I’ve got two more reviews for Meghan’s Submission to share with you! I’m all jazzed about them, as they’re excellent. Have a look!

The first comes to us from reviewer Barb at Two Lips Reviews. She gave it Five Lips out of five, and had this to say about it:

What does a D/s relationship really consist of? Which roles do the participants play? The answer, in short, is that a Dom’s role is to give a sub what he or she wants. Even if the sub doesn’t know what these wants are. It has everything to do with complete and total abandonment on the sub’s part and nothing to do with control on the Dom’s part. In giving oneself over the sub allows the Dom to guide the sub to his or her own desires. In return the satisfaction of bringing such pleasure is an experience any Dom worth their salt would understand. And sometime it’s as easy as being in the right place at the right time. For Meghan and Spencer that is exactly what happens. Meghan works in a bank. Spencer is the caterer. One is there to deliver a message the other is there to set the stage. Now they are about to discover what happens when fate steps in. One moment, one decision will change both of their lives.

Valentines Day is a day of mixed emotions for some. It’s great if you have someone special but if you don’t it can be one of the loneliest days of the year. In Meghan’s Submission by Cassandra Moore, for two people it turns into a day like no other day in their lives.

I really enjoyed how this story captures the reader attention in such a suitable way and spurs them into the life of these two people. This is a story anyone can relate to. Haven’t we all felt the hollow feeling of loneliness? These experiences are totally out of character for our hero and heroine, yet given the right circumstance each find out something about themselves they may never have had an opportunity to discover otherwise. Meghan is an average woman just trying to get through each day. She could be any women out there, with the difference that she is lucky enough to find Spencer who is willing to give fulfil her every desire and in doing so Spencer gets a reward that he never could have imagined. This book is a treat for all us readers.

***

Wow! Thanks, Barb!

The second review comes to us from Euro-Reviews, and reviewer Aya29, who gave it a 5/5 rating:

Meghan’s wildest dreams come to life as she finds a rose with a seductive, intriguing note that leads her to a snazzy penthouse with an exotic set-up and the most seductive and dominating man. Will she be able to hold on to this dream-like existence?

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Cassandra Moore has written just how a a woman should be treated and cared for. An insight into my daydreams. An book worth reading over and over again.

***

Thanks to Aya29 for her kind words! I’m so glad to see people are enjoying the book I’ve written!

I just got my first review for Meghan’s Submission! It was from Just Erotic Romance Reviews, and it’s a great one. Have a look:

Title: Meghan’s Submission
Author: Cassandra Moore
Publisher: Cobblestone Press
Publisher URL: www.cobblestone-press.com
Reviewer: Claudia Orpik
Rating: 4 Stars
Heat level: H

Meghan has just ended her boring day as a bank teller.  To add insult to injury, her date for Valentine’s Day cancels.  On the way to the bus stop, she finds a yellow rose on the ground.  While picking it up, thinking it’s fallen from a larger bouquet, she finds a suggestive note, and it challenges her to widen her sexual horizons.  Will she meet the writer of this note, placing herself in someone else’s hands?

I usually don’t buy chance sexual encounters with strangers, but Meghan’s Submission really worked for me.  The author put together a plot, linking random coincidences that when put together were believable.  While Meghan is deciding on following her curiosity, Spencer, the chef hired to cater the event, is told that the original couple has cancelled.  Imagine his surprise when Meghan walks in and he falls in love at first sight!  Spencer then proceeds to give Meghan the night of her dreams.  I found the erotic chemistry between the two characters to be very believable.  Spencer is such a romantic, taking great care of Meghan, satisfying all her needs.  I most enjoyed the way that Ms. Moore concluded this novella, allowing both characters to explore whether this would be just a one night stand or the beginning of a satisfying relationship.  I look forward to more of Cassandra Moore’s work in the future.

Claudia Orpik
Just Erotic Romance Reviews

Thanks to Ms. Orpik for her kind words. I’m so excited. My very first review!

Just thought I’d let you all know that I’m a guest blogger over on Keyboards on Fire today. It’s a terrific site with a lot of good information about writing and publishing, and I was really excited to be asked to scribble a little something for them. (And I don’t just say that because my good friend Debra Moore is one of the regulars there…)

Anyway, check it out!

I’ve created myself a Yahoo Group newsletter. Click the link and join up today!

I expect this’ll be a nice, low-traffic way to keep up with my news and happenings. You’ll get the most bang out of your buck by checking the blog here, but I’ll try to sum up the blog posts for the week in that newsletter for those who’d rather have it delivered. That way, you’ve got two ways to communicate with me.

I’m e-looping over at Romance Bistro today, so be sure to check that out as well.

I have used the C Word.

I don’t, usually. “Pussy” is good, as are “folds” and “passage”. The C Word doesn’t offend me, it just doesn’t usually fit with the way I write. It jars in my style. It doesn’t flow well for me, by and large.

Besides, there’s really an old stigma connected to that word. For years and years, I flinched when someone said it. I wasn’t upset by it, but I still flinched. Odd, isn’t it? I’d swear like a saltwater sailor and use every other bad word in the book, but that one got reserved for the very worst of things.

Eventually, I realized that it’s just a word. It can be a really good, really hot word. But it’s a name for something I own, and if I flinched, I gave power to people who’d steal a perfectly good term from women. So I stopped flinching, but linguistically, I never found that it had the feel I wanted.

Until today. Wherein I typed it, paused, deleted it, looked at the sentence, and typed it again. Then I said it out loud. Several times. One of the cats picked up his head and stared at me like I’d lost my mind, then went back to sleep. The world hadn’t ended, demons hadn’t sprung up out of the floor, and the Writing Police hadn’t bust in to arrest me.

So there it stays, four black and white letters in an Open Office document. I’ve done it. I’ve used it. And I’m not sorry.

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa… 

This week, I’ll be a couple places where you can come and talk to me!

Friday, I’ll be talking up a storm on the Romance Bistro Yahoo group. I’ll also be at Cobblestone’s weekly chat and Christmas party that night.

Saturday, I’ll be on the Two Lips Yahoo group. I hope you can join me at one of these!

And tonight, I have to go see my daughter get an award, and Thursday night is her little winter pageant at school. It’s a busy week!

Our quote for today comes from an IM conversation I had with a friend of mine. He asked what I was writing, and out of my description came this:

“You know, any story that starts out with a woman on all fours with a spreader bar between her knees is a good one.”

In other news, I’ve acquired whatever nasty nose bug has been going around out here. By the end of this week, I’ll have sold my soul to Celestial Seasonings for tea bags, and will have taken up beekeeping for honey. Lemon Zinger, anyone?

My sense of humor has always been askew. Today, this reminds me of the Things Romance Heroes Aren’t. These are things that I start to type, just out of a perverse sense of amusement, then delete because you know, they’re just not right.

Romance heroes are not flatulent. No matter what exotic food they’ve taken the heroine out to eat, they do not have gastrointestinal issues. These guys can take a girl out for an all-you-care-to-eat bean buffet, and they sail right on.

Romance heroes are not hairy. The girl never slides her hand under his shirt at a passionate moment to find that he’s all but wearing a bearskin rug on his back. They don’t see little wisps of hair sticking out from the top of his shirt, unless it’s a fashionable patch of chest hair. They never need to wax.

Romance heroes never have stinky shoes. He kicks his footwear off confidently as the heroine undresses him, never worried that she’s going to pass out from the musk, or concerned that his Odor Eaters have stopped working. It doesn’t matter if he’s a military hunk that’s worn his combat boots for the last twenty hours to save the girl, or a cowboy who’s been mucking stalls. Feet are scent-free.

Romance heroes do not spend half an hour in the bathroom while the girl’s waiting on their couch. She never has to stand outside the door to the head, tapping her foot and checking her watch, while he skims the latest issue of Maxim.

Romance heroes do not drink milk out of the jug.

Romance heroes do not freak out when the girl’s coming over for dinner because he only has one plate in the house, and it’s been dirty for a month. He always has a matching set of dishes, and appropriate silverwear.

Romance heroes do not kick off their underwear and aim for the lampshade.

Someday, I’m going to write a hero that does all these things. The book will never sell, but I’ll be laughing my fool head off.

I’m really a non-violent person. I’m all for peace, love, and lots of sex. But sometimes, honestly, people drive me to the point where going medieval on their asses sounds like a terrific idea.

I woke up early this morning to the sound of a power saw starting outside my bedroom window. Apparently, it’s bush trimming day here at the apartment complex. These particular bushes are of the rare shrubbus unholyhourus variety, which must be trimmed at precisely eight o’clock, or the world comes to an end. I know this because that’s the time the landscapers insist on trimming them, even on the coldest mornings.

These landscapers also have apparently forgotten that people live in these buildings. They might be, you know, sleeping in there, since people tend to sleep where they live. And as much as the residents enjoy a nicely kept property, that it might not be, oh say, a priority to them at eight in the morning that these bushes be upkept just right that very second.

So I waited, hoping they’d get done and let me go back to sleep. No, they’d decided to trim the entire area. I dragged myself up, put in my contacts, and shuffled out to boot up. I could, at least, get some extra writing done in the meantime.

Not so fast, Cassie. Because a man had decided to follow with a leaf blower. As I typed, I watched as he blew a pile of leaves across the sidewalk outside my door. Then he blew the same pile back the other way. A third time. A fourth time. He was just herding leaves around like a skilled hockey player with a puck, up and down the court.

He invited himself onto my porch and blew the leaves out, back and forth. With a larger pile, he went back to his herding, back and forth, all the while drowning out my music and grating on my nerves.

Now, I feel a little uncharitable. The poor guy’s just doing his job. But until they learn to do their job at a more courteous, reasonable hour, I’m just going to have to accept the violence growing in my soul. Because right now, I’d kind of like to shove that leaf blower someplace uncomfortable and inflate him like a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon.

I think he’s gone now. Maybe I can get something done.

When you write, you develop a process. Everyone does it. It’s that thing that works for you and lets you organize all your ideas into something coherent.

Part of my process involves an old-fashioned notebook (college ruled, please), a pen (preferrably one of those PaperMate gel jobbies, because I’m really finicky about that), and a bunch of scribbling.

This thing happening in the picture? This is not part of the process. In fact, this doesn’t help at all.

I should note that this is a huge cat. He’s massive. He weighs a ton. When he jumps up on me, he takes up my entire lap, but in the name of getting work done, I try to work around him. The pen scratches and wiggles. And he just can’t help himself.

Cassie’s little helper, indeed.

The other cat doesn’t really do this. He is aloof. A bit of a heat vampire, though. If it’s even a little chilly when I get up in the morning, he jumps up and sits til he’s warm (perforating my leg with his claws as he kneads), then he goes away to do his thing. Unless there’s cheese. He’s a cheese freak.

This one here, though, he wants to help out. If he had thumbs, he’d be dangerous.