Samhain Publishing

Nando Avrogado, the hero of my sixth Konigsburg book, Don’t Forget Me, is a bit of a playboy. The heroine, Kit Maldonado, walked out on him when he cheated, although to be fair she’d already told him to get the hell out of her life before that. When the novel opens, he’s hiding from his latest sort of girlfriend because he doesn’t want to face a discussion about their relationship (which he considers over). As his brother Esteban says, “And that way you just come off as a jerk instead of a sleaze.” Clearly Nando isn’t having a good day—or week or month or year. He’s not a happy man.

Enter the heroine, his former true love. And enter the problem for me while writing their story. Nando devotes himself to winning Kit back almost from the moment he sees her, which certainly helps. But until he knows he has a chance with her, he still wonders about other women. Can a philanderer be forgiven? Is true love possible for someone who’s been a bit of a bastard in his past?

The hero who’s a womanizer is fairly familiar in romance writing. But usually he gives up other women once he meets the heroine. In Nando’s case, he cheated on Kit after a tremendous fight when she told him to get lost. He can claim now that the woman meant nothing to him (and he meant nothing to her) and that he acted out of anger, but the cheating remains. So I was left with the question: can a heroine forgive a cheating hero? Can the two overcome a betrayal that serious?

Obviously, I think they can since my H/H have their happy ending, but I worried a little as I wrote about how willing my readers would be to accept a hero who wasn’t always as straightforward as he should have been. So now I ask you: Are you willing to accept the idea of a reformed ladies man? And if you are (as I obviously hope), how far are you willing to go?

Here’s the blurb for Don’t Forget Me:

Once they said goodbye forever. Now they want to walk it back.
Konigsburg, Texas, Book 6
Eighteen months ago, Kit Maldonado was so over Nando Avrogado, she left Konigsburg without a backward glance. With the family restaurant in San Antonio sold out from under her, though, she’s back to manage The Rose, an exclusive resort eatery outside town.
Dealing with a stingy boss, an amorous head chef, an understaffed dining room and planning her aunt’s wedding should have kept her hands full. But she realizes she might not be as over Nando as she thought.
As the town’s new assistant chief of police, Nando’s got enough trouble without sexy Kit fanning embers he thought had long ago turned to ashes. Every time he turns around, she’s there—and it doesn’t help that everyone in town wants to see them back together.
One incendiary kiss, and there’s no denying the force of their attraction. But there’s a mysterious and oddly familiar burglar who’s been lurking around Konigsburg, someone who isn’t above a little mayhem—maybe even violence—to cover his tracks. 

Product Warnings

Contains hot makeup sex, wedding madness, a hot chef, vengeful burglars, and unlawful abuse of a wedding cake.

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Each of my Konigsburg books (Book 5, Brand New Me, is now available in print from Samhain) has a theme song. I didn’t plan it this way, believe me, it just happened. I love Texas music, particularly Americana, and the songs just crept in when I wasn’t looking. Still, I’m glad they did since it gave me a chance to suggest songs people might like to hear and that gave some musical ambience to the books.

For Venus In Blue Jeans the song was “Midnight On the Water,” a lovely old waltz that summed up the essence of Cal Toleffson’s affection for Konigsburg, Texas. Cal was a newly arrived emigrant from Iowa, and Konigsburg taught him to dance and showed him the love of his life. For Wedding Bell Blues, it was James McMurtry’s sultry rocker “Red Dress.” Pete Toleffson got a good look at Janie Dupree’s real, sexy self when she danced to that song, and it was the moment he decided they needed to be more than just friends. For Be My Baby, it was the title song, which can be both love song and lullaby (check out the version by Linda Ronstadt to see how it works) and sums up the love story between two struggling single parents. For Long Time Gone, it was “Jolie Blonde,” that mainstay of Cajun and Tejano musicians that plays at the end when everyone is finally together (just before they have to rush off for the next crisis).

For Brand New Me, the theme song is “Volver, Volver.” Choosing this song for the first dance between the hero and heroine, Tom and Deirdre, wasn’t easy but it was automatic. When I think of a hot slow dance tune, “Volver, Volver” is up there in the top ten. There were some problems, though. First of all, although it’s a very popular song in Mexico and South Texas, it may not be as well known in the rest of the country. More seriously, though, there are two versions of “Volver, Volver,” and I was only interested in one of them. The song was originally written as a fifties-style love song, and that’s the version you get from the song’s composer, the legendary Vicente Fernandez. But it’s also evolved into a fantastically sexy bar song. You can hear that version best in Jon Dee Graham’s growler, and Los Lobos has a live version that’s along the same lines. That’s the one I’m thinking of when the band leader in Brand New Me refers to the song as a “crotch rubber.” Trust me, it is!

Like my other theme songs, this one sums up what’s going on between the heroine and the hero. In this case they’re an unlikely couple, a bar owner and an MBA who’s down on her luck. But music and crotch rubbing tend to minimize differences. Incidentally, my next Konigsburg book, Don’t Forget Me, will be released on December 6. And its theme song is the Ray Charles Classic, “You Don’t Know Me.”

Here’s the blurb for Brand New Me:

If any man wants more than a dance with her, they’ll have to get past him…

Deirdre Brandenburg has an MBA and a dream to become the coffee supplier for Konigsburg’s growing restaurant industry. What she doesn’t have is money, courtesy of her billionaire father’s scheme to make her come home. All she needs is three months until her trust fund kicks in. Until then, she needs a job.

Hiring the new girl next door is a no-brainer for ex-gambler Tom Ames. He’s already succeeded in making his bar, The Faro, a growing tourist draw. Deirdre’s beauty will pull in the locals—particularly every red-blooded male in the Hill Country. As he watches her transform from tentative business wonk to confident, sassy barmaid, he realizes he wants first crack at her heart.

When Big John Brandenburg sends Deirdre’s ex-boyfriend to drag her home, the plan backfires, leaving Tom’s bar in shambles and Deirdre kidnapped by a band of loony Texas secessionists.

Things are looking pretty bleak—except the good people of Konigsburg have no intention of giving Deirdre up, either. Even if it takes every Faro employee, every last Toleffson, and one cranky iguana to give the honky-tonk lovebirds a chance at forever.

Warning: Contains dirty dancing, hot summer sex, a honky-tonk makeover, and one nippy iguana.

And here’s a bit of the crotch rubbing:

The singer leaned forward, crooning, “Este amor apasionado…” He sounded a lot more like Jon Dee Graham than Vicente Fernandez, but Deirdre didn’t care. Neither did the crowd. They roared their approval, then began moving to the slow beat. She turned to watch. The dancers moved unhurriedly across the floor, laughing and dipping to the beat. A couple of them were dancing so close Deirdre was half afraid they might set the place on fire. She began to sway along with the music, half-closing her eyes and humming along.

Someone pulled on her tray, and she looked over her shoulder to see Tom, smiling at her. He set her tray on the bar counter, then placed his hand at her waist, nudging her gently out onto the dance floor.

Deirdre’s stomach immediately clenched itself into a knot. Dance? Here? Now? In front of everybody? Tom grasped her other hand in his, the arm around her waist pulling her closer. His thigh brushed against hers and she rested her hand on his arm, feeling the hard muscle of his biceps beneath her fingertips.

“Y volver, volver, volver…” the singer growled.

Tom turned them in a slow curve, his feet moving hers. Deirdre swayed against him as the drumbeat sounded behind them. Suddenly, she was resting her cheek against his, feeling the slight prickle of his beard against her skin. They turned again, and she drew back a little, wishing that her heart weren’t thumping quite so loudly. She only hoped Tom didn’t hear it above the sound of the music.

“Y volver, volver, volver…” The whole band was singing now, along with at least half of the audience.

Tom maneuvered her expertly around a swaying couple, his hand moving down slightly to the side of her hip. She could feel the warmth of his palm against her skin where her T-shirt had pulled up.

Every inch of her body was suddenly sweltering, infected by the heat of his hand. Deirdre felt a clenching deep in her body that had nothing to do with nervousness and everything to do with how close his body was to hers as they made one more turn across the dance floor.

She closed her eyes. Oh god, oh god, oh god. This really wasn’t supposed to happen. At least not like this. Not with him. Not right now.

Meg Benjaminspent twenty-plus years teaching writing and Web design in South Texas before pulling up roots and starting all over again on the Colorado Front Range. Her comic romances are set in the Texas Hill Country in the mythical town of Konigsburg, which gave her a chance to sample some great Texas wine and some wonderful Texas food (research—it’s all research!). She can be found at her web site, http://www.MegBenjamin.com, as well as on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/meg.benjamin1) and Twitter (http://twitter.com/megbenj1). Meg loves to hear from readers—contact her at meg@megbenjamin.com. Brand New Me is her fifth title for Samhain

Okay, since I don’t want to bury the lead, I’ll start with my biggest news—my next Konigsburg book, Don’t Forget Me, has been contracted. The tentative release date is December 6, which means I’ll be hotfooting it back to Colorado after Thanksgiving in Texas. But what I really want to talk about now is why the book is named Don’t Forget Me, aside from the fact that that phrase conveys every author’s most fervent hope.

Don’t Forget Me is the story of Nando Avrogado and Kit Maldonado. You may remember Nando and Kit from Long Time Gone, where they seemed very much together. What you didn’t see was their breakup at the end of that summer. Don’t Forget Me deals with the aftermath a year and a half later.

All my Konigsburg books are named after songs, sometimes obscure (Venus In Blue Jeans isn’t exactly at the top of everyone’s playlist) and sometimes very well-known (Long Time Gone has been used as a title for over fifty songs—if you’re interested, I was thinking of the Dixie Chicks version). When it came time to write about Nando and Kit, my original idea was to call the book Heartbreaker, after Pat Benatar’s great raver. But somehow, the more I got into the story, the less appropriate the title Heartbreaker became. Heartbreakers, after all, hurt their lovers deliberately, or at least they do it without really caring. But that’s not true of either Nando or Kit. They’re both heartbroken themselves.

Still, I was going to go with Heartbreaker  until one evening when I was riding into Denver with my DH, listening to Prairie Home Companion. The musical guest was Neko Case and the song she sang was called “Don’t Forget Me.” I only half listened to it, but I noted a couple of odd lyrics—one where the singer talked about being old and full of cancer, which isn’t exactly what you expect in a love song. Still, for some reason I couldn’t get that song out of my mind, so I went to my ultimate resource for song information, iTunes. There I discovered the song was written by Harry Nilsson, which explained the quirkiness (he also wrote “Everybody’s Talkin’ At Me” and the “Coconut” song). I also found it had been recorded by a lot of different people, including Marianne Faithful and Nilsson himself along with Neko Case.

I hadn’t really thought of it as a book title until I listened to it a second time—and a third and a fourth. Like Nilsson’s other great love song, “Without You,” it’s an emotional roller coaster. It seemed to me the main qualities of the song were regret and longing. And it suddenly struck me that those were also the main qualities of my separated lovers—regret that their love affair had ended so badly and longing for a second chance.

Of course, they get that second chance—this is romance, not tragedy. But it takes a lot to bring them back together again, most of the novel in fact.

The more I listened to the song, the more I knew it was the title I wanted, that it fit Nando and Kit a lot better than anything else I’d come up with. So here we go again, folks. Don’t Forget Me, Konigsburg Book 6, to be released on December 6.

Once when we were caught in the endless traffic jam that is Austin, Texas, my family began tossing around possibilities for family mottoes. You know, like the Windsors’ “God and my right,” although that one’s kind of snotty. Finally, my younger son suggested “Peace, Love, and Sarcasm.” That struck all of us as a great idea.

I’m a fairly sarcastic person. So is the rest of my family, probably because they’ve spent so much time with me. In most cases, this is not a particularly helpful trait.   But writing has been my salvation, folks! While I try to limit my sarcasm in person in order to avoid pissing people off unnecessarily, I can let my characters run roughshod over everybody in their collective path. They’re sarcastic to strangers, to each other, even to themselves in thought (in Venus In Blue Jeans, Docia berates herself because after four years of college English, the only description of the naked Cal she can think of is “Wow”). And nobody ever takes offense, or if they do it’s because they’re sort of jerks themselves.

But, of course, nobody can be sarcastic all the time. Or almost nobody. That’s where Wonder Dentist comes in. Wonder sort of pushed himself into Venus In Blue Jeans without my anticipating it. When I wrote the first chapter, set in the Dew Drop Inn in downtown Konigsburg, I knew that Cal would be talking to somebody in the bar. At first I thought it would be one of the cops, perhaps Ham Linklatter. But as I started writing, this character suddenly appeared at Cal’s elbow, smart, snarky, definitely sarcastic. What was his name? The answer—Wonder Dentist—popped into my brain without any prompting.

In my Konigsburg books, Wonder functions as sort of an all-purpose sidekick and occasional Greek chorus: Cal’s best buddy in Venus and Pete’s guide to Konigsburg in Wedding Bell Blues, source of bad romantic advice in Be My Baby and Erik’s guide to Konigsburg history in Long Time Gone. Originally, I gave him an airhead girlfriend who ended up choosing Ham over Wonder, but she disappeared when Allie Maldonado, his One True Love, came on the scene.

Wonder is terrifically useful. He can comment on the scene, make snarky remarks about people or animals , provide a sarcastic guide to Konigsburg customs, and nobody ever gets upset with him. It’s just Wonder, after all.

The only problem came when, in Be My Baby, I wanted Wonder to get serious. He loves Allie. Sooner or later the two of them needed to get together for real. Wonder proposed in Be My Baby, but the two still haven’t gotten married. I’m working on that in my latest WIP.

I’m still, I must admit, a sarcastic person. But I’m doing better about keeping it to myself. And now, when I find myself really wanting to put somebody in their place, I’ve got Wonder to do it for me. Believe me, that’s one of the many reasons I love Konigsburg!

The hero of Be My Baby (now available in print) is Lars Toleffson, an accountant. That might not seem like a very heroic occupation, but Lars is a Toleffson, and heroism is part of their DNA. And besides—does a profession really dictate a person’s personality? I was kind of mean to Lars in Wedding Bell Blues, where he was introduced. I gave him the trophy wife from hell, Sherice, and a very messy, very public break-up of his marriage. Readers have asked me how a sensible, stand-up guy like Lars could have ended up with a nightmare wife like Sherice in the first place. I don’t find it unreasonable, though. Sherice was, after all, a knock-out, and I think most of us are willing to indulge in a little self-deception where pretty people are concerned. Particularly if those pretty people seem interested in us. Of course, Lars asks himself the same question, and his answer is that his own judgment about women is fatally flawed. He finds out otherwise in Be My Baby where he gets a heroine who’s as heroic as he is. Jess Carroll is a widow, on the run from some very nasty people who want to kidnap her son. Naturally Lars falls head-over-heels for her. And naturally he and his family decide she needs their help. At first, Jess isn’t sure she does. But Lars, the heroic accountant, comes through for her big time.

There’s no room in her life for love. Love has other ideas…
Konigsburg, Texas, Book 3
If Jessamyn Carroll had only herself to consider, staying in Pennsylvania after her husband’s death would have been a no-brainer. Her vindictive in-laws’ efforts to get their hooks into her infant son, however, force her to flee to a new home. Konigsburg, Texas.
Peace…at least for now. She’s even found a way to make some extra money, looking after sexy accountant Lars Toleffson’s precocious two-year-old daughter. She finds it easy—too easy—to let his protective presence lull her into thinking she and her son are safe at last.
Lars, still wounded from enduring a nasty divorce from his cheating ex-wife, tries to fight his attraction to the mysterious, beautiful widow. But when an intruder breaks into her place, and Jess comes clean about her past, all bets are off. Someone wants her baby—and wants Jess out of the picture. Permanently.
Now Jess has a live-in bodyguard, whether she wants him or not. Except she does want him—and he wants her. Yet negotiating a future together will have to overcome a lot of roadblocks: babies, puppies, the entire, meddling Toleffson family—and a kidnapper.
Warning: Contains Konigsburg craziness, creepy in-laws, a conniving two-year-old, a lovelorn accountant, a sleep-deprived Web developer, and lots of hot holiday sex.

My fourth Konigsburg book, Long Time Gone, was released by Samhain on July 6. The heroine of the story, Morgan Barrett, is the manager of a winery that’s partly owned by her father. Now Texas may not be the first place you’d think of when you think wine, but trust me, it should be in the top four or five.
According to the Texas Department of Agriculture, there are now over a hundred wineries in Texas, and the number continues to grow. A lot of them are in the Hill Country, where Long Time Gone takes place. But there are others in the main grape-growing areas of the state, in the west around Lubbock and in the north around Ft. Worth and Denton. When the industry was just getting started, Texas wineries specialized in the same French varietals favored in California—cabernet sauvignon, chardonnay, and merlot. But little by little, as more and more winemakers got into the business and more and more vineyards sprung up, it became obvious that Texas was more similar, geographically and climate-wise, to the Mediterranean. Now lots of Texas wineries specialize in warm-climate grapes like sangiovese, shiraz, temperanillo, and viognier. A lot of Texas wineries also produce sublime muscat wines, and some are working with lesser-known grapes like mourvedre and malbec.
Texas wines are very good indeed, and very hard to find outside Texas because, as yet, many of the wineries are too small to ship large quantities nationally. This means you have to go to the wineries to buy the wine, unless you live in Texas and have access to places like HEB, Whole Foods, or the sublime Grapevine Market in Austin.
But going to the wineries isn’t a hardship, believe me. One of the wonderful things about Texas wineries is that they’re still small enough to be friendly. At some wineries you may actually be served your wine tasting by the owner or by his/her spouse, children, in-laws, or next-door neighbor who helps out on weekends. And, not surprisingly, these people love to talk about their wine. They’ll tell you what they were trying to do with a particular blend, and they’ll tell you what they’ve got coming up next. They’ll talk about the harvest and the weather conditions (drought, hail and frost are all realities for Texas vineyards). They’ll even talk about other vineyards and what seems to be happening at other wineries. In fact, I’ll admit up front that a lot of what goes on at my mythical Cedar Creek winery in Long Time Gone comes from conversations I’ve had with some wonderful Texas winemakers (although so far as I know, none of them has had problems with toxic waste dumpers as Cedar Creek has in Long Time Gone).
When we left Texas a year ago, one of the things I knew I’d miss most was the wineries. We made a couple of farewell tours, and we brought a lot of Texas wine north with us to Colorado (wine I have to convince the DH to drink since he’s always afraid we’ll run out). Then last September we ventured across the Continental Divide to Grand Junction, the heart of the Colorado wine country. We tasted pinot noir that was grown around Aspen, and several amazing Rieslings and merlots. And we had the usual conversations—about harvests and weather and problems getting labels approved by ATF. Plus, just like Fredericksburg (center of the Texas Hill Country wine industry), Palisade, Colorado, does both wine and wonderful peaches. Then we went to New Mexico in April and found more terrific wineries and friendly people. And had conversations about whether you could actually make a respectable wine with chile flavoring (conclusions were mixed).
So here’s the deal, folks. Lots of places around the USA make wine. Some of them are better than others, but all of them are worth a try. Just go in with an open mind and a few basic questions (what’s in your blend? where do you get your grapes?), and you’ll have a great time. Trust me. Morgan Barrett and her Cedar Creek Winery are based on fact, although, unfortunately, I can’t promise that Erik Toleffson will drop by.

Readers always ask where the ideas for books come from. In the case of Wedding Bell Blues, the idea was in the back of my mind from the time I finished Venus In Blue Jeans. I liked Konigsburg, Texas, and I liked the people I’d created there. I didn’t want to let them go, simple as that. I also liked the hero and heroine of Venus—Cal and Docia. I wanted to see more of them, and I knew they’d get married. So…

But what happened when they did? That was the next question. My local RWA chapter had a plotting bootcamp with the redoubtable Delilah Devlin (as an aside, if you ever have a chance to attend one of Delilah’s bootcamps, don’t miss it), and I took my idea for Wedding Bell Blues with me. Brainstorming brought out a lot of possibilities for events, some that I used and some that I didn’t. I tried arranging them in possible sequences, but I wasn’t exactly sure how it would all work.

And then my older son and his girlfriend decided to get married. That wasn’t a surprise, but it was definitely serendipity. Now I had a real wedding to watch unfold, complete with successes and disasters (although nothing as catastrophic as the ones I wished on Docia). I pulled some details from this real-life wedding, since it happened in the Hill Country (well, more or less, since Austin is technically a Hill Country town), added them to the events I’d already mapped out, pulled in the characters who were just waiting for me, and voila! Three hard revisions later, I had a book. Here’s the blurb:

Who knew you could find the love of your life at the wedding from hell…
Konigsburg, Book 2

Janie Dupree will do anything to make sure her best friend has the wedding of her dreams, even if it means relinquishing what every bridesmaid covets and never gets—the perfect maid-of-honor dress. Problem is, family drama as tangled as a clump of Texas prickly pear cactus threatens to send the skittish bride hopping aboard the elopement express.
Janie could use a hand, but the best man’s “help” is only making things worse.
Pete Toleffson just wants to get through his brother’s wedding and get back to his county attorney job in Des Moines. He never expected to be the engineer on a wedding train that’s derailing straight toward hell. Janie’s the kind of girl he’d like to get close to—but her self-induced role as “Miss Fix-It” is as infuriating as it is adorable.
If they can just fend off meddling parents, vindictive in-laws, spiteful ex-boyfriends, and a greyhound named Olive long enough to achieve matrimonial lift-off, maybe they can admit they’re head-over-heels in love.
Warning: Contains hot steamy sex, wedding-based cussing, drunken revelry, dart assaults, Momzillas, and the most beautiful bridesmaid dress ever.

And a quick excerpt:
Pete Toleffson and Janie Dupree have to dance at the wedding reception since they’re best man and maid of honor, respectively. Pete’s a non-dancer, but Janie’s going to help him practice.

The music on the radio changed to Lyle Lovett and “If I Needed You”. Janie extended her hands. “Come on, it’s not that bad.”
“Yeah, it is.” Pete sighed, but he moved toward her, taking her hands. “This isn’t a waltz.”
“No, it’s not.” Janie smiled. “It’s just beautiful.” She swayed back and forth lightly, letting the music move into her bones.
After a moment, Pete began to move with her in a sort of tentative way.
Janie shuffled lightly to the left and back again, taking the rhythm from the music and pulling Pete gently in her wake.
He stumbled, half-catching himself, but Janie kept hold of his hands, sliding back and forth easily, humming along with Lyle. The tension began to fade in his arms.
On the radio, Emmylou Harris started singing “Cattle Call”. Pete stopped in his tracks. “What the hell?”
Janie laughed. “C’mon, it’s a waltz. Dance with me.” She extended her arms.
Pete pulled her closer, one hand at her waist, the other holding her hand out rigidly. After a moment, he began leading. Emmylou’s sweet soprano yodeling followed them around the yard. Janie found herself emphasizing each downbeat, enjoying herself immensely as Pete’s arms began to loosen slightly.
The music slowed and shifted to another slow one. Without thinking, Janie moved closer, letting Pete slide his feet alongside hers. She could feel the hard muscles of his shoulders beneath her fingers, flexing slightly as he moved her in careful circles. She let him push her along, keeping her spine straight but moving steadily closer until their bodies finally touched.
She hadn’t meant it to happen, really. Pete came to an abrupt halt, his shoulders stiff again. Janie started to move, but his hand at the small of her back held her in place. Then he began to dance again, more slowly this time. Another waltz began to play. Apparently, the DJ was psychic.
Janie could feel the smooth plane of his body pressing against her breasts. An ache had started low in her body that had nothing to do with exhaustion and everything to do with Pete Toleffson. She closed her eyes and let her cheek rest against his chest for a moment, feeling warm skin and smelling faint hints of sweat and aftershave, letting herself relax against the hard muscles of his chest and thighs.
One muscle was very hard indeed.
What the hell was she doing? Janie’s head popped up abruptly. Pete Toleffson was staring down at her, his eyes obscured in the dim light. “Something wrong, Ms. Dupree?” he murmured.
Janie shook her head, feeling a weird bubble of panic rise in her chest. This was just a dance, after all. She danced all the time.
Pete’s fingers spread against the small of her back, nudging her closer as their bodies moved slowly back and forth. Her hips brushed against him, and she was aware again of the hard shape of his erection.
Okay, she wasn’t imagining it—something was definitely going on beyond a quick turn around the backyard.
The music faded and changed to a muted commercial. Pete stopped moving.
Janie felt as if she were standing on the edge of a precipice, looking down. She could step back. Or she could leap over the edge and fly.
Pete’s hand moved from the small of her back to cup her cheek, and Janie stood very still, looking up at him. His eyes were dark in the dim light of the backyard, but she could see the fire behind them as he moved closer. Then his lips touched hers.

Venus In Blue Jeans, my first book for Samhain (and my first novel ever), has been released in print, and I still get a thrill just seeing the cover. Well, I mean, look at it. Isn’t it gorgeous? The week after Venus was released in print, I got the news that it was also a finalist for an EPIC Award in the Contemporary Category. Talk about your cup running over!

“Venus in Blue Jeans PRINT” by Meg Benjamin
Read An Excerpt Online?
Genre: Contemporary Romance
ISBN: 978-1-60504-435-4?
Length: 280 Pages?
Price: 16.00?
Publication Date: November 1, 2009?
Cover art by Natalie Winters

A guy. A girl. A Chihuahua. Two of them will find the love of their lives.
Konigsburg, Texas, Book 1
Coming off a broken engagement to a lying charmer, all bookstore owner Docia Kent wants is a fling, not a long-term romance. And for her fabulously wealthy and fabulously nosy parents to butt out of her life for a while. The Texas Hill Country town of Konigsburg looks like the perfect place to get both. Especially when she gets a look at long, tall country vet Cal Toleffson.
Cal has other plans for Docia. One glance at the six-foot version of Botticelli’s Venus, and he knows he’s looking at the woman of his dreams. Now if he can just fend off the eccentric characters of Konigsburg long enough to convince her romance isn’t such a bad idea.
One night of mind-blowing sex isn’t the only thing that leaves them both stunned. With Docia’s bookstore under attack, Konigsburg suddenly doesn’t seem so welcoming. Once again she finds her trust tested—and is left wondering if she was ever meant to have a happily ever, after all.
Warning: Contains explicit sex, hot Texas nights, cool sarcastic friends, the world’s sweetest hero and the world’s saddest Chihuahua.

To find out more about me, my books and Konigsburg, Texas, please visit my Website.