I've really let this place go!

I know, I know, it's been forever since I last posted, and the world has sort of gone crazy in the meantime. If you're anything like me, you're reading this blog post whilst self-isolating and eating a lot of red velvet ice cream. Hopefully you're keeping your spirits up and aren't suffering too much from COVID-19 or any of the side-effects, like worry, unemployment, boredom, sickness, panic-buying, or anything else. Seriously though - stay safe, wherever you are and whatever you're doing!

And what am I doing, you ask? Well, luckily for me, I can work from home for however long I need to. I've been writing a lot, both as Amber and Naomi, but I'm also trying to find things to do that don't involve being at a computer all day, since going straight from the Day Job Laptop to my MacBook is really not healthy.

I've mostly been working on a Sekrit Project for the past few months. If you want to know more about it, the best way is to come join my Facebook group, Begin in the Dark - you get writing snippets, giveaways, early cover reveals, good chat with great people, and everyone is welcome! I've also been working on my next release with co-author Olivia R Burton - CASH GRAB.
​

We are super excited about this one! If you love millionaire contemporary lesbian romances (or any combination of those things), you'll want to pre-order now! You can pre-order at Amazon, and CASH GRAB will be released on April 22nd.

But Amber, you cry! What about the Ravenstone Vampires?! Well, A Dark Truth went on the back burner in September. The Day Job was mad and I got pretty burned out and went into a bad anxiety spell. Then in late December, my fiancé and I went for an extended holiday in Tokyo (which was amaaaaaazing), and when I got back, it had suddenly been four months since I last looked at A Dark Truth and I felt really disconnected from Evie and the boys. I also hadn't written anything much in the intervening time, either, and after such a long break, I was...nervous? about jumping straight back into an existing project. I started working on the Sekrit Project instead, and got really into it, so that's where my focus has been.

But I haven't abandoned the Ravenstone Vampires! I miss Evie and everyone else, and I'm determined to wrap up their story this year. Rest assured that A Dark Truth is a top priority, and I'm hoping to have more news for you about it soon.

In the meantime, go pre-order CASH GRAB! Take care, everyone x

But I'm still here! The summer was a bit mad, to be honest, and the autumn was madder. I've been working on A Dark Truth, the third Ravenstone Vampires book, but also dealing with some personal stuff, and I've really fallen behind on my writing. I'm hoping to get back on track this month, and finish up A Dark Truth before very much longer.

One thing I have done is write a new book with Olivia R Burton! BELLADONNA CLASPED is our ghostliest, swooniest, most romancey romance yet, and if you loved our previous collaborations, you'll adore this one!
​

Arabella Blackthorne always thought of herself as a simple girl. Having grown up in the big city, the only child of a single mother, she's floored to learn she's the heiress to a family fortune she's never heard of.

Now, all alone in a small town, she's determined to start over and shake off the hardship and woe of her old life. She can't do it alone but, lucky for her, a local handyman is all too eager to help. Blackthorne Manor is a house in need of a man’s touch and, as Colter and Arabella grow closer within its walls, he hopes the same can be said of her.

Arabella has a secret, though, a hidden life lived only in dreams. A mysterious lover visits her at night, a rugged stranger who beguiles her and seduces her into learning secrets about him, about Blackthorne Manor ... and about herself. What mystic darkness hides in Arabella’s past? What parts of herself can this mysterious man uncover? 

And what must Arabella sacrifice to truly have and hold the man of her dreams?

BELLADONNA CLASPED is a fast, passionate love story, and you can pick it up now on Amazon US, Amazon UK, and Smashwords!

Happy release day to me! The second Ravenstone Vampires book, A DARK DESIRE, is out now! I'm so in love with this series and these characters, and I hope you all feel the same once you read it. If you wanted more Adrian after A DARK GIFT, you're going to love this book!
​

Available now from Evernight Publishing, Amazon US, and Amazon UK.

Oh, and PS - if you buy A DARK DESIRE direct from Evernight, you can get TANNER'S WAR free!
​

I'm excited to announce I just signed the contract for A DARK DESIRE, the second Ravenstone Vampires book! I'll have more details closer to the time, but the tentative release date is June 2019. So if you've been dying to find out what Evie and her men get up to next, you won't have to wait too much longer ;)

Curious? Well, here's the blurb to whet your appetites!

Becoming a vampire was the easy part.

Evie and her men are in the heart of London seeking answers. But knowledge comes with a heavy price. And while they confront the strange and dangerous Blood Oracle, Divina Lux are striking remorselessly at their allies, seemingly always one step ahead.

With fragile alliances falling apart and mystery still surrounding the identity of the treacherous Hermit, at least Evie can rely on Kaito and Carson, and...Adrian?

Being a vampire is a whole new game.

SONG OF THE ARGYLE GODDESS is live! You can grab your copy of Kitty Kennedy's sexy escapades now on Amazon US, Amazon UK, and get it FREE with Kindle Unlimited. So you have no excuses, basically.

My outstanding co-author, Olivia R Burton, and I are at it again! Our newest collaboration, SONG OF THE ARGYLE GODDESS is up for pre-order right now, and you are definitely going to want to grab your copy.
​

Yes! A DARK GIFT is out now! It's finally time for you to meet Evie, Kaito, Carson, Adrian, Rahab, and a few other people too...

I've been saying since I started writing this book that I've had so much fun with it, and now I'm about halfway into Book 2, and it's still true. Evie's story has been sheer pleasure to write so far, and I hope it's going to be just as much fun to read!

You can grab your copy at Evernight now (on sale!) or pick it up from Amazon US, Amazon UK, and all the usual places you buy your ebooks. 

I'm hoping to have Book 2 wrapped up by the end of January, so keep your fingers crossed for me! Next on my schedule is another collaboration with Olivia R Burton, and then I'll dive into Book 3 of the Ravenstone Vampires. I'm planning it to be a trilogy, but don't hold me to it...I'm very good at ending up with six books when I only meant to write one!

That's right! Olivia R Burton and I have teamed up again to bring you the tale of a headstrong Mafia princess, and the men who can't get enough of her!

Rosalind grew up in the mob, a willful girl who knows her way around dangerous men. When the time comes to leave the family, to strike out on her own, she knows it’s for the best that she leave that life behind. Too bad her father’s enemies have different plans.

Cyrus is a wicked man with an eye on ruling the city, and no qualms about shamelessly using others in his quest for power. Andre is a dirty cop with a heart of gold who’s sick of seeing his city kicked around by the mafia. In Rosalind, both men see a way to take down the most corrupt gangster around—Rosalind’s father, the great Don Savino.

Trapped between two magnetic men, Rosalind must figure out how to balance her new life and her old, deciding at great threat to her own well-being how much of herself she’s willing to let each man have. Will fate make her choose, or will she find a way to finally get everything she never knew she’s always wanted?

You can grab your copy now from!

Amazon US

Amazon UK

And it's available in Kindle Unlimited too!

Happy Monday, everyone! It feels like a lifetime since I last blogged (which in blogging terms, it probably is), but in my defense this whole "quit your job, move to another country, find a house, find a new job" lark is pretty disruptive. The good news is, Nero and I are now nicely settled in Amsterdam! We found a great house, I found a new job, and I'm getting my brain back into Writing Productivity Mode. It helps that autumn here is beautiful. I mean, just look at what I woke up to this morning:

The plentiful supply of waffles covered in maple syrup is helping too, I'm sure. So! What have I been up to since...whenever? I finished the first in my reverse harem trilogy, A DARK GIFT, in August, and had it accepted by Evernight recently, so yay! You can check out the blurb here. I am so excited about this one! It was so much fun to write, and I love what I have planned for books two and three. My current schedule is to finish a Naomi Clark book this month, then start Ravenstone Vampires 2 in November. Stay tuned for cover art and release details!

If you want to keep up with what I'm doing while I settle into life on the continent, come and friend me on Facebook! In an effort to simplify my life and maximise my writing time, I'm no longer tweeting and I won't be blogging very much unless there's news to share, so Facebook is the best place to chat with me and find out what's going on. In the meantime, enjoy your week!

​Hello, and thanks so much for having To My Muse on your blog today. If I’m being honest with everyone, the tagline for this book should be, “Loosely based on a kind of true story!”
 
Back in March 2017, I pinged the extremely talented, kind, and tolerant actor Louis Herthum on Twitter and told him that he’d helped to inspire my new dystopian SF romance novel Degree of Resistance with his performance in Westworld. This resulted in a brief but lovely chat, at the end of which I asked if he’d like a print copy of Degree. To my delight, he said yes and told me where to send the book. The next day I signed a spandy new copy to him, packaged it up, and mailed it off, happy as a clam.
 
Six hours later, I had a nervous breakdown.
 
See, since I write romance novels that tend towards the explicit side of things, sex scenes don’t shock me. They’re just another part of the plot, and not even the most interesting part a lot of the time. But I forget that civilians don’t always share that view, and I had just sent a perfectly nice stranger a book that had some rather hot (well, no—extremely hot) scenes in it. Worse, I’d told him that he had inspired the plot. I was belatedly but absolutely convinced that he would put two and two together and come up with, “Note to self—make sure this pervert never comes within 50 yards of me.”
 
Panicking, I called my friend T. As she tried to talk me down, pointing out that 1) Lou’s a guy, so it was highly unlikely that 2) he would read a romance novel, even one with heavy SF themes, and 3) would probably just stick it on a shelf as a nice piece of egoboo, I was busy coming up with an insane plan—I would fly to LA, break into his agent’s office, steal back the book, and nobody would be the wiser. Brilliant! It would work!
 
Why, yes, I’m a little neurotic when it comes to my writing, why do you ask?
 
Needless to say, I was talked out of this. But after I calmed down I did have to admit that it was a hell of a funny idea. And when I decided to try writing a contemporary romantic comedy, it popped back into my head and waved its little hands, saying, “Me! Use me!” Seeing as I’d already lost some of my sanity and a largish patch of stomach lining on the concept, I figured why not. To My Muse is the result.
 
By the way, this book? No sex. Lots of comedy and banter between my leads, but no sex. Yes, I’m shocked as well. But boy, it was a ball to write.

Contemporary Romance, Romantic Comedy, MF
Word Count: 67,000
Heat Level 2
Published by Belaurient Press
ISBN: 978-0-46-328424-7
 
BLURB:
 
Ever do something really, really dumb?
 
When too much tequila and an enabling BFF put Lily Nayar's romance novel Feast of Lovers into the hands of its inspiration, sexy British actor Tom Morrison, Lily is horrified. Now she's determined to get her book back, even if that means breaking into Tom's hotel room to do it.
 
With the help of a strategic lie and a charismatic knight, Lily's screwball plan catapults her into the middle of her very own Cinderella story, Hollywood style. But will a vengeful actress ruin Lily's shot at a real life HEA with Tom?
​

BUY LINKS:
 
Amazon | Smashwords | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | iTunes
 

​EXCERPT
 
Giving Theresa a thumbs up, I closed the door and turned my attention to the hotel room. It had already been cleaned and the bed was neatly made. A suitcase sat on the valet stand next to the TV, and the dresser and desk held various pieces of paper, notes, and a couple of plastic shopping bags, all the usual stuff when you’re stuck in a hotel room for a couple of weeks.
 
Of course, the fangirl part of my brain was screeching like a gibbon at me that I was in Tom Morrison’s hotel room. He’d slept in that very bed last night. Sat at that desk to check his email and Facebook. Took a dump behind the closed door of what I assumed was the bathroom. The prosaic nature of that last bit helped me regain some self-control, and I tiptoed (why, I don’t know, I’m an idiot) over to the desk. There was what looked like a script for GearShifter on it, as well as a MacBook Pro, but no Feast of Lovers. Bad Tom, no leaving your expensive computer equipment out where people can steal it.
 
I wanted to leaf through the script so badly, but I ignored it and kept looking for Feast. Not on the desk top, not on the dresser, not on the TV. I was starting to worry that he’d taken it with him to the location when I noticed the suitcase. I truly, honestly hated the idea of going through his personal stuff, but he might have stuck it in there. I could just lift the lid, take a peek, maybe it was in plain sight--
 
I had the lid in hand when the bathroom door swung open and a tall, beautiful blonde in a towel strutted out. “I thought I heard you—” she purred, before she saw me. Both face and tone iced over. “Who the hell are you?”
 
I let out a noise that could have been used as a sound effect for a creaking vault door. The blonde stalked closer, looming over me. Up close, I could see some fine lines around her eyes, but she was still ridiculously gorgeous. “What are you doing here?” she snapped.
 
Oh. Oh, shit. My brain informed me that I was currently sharing a room with Claudine Ellery, the actress playing Tom’s antagonist/love interest on the show. What the hell was she doing in his bathroom? Were they dating in real life? Why was I asking stupid questions when I should be turning and running for my freaking life?
 
And then Fate decided that she needed an even bigger chuckle because the room door opened and Tom Morrison walked in. I caught a glimpse of an apologetic Theresa hovering in the hallway before she was eclipsed by Tom, who was staring at Claudine and me.
 
Oh, God. He was even better looking in person. Not all actors are, but Tom—he was edible. Curly black hair, eyes the color of dark chocolate, and lips that I’d wanted to kiss since the first time I saw him on screen. With faded jeans that fit him perfectly, a dusty white button-down with rolled up sleeves, just the right amount of chest hair peeping out of his collar, and the cutest smudge of dust across one laser-sharp cheekbone, he was every one of my fantasies come to warm, tall life right in front of me.
 
And I had broken into his hotel room.
 
That was it. I was going to jail, assuming that the cops didn’t just see “brown person” and shoot me when they got here. At the very least I’d get fired from Golden State. Mom and Dad would disown me, Dada and Dadi would die of shame, and Derek would probably take out an ad in the LA Times saying that I was adopted. My only hope was that Theresa had gotten the hell out of here. There was no reason for both of us to go down for my stupidity--
 
“Lilian, darling, what are you doing here?”
 
My brain skidded to a halt. Words had come out of Tom Morrison’s mouth. Friendly words. While he was staring directly at me. Looking, if I may say so, as if he was talking to someone he knew. Which he didn’t, because I may not have remembered sending him my book but I would definitely remember meeting him.
 
“Um. Hi?” I waved weakly.
 
“I thought you decided not to come out this weekend.” He crossed to me, slipping an arm around my shoulders as he stared at Claudine. He squeezed my shoulder once, kind of hard, then did it again.
 
Even with my brain in fangirl vapor lock I can take a hint. I had no idea how he knew who I was, but he wanted me to play along. Plastering a grin on my face, I slipped my arm around his waist and squeezed back. His torso felt like warm rock, and he smelled so good.
 
“Well, I figured I needed a road trip,” I extemporized, giving him a bright smile. “And I didn’t think you’d mind.”
 
“Not at all, angel,” he purred. Up close, I could see a hint of relief in his eyes. It disappeared as he turned to Claudine. “Claud, why are you in my room wearing a towel?” he asked politely.
 
She planted hands on slim hips, cocking her head to the side. “Seriously? You have to ask why?”
 
“Yes, because if I remember correctly, I told you that I had no interest in going to bed with you. In fact, I’m quite sure I informed you of this on numerous occasions. And when I walk into my hotel room and see you wearing nothing but terrycloth while my girlfriend,” this time his squeeze was gentle, “is standing there looking gobsmacked, I have to wonder what the actual fuck you’re up to.”
 
My face went rigid as it tried to hold onto my smile. Girlfriend? Eeeeeeeee…
 

BIO
 
Nicola Cameron is an expatriate Chicagoan who has lived in England, Canada, Holland, and Sweden, and keeps a confusing amalgamation of languages in her head as a result. Currently located in the clavicle of Texas, she has finally mastered the proper use of "y'all," much to her Chicago family's dismay.
 
Despite a healthy interest in romance and sex since puberty, it wasn't until 2012 that Nicola decided to try writing about it. As it turned out, the skills she picked up during her SF writing career transferred rather nicely to speculative romance. When not writing, she wrangles cats, smooches her husband, makes dolls of dubious and questionable identity, and thanks almighty Cthulhu that she doesn’t have to work for a major telecommunications company any more (because there’s BDSM, and then there’s just plain torture...).
 
Website | Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Goodreads
​