Thursday, June 25, 2009

Thursday's Thirteen - Really good places to be kissed


There is always time for a kiss but some places can be more fun and romantic.

1. In the shower or in the bathtub.
2. On the beach late at night when there is no one around.
3. In the rain on the hood of a car.
4. Sitting on a blanket on the roof on a warm night with the stars shining bright and the moon glowing.
5. In the kitchen because it can lead to many other delightful things.
6. In a warm cozy room in front of the fireplace.
7. Sitting on a motorcycle together watching the sunset.
8. On a swing on a porch.
9. Inside a tree house with candles burning.
10. Outside lying in the grass at night.
11. While swimming naked.

12. While taking a walk and holding hands.
13. Where ever you are when you are with that special person, that kiss will be amazing and wonderful!

I'll cover the best places to kiss on the body in another post. I need to collect more data for that one.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Today's Author Event


I will be at the Montrose Jennings Memorial Library all day today!

At 1:00 I'll do a little program on Journal Writing. Painted Soul was created from an excerpt in a journal I kept while spending a summer in England when I was 16!

I'll have copies of the Soul Series on hand to sell and sign.

Feel free to bring your journal for me to look at. I'd love to meet some budding new writers.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Thursday's Thirteen - Romantic Meanings of Flowers




1. Coral Rose – Desire
2. Anemones – Unfading Love
3. Amaryllis – Splendid Beauty
4. Baby’s Breath – Everlasting Love
5. Forget Me Nots – True Love
6. Red Rose – I Love You
7. Yellow Daffodil – Chivalry
8. Indian Jasmine - Attachment
9. Iris – I Have A Message For You
10. Peach Blossom – I Am Your Captive
11. Primrose – I Can’t Live Without You
12. Province Rose – My Heart Is In Flames
13. Orchid – Love and Beauty

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Sensual Food - Spice up your sex life


Did you know that some of the most familiar culinary spices are highly valued for their medicinal and aphrodisiac properties? For instance, Ginger, stimulates the circulation, and is a reputed aphrodisiac. Cinnamon excites sexual response in women. Other libido enhancers include aniseed, cloves, cardamom, cumin, coriander, fennel seeds, nutmeg, pepper, and vanilla. Some spices combine nicely with milk and ice cream for ideal cooling to the body and inflaming the passions. Try to use pure, whole or organic spices and grind them yourself.

Try these two refreshing and stimulating shakes.

Cinnamon Girl
Blend chocolate ice cream with milk, real chocolate sauce and cinnamon essence for a sensational milkshake.

Venus and Mars
This delicious potion combines coriander and strawberries (representing Venus) with ginger and black pepper (representing Mars) to forge the union of heaven's most passionate couple. Stand the ground 1 tsp coriander and 1 tsp ginger in a cup of warm milk for five minutes. Refrigerate for an hour. Blend a handfull of strawberries with the spicy milk, strawberry ice cream and a dash of black pepper.

How you share these recipes with your love is totally up to you and your imagination.

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Thursday's Thirteen - Where's my mind?


It's official! I've lost my mind. Here are the places I think it might be.

1. jumping on the jello in the fridg
2. fishing at the pond
3. reading a good smut book in the hammock and not being disturbed by small children
4. alone in the bathroom
5. having a nice cocktail on a beach in Barbados
6. running naked through the woods hopefull not being chased by a bear... something bare might be okay tho as long as he's yummy
7. hiding under the mess on my desk
8. eating pizza in Chicago
9. in the National Art Gallery in London
10. in a cozy cabin in norther Michigan with this guy

11. somewhere in Hershey, PA surrounded by chocolate
12. under the coffee dispenser at one of my favorite coffee shops
13. under a super soft pillow, sound asleep

I'm participating in the annual neighborhood garage sales...my boys are being very helpful...can ya tell?

Monday, June 8, 2009

Free Samples - Better Than Chocolate


Everybody enjoys a free sample! How many times can you resist the lady at the market holding out a yummy fresh baked pastry for you to sample? What about those little sampler boxes of chocolate? Yeah... admit it... we all like that little tease!

Well I'm offering a little tease, a sampler of my own and it's lower in calories than a pastry and better than chocolate.

It's a free sample of the Soul Series. You send me an email maryquast@yahoo.com with "Tasty Sample" in the subject and I'll send you a PDF of the book covers and first chapter from the first three books of the Soul Series.

The Soul Series
Contemporary romance with a twist... lots of twist.


Painted Soul is Book One of the Soul Series. ISBN-13: 978-0-9814739-3-2

A contemporary romance that takes the reader on a wonderful ride in an artist’s life, through the streets of London, and into the shadows of the underground.

Elizabeth McAlister was only eighteen when she met the art student, Puzzola in a London nightclub and gave him her heart. Ten years later, they meet again when a summer of intense passion and dark secrets begins.

As Elizabeth falls deeper in love with Puzzola, she tries to rescue him from tortured memories he refuses to discuss. Eventually, his double life and erotic past are exposed in a local newspaper just as he is involved in a life-threatening accident. Will their love survive?


Tormented Soul - Book Two of the Soul Series. ISBN 978-1-935407-22-5

Erick McAlister is known as London’s Most Dangerous Bachelor; he enjoys scotch, women, and spending time in the London underground club, The Skunk’s Den.

He’s never had a real relationship; women only want him for one thing- he desires more. When the one he vowed he would never toy with, Lynn Westmore, gives him an unexpected proposition, his life takes an enjoyable turn. Just as he is beginning to find happiness, tabloids headline him, a woman from his past announces she’s expecting his child, someone is
trying to kill him, and he finds himself questioning his relationship with the young courier he’s hired to teach him to ride his new motorcycle. Even though his life is in torment, he begins to believe in love, something he never thought he’d feel.

Unfortunately, Lynn doesn’t think Erick could ever be faithful to one woman, let alone be in love with her, so when she finds herself in love with him she runs. Erick falls into a spiral of depression, and it takes his brother and closest friends to bring him to his senses. When he finds out a magazine has rated him as the World’s Most Dangerous Bachelor, he agrees to do the interview only if Lynn is the photographer and he uses the opportunity to let Lynn know how he feels; he offers his heart to her one more time...


Lonely Soul - Book Three of the Soul Series. ISBN 978-1-935407-94-2

The eldest of the McAlister siblings is responsible and always putting his brother and sister before himself. Now that Erick and Elizabeth were enjoying their married lives, the time had come for Michael Casey McAlister to find his soulmate. A man with a deep sense of family and honor, yet at times could be manipulative and very controlling, always doing what he thought was best for others.

Featured on The Most Dangerous Bachelors list with his brother, but for his love for daring
outdoor activities; he searched for a woman who wasn’t a high society princess. With his good looks, wealth and sexual prowess, he has attracted many ladies but when the one he thinks is Miss Right doesn’t like his dog he shows her the door.

Lonely and discouraged, he dedicates himself into a New York City community garden project
with his friends and busies himself with his comic strip he has created under the name of Mike Casey. Mike meets Lauren “Wren” Avery with the help of their dogs in the park while he’s working on a cartoon. He sees her as a chance to improve himself and not follow his father’s path of unhappiness. He certainly didn’t expect to fall in love with the graphic artist. Wren falls in love with him as the cartoonist not knowing he is the co-owner of McAlister Enterprises, the same company she works for.

He knows he’s wrong not telling her the truth, but his world falls apart when she's transferred to the London office and she finds out who he really is. He realizes that in while building the company and interfering in other interfering in other people’s lives he may have lost control of his own life and what truly matters.

The Soul Series by Mary Quast

Saturday, June 6, 2009

Sizzlin' Summer Sellabration!



June 1 through Labor Day, 2009

All summer long, things are sizzling at Vanilla Heart Publishing, with specials and surprises, new releases, twofers, and more!

June Special
Buy your favorite VHP fiction titles in print version from Amazon, and for every copy purchased, select a FREE ebook (with full cover covers, front and back) from our entire Ebook Catalog!

Simply send verification of print copy purchase (your Amazon order number – last three digits only, date of purchase, your name and email) to Sizzlers@vanillaheartbooksandauthors.com and include the name of the free ebook you have selected. Within just a few short hours, you can be reading your free ebook, while waiting for your print copy to arrive!

Check out the contemporary romance Soul Series books for some hot summer reading!

Thursday, June 4, 2009

Thursday's Thirteen - Truths About Love


Thirteen Truths about Love
In a Kids Point of View


“I think you fall in love why you get shot with an arrow or something, but the rest of it isn’t supposed to be so painfull.”

“One person who has freckles finds somebody else who has freckles and they fall in love.”

“Falling in love is like an avalanche where you have to run for your life.”

“If falling in love is anything like learning how to spell, I don’t want to do it. It takes too long.”

“No one is sure why people fall in love. But I heard it has something to do with how you smell. That’s why perfume and deodorant are so popular.”

“Beauty is skin deep. But how rich you are can last a long time.”

“Lovers hold hands. They want to make sure their rings don’t fall of because they paid good money for them.”

“When people hold hands they are just practicing for when they might have to walk down the aisle someday and do the matchimony thing.”

“I’m in favor of love as long as it doesn’t happen when SpongeBob Squarepants is on TV.”

“Love is foolish…but I still might try it sometime.”

“To make a person fall in love with you, tell them that you own a whole bunch of candy stores.”

“Love with find you, even if you are trying to hide from it. I’ve been trying to hide from it since I was five, but the girls keep finding me.”

“Love is the most important thing in the world, but baseball is pretty good, too.”

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Character Sketch - Puzzola/Andrew Somerby


A dark brooding man with a strong passion and desires hidden behind his Caribbean blue eyes. Tall, thin with long fingers along with his black hair makes him a presence to behold. He moves like a black panther in the black clothes he always wears. Seductive, sexual, yet very much in control of himself, yet prone to emotional and artistic outbursts.

His self portrait titled "Painted Soul" pretty much sums him up.


Andrew Somerby grew up on the estate next to Hampton House and is a close friend of the McAlister brothers. His parents were ashamed of the white stripe of hair on his head so he was forced to die it most of his life. Andrew didn’t want to be apart of the family banking business; instead, he always wanted to be an artist. After his grandparents’ death, he moved to Italy to attend art school and earned the nickname, Puzzola. Because of his father’s disapproval, Andrew’s funds were frozen so he had to look into other ways of making money. Unfortunately, he was preyed upon by a seductive manipulator.

When Andrew met Elizabeth McAlister at the nightclub, The Place, she didn’t recognize him so he introduced himself as “Puzzola”. Instant attraction passed between them, but they weren’t given the opportunity to experience their relationship farther. While Puzzola was in dark despair in Italy, memories of Elizabeth kept him sane.

As a man, he returned to England as a popular artist but with deep dark, hidden secrets. Emotionally scarred, he withdrew from society, love, and lived two separate lives… one as a banker, the other as the mysterious underground artist. How long would it be before he’d be pulled apart by his life? Would Elizabeth ever be able to turn him back into a man with a soul?

Purchase Painted Soul the debut novel of the Soul Series.

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Thursday Thirteen - Where's my Desk?


Yep... I've been super busy writing these days. Everyone is amazed I can get any work done since my desk is actually not seen because of all the piles covering it. Hey! It's an organized mess! Really!

When I sat down to write today's thirteen, I went blank and just stared at my desk. Here's what I see:
1. the outline for Fortunate Soul
2. yummy pictures of Travis Fimmel who looks alot like my hero
3. a printed copy of what I've writen so far
4. my datebook
5. my son's report card
6. 4 copies of Penthouse Forum (sorry, I count those as one) for research
7. notebook with all my site addresses, passwords, and such stuff I always need but never can remember
8. chocolate candy wrapper (I'm sure there is some more around here)
9. empty tea cup (hey, I put the wine glass in the kitchen)
10 a stack of fliers for next weeks neighborhood garage sales
11.a notebook with scribbles of ideas for said book
12. matchbox car
13. a Spongebob Squarepants football

Can I go back to work now?

Let's see... where did I put that mouse?
Maybe it's under this picture of Travis...hmmmm...