[Hi–just editing this to add the link to our discussion! We had a great talk about censorship and the right of readers to fantasize about whatever they WANT!]

You can listen to the entire show here. CLICK!

I’m sure you all remember Paypal’s attempt to censor erotica, as well as Dr. Drew’s assertion on The Today Show that reading non-con or BDSM erotica had a connection to real life abuse. There is also the annoying insinuation that women who read BDSM, rape-fantasy, or non-consensual fantasy erotica must be abused and/or mentally ill. I could go on and on…

And we will go on and on tomorrow on The Passion Zone, where the topic will be “Censoring Women’s Desires!”

Me, Allie, and Scarlet will talk about the Paypal debacle and the media’s reaction to the hit book Fifty Shades of Grey, as well as the marginalization of certain “unacceptable” female fantasies. The Passion Zone is a call in show–you’ll be able to call in and voice YOUR opinion (but don’t delay. It’s only a thirty minute program.)

Hope you’ll tune in and maybe even be brave enough to join the conversation!

I hate to fall so quiet on here when your support is so valuable to me. Just rest assured I’ve been writing like a maniac. I’m about halfway through a first draft of Mason’s story, then I got sidetracked by a new historical that was just begging to be written and really won’t let me go. I’m nearly halfway through that first draft too!

I’ve also got the upcoming Mephisto books in edits, getting them ready for release this summer, and a vanilla book called The Edge of the Earth that I’ll be releasing under my all-new vanilla pen name, Molly Joseph. (Have to get that woman’s website and twitter set up!)

If you want to hear from me more frequently, I do have a Twitter account which I post to on a pretty regular basis. I post a lot about my “excitement” moments when a plot seems to be coming together or characters are being cool, but I also tweet about a lot of other silly things. I try to be fun, anyway. If you “do” Twitter, I’d love for you to follow me!

Also, don’t forget that I blog now and again over at Kinky Ever After.com. We have a Kinky Kiss and Tell event starting next week, where a whole slew of kinky romance authors will be joining us to interview some of their most notable story characters. There will also be book giveaways, so you won’t want to miss it! You can learn more about the event at the site.

That’s it for now! Back to getting more books ready for your enjoyment!

Yeah! I always love live chats because I love to talk to my readers about what they like about my books, what they don’t like, what’s coming up next. I’ll be at RighteousPerverts.com tonight at 9 ET to chat with anyone who shows up. It’s always a fun, active bunch, so don’t feel shy about joining in.

Unlike some sites, it’s very easy to chat there. Just click the link above (in red), choose a user name (Suggestions: AnnabelRocks, BuyTonsOfAnnabelBooks, AnnabelsBestFanEver–HAHA, just kidding!). Once you choose a user name, click the “join” button and you’re in. No registering or plugging in a bunch of info about yourself. It might take some kind of Java or something but your computer probably already has it. Mine did.

They chat every Wednesday so if you enjoy this chat, you can show up in the following weeks to meet other great erotic romance authors. Hope to see you there!

I’ve been soooo busy writing. I’ve been wanting to do some updates but I was kind of in a writing hole. Anyway, I wanted to bring everyone up to speed with what’s coming next from Annabel Joseph!

First of all, I’m planning to release a free read called Molly’s Lips: Club Mephisto Retold. That’s right, totally FREE>>>> Wheee! I’ve been wanting to do a free read for a while to try to bring in some new readers. This seemed like the ideal thing to offer for free since it’s not exactly a new book. Molly’s Lips: Club Mephisto Retold is just what it says…a retelling of my novella Club Mephisto, only this time, instead of being in Molly’s submissive point of view the whole time, we’ll be in Mephisto’s dominant point of view.

Don’t let the “freeness” lower your expectations for the book. I didn’t just churn out something to throw on Amazon for free, I promise. I worked really hard on this book because I think it will be a really special companion piece to the original. I think it will make Club Mephisto seem a lot richer to those who read it and loved it. And being in Mephisto’s head…what can I say? He is a fascinating, wonderful, nurturing and intelligent Master. You’ll learn things Molly had no idea about in the original book, which will be really cool.

And right on the heels of Molly’s Lips, I’ll be releasing Burn For You, my long-promised Club Mephisto sequel. Yay!

The flavor of Burn For You will be much more romantic than its predecessor, but it will seem like a natural progression as life changes for Molly, her Master, and Mephisto. Burn For You is also novel-length, rather than a novella. There’s a lot for them to work out! This book is still in the polishing stage but I hope to have both books available in the late May, early June time frame. Some sizzling summer reading for all my fans!

There’s more to come but I’ll stop here for now. Hope you guys are getting excited for what’s coming up!

Many thanks to Diana of The Forbidden Bookshelf for taking the time to read Cirque du Minuit and posting a review at her site, The Forbidden Bookshelf.

(Click here to read the full review!)

I love this site…they really understand kink and are great about hosting authors for special posts. If you didn’t read my fun “interview” there last week with Kelsey from Cirque du Minuit, then click here! It was silly and fun.

Here’s a little snippet from the review:

“CIRQUE DU MINUIT was amazing. Annabel Joseph has such a unique and passionate voice in the BDSM romance genre, and her latest novel about performers in a French circus is a perfect example. The story was beautifully written with strong, complex characters, rich descriptions of circus life behind the curtain, and some incredibly hot and kinky scenes. When I think of the circus, BDSM doesn’t exactly come to mind, but Annabel Joseph made it work flawlessly.”

Thanks so much, Diana! If you haven’t picked up Cirque du Minuit yet, please do!

And stay tuned…in the next few days I’ll be revealing the cover of my upcoming Club Mephisto sequel. It’s really lovely and I’m getting more excited about this book by the day.

Hi everyone! Just a heads up that I’m guest blogging today at The Forbidden Bookshelf. We were trying to come up with something fun to do, so I decided to interview Kelsey Martin from my most recent release Cirque du Minuit. HA! Me and Kelsey had a lot of fun dishing about love, life, and THEO of course.

Try to stop by sometime between now and Friday, March 16 and leave a comment to be entered to win a free ebook or paper copy of Cirque du Minuit! You can get to the interview by clicking the book below.

I wanted to thank Kirsten at BDSM Book Reviews for taking the time to read Cirque du Minuit and post a review on her site. (I LOVE her site!)

Kirsten loved it and gave it perfect marks! Yeah! Click here to read Kirsten’s review.

If you haven’t read Cirque du Minuit yet, I hope you’ll consider picking up a copy. Just $2.99 at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Thanks so much for your support! And with the new interest in BDSM romance with Fifty Shades of Grey out there, be sure to let your friends and book chat buddies know that Annabel Joseph would be a great author to read next! I am so ready to go wide. 🙂

Hello patient readers! I’m happy to say that Cirque du Minuit is finally up at just about every outlet. This book is right at 70K words and also includes a short excerpt from Molly’s Lips: Club Mephisto Retold at the end. The kink level in this book is pretty intense but not super intense. I would label it medium to high. Here are the links for you! Please spread the word for me wherever you talk about kinky romance books!

Ebook vailable at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, All Romance Ebooks, and Smashwords.

Paperback available at Createspace and Amazon.

Here’s the blurb for the book.

It’s no easy feat transitioning from the disciplined arena of competitive gymnastics to the artistic whirl of the Cirque du Monde. Kelsey Martin finds secret inspiration in Theo Zamora, a dark, taciturn trapezist–until his partner dies in a tragic accident and he decides to leave the circus for good.

Theo doesn’t understand why Kelsey reaches out to him, only that she compels him with her unique combination of innocence and recklessness. Before long the two are collaborating on an aerial silks act for a new production, the Cirque du Minuit. Theo’s impatience with Kelsey’s naivete is matched only by his passion for her, and the two soon become embroiled in a tempestuous, consuming romance.

But some still blame Theo for his partner’s accident, and danger wraps up the two performers as inevitably as the scarlet silk of their act. Theo and Kelsey must find a way to connect and trust one another as he leads her deeper and deeper into a dangerous world of control and desire.

Thanks everyone for your continued support!

Yippee! There is something about having the cover of a book that gets you so excited, and I love this cover, courtesy of my uber talented friend and fellow author Adrienne Wilder.

I’m happy to report this book is right on target for a March release. I will aim for early March, so please spread the word to all the Annabel-holics you know. Cirque du Minuit tells the story of Theo, a taciturn, mysterious trapezist, and Kelsey, a “bulldozer” (Theo’s words) of a gymnast who’s new to circus life. These two butt heads and create a lot of wild, undisciplined sparks before they find their way to happily ever after. This is definitely a hot, erotic book. Kink level…medium to high. My plan is to do a three-book series set in this world, just because I enjoy it so much, but they will all be standalone books as well.

Stay tuned! I’ll definitely keep everyone updated with the release info as we get closer. As always, thanks so much for your support. It’s invaluable to me.

The lovely Serenity over on At a Kinky House (click) wrote today about her preference for emotional connection in hot sex scenes.

I have to say I agree with her totally, and I was really happy she used an excerpt from my book Lily Mine to illustrate her point.

The emotional subtext is so important to me as I’m writing the development of a couple’s sexual relationship. Every once in a while, sex between strangers can be edgy and hot, but sex between people who have a complex or even conflicted emotional entanglement is so much hotter all around. In my opinion, anyway.

Read the entirety of Serenity’s blog post “It’s the Romance, Lily Mine” here…

Ooooh, I am way excited. Apparently someone nominated my book Odalisque for an NLA award in fiction. Past recipients of this award have included Anneke Jacob, Jack Rinella, Cecilia Tan, Claire Thompson, and many other excellent writers. It would be so thrilling to win but I’m honored just to be nominated!

Keep your fingers crossed for me…

I’ve started to have some reviews come in for Odalisque, and I’m thrilled to say they are really great!

Many, many thanks to Victoria of TwoLips Reviews and Jae of Dark Divas Reviews for taking the time to post reviews of Kai and Constance’s book.

Victoria said “I’ve felt this before, having experienced Ms. Joseph’s other novels, but after enjoying Odalisque I must proclaim the following- Annabel Joseph is a true master of the BDSM genre and is an auto-buy author for me. Odalisque is a classic which will forever be loaded onto my e-reader and have a chained position on my shelf in print format.” Wow, thanks! You can read all of Victoria’s review here. (click!)

Jae said “Odalisque by Annabel Joseph wins my Best Book of 2011 vote hands down and without question. I’m a huge fan of Annabel Joseph’s writing, as some of you probably already know, but in this book Ms. Joseph has surpassed herself in quality of storyline, character development, character interaction, dialogue, narrative, sex scenes, emotional scenes, psychological development, world building… you name it and it is a stand out marker of a truly fantastic story.” That review made me cry. You can read Jae’s review in its entirety here (click!)

Hopefully you’ll be able to check out these great review blogs. And if you read Odalisque and liked it, please leave a review if you can. I know it’s not always possible for privacy reasons, but if you’re in a position where you can leave a review at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or Goodreads, every review helps bring more attention to my work.

If you haven’t read Odalisque yet, I hope you’ll consider it! Click below for the All Romance Ebooks link, or find it a dollar cheaper in Amazon’s Kindle store or Barnes and Noble.com.

I just wanted to take a moment to wish everyone a great holiday and happy New Year. New Years has always been my favorite holiday…it seems like a holiday full of possibilities. It’s a fresh new start! I was delighted when my first daughter was born on New Years Day. It was my favorite holiday years before she was even a twinkle in my eye, but when she arrived on that day (naturally, not scheduled!) I took it as a sign that New Years really was a strangely significant day for me.

With that said, here are my resolutions: Write more wonderful books with lots of sexiness and compelling characters. Participate more in the “game”–get out there and network and talk to prospective readers and other authors. I’m thinking about starting up an email newsletter subscription type thing. What do you all think of author newsletters? Annoying or helpful?

I’m also going to try to get up the courage to query an agent in 2012 about my vanilla stuff. I would love to find a wider audience and maybe even start attending the various romance conventions. At the same time, I plan to continue publishing my kinky stories in 2012, to include Cirque du Minuit.

My personal resolutions are vast and a little scary but I’ll be working on many of those too. Wish me luck!

And thanks to everyone who’s done me the honor of reading one of my books this year. Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU! Your encouragement is priceless.

May all your dreams for the New Year come true…

Just letting all my readers know that Ellora’s Cave recently decided to send Deep in the Woods to print. I know some of you prefer actual books so I’m glad you can finally get this one in paperback.

It’s available to purchase right now at the Ellora’s Cave website (click!) If you’d like to buy from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or some other bookseller, it may be a few more weeks until it’s in stock.

I have been terrible about posting, but I’ve been busy writing, so hopefully you all will forgive me!

Cirque du Minuit is in edits and expected to be released in the first quarter of next year. Depending on whether people like it or not, it might become the first of a series.

After that, I’ve got a sequel to Club Mephisto coming out. But before then, I’ll be releasing a FREE book for you all called Molly’s Lips: Club Mephisto Retold. Remember Stephenie Meyer’s Midnight Sun, in which she started retelling Twilight from Edward’s point of view rather than Bella’s? Well, she never released it because someone leaked the first half, but I am planning to release mine free of charge. It will be the same story as Club Mephisto, only retold from Mephisto’s point of view. Check out the banging cover courtesy of Dara England!

Molly’s Lips: Club Mephisto Retold will show what was going on behind the scenes between Mephisto and Molly’s Master during her visit, and also things going on between Mephisto and Molly that she (and consequently, the reader) didn’t know about. It will also be a good lead-in for for the sequel following on its heels. The sequel, which doesn’t have a title yet, will have a slightly more romantic storyline than Club Mephisto, and I intend to write it so that those who chose not to read Club Mephisto can read the more romantic sequel as a stand-alone book.

It’s funny…Club Mephisto is by far my most popular book with my male readers. Several men have written to me to tell me how much they enjoy it, but no women have. I can understand that my usual romance readers might find Club Mephisto a little too “hardcore” and non-romantic for their taste but my hope is that the sequel will be more accessible to those readers. (Sorry guys!)

In light of these new Mephisto titles, I recently updated the files for the original Club Mephisto novella at Amazon and Barnes and Noble to include a working Table of Contents *blush*. Forgive me, I know the old file didn’t have one. I’m not sure if you can download the newer file by refreshing your archives…might be worth a try.

Last but not least, I just started today working on Mason Cooke’s story, what I think will be the last story in the Comfort series that started with Comfort Object. It doesn’t have a title yet either but when I have one I’ll let you know. Before I release that, I’m sure I’ll put out The Edge of the Earth. This book has a great alpha hero named Will but no BDSM, so it’s a small departure for me. But the emotion and hotness factor is still there, I promise!

So please stay tuned. I have lots of very diverse and hopefully sexy books headed your way in 2012! Thanks so much for your continued support, and for telling others about my books. If you visit a lot of reader blogs or book discussion forums, please feel free to drop my name and spread the word. 🙂