Binding Agreement: Once Again, I love the quotes you love!

The final installment of the JUST ONE NIGHT trilogy, BINDING AGREEMENT has been out for two days now and the feedback I've been getting is spectacular! From the blogger's reviews to the readers reviews to the emails and Facebook and Twitter posts from fans of the trilogy...it's just been overwhelming in a really, really good way! And of course the BINDING AGREEMENT Facebook launch party was an absolute blast! If you didn't have a chance to attend you can still go over and check out the posts, from book quotes to stories of my own personal romance to photos of extraordinarily hot men...it's all there and it's not to be missed (particularly the photos of the men...trust me on this, you want to see these)!

And speaking of book quotes, I am once again THRILLED by the book quotes people are highlighting on their Kindles. Knowing which words move my readers connects me to them in a way that wouldn't be possible otherwise. Currently the most highlighted quote is:

"Sometimes we have to step out of our comfort zones. We have to break the rules. And we have to discover the sensuality of fear. We need to face it, challenge it, dance with it."

To me this quote says so much about Robert, it speaks to both his dangerous nature and his seductive powers. Robert pulls Kasie out of her comfort zone in rather alarming ways but anyone who highlighted this quote understands why she allows him to do so. The way this man frames the issues, the way he defines his life and the life he would create...it may be wrong, but it's delectable.

Another quote that's getting a lot of attention is this:

"Because disobedience was scary. It's always safer to do what you're told rather than blaze your own path. People find it comforting to follow other people's rules; they'll choose certain destruction over a risk that might lead to possible salvation. They cling to this idea that it could be worse and they're more terrified of that than they are attracted to the idea that it might be better."

This is another one from Robert and again, it speaks to why Kasie allows him to lead her on a dangerous path. Because the thing is, quite often, Robert Dade is right. Everything he says here is absolutely true. People do follow others into destruction rather than take risks that might lead to salvation. For many people, branching out on their own is the most terrifying thing they can think of so they stay in abusive relationships, horrible jobs and follow rules they know are immoral; all because they're more afraid of the possible horror of the unknown than they are of the certain horror of their current reality. Ironically if Kasie really understood the essence of what Robert was saying she'd know that, by his reasoning, she shouldn't be following his lead either. But it's confusing for students when a wise and beloved teacher points them toward the wrong path.

And then there's this quote from Simone:

"All men are rabbits," she retorts, her eyes flying open. "They sniff around, fuck whatever's available and then they run off. Fucking rabbits. And we're Elmer Fudd, inadvertently blowing up our own lives while obsessively trying to hunt one down."

Okay, I LOVE that you're highlighting this because it means you share my humor. It's cliché to say it, but the best jokes are the ones that have some truth to them. Simone may be adventurous and enjoy sexual fantasies (and occasionally living them out) but she doesn't see the world through rose-colored glasses. She's a let's-call-a-spade-a-spade kinda girl.

The last two most highlighted quotes just make me happy. One being the following:

"Perhaps he's the moon and I'm the ocean, my tides being pulled to new heights by the force of his presence."

This represents the main motif of the book. Kasie comes to think of Robert as her moon, a man who can rise her tides, move her one way or another whether she wants him to or not...but while the ocean can't help but be directed by the moon it's the ocean that has the power. Native islanders may worship the moon but they fear and respect the ocean.  Which leads us to one more frequently highlighted quote:

"A woman can have anything if she knows how to use what God gave her."

And that's the quintessence of the whole story. Kasie has the power now.  The fact that so much of that power is a gift from Robert is less important than how Kasie eventually decides to wield it.

I do hope you'll read the JUST ONE NIGHT trilogy to find out!

My Cup Runneth Over

There are so many great things to celebrate right now I'm beginning to lose count of them! For one thing, BINDING AGREEMENT comes out on Today!!  And the early reviews have been amazing!

To celebrate the release of this final book in the JUST ONE NIGHT trilogy I had a launch party this last Saturday and honestly, it was beyond spectacular. Friends, celebrities, family, loved ones, they were all there. Party planner Jordi & Co  was hired to make the celebration everything it could be and more. When it comes to event planning Jordi is an absolute artist and she managed to make me feel insanely spoiled throughout the whole process.

Then today (starting at 10 am PT and going on continuously until 9pm PT) I have a Facebook BINDING AGREEMENT launch party for my readers. If you haven't attended the other JUST ONE NIGHT Facebook launch parties you're seriously missing out . Not only is there a lot of fun girl talk about books, guys and the like there's also a plethora of posted photos of the hottest men you have ever seen or lusted after. We'll also be discussing casting ideas for who should play Mr. Dade as well as any of the other characters. Come on over and join in the fun! And don't forget, while I'll be providing you with a lot of great pictures of gorgeous men this is also a BYOB party (Bring Your Own Babe). If there's a picture of a guy you think is hot come on over and post it at the launch party, because that's what cool people do: they share.

Oh and there's something else too...something really big happened this last week. Some of you who follow me on Facebook or Twitter already know what I'm talking about. Those of you who don't...well come join me at the Facebook Launch party. I'll let you in on the whole extraordinarily romantic tale. It's a story that's worthy of a Nicholas Sparks novel...except in this case, it's true.

Books That Encourage "Alternative Thinking"

"Lucky humans, who can close your minds to the endless cold deeps of space! You have this thing you call...boredom? That is the rarest talent in the universe! We heard a song--it went "Twinkle twinkle little star..." What power! What wondrous power! You can take a billion trillion tons of flaming matter, a furnace of unimaginable strength and turn it into a little song for children! You build little worlds, little stories, little shells around your minds and that keeps infinity at bay and allows you to wake up in the morning without screaming!"

That's a quote from Terry Pratchett's YA fantasy novel, HAT FULL OF SKY. There are many reasons why I love Pratchett but perhaps the most important one is that he writes in a way that makes you look at things differently. I had never seen boredom as a talent before, never thought about how we protect ourselves from being overwhelmed by the world we live in by building "little stories, little shells around (our) minds." But of course that's completely accurate, it's what we do. It's what we have to do to get through every day.

Any book that can make me look at something differently is book that I will most likely end up reading over and over again. Any author who manages to consistently frame things in unique and interesting ways will make me fall in love with them a little and will inspire my writing for life. It doesn't have to be "deep" necessarily.

For instance Jennifer Belle gave me a whole new way to look at vasectomies.

Admittedly, it wasn't something I spent a lot of time thinking about before but when I did I never thought of getting a vasectomy as a romantic gesture...at least not until I read Belle's book, THE SEVEN YEAR BITCH. In that novel Izzy is having trouble with her marriage but when her husband tells her, about a year after their son, Duncan, is born, that he's thinking about getting a vasectomy she softens. Quote:

"A vasectomy implied having sex with abandon.  Lots of it, anytime, anywhere. But even more than that, it meant to me security for Duncan, that he was enough, and even after we divorced and Russell married a much younger woman, he would not have children with her.  It was a kind of vow of fidelity stronger than the bonds of marriage or the cut of divorce."

Now that's a different view point. Even though the above statement doesn't hold true for everyone I love the framing of it.

Or Anne Rice's THE VAMPIRE LESTAT. When Lestat awakes to the late 20th century he sees it with the eyes of a 18th century man and thereby brings the readers attention to things that I don't think most of us have ever considered. The first being that "...something all together magical had happened to time. The old was not being replaced by the new anymore." He goes on to note:

   "In the art and entertainment worlds all prior centuries were being "recycled." Musicians performed Mozart as well as jazz and rock music; people went to see Shakespeare one night and a new French film the next.
  In giant fluorescent-lighted emporiums you could buy tapes of medieval madrigals and play them on your car stereo as you drove ninety miles an hour down the freeway.  In bookstores Renaissance poetry sold side by side with the novels of Dickens or Ernest Hemingway."

In a time when we all wait anxiously to replace our iPad 4 with an iPad 5 I had failed to notice that we  stopped demanding that our world be exclusively modern. We do still listen to music of the past, mixing it in with today's popular singles. It's perfectly logical to me that someone who enjoys Shakespeare would also enjoy modern french cinema.   And why wouldn't you listen to Mozart while driving around in a Tesla? And yet the very fact that I don't find any of these things peculiar is proof that our time in history is so peculiarly unique. I owe Anne Rice for pointing that out to me.

In a way all of these authors inspired the JUST ONE NIGHT series. I thought about them as I wrote each novella, forcing myself to look at things through the eyes of Terry Pratchett's mystical creatures, Anne Rice's vampires or Jennifer Belle's quirky heroines. Little details in Kasie's internal monologue point to their influence, like in JUST ONE NIGHT Pt.2: EXPOSED when she takes a new twist on the idea that love is transformative:

"Maybe it's the lack of love that is transformative. Maybe it's the distance between what we want and what we have that sculpts our behavior." 

Or Asha's different take on how women can "use" sex in the upcoming JUST ONE NIGHT pt.3: BINDING AGREEMENT:

"When I use sex as a tool it's as a knife not a stepladder." She finally looks at me with a thin smile.  "You use sex as a skeleton key. It opens doors for you. Your way appears to be amazingly effective."

There are dozens of little examples in those books that reflect my love of..well, of what I would call "alternative thinking." It's not everybody's thing. But it's mine. And I will always be grateful to the authors who taught it to me.

For me, it's the books I love most that have been transformative.

The Russian Way

Yesterday I had coffee with one of the other mom's at my son's school. I was talking to her about the upcoming release of JUST ONE NIGHT: BINDING AGREEMENT(the last installment of the JUST ONE NIGHT trilogy) . All signs point to that book being a success. Both JUST ONE NIGHT (pt. 1): THE STRANGER and JUST ONE NIGHT (pt. 2): EXPOSED made the New York Times and USA Today bestsellers list and stayed there for several weeks. While people will often give up on a trilogy after the first book they rarely do after the second and I've been told that pre-orders for BINDING AGREEMENT look good.

Yet I simply Can. Not. get myself to see the success of BINDING AGREEMENT as a given. It's like, a physical impossibility for me. I hope it will be but I'm fretting about this release just as much as I've fretted abut all my other releases. When I explained this to my coffee-companion she simply cocked her head to the side and asked, "You said your mother's side was Jewish...are they Russian or Eastern European Jewish?"

I nodded that yes, they were.

She gave me an understanding smile. "That's my background too. And let me tell you something, you may be able to celebrate the successes you've already achieved, you can even hope for more of them, but you will never be able to expect them. It's simply not how we're wired."

I thought about that for a moment. My mother certainly isn't an optimist. She's not cynical or anything but she's extraordinarily cautious about predicting good fortune. In fact if she does it's only because she has literally a mountain of facts to base that prediction on making it less of a prediction and more of a scientific conclusion. As for my grandmother...well, when it came to her family she was very proud of our abilities and our achievements and she was very hopeful. She hoped that we would all go on to accomplish great things. But did she predict those successes? If she did why did she always seem so surprised when things worked out the way she wanted them to? At my college graduation when it was announced that I was being awarded a special honor for my volunteer work and contributions to the community my grandmother reportedly stood up and said, "That's my granddaughter!"

When I asked her about that she said, "Well I suppose I was happy but mostly I was just shocked!"

That's pretty much how she reacted to all my good news. This was a woman who could appreciate good news as much as the next person but she rarely anticipated it. It would be hard to label her an optimist.

In fact I can't think of anyone on my mother's side of the family who fits that definition. We're not negative people. Generally speaking we're goal setters and we work hard to achieve those goals.  We just don't take it for granted that we'll get the things we want out of life...which in some ways makes it all the more exciting when we do.

I guess it's just the Russian in us.

So for those of you who have been reading the JUST ONE NIGHT SERIES, I really hope you continue on to the the last novella in the trilogy which will be released May 20th. I don't expect you to...but if you do I will celebrate your support.