Can you bear seeing more photos? Here are some from our June/July cruise. Our family sailed to Bermuda, St. Thomas, St. Maarten and San Juan.

My Family

My husand and me on board Freedom of the Seas

The fort at San Juan, Puerto Rico

Here I am with best-selling Presents authors Susan Stephens and Carole Mortimer at Harlequin’s incredible Friday night party. Did we have fun ? Look at those smiles and you’ll know the answer!

I’ve just found out that I’m going to be part of Harlequin’s SHOWCASE. These are special reprints by your very favorite authors, coming out between now and the end of the year.

In July,  Harlequin SHOWCASE will publish my novels, MISTRESS OF THE SHEIKH and THE ONE-NIGHT WIFE in one volume. If you missed these Presents when they first came out, I urge you to pick up a SHOWCASE copy. The books are part of my best-selling Baron family saga. They’re romantic and sexy and perfect hot-weather beach reading… or perfect for the time you can call your own at the end of a long day.                                               

A busy week, indeed! In the past 7 days, I corrected the proofs of my December release (Nicolo: The Powerful Sicilian) and sent them to my editor. I went to New York City for the day to autograph Blackwolf’s Redemption at BEA (Book Expo America) and had the joy of meeting lots and lots of fans. I completed chapter 8 (and now, almost chapter 9) of a book that will come out next spring. And I capped things off today by seeing our new deck (terrace, for my UK readers) completed. It’s big and beautiful.

The next thing I do won’t be anywhere near as exciting. We’re also having our kitchen redone and there’s sawdust everywhere. It has to be swept up. Mopped up. Whatever-up. But the good news is, it’s a long, holiday weekend, the weather is spectacular, and we have a gorgeous  new deck on which we’ll  bask in the sun, grill dinner , and spend Sunday with friends.

Every now and then, a day seems, well, nearly perfect. I thought I’d share mine–the one I spent today–and maybe you’d tell me something about yours.

Here’s why my day was so excellent.

1.  I completed a chapter in my new book, began writing the next…  and everything I’d hoped would fall into place, did.
2.  My new hero assured me that I was right, his name is Lucas and I am absolutely not to change it! (I’d thought about it but not anymore.)
3.  My husband, that wonderful man, cleaned out the gargage, took loads of stuff to the recycle shop at our town dump, and threw out things I thought I’d never get him to throw out, like a bird feeder we stopped using 5 years ago when we bought a new one but hey, he kept saying, you never know…
4.  So I made the day ultra-perfect by celebrating . I bought a new pair of shoes. Gorgeous! And I didn’t even have to leave my computer to do it. Hooray for online shoe stores, UPS and FedEx.

So, you ask, why did I call this A (Near) PERFECT DAY? Well, I’ve dieting off the winter pounds and I weighed myself this morning. I found that I’d dropped 1.5 lbs since last week but I’d been hoping for 2.0.

Just thought I’d share….

A quick, quick note to tell you that there’s some blogging taking place this week that I think will be fun.

Joanne Grant, Senior Editor at Harlequin Mills & Boon (and my editor) will blog about  the new Presents series, Men Without Mercy. BLACKWOLF’S REDEMPTION is the first book in the series, and it’s something very new for Presents. Joanne will be  at IHEARTPRESENTS today, Thursday April 15.

I’ll be blogging about BLACKWOLF tomorrow, Friday April 16, at IHEARTPRESENTS and I’d love it if you stopped by and said ‘hi.’

And Shannon Short, who knows Presents inside and out, will be blogging at the Borders Books Romance Blog tomorrow, Friday April 16. She’ll be talking about Men Without Mercy and BLACKWOLF’S REDEMPTION, so do stop by!

The non-stop rain convinced me to do something fun… like spending the day shopping with my friend, Carol. We shopped; bought stuff we could have lived without but hey, life is short; shopped; gossiped; shopped; blew both our diets with a fantastic lunch, and did I mention that we shopped???

I figure I deserved the time off after spending the last couple of days fruitlessly trying to get rid of my Sandra Marton profile at Facebook and attempting, instead, to direct everyone only to my new Sandra Marton, Romance Author fan page. No luck, so far, but one myth was shattered. I wrote to FB for help and yes, I got a reply!

In the meantime, if you’d like to drop in on me at FB and join the fun, please do. I’m at, I hope,  Sandra Marton, Romance Author.

And a special note for “Anonymous,” who wrote to tell me she loved my O’Connell books–thank you, Anonymous!–and who said that surely there must be some Irish ancestry in me. Does loving Irish folk music count? That’s about the only Irish I can find in my DNA–but thank you for the compliment!

It’s pouring here in New England and has been, for two entire days. I’m just starting work on my next book and I always spend as much time thinking about the opening paragraph as I do writing it, meaning I also often want to set aside what I’ve been thinking/writing to let it sort of brew, if that makes sense.

Anyway, I figured I’d devote some time yesterday to  updating my Facebook page. The result was… well, grim is a polite word to use! All I wanted to do was delete my old FB entry and create a Fanpage.

Simple, right?

Wrong.

For all I know, you could hear my groans and very unladylike comments from wherever it is you live!

Anyway, I did, finally create a page called Sandra Marton, Romance Author. Now I just have to hope all the wonderful readers who’d signed up as my friends on the old site will somehow find their way to the new one…

I think, maybe, the rain suits my mood!

Sorry to have been so quiet these past weeks but:

1.  My husband and I switched from our Connecticut home to the Florida house in search of warmer weather–and found it, but only intermittently! It’s been cool in the south this winter.
2.  I had page proofs to do for my third Orsini book, FALCO: THE DARK GUARDIAN, which will be published next November. (And many, many thanks to all of you who’ve written, asking me when and if I’m going to do Falco’s story!)
3.  I had the absolute pleasure of creating a special note for my French readers. It will be included in France’s publication of  my novel, THE ALVARES BRIDE. The book is being honored as the 3000th Azur  to be printed. Azur is the French version of Presents.
4. I was busy writing the fourth Orsini book. It’s Nicolo’s story and as soon as the title is set, I’ll share it with you. Nicolo’s book will be published next December.
5.  My family flew down for a visit! Here we all are, in Audubon’s Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary in Naples, Florida. The day was cloudy and cool but we had a wonderful time.

Happy New Year! Can it really be the end of one decade and the start of another? Seems like just yesterday we were worried about Y2K and the effect of a change in centuries on all our computers, doesn’t it?

My husband and I had a lovely, joy-filled New Year’s Eve with friends. Lots of laughter, good food, delicious  champagne. And snow. A lot of snow.

There’s more snow today. Loads of it. A prediction of 1 to 2 inches has already turned into 4 to 6 inches, with more to come this afternoon, tonight and tomorrow. I’m glad my husband filled the bird feeder before the new storm began!

Some exciting news for my UK readers:  many of you wrote to me and to Harlequin Mills and Boon to say you’d loved my bestselling O’Connell mini-series. Others wrote to say they’d missed one or two of the six books I wrote and wanted very much to read them. And several of you said you wished Harlequin Mills and Boon would bring the O’Connells out again so you could enjoy them in sequence, from start to finish.

My publisher listened to you! They’ve  brought out a beautiful new edition of the O’Connell saga. It’s in two books: THE O’CONNELLS DYNASTY: BUSINESS AND PLEASURE, out right now in the United Kingdom, and coming next month, THE O’CONNELLS DYNASTY: CONVENIENTLY WED. Says Harlequin of these books: “Three powerful, intense and satifsying novels by one bestselling and award-winning writer: SANDRA MARTON.”

Three complete  O’Connell novels are in each book. The full novels, just as they were initially published. You can order both volumes at Mills & Boon, at amazon, or wherever you usually purchase your romance novels. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them. As more than one reader told me, “The O’Connells are keepers!”