I realize that I’ve not posted a LAID BARE IS NOW AVAILABLE!! post here like the dork that I am. So um:

Laid Bare is now available!!

Unexpected Desire…

It’s been ten years since clean-cut, sexy-as-hell police officer Todd Keenan had a white-hot fling with Erin Brown, the provocative, wild rocker chick next door. Their power exchange in the bedroom got under his skin. But love wasn’t in the cards just yet…

Now, life has thrown the pair back together. But picking up where they left off is tough, in light of a painful event from Erin’s past. As Todd struggles to earn her trust, their relationship takes an unexpected and exciting turn when Todd’s best friend, Ben, ends up in their bed—and all three are quite satisfied in this relationship without a name. As the passion they share transforms Erin, will it be enough to help her face the evil she thought she had left behind?

Now available in bookstores nationwide and via Amazon.com, Books A Million, Barnes and Noble, and in digital via Books On Board, Sony Store, etc!

Thank you to all who’ve sent me notes or commented to me online that you’ve enjoyed Laid Bare! It’s always an awesome thing to see reader comments so I’m thrilled!

Some new Laid Bare Reviews:

Recommended Read from Talia at Joyfully Reviewed: The emotional intensity of Laid Bare is enough to make you bite your nails off. Each and every love scene pushes the boundaries of power exchange and author Lauren Dane has written the characters of Erin and Todd in such a way that the reader feels their every emotion. I was anxious, I cried, I yelled, and I blushed to high heaven. Laid Bare affected me so totally that I went back and reread it again, just to be sure. Consider Laid Bare joyfully recommended – it is just an amazing and satisfying read!

Heather Rae Scott:

This book, however, made me growl at my children when they wanted lunch. It made me stay up til the wee hours of the night when everyone was asleep and my brain begged me to keep reading. It had me on the edge of my computer chair, on the edge of the couch. It had me sobbing my heart out for Erin, laughing and “wiggling”. The gamut of emotions Lauren Dane put me through reaked havoc, but it was worth every sentence. This is an erotic book and I’ll admit there were a few times I was like wow! with the sex scenes and I’m sure I even blushed. But more than anything, this was truly a romance. In all it’s messy glory.

I’d never read Lauren Dane before Laid Bare, but you can bet your sweet patootie that I will most definitely read her again.

Vivian Arend: The story is emotional, rich with imagery and passion. It’s not a cookie cutter book, yet she doesn’t throw things at you to simply to shock or surprise. There are reasons for everything, layers with layers. And they all make sense.

I still feel the flavour of her author’s voice. It’s not like Lauren reinvented herself by changing totally, because I would have missed the things that make her unique. The sense of humour, the sharp wit. The steamy sex. But she’s taken the whole product and added 110 proof shots. There’s more humor– but more subtle, more real. The witticisms are like a family conversation and because you know the background, the cuts are just that much deeper. And the steam?

O.M.G.

Brraddicts: Laid Bare is a stripped back emotionally charged story of second chances between three characters that have each suffered disappointment, heartache and loss. A tender and erotic ménage contemporary with strong and passionate characters, that left me with a heartfelt satisfaction that you only get from truly great romances.

So I’ve finished with Trinity and now I’m back to my Federation Chronicles books with INSATIABLE, the next book set in that world and the first in a three book story arc called Phantom Corps.

Starting a new book is exciting and also a bit scary as you try to get to know it. The book surprises you, frustrates you, scares you and makes you happy. There’s nothing quite like it in the world and I absolutely love it.

As I write this, I’m in Las Vegas. My husband is here for work and I’ve decided to come along so I can be here in the hotel room and write while he’s working and then he and I can reconnect in the evening. Nicely, this hotel is pretty crappy so the internet is spotty - meaning hey, I can’t poodle around all day!

I’m off to get back into Carina and Daniel’s world now. It’s going to be 102 today so I will be here in air conditioned comfort.

Have a great monday!

I just hit the end on Trinity, my next book spinning off from the Cascadia Wolves universe. This story features Jack Meyers, the National Pack Enforcer you meet in previous books. It’s set in a new city, Boston and introduces some new characters and a whole new kind of shifter to the series - Jaguars.

It was a fun book to write, but it came in the middle of a great deal of upheaval in my life. I won’t bore you with the details, but when you hear from other authors to pour whatever trials and tribulations into your book, sometimes it’s going to be too much, LOL. Other times, it helps you write the dark stuff or the emotional stuff. I wasn’t sure how it would end up but I must say, as I’m running through the second draft right now, I’m very happy with it.

Still trying to decompress from national, I think I’m halfway there, LOL. It was big and noisy and I met so many people there I’m still slightly overwhelmed. I haven’t been able to really do a reportback post because there was so much to take in.

Another reason I’ve been so busy this summer is that LAID BARE will be releasing in a week! Sheesh. I feel like it totally snuck up on me! At the same time, it’s felt like forever since I wrote it. Early reviews are starting to come in and it seems like people are enjoying it, which is always a lovely thing.

Now I’m off to work on INSATIABLE, which is the next futuristic from HEAT and Daniel’s story. Don’t forget to check in at my main blog to enter my LAID BARE WITH FLAIR contest. Remember, I’m giving daily prizes away until August 3!

Tomorrow morning I get on a plane and head to Washington DC to attend the RWA National Convention! This will be my first time at National and while I’m scattered and up to my neck in deadlines and family stuff, I’m excited to see old friends and new!

Now it’s less than a month until Laid Bare releases from Berkley Heat! I’m running a contest all July long at my blog with prizes to be won every single day! Don’t forget to check in to see what’s going on.

Other than packing and obsessing on how many shoes I can take, I’ve been writing like mad and trying to keep the kids from killing each other. It’s been hectic here with some unexpected challenges so this summer feels more chaotic than in previous years. Hopefully things will even out when I return, LOL.

On the reading front, I don’t have a lot to report. I do have a HUGE TBR pile with many recent releases but until this book is done and I’m well into the next one, I just don’t have the time, gah! But I’m going to take along some books and my netbook to DC so hopefully I can write AND read some too.

So I’m off! Everyone enjoy this week. If you’re in DC or nearby, please stop by the giant literacy signing on Wednesday evening and say hello. If you’ll be at the conference, please do flag me down. I’m sure I’ll be one of the people wandering around looking confused.

Wow, in just a bit over a month, my first contemporary erotic romance will be releasing from Berkley Heat! I’m pretty excited about Laid Bare. I’ve got a gorgeous cover, I really did love writing Erin, Todd and Ben’s story and it features two of my favorite things - Seattle and music!

Here’s the blurb:

Unexpected Desire…

It’s been ten years since clean-cut, sexy-as-hell police officer Todd Keenan had a white-hot fling with Erin Brown, the provocative, wild rocker chick next door. Their power exchange in the bedroom got under his skin. But love wasn’t in the cards just yet…

Now, life has thrown the pair back together. But picking up where they left off is tough, in light of a painful event from Erin’s past. As Todd struggles to earn her trust, their relationship takes an unexpected and exciting turn when Todd’s best friend, Ben, ends up in their bed—and all three are quite satisfied in this relationship without a name. As the passion they share transforms Erin, will it be enough to help her face the evil she thought she had left behind?

Here’s what some folks are saying about LAID BARE…

“Every once in a great while, a book comes along that moves and surprises you in all the best ways. LAID BARE is one of those books for me. I was blown away by Dane’s brilliant rendering of this emotionally-charged, deeply erotic tale of second chances and redemption. I can’t say it enough: I loved this book!” Sylvia Day, nationally bestselling author of Eve of Darkness

“Laid Bare is the hottest thing since Prometheus gave us fire. It’s also a tender love story that wrung my heart with its sweetness. Don’t miss this book.” –Ann Aguirre, national bestselling author of Blue Diablo

“It’s impossible not to love this story. The sex is sizzling, the emotions are raw. Lauren Dane has done it again. Laid Bare, quite simply, ROCKS!” — Megan Hart, author of DEEPER

In August’s RT Magazine, Laid Bare gets 4 1/2 stars and a Top Pick!

In a word, this book is amazing. All three characters are magnetic and thoroughly realistic. They’re expertly woven into a roller-coaster story that will have you crying one moment, aroused the next and laughing with glee at each triumphant step along the way. With menage and some mild M/M scenes, this is Dane’s best story yet!

Here’s the book video:

Starting Friday July 3, I’ll be running a contest all month long at my blog with books and authors’ favorite accessories - music, jewelry, scarves, socks, all kinds of stuff!

Good luck!

I’ve been participating in something called Snippet Saturday - a fun round robin where a group of authors put up snippets, excerpts, interviews or what have you based on certain themes. This week’s was Outtakes and I had a great time with this topic.

So much fun I thought I’d put the post up here as well:

Pretty much every book I’ve ever written has had scenes removed from it. For instance, the version of Chased I first sent to Angie had an entirely different first chapter. But, Angie correctly pointed out that it felt as if the book didn’t really start until the scene where Liv opens the door for her friends and they see she’s been crying.

Sometimes, I cut storyline threads I feel just don’t fit. For instance, in Taking Chase, originally it had been my plan to have Cassie be a hometown girl come back after getting rid of a jerk ex-husband who’d been abusive. Weight had been an issue with her and she’d worked her way up from sweeping up hair at a salon in Dallas and had become a top notch hairstylist. If you’ve read my Chase books, you know that Tate from Making Chase is the hairstylist with some body image issues and a totally messed up father. Cassie ended up being the girl from out of town on the run from a crazy abusive ex. It’s always funny how this stuff works out.

In my Cascadia Wolves series, when I wrote Enforcer I’d orginally had it as a menage book with the Tri Mate Bond instead of just the tri bond and Cade being the anchor. The truth of that one is that I don’t feel comfortable writing brothers who share a woman full time that way. But I liked the idea a lot and ended up using it in the second book, Tri Mates. I think it worked out way better!

Originally, Laid Bare was not a menage book. I didn’t sell it that way, I didn’t plot it that way. There was a single menage scene and not even with Ben! It had been with Cope, Ben’s brother and it was not meant to be anything more than a one-off event. But as I wrote the book and got to that scene, I realized Ben was a far more integral character than I’d thought and he kept showing up in scenes and it was him in bed instead of Cope and nothing about it was casual. Sometimes, you have to let the story have a lead and see where it takes you. In the end, Laid Bare, while unexpected to me for the menage aspect, is one of my personal favorites of all the books I’ve read.

Most of the time I think the book is better after I do the cutting or changing. Still, it sucks to get rid of an entire chapter or to have to go back and cut a storyline and re-write around it to make the book seamless again. It wasn’t really until I started writing that I began to understand all this stuff that goes on behind the scenes. I’m sure other authors don’t cut because they plot more detailed than I do while some are in the same boat with me and do cuts here and there to make the story tighter. The goal is that the reader not have any idea that before that book went to be formatted it had been in pieces on a screen or on the draft manuscript in a binder with red strikethroughs and a hundred post its to mark changes to be made. But what the heck? I’ve attached that opening of Chased that didn’t make it into the final manuscript.

Excerpt after the jump -
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Well, I’m staring it right in the face.

Summer break.

My kids will be home with me, all day every day. Bickering, arguing, eating me out of house and home, breaking stuff. Man oh man. The summer is such a salty sweet thing for me. Despite the fact that my children are the human equivalent of locusts, they’re also amusing and wonderful so it’s a treat to hang out with them more. At the same time, well hello, first few sentences of this paragraph.

My writing takes on a different sort of schedule in the summer. I have to be more disciplined when I sit down to work than during the school year. So when I’m not supervising the wild rumpus, I work upstairs more where the internet connection is so bad it may as well be non-existent. This year the summer is also jam packed with stuff - a family trip, time with my parents, some actual alone time when the kids are visiting grandma and grandpa when I plan to move bedrooms around and paint, so it’s not like I have a lot of leisure time.

Still, the work will get done. I’ll have Trinity done and off to my editor by the time I leave for National. Then it’s on to Insatiable, the next Federation Chronicles book. And after that? After that I have a secret project I want to work on for a few months before I need to get working on Righteous Blade. Lots of things to do, but really, writing is work, just, well, fun work (most of the time anyway, LOL)

I did learn that my daughter got into the full day kindergarten program! The program is on a lottery system since it’s very popular and there aren’t enough spots. I know my daughter will really benefit from the extra time, especially after pre-school this year and I’d be lyin’ if I said I didn’t look forward to all that time to write during the day!

Anyhoodle, I’m babbling. Gotta get back to work on Trinity! Hope everyone has a fabulous week. Don’t forget to grab your copy of Witch Fury, out tomorrow. It’s such a great book, you won’t be sorry. Cindy’s release of Midnight’s Master is at the end of the month too, Nioll’s story - yum!

A tiny bit of writerly type stuff: I was interviewed at RT by All Romance Ebooks and my interview goes live on blogtalk radio tonight at 9:30 pm eastern time! You can head over to the Blogtalk radio page and listen there. If you miss it, you can also hear it later via their archive page. Megan Hart’s interview is right after mine via the same links!

I can’t believe it’s already nearly two weeks since Relentless released! So far so good. I think, LOL. Readers seem to be liking it. I love hearing people’s reactions to it - your personal connection with a book is totally all about who you are as a person. Some people notice things others never do, which I always find fascinating. Certain story elements really resonate widely while others only catch a small group. It’s one of my favorite things after a book comes out, to see what catches people’s attention, what things appeal and repulse.

Spring is finally in swing here in the Northwest. The school year is coming to a close, only about a month left. I attended what was my very last kindergarten round-up. My baby girl is going to be in kindergarten in just a few months. Wow. It was good. She got to ride the bus around the neighborhood and practice getting on and off (though they only have one way bus service for the kindy kiddos - I’m thinking it’s much more just a fun thing than a real transportation option for them. The other two kids walked with me or I drove them once everyone had different schedules and I had to taxi everyone all over town.)

It felt like old hat at this point, which was sort of nice. In the beginning with one kid, it seems so frightening and you don’t know anything. But now, I’ve done it enough I know how it works and I just wanted to say to the principal, “they don’t care about this stuff. Explain the details about start and off times, about bus schedules for those kids on the bus, lunch for those kids in full day, how the full day lottery will work.” But these things are always this way, and that’s part of the wonderful too, IMO.

Having a daughter is more fun and yet frightening than I’d imagined. I see how she is at school. She and I have a deep and abiding love of handbags and shoes. She is artistic and emotional and very bossy. She loves unicorns and princesses and is way more girly than I was at her age. I used to think most of gender behavior was about how children are raised, but the longer I parent, the more I realize how some stuff just seems to be hard wired. If it sparkles, she’ll stop and stare. She notices other people’s clothes and shoes, she comments on colors of people’s houses and their yards. It’s sort of awesome to be around her because even though my husband and I are very close, she thinks more like me than anyone else in the house.

Then my husband and son #1 attended middle school orientation. I can’t believe I have a middle schooler. Good lord. I can still hear him saying, “Doh? Doh?” when the phone rang. His “doh” was his attempt at saying hello. When he was just walking and talking, he’d waddle around and call out in his very good natured way when we got a call. Those are the memories that make me want to go into his room and tidy up his collection of rocks he keeps in his top drawer. I don’t of course. My formerly very sweet son is now turning into a teenager. A tween. This means he’s surly way more than he ever was and that he gets all huffy if we make him do stuff with his younger siblings. It’s so startling!

Middle kiddo, who is a great deal like Dennis the Menace, is doing well. He writes the sweetest notes to me and leaves them on my pillow. But then he says, “No, those aren’t from me. Those are from your secret admirer.” Which is awesome since they say, “Dear Momma” It’s the sweet that compensates for the “what the hell could you possibly be thinking to do that!” moments which he brings me many times a week. Kid’s gonna be one of those extreme sport people I think.

I love having a daughter! But I also adore my sons. I’m so terribly charmed by boys. I always have been. Yes, they’re noisy and they break stuff. They seriously smell like wet dog sometimes, for no apparent reason. They leave their socks in the middle of the floor and couldn’t get their pee into the toilet without splashing if their lives depended on it. And yet, the fact that they keep a tiny rock that looks like a frog, a bolt and a torn edge of an old Pokemon card in their jacket pocket totally gets to me.

The most wonderful thing about being a parent is seeing the world from different angles. Through the eyes of someone I’m raising but who have very strong opinions of their own. It gives me perspective. It helps me to understand that no one is perfect and that’s what makes us all so delightfully different. It makes me protective. Fiercely opinionated and active on their behalf because it’s my job.

Being a parent is the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but one I constantly find myself cheered, inspired, astonished by and grateful for.

Me!!!!!

RT was a couple of weeks ago and I was thrilled to death to have received an award.   My Nocturne VEILED TRUTH, book 3 in the Valorian Chronicles, won for best Nocturne of 2008. 

You have no idea how overwhelmed I was to get this.  I mean, me, getting an award for writing a romance novel.  It floors me, because in truth I really dont’ consider myself a romance author.  I just write the story I want to tell.  And as long as I get to toss in a few paranormal entities, blow some stuff up, and have a few bloody fights, and some hot sex, I’m good to go.

This award was also doubly cool since Veiled Truth was a tough book to write.  In the process I ended up losing the first 12 chapters after a computer crash (like a moron I didn’t back up), after a few days of screaming and crying, I started to rewrite, and was working on chapter 13, another crash happened and I lost work again.   And it happened one more time before I gave in.    I got a new computer and rewrote the work I needed to, finished the other chapters and pieced everything together as best as I could.    It was a miracle that it all worked out well.

  Here’s me with my award.  How awesome is that?  

What was also cool about getting the award was watching my peers getting awards as well.   Very cool to see someone I know and love walking across that stage, in the spotlight, receiving their award.   Needless to say, I was a blubbering idiot the day of the award ceremony.    Well, I did have company.  There was another author that did some crying of her own, and then we cried together and hugged a lot. 

Here’s me and the ever lovely Lauren Dane holding our awards.  I was so proud to see Lauren getting an award for best erotic futuristic for Undercover, which totally rocks by the way.

It’s these moments that make me so happy to be part of this industry.  

But afterwards, it got me wondering does anyone other than me care that I won an award.  Does it matter to readers that a book has won an award?  Do you actively seek out books that have won?