I know!  I know!  I’ve been promising a big ol’ HER LITTLE SECRET, HIS HIDDEN HEIR giveaway for a month now…& finally I’m getting around to it. Whew.

By now, though, I hope you’ve had enough time to read the book, because you may need to be familiar with the story to answer some of the questions I’m going to ask as part of the entry requirements.  You may also need to remember or scout around in older posts for the right information, which I know I’ve mentioned before, so don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Here are the details for “HER LITTLE SECRET, HIS HIDDEN HEIR Giveaway #1″:

PRIZES

Prize #1 — Why, an autographed copy of HER LITTLE SECRET, HIS HIDDEN HEIR, of course.  You may already have a copy, but this one is going to be signed, for heaven’s sake.  That makes it about a thousand times better, right? :eyelashes

Prize #2 — Chocolat on DVD.  Johnny Depp, Juliette Binoche, smoldering sexual tension, & oodles of yummy chocolate dripping all over the place. What hot-blooded girl could resist?  (Not I…I bought a copy for myself at the same time I picked up a copy for this giveaway. *g*)

Prize #3 — A batch of goodies baked by Yours Truly.  Yes, it’s true, I will bake for you.  And better yet, I’ll let you pick what I bake for you.  Winner will get to choose from four options:  Chocolate Peanut Butter Pinwheels; Banana Nut Cookies; E.T. Cookies (chocolate cookie with Reese’s Pieces); or Coconut Mounds cookies.

QUESTIONS

Question #1 — HER LITTLE SECRET, HIS HIDDEN HEIR is my [X]th Silhouette/Harlequin release. (Hint:  It’s a number. *g*)

Question #2 — Name two bakery items mentioned in the story.

Question #3 — In what town does the majority of HER LITTLE SECRET, HIS HIDDEN HEIR take place?

Bonus Question — What was my original working title for this story? (Bonus points for this one because I can’t remember if I mentioned it recently or not. :que )

RULES

Rule #1 — To enter, leave a comment to today’s post with your answers to the above questions.

Rule #2 — U.S. residents only.  (For the prize, please. Anyone is welcome to play along, but if you’re outside the country, let me know. :howyoudoin )

Rule #3 — You have until Sunday, July 17th to post your comment/entry.  (Don’t worry, I’ll come back & check, even after newer posts go up. :allgood )

Rule #4 — Winner will be announced during our Happy Sunday post on July 17th, so be sure to check back.  Winner is responsible for contacting me with her mailing information—i.e. I will not be contacting you.  If prize isn’t claimed within 7 days, another name may be drawn or a re-posting of the contest held.

Word of the Week: Dayturnal — The opposite of nocturnal. Informal word for whatever it is that actually describes sleeping at night and being awake during the day.

For the same reason I didn’t get to attend this year’s RWA conference, I didn’t have much of a traditional 4th of July weekend celebration.  No camping or cookouts or parades for me.  Oh, no—I’m on deadline.

But for working writers, holiday weekends can be godsends.  They give us the chance to hunker down for three or four days straight with no (or very few) interruptions.  Everybody else is off having fun, so we’re not getting phone calls or e-mails, nobody drops in unexpectedly, & things online are kind of slow & quiet.  Yay!

So I hunkered down & worked like the dickens.  Waking up early, staying up late…sometimes conking out in the middle of the day without warning… :sleeping   Even through the bloody fireworks three nights in a row that were enough to make my head want to explode. :bloody

But all of the stress & panic & complete wonkiness of my internal clock was worth it, because I am finished.

THE BOOK IS DONE!!!

Can I get a woot-woot?! :getdown

Oh, yeah.  I meant to blog about that process…scampering toward the Finish Line …as I was going along, but I simply did not have the brain capacity.  Seriously, it was all I could do to remember to brush my teeth in the mornings.  And some days, I’m not sure I even did that! :que

To recap, though, it went something like this:

Bopping along, writing on a regular basis at a decent pace.

Look up suddenly & realize I’m not quite as far along as I probably should be & that the book is due in five minutes!

OMG, OMG, OMG, I’ve got to do something!

:bloody

No, not that.

No, not that, either.  (Although it was tempting. *vbg*)

Maybe a bit of this, though:

No, no. Buckling down & getting the job done seemed the better way to go.  So I did. :doh

And let me just say, the book is AWESOME!!! So funny that I can plug away for so long, knowing I’m on the right track but not really feeling as though the story has that :bigwow factor.

Then I’m done & let it sit for a couple days before going back for a final polish & read-through…&—BOOM!—it’s fabulous. I had actually forgotten a couple of earlier scene & even had myself getting a little weepy as I read over the end.  That’s got to count for something.

Now to turn in “Dynasties:  The Kincaids” – Book 4 to Editor C & see what he thinks.  He’d better love Kara’s & Eli’s story as much as I do, though, or I may have to reconsider a couple of those earlier options like or .