Who can tell me where to find this magnet??? And are there other magnets or crazy things out there that you want just as badly as I want this one? 
Mary M is the name I drew for the EVERYTHING FORBIDDEN ARC! Email me at jenna@jennapetersen.com with your full name and address and I’ll send it out! Thanks to everyone for adding their comments. 
This morning I am not sitting at my desk in my house typing this. I’m in a hotel room on my laptop. El Guapo had to go to a suburb of Chicago for meetings today, so since I’ve been having a rough couple of weeks, he asked if I wanted to come along and just be a room bum. And I said yes.
There are nice things about being on the road, don’t you think? Especially if you’re on the road and not expected to actually do anything. Hotel beds in moderate to nice hotels are generally comfy and the pillows are poofy and you don’t have to make the bed yourself. I’m one of those evil guests who ignore the ‘reuse, don’t wash’ directions about sheets and towels. I never re-hang, I always ask for new ones if I’m going to be in a place for more than one night. I know it’s wrong, but it feels so right!!! And I do reuse at home. I swear.
Then there’s the free HBO. Although we have HBO at home, so this is not the big excitement that it was for me as a kid. When I was little, we had four channels (and this was in the 80s and 90s!!!). So going to a hotel and having 20-30 was AWESOME. And now hotels are getting friskier with some having Xbox or Playstation in the room and pretty much everyone has high speed internet (where I’m typing this even as we speak).
And though I’m enjoying my little night away from cats crushing my breast bone at 4am because that’s the optimal “Mommy-Love” time, I am already starting to dread the next couple of months. Because I’ll be doing this A LOT in September and October as I make the rounds at a bunch of events all over this great nation. Maybe I’ll see some of you in the Chicago-area… or Columbus, OH… or Tulsa, OK or Bellevue, WA… or wherever else I’m going….
If you do, ask me what I watched on HBO last night.
What’s YOUR favorite hotel experience or what hotel experience was your WORST? One lucky comment poster will win an ARC of EVERYTHING FORBIDDEN, my November 2007 Jess Michaels release!
And don’t forget to scroll down and see who won Margo’s Skunk Contest!!
I picked two winners for the skunk question I asked on Tuesday. Andrea W and Stefanie D are the lucky ones. They just need to contact me with their choice of books and their snail mail addys!
Tempted at Every Turn has been out about a month now and I’ve already received such great reader feedback about Willow and James. I normally do my Under the Covers feature on my website and I will put this there too, but my Jaunty friends are getting a sneak peek at the behind the scenes.
Heroine: Willow Mabson
Inspiration – actually Anna Paquin, not someone I would ordinarily look to for a heroine, but this picture seemed to capture the essence of Willow for me. 
Hero: James Sterling
Inspiration – Josh Holloway, I actually had a difficult time “finding” James. And as silly as it may sound, I get stuck if I can’t find THE right picture. But then, I found it…
Yowza! It totally embodied his arrogance and sexiness.
It took me a while to narrow down the subject matter I wanted to deal with in the mystery subplot of the book. I jumped around to several different ideas, even one about a kidnapped show dog – as it turns out, that would have been a WAY different book. The idea I ended up with worked so much better.
Anytime you have a really starched, repressed, uptight society, you’ll have an underground movement that swings the other way. As most you know the Victorian era is known not only for the industrial revolution, but also for their strict morality. But while so many were busy being prim and proper, prostitution was at an all-time high, and there was an emergence of both erotic literature and photography. It was the latter that I chose to use and it worked perfectly with Willow’s rather rigid nature. Needless to say it was rather interesting research.
The other aspect I tackled was Bi-polar disorder, a tricky feat for a historical novel when none of the modern terminology would have applied. I have a friend who has family experience with this and was able to assist me with making sure I portrayed the illness appropriately, especially in a day and age when we didn’t have the benefit of the medications.
On top of all of this, I had all the Scotland Yard (technically Metropolitan Police) procedural stuff to work out. Needless to say it was a really interesting book to research. And the characters are probably my favorite thus far. Well, I hope you enjoyed this peek from the inside of Tempted at Every Turn.
I live in an urban setting. My city is small (only about one square mile) and it’s just north of Detroit. We’re close enough to the big city to be more URban than SUBURban - we don’t get deer in our back yards, and we never see hawks or other big birds of prey. We have sidewalks with skateboarders, rollerbladers, joggers. Hoards come through with strollers and scooters. Our neighborhood is small, the houses all different, and most of us know about 50% of the other residents here.
But we’ve got skunks.
Whenever we come into my neighborhood late at night, we can smell them. About ten years ago, we had one nesting under our front porch. The porch is brick, but there was a hole just big enough for him (or maybe them!) to squeeze into. A guy at the hardware store told me to put an ammonia-soaked rag into the hole and wait … the skunk(s) would vacate. He was right. It took about a day and a half. But it doesn’t help that these pesky critters are everywhere else. Sometimes their stink wakes me up at night. My eyes and throat burn, I’m nauseated, and I can’t go back to sleep. I can’t stand it!
Early in the summer, I happened to be in line behind a lady at the grocery store, and we each had a big bag of cat food in our carts. We got to chatting and she mentioned that she didn’t have a cat, but a mother skunk had given birth to a litter of babies in her basement window well. So now she has to feed them. My thought was: WHAT!!!!?? Are you nuts!!!?? And then she told me she lives on the street behind me!
Why didn’t this dingbat call Animal Control? Skunks are not meant to reproduce and thrive in a crowded city! And since they do … What can I do about them? Do any of you have any suggestions? Surely there have been other areas where this has been a problem.
I know that skunks keep the rodent population down, but hey - I’ve got three cats. And they don’t like the whitestriped competition. And my dogs - I hate to think of the mess when one of them gets sprayed. (I just know it’ll be Ranger, the goofball, who gets it).
So help me out here. All suggestions will be taken seriously! I think I’ll draw a name from those who send me usable suggestions, and send out a complimentary copy of A Warrior’s Taking (or the winner’s choice of another one of my books).
I love sneak previews. It’s so much fun to see something before anyone else. Recently I saw the sneak preview of Arctic Tale. It was a good movie, but not one I probably would have jumped to see in theaters. Give me a sneak preview, though, and I’m there.
I have a sneak preview for you. Actually, it’s for everyone, but I’m telling you about it first. There’s an excerpt from my next book, BLACKTHORNE’S BRIDE on my website now!
The book will be out October 30, and it’s fun, fast-paced, and sexy.
Check out the excerpt and let me know what you think.
I’m very excited to announce that Chapter 4 of “A Woman Scorned” has been posted today at http://www.jennapetersen.com . If you’ve never participated in one of my You Tell Me the Story events, here’s how it works. I post a chapter of an original historical romance novella and at the end, offer three options of what could happen next. Reader vote and whichever choice wins is the one I write! So come on by, read the first four chapters and vote to Tell ME the Story!
Enjoy!
JennaP
Although I can moan and groan with the rest of America, I find myself watching–and actually looking forward to–various reality television shows.
I Love American Idol. I got in on the last of America’s Got Talent. Dancing with the Stars isn’t on my calendar (it was when Drew and Cheryl won it) but if I happen to be flipping channels, I’ll definitely stop when I get to it. I’ve watched some of America’s Next Top Model. I’m looking forward to The Biggest Loser (which I’ve watched in previous seasons). Gee….what haven’t I watched???
Hmmm…..I only watched Survivor the first season…never have gotten in Big Brother or The Amazing Race….
I’m sure I’m forgetting some….How about you? Are you like me….a reality TV junkie?? And, if there are some shows I’m missing….I’d love to add them to my list
Snicker. Okay, I haven’t had one of those since…hmmm…er…well, let’s just say I can’t remember the last time. I’ve never been a big partier and was never the sort of person who liked to get together with a big group of people and go barhopping or clubbing, even in my early twenties. And even without kids or a significant other right now, my idea of a great weekend is a quiet one spent curled up with a good book or in front of the T.V. for my favorite shows. (Although I don’t mind the occasional dinner and a movie out with friends.)
So with the weekend coming up, it seemed like a good time to ask. What do you like to do with your weekend? Do you enjoy going out with friends and family or are you a homebody, like me? Or is there a secret wild child in you? Do you still have the occasional wild weekend? I promise, we won’t tell. 
