Reviews, Trophies, and My New Book Trailer

I just experienced every author's dream. One of the many. It's also a fab Mother's Day gift. Priscilla Petty at Night Owl Romance awarded the reviewer top pick and 5 out of 5 stars to Night of the Senses. She also had these kind words. "Night of the Senses is a romp through BDSM paradise as these authors pool together to share some of their deepest and erotic fantasies of this exciting lifestyle. Each author masterfully tells a tale that will have you twisting and turning in your seat, and I dare you to choose a favorite. But don’t take my word for it-go out to get NIGHT OF THE SENSES today." My story is entitled "Welcome to Paradise" and focuses on the sense of hearing. I'm thrilled with each and every fantastic review like this. It inspires me to keep writing and to bring new characters to life. I don't understand my younger daughter, however. Yesterday morning she received a beautiful trophy, tall and shiny gold and silver, for a great season of playing softball. She was called onto stage in front of all her fellow players and their parents, and they made a big deal over her. She told me later, "I don't want another trophy. I already have 40. I don't have anywhere to put them." I jumped on that. We should take kudos where and whenever it is given. We should respond gracefully and gratefully. There will be many times in life where we get just the opposite or nothing at all. Personally, I'm grateful to be paired with such a group of talented authors, to have a publisher who supports us by sending our books for review, by having an entire romance reading community that appreciates us. In return gratitude, I will say a huge THANK YOU to Priscilla and Night Owl Romance, my publisher, my editor, my fellow authors, and to all my readers. I also wish to thank all the mother figures in my life (my mom, my mother-in-law, and my aunts), my daughter-in-law, and all my friends, cousins, colleagues, and readers who are mothers for making our world so loving and wonderful. I hope all of you have a wonderful day. My hubby is umpiring at a big softball tournament so he won't be here but my kids are planning something "special". I don't know what yet but I'll give an update tomorrow. Oh! And I have another wonderful Mother's Day gift. My story "Charity's Auction" is being released Monday May 11th as part of the "Caught in the Middle" anthology at Total-E-Bound. I just made the book trailer below for Charity's Auction. Click on the picture or text link to view. Let me know what you think. :) Charity's Auction by Ashley Ladd You'll also want to see what Amarinda Jones, Anika Hamilton, Anny Cook, Barbara Huffert, Brynn Paulin, Bronwyn Green, Dakota Rebel, Kelly Kirch, Molly Daniels, Sandra Cox, Regina Carlysle, and Cindy Spencer Pape are up to, so make sure to visit them also. :)

Did you hear?

Yesterday, I posted about some strange people who call our customer service department at my day job. I just heard my local 11 pm TV news about a very strange situation. A woman was found stuck to her toilet. Not just stuck, but she'd sat on the seat so long, her skin had grown around it. Can you imagine? Supposedly, she's not left her bathroom in two years. Her boyfriend's been bringing her food and water for all that time. He finally called the authorities very recently because his girlfriend grew ill. The authorities had to remove her with the toilet to get her out. She's in the hospital now and the boyfriend may be up on charges. I feel sorry for someone like that. I suppose she had a phobia or mental illness. On a much different note, I see that I've had at least two visitors from South America now. I like to look at my visitor map. North America is covered. Britain and Europe has brought me a lot of visitors. Some from Australia and Asia. There's no one from Africa yet. Does this mean that a lot of people in Africa don't own computers or if they do, they don't blog and surf? I see a lot of articles from South Africans on the net, so I thought I'd eventually see a visitor from that country. We'll see. If you joined the NOR (Night Owl Romance chat) tonight, I must apologize. I came for about 35 minutes, from 8-8:35 p.m. It was just my turn to be in the spotlight and my laptop died. The battery ran out of juice. Wouldn't you know it? This is because I was also at my daughter's softball game outside, so I had no power outlets and was strictly on battery power and using my hubby's Internet card. It's just my luck that it cut out on my at just that second. Oy!