In a few days I will mark the anniversary of the day I joined Amber Quill Press as one of their authors! At the urging of a dear friend who had also entered the first contest the firm held to find some new authors for their erotic romance line, I had entered my fanciful myth-based story, Karola's Hunt. To learn that I was one of the winners and that my tale would soon be published just took my breath away! I got the call, or in this case the email, on April 1, 2004.At that point, I'd struggled through five months without my partner and best friend of thirty two years who had passed from this world on November 3, 2003. Delving into the then-newly emerging genre of erotic romance was an effort to break free of a major writers block. We'd been working on some stories together and he had also been my first reader, biggest fan, technical adviser on military, law enforcement, weapons and other subjects and most of all my support, inspiration and sometimes butt-kicker as needed. It was damned hard to pick myself up and try to move forward. That surprising email--which at first I thought was an April Fool's joke--was a shot of vitamin B-12 that I sorely needed. Before 2004 was over I had some other tales submitted and accepted and a couple even on the market., Pickup Man, the first of my Rodeo Girls series, and The Taming of Jaelle'n, a fanciful novella set on a different but perhaps parallel world to ours.
Wrenching was, by my count, my sixty fifth release, counting nine anthologies (print collections of previously e-published stories), so my fifty sixth original erotic romance under Amber Quill 's Amber Heat and Amber Allure imprints! What an amazing and rewarding ten years. My first gay romance was Treading Dangerous Ground, which came out in November 2006. It became my best seller to that date and was soon followed by Doggone Love, the first of my very popular Canine Cupids series. It's been quite a journey!
I've scattered along in this post a few covers to celebrate this ten years that I've been writing for Amber Quill. I cannot say too much about the wonderful folks there. They treat authors very well, always pay on time with a full accounting of what sold where, provide totally awesome cover art and have editors that are keen-eyed, tough but also kind and willing to discuss things when they and the author whose work they are improving disagree, AQ staff, I love you guys to the max!!!
In my next few posts I'll share a bit about others in this list of my books and since some of my more recent fans and readers may not have fully explored the back list, I'll try to tickle your fancy into going after a few from that collection! It won't be long until this blog hits the 125 posts mark, too, and I do plan a bit of a celebration! Stay tuned. I guarantee Deirdre plans to be around telling hot and sweet stories for a long, long time. Love is the One True Thing and I love to write about it in all its diversity and glory.
