This is going to be one of those posts that features a little bit of everything, since that’s been my week so far. I have a to-do list that stretches from here to the moon–every day I cross off a few things and add several more. Most of its not horribly exciting or worth talking about, it just takes up time, which I don’t seem to ever have enough of.

One of the more thrilling things I’ve done this week is wrap up my final read through of Lover’s Talisman. Lisa and I have been lucky enough to get the opportunity to “pretty up” the first two books in the Talisman Bay series, which are re-releasing from Samhain Publishing in early 2008. In the five years since we first started writing Lover’s Talisman, and the four years since it was originally published, we’ve learned a heck of a lot about writing and it’s really been a blessing to have the chance to go in and revise this book–or more accurately go in with cleanser and scrub brush until the thing shines. It’s still the exact same story and plot from the first time, but the writing is smoother, with better descriptions and hotter sex. Lisa and I like to call it “the authors’ preferred edition”. Okay, it sounds a little snooty and pretentious, but we’re just that excited about it.

As soon as we get Lover’s Talisman turned in to our editor, we’ll be starting on the revisions for Forsaken Talisman. We expect this one to be a little more substantial, since we’re actually adding at least one scene to the book–if not more. When we wrote Forsaken Talisman we trimmed back on one of the subplots, which we’ve since regretted taking out. So we’re adding it back in.

Then once Forsaken Talisman is done, Lisa and I will be getting back to work on Eternal Talisman, the third, never-before-been-released Talisman Bay novel. The day Angie, our editor with Samhain, offered us the contract for Eternal Talisman was probably one of the happiest of our writing career. We love our Shadow Walkers, and we love this world and we cannot wait for readers to get the chance to hang out with us in Talisman Bay again.

Other stuff in the works. Lisa and I wrote a short story for the upcoming The Samhellion newsletter. This newsletter is an all-author newsletter, written, edited, produced and directed by Samhain authors. Our story will be in the first issue, which launches on September 15. Sign up for the newsletter here. This newsletter is going to be the coolest thing since buttered popcorn. I swear! And even better, we’re giving away free books to random subscribers. So sign up now and you may win a book. Just that easy. And even if you don’t win a free book now, there’s going to be contests galore in this newsletter, as well as fun articles and short stories by the Samhain crew.

When Lisa and I wrote the short story, we realized it was only the start of a fun little series of short stories, so we decided to continue the fun on our website.  Once you read our short story in the newsletter, you’ll be able to head on over here for another installment in the adventure. We’ve got at least half a dozen installments planned so far, with the possibility for a lot more. We haven’t worked out all the details yet, but we’ll update you as we finalize our plans.

And yay! Driven to Distraction has moved up to number 3 on the My Bookstore and More bestseller list. Thanks to Ing Cruz for posting her 5-star review of DtD on the MBaM website. You rock! Every time another one of these awesome reviews shows up, I get such a huge thrill. And thank you to all the readers who’ve emailed us over the last two weeks. Every single one of you are the best fans we could ask for.

Many of you have emailed and asked who the next Hollywood Heat book will be about. The original plan was for Levi, our sexy cowboy animal handler, to get his story next, but we’re also considering writing Smitty and Cash’s story (and no, the two of them don’t end up together. *G*) So at this point it’s up in the air–we’re going to ponder both ideas over the new few months while writing Eternal Talisman to see which story screams the loudest.

Oh, and I know I owe you guys the second half of the Comic Con post. Remember that to-do list I mentioned? Yup, that’s on there. That post will be full of photos galore, and I’ll hopefully get it posted by the end of the week. Just a month after Comic Con ended. *rolls eyes at self*

Please keep emailing us and/or post questions to the blog if there’s anything you want to know about us, our books, etc. It’ll give me things to ramble about in future posts.

So Driven to Distraction has been out for ten days now. I’ve heard from a few readers who loved it and we received a five star review from a reader on the MBaM website. (Thanks so much, Beverly.) Awesome authors Nicole Austin and Lena Matthews both raved about the book on their respective blog and forum (I love you ladies!). Driven to Distraction is currently number 6 on the My Bookstore and More bestseller list. All of those feel awesome. Writing is such a solitary career–although luckily for me I get to do it with my best friend–so receiving feedback is a huge thing. Plus it had been forever since Ashleigh Raine had a book release, I was afraid no one would remember us.

Still we hadn’t yet received any reviews from review sites. I wasn’t too surprised, the book is a long one so I knew it wasn’t one that a reviewer, especially with a backlog of review copies to read, would be able to race through (huh, unintentional Driven to Distraction related pun there…hehe). Today I began my morning ritual, downloading emails, checking a few internet sites I like to peruse…

And all of a sudden it was there. Right on the front page of Mrs. Giggles site. She’d reviewed Driven to Distraction. I think at that moment my heart stopped. I was afraid to click through to find out how she rated it, but at the same time my fingers couldn’t move fast enough to click the link.

For any of you familiar with Mrs. Giggles, she’s a harsh critic. Now, I’m of the firm belief that everyone has the right to their opinion. I know that not everyone is going to like the books Lisa and I write. That’s a fact of life as a writer. There’s no way on earth to please everyone. Of course, I can know that, and I can preach it to authors who’ve gotten bad reviews, and I can be the most logically minded person on earth about how any review is good publicity…but all that said, it still doesn’t stop me from worrying and hurting just a little bit when we get a not-so-good review. I can’t decide if that makes me crazy or human or both, but that’s just how it goes. Thank God the crazy human side of me didn’t have to come out today…

Mrs. Giggles gave Driven to Distraction a 94!!! For the first minute after clicking through and seeing how she rated it, I just stared goggle-eyed at the screen. I couldn’t even read her review. I started shaking and I heard a buzzing in my ears. (Hmmm, maybe my crazy human side didn’t stay hidden after all, but this time it came out to play for happy reasons.)

I emailed Lisa the link to the review although I’m not sure my email to her made any sort of sense. Then I emailed my editor. Then I called my mom at work and read her the review over the phone. She started crying and giggling and I started crying and giggling and it was a big ol’ happy mush fest.

So thank you, Mrs. Giggles. Thanks for making me giggle and cry and laugh and act like a complete whack job today. Not that that’s much different than normal, but at least today I can tell people that my weirdness has an excuse…Driven to Distraction got a kickass, awesome review.

Oh, and if y’all want to know what Mrs. Giggles had to say about it: “Fast cars, hot sex, and plenty of mad hot chemistry – this one drives me past distraction and straight to WIIIIILLLLLLDDD… Driven to Distraction is like the Barracuda that is taking me for the ride of my life and I’m like that silly young girl laughing in exhilaration. Baby, this is hot stuff.” You can read the rest here.

Our new contest is up on the contest page. Help Lisa and I do some Hollywood-related research by answering a few questions about your movie and TV tastes and you could win some Hollywood goodies.  Plus, you’ll be giving us an excuse to go shopping on Hollywood Blvd. *g* Have fun and good luck!

This is the moment all authors wait for, when a book first releases for public consumption. There’s nothing like it in the world. The exhilaration, the nervousness, the anticipation, the excitement…actually, that sounds a lot like the way a stunt person feels right before jumping off the side of a building and experiencing the rush of the fall…

And what happens when a stunt person…or, in our case, two stunt people fall in love? There’s lots of explosions…both on set and off. Races and crashes. Falling off balconies and jumping off roofs. And lots of sex in, on and around cars.

For two people not afraid to push their bodies to the limit, Jay and Blaina are about to face their greatest challenge…falling in love.

Read blurb and excerpts here.

Buy here.

Lisa and I hope you’ll enjoy Blaina and Jay’s love story. We love writing the Hollywood Heat stories and as soon as we finish working on the revisions of Lover’s Talisman and Forsaken Talisman, and writing Eternal Talisman, we’ll begin working on the next book in the Hollywood Heat series, tentatively titled Handle With Caution. You meet both the hero and heroine of HWC in Driven to Distraction, although the two don’t spend any time together in this book and readers will probably be surprised who we’re putting together! We’d also love to hear from readers on which secondary characters in Driven to Distraction they’d like to see get their own story. So please, drop us an email, comment on our blog, let us know who you want to read more about. And let us know what you think about Driven to Distraction.

After reading my last post about my first time at stunt driving school, it kind of reminded me about the time I was on a Strong Medicine, the TV show and then a few years later, a pilot called Crazy. I was booked as a hooker, but that was the absolute least of my worries. Y’know how sometimes, you just aren’t at your best. You wish you were, but somehow, things just aren’t turning out quite right. Well, my first stunt driving class was a lot like my gig on Strong Medicine. Check ‘em out if you have a second. I’m not sure I’m over the embarrassment yet, but I consider laughter to be the best therapy.

Still wondering what the title of this post has to do with anything? Well, read about how, for once, everything came together–because of the rain–and I finally figured out how to get out of my own way, lock it up, flip it around and slide it on in! Yes, I’m talking about my third shot at stunt driving school!!!!

I love cars. I really do. I’ve had lots of car-related experiences since my daily driver is a ’68 Mustang fastback that I’ve had since 1993. What can I say? She’s a dude-magnet. She also has a mind of her own.

So, when Jen and I were brainstorming about characters and stories, it was natural for me to bring up the fact that our next Hollywood Heat Series book should have something to do with cars and stunts. And I offered up this one time when I was in my Mustang and there was this hot-looking guy with a ’67-’68 TransAm broken down on Burbank Boulevard next to Woodley Park. I stopped to offer help… And now Driven to Distraction has a Chapter One inspired by what I wished would’ve happened instead of the boring reality of, “No, it’s okay. My car’s fine now, but thanks anyway.”

Plus, during my second time on Starsky & Hutch, I kept calling Jen on my cell phone and couldn’t stress enough how incredibly awesome it was that I’d gotten considered to be a precision driver for those two days. It was a life-altering event for me! She and I knew we had to put at least a little of all this in a book. (There are actually several Tales that inspired scenes, bits, etc.)

I’d always dreamt of taking a stunt driving class, but it took my wonderful husband to make that dream come true by getting me a gift certificate.

Well… Things didn’t turn out as marvelous as I’d hoped.

Click here to read the story. And let me apologize in advance for it’s sort of haphazardness. I assure you, it’ll get clearer and start to make more sense eventually.

There’s more than one installment to my past stunt driving experiences and there will certainly be plenty more posted here in the future.

Our site is new and improved!

Yeah, now with a special login/register option that should’ve been there since day one, but somehow got overlooked. Doh! Sorry about that. I just added it on the right of our navigation stuff. Next to the RSS feed link so that you can add us to your collection.

We do welcome comments. Honest. I swear it! Please feel free to login and comment now. I believe we’ve fixed the problem.

And feel free to email me if you see others! (We’ve been drooling over all hot construction worker men getting our site together. I’m sure there’s other things we haven’t seen. ) Thank you!!!!!!

Pardon our mess, we hope you don’t mind the dust, because the new-and-improved Ashleighraine.com is still under construction. You should see the oh-so-muscular construction guys doing all the heavy-lifting behind the scenes to get this website ready to launch.

We hope you’ll stay awhile, take a gander at our books page–if you run into one of our construction guys, tell him to get back to work!–and see what we have out now and what’s coming out over the next year (Hint, our new book, Driven to Distraction, comes out on August 7 from Samhain Publishing. Woohoo!) And please, come back often. We’ll be bringing back all the favorites from the old site, and adding lots of new fun and exciting things as well.

Thanks for stopping by. You can hang your hard hat by the door when you leave. We’ll keep it there for you for your next visit.

Jen & Lisa

The following is from an email sent shortly after the shoot:

On Sunday night, I was on the set of a music video for a brand new boy band called 4Mula1. And actually, I wasn’t booked, my car was.

It was a night shoot and I got there at 5:30PM knowing I’d be there until the sun came up the following morning. No big deal, it’s just been a little while since the last time I had a night shoot plus I’d also been in England the week before and hadn’t realized that I was still a little jet-lagged. Consequently, despite the fact that I was tired, I was remarkably awake the whole night due to the 8 hour time difference. What does all that mean? Well… unfortunately not a whole lot.

I spent from 5:30 until “lunch” at 8 reading Things That Go Bump In The Night IV because my car wasn’t going to be used until later.

“Later” ended up being 4AM! Right after lunch, they did the performance part of the video in which all the guys plus dancers did their thing in front of 4 cars on the 6th street bridge near downtown LA. I must say, I really like their song “Gotta Roll.” It doesn’t come out until later this month, but even after hearing it for about 5 hours straight, I didn’t get tired of it. It’s a combination of R&B and Pop and it’s their very first single. It’ll be fun to see where they go because judging by the size of the shoot, they’ve got some real money backing them even though they’re just starting out. They’re also very talented singers and dancers…and nice guys, too! I spoke to one of the guys’ girlfriends. She was really sweet, but I didn’t catch her name.

When that set-up was done, they went to the next location which was where my car was finally used. The actor who drove it was really nice, too. He played the sort of bad guy. See, there was also a mini-storyline through the video in which G catches his girlfriend cheating on him. My ’66 Corvette was the car the guy was driving when G caught up with him. Unfortunately, the shot might not even make it into the finished product. I’m not real sure, but it just seemed like by the time they got to that shot, everyone was restless and didn’t really have their hearts in it so they didn’t do a whole lot of takes. I hope it gets used, but I’m not betting on it.

As soon as that was done (around 5AM) I finally got to go home. I was sooooo tired, but all in all it wasn’t a bad night. I mean, because my body reverted to England time, I was alert and awake the whole night even though I wasn’t actually doing anything but watching or reading.

The only real bummer was that I was scheduled for a wardrobe fitting at 10:20 the next day… I only got 2 hours of sleep before I had to be up and gone. It was for what I think might be a flashback to 1974 in a movie called “Where The Truth Lies.” I brought a ton of stuff and the wardrobe people hated everything.

I totally hate it when that happens…not mostly because I lugged all that crap with me, but because being that I’m in SAG, I don’t actually need to bring clothes with me, I do it as a courtesy to the costumers especially on period pieces because that way they can save a few dollars not having to rent an outfit for me and they never seem to appreciate the fact that I tried.

Only Anchorman really appreciated me bringing wardrobe. The rest of the period shows I’ve done have first turned up their noses at what I brought, then tried to fit me from their selection only to discover that I’m so damn small that they don’t have anything that doesn’t fit me like a tent, and they end up chosing something from my stuff anyway.

I don’t know why it is that they freak out when they see an Extra who brought period clothes. I mean, it’d be one thing if my stuff wasn’t the real deal, but it’s genuine. They always look at the labels and say, “Well, I guess it’ll be okay.”