Dear Quickie readers and romance aficionados,

“It is better to give than to receive.” Or so they say. This doesn’t meant that you can’t give gifts that are even more fun to give than they are to receive. Muhahaha.

Obviously, I’m biased, but I have always thought that personalized romance novels are the perfect gift. Especially to your sassy best friend who has a thing for pirates or your significant other.

Here are  links to a couple of sites where you pick a template and they change some details for you to make it, well, personalized. I think putting their picture on the cover is a nice touch. Enjoy and Happy Holidays!

www.yournovel.com

www.bookbyyou.com

http://www.torridromance.com/

Dear Quickie readers and romance aficionados,

Today I have a little treat for you. It’s been far too long since there have been any romance stories on Quickie and that’s what this site is founded on! I will gladly end this tragedy by featuring the writer and blogger Mechelle Fogelsong.

Mechelle has a blog for teens called Passing Love Notes. If you like this story and want to see more of her work or have questions about life at large, check her out.

Enjoy her story, “A Kiss Worthy of a Tardy Slip.” If only my high school experiences had been so juicy, sigh.

xx,    Genevieve

A Kiss Worthy of a Tardy Slip

Someone had blabbed, and as soon as Ellaree found out who’d narked on her, she wanted to drag the little slime-bucket across the gym floor by her slutty hoop earrings.

Ellaree had tried Oxyclog, Zitbeegone, and Anti-achne, but nothing had cleared up her plethora of pimples. And then her mom had suggested birth control pills. In one month’s time, her skin was as clear as the screen on a shiny new cell phone.

She’d made the mistake of mentioning her secret anti-zit weapon to all of her close female friends at her parents’ Labor Day weekend backyard barbecue, and now the whole school knew that Ellaree was on the pill. As if that weren’t embarrassing enough, the guys on the football team had placed bets, and word had gotten back to Ellaree during her first hour algebra class. According to rumors, all eleven football players planned to ask her to the Homecoming dance. Not because she was zit-free, but because they wanted to get lucky.

Dumb jocks.

“What am I going to do?” Ellaree whimpered to her friend Karina.

“We’re going to hook you up with somebody.”

Ellaree looked stunned. “Right now? In Algebra?”

At the sound of the clanging bell, Karina nodded, grabbed Ellaree’s hand, and pulled her across the rapidly emptying classroom. In the far corner near the window, Karina’s twin brother shoved his algebra book into his black and green Element backpack.

Ellaree gasped, “No way. Not Romero.”

“Why not?” said Karina.

The boy in question spun around to squint at them.

Karina declared, “You’re going out with Ellaree, okay?”

His dark eyes bulging like a pair of eight balls, he looked from his sister to Ellaree and back again. “I am?”

Karina dipped her head in one curt nod.

“Do I get to kiss her?”

Ellaree’s jaw dropped. “I can’t pretend to go out with him! He’s a complete pervert!”

“I am not.”

“Are too!” The discussion had drawn the attention of their algebra teacher, so leaning closer to Romero, Ellaree lowered her voice to a power whisper. “I’ve seen the posters on the walls in your room.”

“What…?” Romero shrugged. “So I like girls. Big deal.”

Karina stamped her foot and her pine-needle-like earrings bobbed. “Look people, I don’t have time to argue with the two of you. I’m going to be late for biology. Ellaree, Romero’s the only hope you’ve got. You can be his temporary girlfriend, or you can singlehandedly beef it out with the wall of testosterone in the hall.”

“Rrrrggg!” Ellaree’s jaw tightened.

Romero swallowed. His eyes flicked from one girl to the other. “So is Ellaree my–”

“Don’t you dare call me something disgusting!” Ellaree cried.

He cleared his throat, “–or not?”

Ellaree rolled her eyes. “Yes. Fine. Whatever.”

Romero took Ellaree’s hand in his and marched out the door, dragging her with him. Six enormous guys in football jerseys stopped walking toward them and blinked. Romero pressed past them, leading a less-than-enthusiastic Ellaree to her locker down the hall. As she fiddled with her padlock, Ben McGarvey, the quarterback, moved in and said, “Hey Romero, can I talk to Ellaree for a sec?”

“Back off, McGarvey,” Romero grumbled. “I’ve got a corner on this market.” Ellaree had just placed her algebra book on the top shelf of her locker, but with her hands still above her head, Romero—her best friend’s brother no less—fastened his arms around her waist and pulled her into an unplanned kiss. She didn’t even hear McGarvey curse as he ambled away.

All of Ellaree’s nerve endings seemed to have converged in one part of her body… her lips. Her warmly caressed, gently moving lips. Open, close. Pucker, pull back. Kiss after kiss after slow and splendid kiss.

When Romero moved away, nothing worked right. She couldn’t remember how to move.

“Does this mean I’m taking you to the Homecoming dance?” Romero asked.

Ellaree nodded, gaping.

“Sweet.” He grinned. “That’s worth being late for class.”

Only then did Ellaree realize that the tardy bell had rung. The halls were bare. She finished exchanging books, and Romero walked her to her next class.

She agreed. That kiss had been surprisingly worthy of a tardy slip. But Romero? Who would’ve guessed?

I had some requests to post another link to free EBooks and so your wish is my command! Technically it’s Redneck Romance Writer’s command but we’ll let that slide. I found this list of thirteen links on her blog, so go check it out for some good reads. FYI, her post is over a year old and one of the links was broken but the rest were still there and awesome quality. If you want a steamy short read, check it out here!

xx,    Genevieve

It’s time to show your true colors and pick a side. As you might have guessed from my Eye Candy post about Taylor Lautner, I am Team Jacob all the way. What about you? Did you enjoy New Moon or was it not as good as it was hyped up to be? I haven’t seen it yet because I live in South Korea and it hasn’t be released here yet. For now, I will live vicariously though you dear readers.

xx,    Genevieve

Dear Quickie Readers and romance aficionados,

I have just returned from a weekend trip to Fukuoka, Japan to enjoy the beautiful fall weather there. Fukuoka is  known as the city of “beautiful women.” Let me be the first to tell you, the men there are beautiful too!

Unfortunately, I became a bit too camera shy to capture any Japanese hotties, so I decided to dedicate this post to a Korean heart-throb that reminded me of one of the gorgeous men I saw on my trip.

Have you heard of the beautiful Lee Byung-Hun? He is the most famous in America for his role in G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra as Storm Shadow.  He is a Korean star of the new hit Korean drama IRIS. His bone structure alone would be enough for me to watch the series without subtitles but luckily, I don’ have to.

If you are interested in seeing Lee Byung-Hun in action, you can head straight over to My Soju and watch IRIS with English subtitles for free-hurray!

If you are satisfied with mere pictures, then I encourage you to feast your eyes right here on Quickie!

Thanks for sticking by my side despite November’s sparse posting patch. I love you for it!

xx,    Genevieve

I have been very bad. Please forgive me for not posting in over a week. I have a great novel related reason though, so perhaps this will soften your hearts. Have you heard of NaNoWriMo? It’s an organization called National Novel Writing Month. Basically, in the month of November you try to write a 50,000 word novel. I’m a proud participant this year and am very behind on my word count. Please check out NaNoWriMo’s website here and I promise to post some excerpts or at least some eye candy for you in the next couple of days. Until then, NaNoWriMo FIGHTING!!!

xx,   Genevieve

Dear Quickie readers and romance aficionados,

As a Halloween treat for you I have rounded up some of the best free romance novel and novella eBooks found on the internet. A lot of sites claim to have free eBooks but you have to pay for a membership. I say balderdash! You could read one of my stories absolutely free and with no strings attached in the amount of time it takes you to sign into these sites. If you are looking for a little more substance than my stories have to offer (no offense taken!) you can find free eBooks in PDF,Adobe Acrobat or Word documents with no strings attached here:

• Harlequin celebrated its 60th anniversary by giving 16 eBooks away for free…hooray! I will be checking out the Paranormal section first.

Free Harlequin eBooks

• A fellow WordPress blog, Kindling Romance, has loads of free romance novel eBook links. As the name implies, some of the eBooks are for Kindle or iPod format only. If you’re like me and don’t have a Kindle but do spend enough time at your computer to go cross-eyed, make sure that the link is PDF or Adobe Acrobat compatible. These two posts caught my eye:

Recent free eBooks

Kresley Cole free eBook

Well, there you have it. There should be enough free reads to keep you busy for quite some time.  Did you read any of these eBooks? If so, let me know which one and what you thought. Your advice could help another Quickie reader have the perfect free night.

xx,    Genevieve

Dear Quickie readers and romance aficionados,
Here is a quickie (pun intended) Halloween poll for you sticking to my new vampire theme. There are so many good-looking vampires on TV and the silver screen these days it is hard for a girl to choose a favorite. I had to think long and hard about this, but I’m voting for True Blood’s Eric Northman. Now that he cut his hair for Season 2, he is pretty much unstoppable in my eyes. Please share your vote and enjoy pre-Halloween festivities. I consider gorging myself on candy and watching  hottie vampires on TV a great way to celebrate the season, don’t you?

xx, Genevieve

Dear Quickie readers and romance aficionados,

Are you distracted by my amazing glittering graphics? As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a fan of almost anything vampire related and Twilight was no exception. I’ve read the books, seen the movie and have done a fair share of www.people.com stalking but yesterday I visited the site www.bellaandedward.com for the first time. Holy smokes, is it fun! That’s where I got these nifty graphics and found this amazing Twilight fonts page. You can download Bella, Edward and the other characters’ fonts to use in your own fan fiction or maybe just to write a faux love letter to a friend. To download these fonts just go to www.bellaandedward.com/funfonts.php. Enjoy!

xx,   Genevieve