop me from enjoying myself. One nice thing was that there were not a lot of people there, so I could peruse the grounds at leisure, without worrying about people crowding in. There were the usual assortments of sea life, such as sea lions, sea otters, octopus and many other creatures. At the Oregon Coast Aquarium you’ll also learn about the plant life and the history of the area. It was a fun time exploring the area, including the city of Newport, Oregon.

Of course, one of the things I cannot turn down is a chance to enjoy local food. Crab, oysters, and clams are just a few of the items on my plate. You won’t find a Red Lobster on the coast, because everything is better than a chain on the Oregon coast. If you can, be sure to find a restaurant with a view of the ocean. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve enjoyed a dinner with a drink and sat and watched the sun set!

I hoped you’ve enjoyed my little travelogue and pictures. If you can afford it, be sure to take a vacation, because there’s nothing more relaxing than having fun.

Chatting Wednesday night!

Come chat with me on Wednesday night at Romance Reviews Today! Crazy Mo is the hostess with the mostess and chat is always fun. I know, because I am there quite a bit. :) I am giving away to one lucky chatter in chat a nice prize. Come check it out!




Where: Romance Reviews Today chat room. Go to www.romrevtoday.com and click on Chat.

When: Wednesday, Oct 26th at 9:00 PM Eastern Time.



Get ready to rumble and have fun! I’ll be talking about ARRESTED PLEASURE!

ARRESTED PLEASURE is available on Amazon now!

Click here to go to the Amazon Kindle version of ARRESTED PLEASURE. Only a few more days to enter my contest to win a $25 gift card. Go to http://www.holliwinters.com/ for more information.

Writing About What You Know

While ARRESTED PLEASURE is not my first book, I must admit I still have to pinch myself and tell myself that I’m a published author. When I was a child, I used to daydream a lot and made up my own stories. Romances of course, now that I look back. I tried to write—by hand—my first romance when I was thirteen or fourteen years old. After many pages of painstakingly writing out my tale of woman meets man, it came to a grinding halt. Where do I go from here? Looking back, I realized I had no conflict. It was just a love story about love at first sight. Ah, the wonder of it all. Now I sit down and plot, including devising what the conflict is.


Writers are generally told to write what you know, yet the truth of the matter is that if we limited our plots to what we’ve experienced, we’d have a small amount of plots to choose from. Instead, we can expand on an idea we might have and work our way forward, which of course means research. While some writers do extensive research (you can rarely write a historical novel without doing detailed research of the times), I must admit I dislike having to spend a lot of time researching. So, I end up taking the words of wisdom to writers and “write what you know and then ask the right questions.”

In ARRESTED PLEASURE, which came out September 26th from Noble Romance, I based the location in Portland, Oregon. While I have spent some time in the Rose City, it has been limited. I didn’t know what parts would be considered “seedy” enough to warrant caution for most folks living in Portland. I called upon a fellow writer who lives in the Portland area and asked her. She was very helpful and helped me get some insight into the city. My heroine, Cassie, is a massage therapist. I’m not one, but have received the services of one over the years, so I asked her a little about what it took to be one and how she ran her business. Again, she was helpful. Now for the hardest part. My hero, Gabe, is a vice squad detective. I didn’t have any inside knowledge into how they worked, so I had to check online and gather what information I knew. Working up his job description was probably one of the hardest things I’ve done, but I think it worked well in ARRESTED PLEASURE. Readers will get the feel of life in Portland, Oregon and within a massage therapists life. I had fun writing it and I hope readers enjoy reading it.

Here’s a blurb:

On the brink of ruin . . . .






Spa owner Cassie Nichols can't afford any distractions right now. Hell, she can't afford much at all, which makes contending with the miserable landlord who wants her out her sole focus. Until a handsome stranger threatens to wreck—and rock—her world. He leaves her feeling out of control. Determined not cave in to the carnal hunger within her, Cassie finds herself in a fight for everything she holds dear.






On the edge of uncertainty . . . .






Portland Detective Gabe Banks never mixes business with pleasure, but the vixen masseuse is a mystery he must unravel. Her passion tantalizes him and has him craving more. Battling between a duty to investigate and a need to protect, he finds himself questioning everything he believes in.






For both, they are fighting an obsession they may never want to give up.

You can purchase the book and read an excerpt by clicking this link:

https://www.nobleromance.com/Books/334/Arrested-Pleasure

To help celebrate the release of ARRESTED PLEASURE, I have a contest going on at my website for a $25 Amazon gift card. Please check out http://www.holliwinters.com/  for more information. I try to hold several contests a year, so keep checking back!

Wednesday Ramblings....

Yes, me again.


As usual, it seems like I am swamped again. Story of my life, for sure. For fun, I thought I’d give you a sneak peek at my unedited WIP. Here is the first meeting:



She wound her car down the road, the front-end unerringly finding its way to her mother’s home, a mammoth bed and breakfast where all four Northwood children were raised. Only Tessa had left Port Hill while her sister and two brothers remained in the area and helped support their widowed mother.

Now she returned home to lick her wounds. Pseudo-fame did that to you, especially after being humiliated on national TV. She’d thought her life would be in Los Angeles, spending the rest of her days as a Chef at La Mercado. Instead, her job became a victim of elimination under the guise of a “new direction” in the hotel restaurant’s cuisine.

The truth of the matter is that management no longer wanted to be associated with anyone by the name of Tessa Northwood.

She pulled up behind a black SUV and stopped. One o her mother’s guests must have parked out front rather than in the parking lot to the side. The weekends were usually the busiest during the cool spring months, but a few weekday guests provided income, which was badly needed when the bed and breakfast wasn’t full.

Reaching for her purse, she ignored the falling rain, anxious to see her mother after five years. Yes, she was a bad daughter in not returning home more often, but with her schedule, she’d barely had time to breathe herself, with holidays especially busy. And her mother couldn’t take a vacation since the bed and breakfast was a fulltime job. Not that Tessa hadn’t asked a couple of times.

The cement walkway’s crack seemed unchanged, as did the steps leading up to the front entrance. If she remembered correctly, the third step had a loose board.

One... two...three...

Creak.

The sound brought forth a sense of home and a feeling of comfort. How she missed the sounds and smell of living in Port Hill. The horns as the boats headed out to sea to lay their nets for fish and crab. The salty fresh air mixed with the faint odor of dead fish.

She wrinkled her nose. No, the smell of fish she could live without, though right now it didn’t appear bad. It took her a couple of years in LA before she dared to incorporate a fish dish into her repertoire. It reminded her too much of home.

Taking a deep breath, she hesitated at the door. Should she walk in, or knock? It seemed silly to announce herself at her mother’s home, but much had changed in the past few years, mainly that the place she called home growing up had turned into a popular Bed and Breakfast. As a child, they’d occasionally had a guest, but now her mother advertised worldwide, mentioning a few times of guests from Europe and Australia. Her mother enjoyed the experience of meeting new people.

As she mulled over her options, the decision was taken out of her hands, as the door swung open. Expecting that her mother saw her car and figured she was here, she pasted a smile on her face. “Hi Mom. I know I’m a little early, but I made excellent time on the road and—”

She stopped mid sentence when the person in front of her didn’t turn out to be Olivia Northwood, but someone she didn’t know.

Tall, dark haired, with a commanding build, the utterly out of this world handsome man filled the doorway, his gaze roving over her body. She could already feel the first tingles of excitement in certain parts of her body. Something which had been missing in the months since her downfall and humiliation.

Monday Ramblings....

I love autumn! Where I live, it’s usually nice weather, even as the leaves start to turn orangey and the bees and wasps scamper for cover. I hate wasps—they have been bad this year.

Another thing I love about October is that it means I am writing more as I participate in my chapter’s writing marathon. The past two days I managed to whip out fifteen pages. Not bad considering I had other things to go and going on. I went over the 20k mark on this wip, which has a tentative title that I am not really happy with. Hmm….maybe I should have a contest helping me to name it. But other than that, I love the story. It’s what is important, right? We need to love our writing.

I have a contest going on at my website http://www.holliwinters.com/ for a $25.00 gift card. Be sure to check it out. I am hoping to be a bit more regular blogging. Hey, I can try, can’t I? :D
Have a nice Monday!

Arrested Pleasure is out!

Here is the buy link at Noble Romance for ARRESTED PLEASURE:

https://www.nobleromance.com/Books/334/Arrested-Pleasure

Soon it will be available at other outlets, like Amazon and All Romance Ebooks.

Here is the blurb:

On the brink of ruin . . . .




Spa owner Cassie Nichols can't afford any distractions right now. Hell, she can't afford much at all, which makes contending with the miserable landlord who wants her out her sole focus. Until a handsome stranger threatens to wreck—and rock—her world. He leaves her feeling out of control. Determined not cave in to the carnal hunger within her, Cassie finds herself in a fight for everything she holds dear.



On the edge of uncertainty . . . .






Portland Detective Gabe Banks never mixes business with pleasure, but the vixen masseuse is a mystery he must unravel. Her passion tantalizes him and has him craving more. Battling between a duty to investigate and a need to protect, he finds himself questioning everything he believes in.






For both, they are fighting an obsession they may never want to give up.

Cover for Arrested Pleasure!

QR code for my website. Just click on your Smartphone and viola!

New cover....

I know I am bad about blogging, but most of you know where to find me. :)

That being said,  I do have a new release coming out from a new (to me) publisher in a new (to me) genre.

Here it is....the cover for BITELESS IN SEATTLE:

For those of you who don't read paranormal romance, do not fear....the paranormal elements are there, but not a major part of the story.

Here is the blurb:

As a vampire, Rex shouldn't have anything in common with Paige, who is a feline shapeshifter. However, they're both top selling romance writers and up for a top award at the Writers of Romance writing conference.



From the first moment they meet, sparks fly, but since they're rivals...well, things aren't smooth between them. She's out to expose him for what he is--a vampire. He is perturbed that she has been signed to his publishing company when he should be the main attraction. When he confronts her, the sparks fly and they're soon all over each other. But is sex just going to complicate things? Rex has to figure out how he could be attracted to a woman who's out to destroy him, while Paige is wondering why she can't get enough of him.



It will be released May 30th from Noble Romance. You can find the publisher at:
https://www.nobleromance.com/Default.aspx