Mug Shot: Mint to Be

 

This mug is another new find. It's so cheery looking with all the candy cane stripes. The saying seemed tailor made for Scout and Nick, the main characters of this week's new release, Spicy Nick.  

In the very first scene, Lucy is drinking a peppermint mocha latte. I'm personally more of a gingerbread latte girl, but peppermint seemed to work better for Lucy. Also, when I first got married, I didn't have a coffee maker. I know. Crazy, right? 

But I was twenty-one and living in Manhattan. It didn't seem like that big a deal. What I did have, however, was a canister of International House Peppermint Suisse Mocha and one mug that I received as a wedding present. I made do. 

Candy canes are actually one of my secret weapons for staying in a Christmasy mood while writing Christmas stories out of season. My father loved them and so does my grandson. This makes total sense considering that my sister and I joke all the time about how my grandson is our father reincarnated. 

The first time my grandson saw my parents dining room chairs--my sister had shipped them to me and they were in my garage--he turned to me accusingly and demanded, "What did you do? Those were my favorite chairs!"

He was five. I've yet to recover.  

Happy Release Day to Me! Spicy Nick has gone LIVE!

 

 

Read the Naughty List series here: 

https://amzn.to/49e8snC

Read Spicy Nick here:

https://books2read.com/Spicy-Nick

SPICY NICK

It’s beginning to look a lot like NIX-mas!

 

Nick Greco is getting worried. His wife has never been a big fan of the holiday season, but this year she seems more distant than ever before. In fact, the last time that he can remember seeing her this distracted was right before their wedding—when she tried to back out of marrying him.

 

Can you get cold feet after the fact? Is Scout feeling overwhelmed by the holidays? Or underwhelmed by…gulp…him?

 

Whatever the cause, Nick has a plan. He’s going to spice up their marriage and put the heat back in the holidays. And when he’s done, Scout won’t be saying, “Bah Humbug!” She’ll be saying, “ho, ho…OH!”

Mug Shot: Holly Jolly Mug

 

Isn't this mug cute with all the greenery and...are those mushrooms? Anyway, I picked this up a few weeks ago because I thought it was fun. And I liked the "Holly Jolly"  message inside, It's comfortable and classic, but in a lighthearted way. Sort of like Claire, one of the main characters in Let Me Count the Ways, AND this week's new release, Christmasing With You.

The sweater was just the beginning…

 

​Mike's been a very good boy this year and Santa Claire has the perfect present picked out for him—one that's both naughty and nice!

 

One more disaster could be the end…

 

Mike and Claire were hoping their first Christmas together would be unforgettable. But when their sexy, adult-film-themed weekend abruptly veers into low-budget, chiller-diller territory, they’re left to worry that this Christmas will turn out to be memorable in all the worst ways.

 

An isolated cabin, a winter storm, a hungry cougar—what could possibly go wrong? In a word: everything!

 

This Ugly Christmas Sweater short story features the characters Mike and Claire from Let Me Count the Ways (LA Love Lessons, book 3).

This title is being released this year as part of the “Snowed In & Spiteful” marketing project, which brings together authors from various genres who are all writing snowed-in Romance stories featuring the forced proximity trope. 

You can learn more here: https://linktr.ee/snowedinspiteful

Heating Up December, One Hot New Release at a Time...

Every year, I try to do something fun for my readers around the holidays. This year, I came up with the idea of releasing a different winter-and/or-holiday-themed story every Sunday in December. 

 

As you might notice, the last Sunday is still blank. I have a few possibilities, but I’d love to hear what readers think. Right now I’m debating whether to release a Steampunk Christmas story (that’s a sequel to my other Steampunk Christmas story, This Winter Heart) or a vampire-werewolf/shifter romance that’s actually going to be a spin off to my Children of Night vampire series.

 

Comment below and let me know what you think!

 

You can find some of the details at: https://www.pgforte.com/only-for-the-holidays

 

Today's release is called Christmasing With You. This book has a VERY long history—longer than the actual book, I think. It originated as a very short story that I wrote for an “Ugly Christmas Sweater Party” that was being put on by the Nine Naughty Novelists--yes, THAT LONG ago. The story I wrote for the party was one that featured Mike and Claire from my  LA Love Lessons book, Let Me Count the Ways and was called,Counting on Christmas. 

By the way, you can still find that short-short story in the Holiday Freebies section on my website. It’s only two scenes, and I  always thought it would be fun to revisit it; to make it longer, to maybe explore how the weekend actually turned out for the characters. Did it live up to their expectations?  Were all their fantasies fulfilled?

 

I finally got the chance to satisfy my curiosity when I signed up to take part in the Holiday Anthology, Let’s Get Naughty, which released in 2022.

 

This is the story that earned me my USA TODAY Bestselling Author cred. 

 

It’s being released this year (slightly expanded) as part of the “Snowed In & Spiteful” marketing project, which brings together authors from various genres who are all writing snowed-in Romance stories featuring the forced proximity trope. You can learn more here: https://linktr.ee/snowedinspiteful

https://books2read.com/Christmasing-With-You

The sweater was just the beginning…

 

​Mike's been a very good boy this year and Santa Claire has the perfect present picked out for him—one that's both naughty and nice!

 

One more disaster could be the end…

 

Mike and Claire were hoping their first Christmas together would be unforgettable. But when their sexy, adult-film-themed weekend abruptly veers into low-budget, chiller-diller territory, they’re left to worry that this Christmas will turn out to be memorable in all the worst ways.

 

An isolated cabin, a winter storm, a hungry cougar—what could possibly go wrong? In a word: everything!

 

This Ugly Christmas Sweater short story features the characters Mike and Claire from Let Me Count the Ways (LA Love Lessons, book 3).

Mug Shot: Peet's Fall Color Mugs

 

So, a few weeks back I posted a picture of my Peet's pumpkin-colored mug. Here are the other two mugs in that series. Collectively, I think of them as my Fall Color mugs. You can see why that's the case. 

I grew up on the East Coast, where leaf peeping and apple picking were just things we did in Autumn. They're a big part of why Fall was always my favorite season. I especially miss the apples. It's very hard to get McIntosh apples anywhere else and those will always be my favorite apple--bar none.

Of course, if you have apples, you probably also have apple cider. And I think these mugs would be perfect filled with spiced cider--either hot or cold. 

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! 

Mug Shot: Wooden Mug

 

How cute is this mug? It's made of wood and was a gift from my daughter. I believe she got it on one of her trips to South America. So...it's maybe Peruvian? 

In any case, it's giving Autumn. And speaking of Autumn, here's something else I learned from my former-barista daughter. Did you know that you can get your PSL or your Gingerbread Latte or Peppermint Mocha made "half sweet"? IOW not immediately diabetes inducing? I'm not a huge sweet drink lover, so this was a revelation to me. Try it out!

Mug Shot: Harvest-Themed Mug

 

This is another mug from the ACCI (Arts & Crafts Cooperative, Inc) gallery in Berkeley. My daughter picked out this one, but somehow or another it ended up here in Texas with me. I find myself not using it much, because in my heart, I still think of it as hers and I guess I don't want to be responsible for anything happening to it. Weird, right? 

It's a nice mug. I should probably use it more often.