Hmm… there are two possible plots for this book: 1) a rich man needs a nanny for his children and asks the pure, innocent, and childless sister of his Bitch!Skank!Whore! dead wife to help him out… and falls in love with her 2) a single mother working as a waitress in a restaurant meets a mysterious, handsome stranger who is secretly a billionaire taking a “vacation” from his real life and they fall in love and break up when she finds out HE LIED! about who he really is even though him being a billionaire means they can ship off her demonic kids to a boarding school in Siberia.

But wouldn’t it be awesome if the plot was actually this: Little Tommy is the troublemaker of the family, while little Tiffany is “Mommy’s Little Angel.” All Tommy wants is a little attention— Mommy’s always dressing up Tiffany in frilly little pink dresses, taking her to the doctor for her asthma, combing her hair and reading her Barbie stories at bedtime… while Tommy? Tommy gets told to clean his room and to please stop playing with matches and could he please stop trying to shave Mittens with Mommy’s favorite razor. Things were much better when Daddy was around. Daddy used to take him out to the woods and show him how to shoot squirrels with a pellet gun. And throw tree branches in the path of an oncoming skateboarder. Daddy was cool. At least until Mommy caught Daddy with their babysitter and chased him out of the house with a big knife.

And Mommy has less time for him now, especially since this big guy in a suit and a Ferrari started sniffing around her. Tiffany thinks he could be the New Daddy. Which would be cool… he’s tired of having only girls in the house. Of course that would mean he would have to share Mommy with another person. But if he got rid of Tiffany and the New Daddy, Tommy would get all the love and attention… and Mommy would love only him.

Thanks to my friend Sam for this deliciously evil cover.

One thing popped into my head as soon as I saw this cover: Kirk Cameron. Take a close look at that mug and tell me you don’t see Mike Fucking Seaver (we’re talking later episodes of Growing Pains when he’s a teacher at a community college and gone on to adopt Leonardo Dicaprio— yes, I watched them. Don’t be all judge-y). Which makes this cover all the more precious because Kirk Cameron went on to become the Ultra-Christian version of Superman whose sole purpose is to save us heathen from the fiery pits of hell (not that there’s anything wrong with that)— and his reasonable facsimile is seen here being fed BY HAND by a raven-haired temptress who is vaguely Asiatic (would have been more awesome had she been fiery-haired!) and all seductive-like and coy. Tempted by the fruit of another… Yeah, do you think an umbrella would be enough to protect my head from falling anvils?

Anywaize— I’m inclined to believe that the Texan here is the Womyn because she’s the one holding the apple peach and trying to lure Kirk Cameron from the righteous path and such. TEMPTATION: THY NAME IS WOMYN! TESTIFY! Huh. Why am I hungry all of a sudden? Peaches come from a can they were put there by a man… In a factory downtown… If I had my little way I’d eat peaches everyday… Sun-soakin’ bulges in the shade…”

Props to my homie-g Amber for sending me this cover.

[fake blurb alert.]

…dance for an all-male revue!

Dylan Quinn is unhappy. There’s a festering, pus-crusted, gaping hole where his soul should be, and it’s all because he had never allowed himself to do what he’s always wanted to do: join the Royal Academy of Dance. As a child, Dylan had learned there is only one avenue for the thoroughly heterosexual male Quinns. Firefightin’. His family had always been supportive of all of his endeavors— like the time he landed the lead in his high school’s production of Swan Lake— but Dylan knows it would secretly break his father’s heart if he were to hang up his ultra-tight flame-retardant pants and pick up ballet slippers. For good. After all, the Mighty Quinns are only known for two things: fightin’ fires and impregnatin’ kind, pure, salt-of-the-earth females.

Julie Davis has always been in love with Dylan Quinn. In high school, she followed him around and even signed up for the drama club just so she could be near him. In math classes, she allowed him to copy from her tests. But he had never acknowledged her as a woman, much less as a love interest. Over the years, she had learned to accept that the day will never come when Dylan will look at her and fall madly in love.

But she knows his heart’s desire…

One night, while walking her Pomeranian and passing the firehouse “by chance,” Julie peeks into a window and finds Dylan alone and twirling like a graceful, beautifully insane top to Chopin blasting from a boombox. She realizes if she could help Dylan fulfill his dream, he would finally see her as a woman. And it could start with the audition for the lead of an all-male version of La Bayadere, a production her sister is leading in Tulsa…

Thanks again to my buddy Amber for sending me this cover.

[fake blurb alert]
Terry Randall is nursing a heartbreak. Because of his long, grueling hours as a marketing executive for Banana Republic, his lover of ten years Fernando decided he has had enough of Terry’s neglect and booked it for Miami to become a tennis instructor. Now Terry finds himself sitting alone every night in his Restoration Hardware-decorated home, fondling his argyle sweaters and ecru khakis, and crying into a glass of Merlot. Fernando had been his light, his love, his reason for living… and now he’s gone… and he’d taken Terry’s favorite chenille robe with him. The harlot… Terry would have been content spending the rest of his existence watching reruns of Queer as Folk while embalming his insides with bottles of absolutely fabyooooolous Pinot Grigot… until Luanne and her daughter moved in.

Luanne Bixby is finally learning to stand on her own two feet. After a seven-year loveless relationship with a man who’d only married her because he got her pregnant, Luanne is ready to break out and have fun… which would have been a lot easier if she didn’t have a six-year-old daughter who suffers from an embarrassing tendency to run up to strange men, wrap her arms around their legs, and refuse to let go. Luanne has had to resort to injecting the poor dear with Ketamine in the neck. And then there was that absolutely horrendous pepper spray incident… According to Janey’s therapist, Janey is only acting out because she is in need of a father’s love and men aren’t exactly falling all over themselves in a rush to volunteer for the job. Luanne hopes this move to a fashionable apartment building in Austin would be just the thing to launch her new life with Janey…

Terry has never been fond of children, but the little tow-headed girl down the hall… “OH MY GOD, YOU LITTLE SHIT, GET YOUR HANDS OFF ME! DO YOU UNDERSTAND THE WORDS ‘DRY CLEAN ONLY’?!?! DO YOU?!?! THESE PANTS WERE IMPORTED FROM FRANCE! DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHERE FRANCE IS?!?! GET THE HELL AWAY FROM ME!”

Props to my homie Amber for sending me this cover.

Our good friend Jackie Kessler just sent me this cover. My first reaction to it? Stupefaction. There’s something weird about it, but… I don’t know… my brain’s been fried by Latin translations or something and I can’t come up with anything to say about it. So help me.

1) Chick’s head… too big?
2) Ass is too small?
3) Back looks oddly like front?
4) Her neck is broken!

Help me out and as a thank-you, I shall bless you with… dun-dun-dun—- An ARC! Fun times all around! Winner to be announced on Friday!

Oh, and don’t forget to enter this month’s writing contest. There are some really good entries this month, guys. Scary good. But yeah, are you gonna let ‘em have that 50 bucks? OF COURSE NOT! Go enter!

Oh, and our friend Shiloh Walker is still looking for questions to ask me for our interview for her blog Vamps and Scamps. Help us out!