Avon is open to submissions; specifically, Avon wants historical romance (100,000 words), contemporary romance (100,000 words) and African-American romance (90,000 words).

To query Avon, you should prepare an overview of your book–no more than 2 pages–and email it to: avonromance@harpercollins.com. Their turnaround time on e-queries is currently listed as one to two weeks (pretty impressive!).

Avon has a lovely set of guidelines for their would-be writers. They seem to be looking for all sorts of stories–romantic suspenses, dramas, funny tales…the field appears to be wide open.

Here are a few of Avon’s recent releases:

Sword of Darkness by Kinley MacGregor
What Price Love? by Stephanie Laurens
Sighs Matter by Marianne Stillings

On Saturday, Nick and I headed to the theater…and saw Basic Instinct 2. I was a bit worried when I discovered that the film was showing in the smallest screening theater…that’s usually not a very good sign. And when we got inside, and I saw that only about ten other people were there, well, I took that as bad sign #2.

Then the movie started. Yes, as the reviewers have noted, the opening is a bit…um…wild, but, hey, it’s Basic Instinct!

The plot got moving really fast. Murder within the first five minutes. Sex, too. And, dang, Sharon Stone looked really good–did she sell her soul to the devil or what?

But anyway…the character of Catherine Tramell was much harder in this film. Sure, you’re probably thinking, the woman is a cold-blooded, seductive killer…how can she be harder? Simple. Unlike the original Basic Instinct, Catherine isn’t pretending to be a good girl. She doesn’t cry and try to get sympathy from the other characters, she doesn’t bat her lashes and talk about how everyone she loves just “happens” to die. Oh, no, not this time. This time, she’s evil, and proud of it!

I didn’t think I would be surprised by this movie. I mean, come on…duh–Catherine’s a killer! Well, yes, she is…we all learned that in the first film. But…this time, there’s another twist. One I didn’t see coming. One that I very much enjoyed–and that’s all I’ll say so I don’t go into spoiler land.

So, what did I think of the movie? I liked it; heck, I’d probably even buy the DVD. Is it gonna win an Oscar? No, but it sure was fun to watch.

This week, I thought I’d do a few publisher spotlights. And the first publisher I’ve decided to write about is, well, my very first publisher, ImaJinn Books.

The thing I like most about ImaJinn is that they only publish paranormal stories. Yes, ImaJinn is truly dedicated to romances about witches, vampires, psychics, werewolves…anything that goes bump in the night.

ImaJinn accepts e-queries…and the turn around time on submissions tends to be very fast. (Which is good, because I hate waiting in suspense!) The email address for queries is: editors@imajinnbooks.com. Of course, if you don’t like emailing your queries, you can always go the snail mail route:

Editorial Staff
ImaJinn Books
PO Box 545
Canon City, CO 81215-0545

ImaJinn publishes books in both print and e-book form.

The desired manuscript length for ImaJinn is 70,000-90,000 words. For complete guidelines, check out ImaJinn’s Romance Tip Sheet.

I recently found out that my contemporary erotic novella, Never Enough, will be appearing in Secrets, Volume 16 (scheduled to be published by Red Sage this July). I was pretty surprised to discover that this particular story would be coming out this soon–I’ve been working on a werewolf trilogy for Red Sage, and my previous editor had indicated that she wanted to delay the publication of Never Enough until after I was finished with my werewolf tales. But…hey, I’m happy with the news. Heck, I’m always happy when one of my stories gets published.

And my second werewolf tale, The Wolf’s Mate, has already been line-edited and sent back to the publisher. When I get an exact publication date for that manuscript, I’ll post about it.

Never Enough was actually the first story I sold to Red Sage. It’s a tale of modern, star-crossed lovers. Here’s a brief excerpt: (Please note: This excerpt is intended for adults only–there is graphic language included.)

Her hand shook as she reached for the lock. She closed her eyes a moment, and then opened the door. Abby moved forward, putting her body solidly in the doorway. “I told you not to come here.” And she had. Those words had been so hard to utter. But she’d done it. She’d ended things with Jake.

His eyes, his brilliant blue eyes, shone like chips of ice. They were locked on her, their intensity sending a shiver over her.

He took a quick breath and gritted, “What you told me was to fuck off, but I’m not going to do that.” He took a step forward, bringing his body inches from hers. The heat of his skin seemed to burn her, and the light scent of his cologne filled her nostrils.

“You have to do it,” she said, forcing the words out and lifting her chin. “It’s over, Jake. I don’t want to see you anymore, I can’t see you–“

He grabbed her, pulling her into his arms and capturing her mouth in a heated kiss. His tongue plunged past her lips, igniting a wave of desire that Abby was helpless to fight.

“You want me,” he whispered, pulling back slightly. “And God knows I want you.”

Her nipples pressed against her robe, and she knew that he could feel her need.

His fingers moved, slipping under her chin and forcing her to look up, forcing her to meet his penetrating gaze. “Why would you throw away what we have? Why?”

Abby pressed her lips together. She could still taste him. She looked into his eyes. Could he see her fear? Because she was terrified, of him, of her own feelings.

I was hopping around on the web, and I ran across a rather interesting vampire contest. Dark Recesses Press is sponsoring the contest–it’s actually called the Deja Vu Horror Contest–but the theme of the contest is The Seductive Vampire. The more cliched the vampire, the better for the contest. There’s a sample entry on the Dark Recesses website, in case you wanna see what the judges will be looking for in terms of story/style/etc. Entries should be between 1000-2500 words, and the first place winner will get $500. The deadline is listed as May 31, 2006.

Sounds like fun…the only downside to this contest is the entry fee–it’s five bucks. Of course, if you win…you’ll make $495 in profit.