As you may have heard, one of my stories, “A Woman of Uncommon Accomplishment,” is eligible for Circlet Press’s upcoming best-of collection. Eee! Naturally, I am hoping that everyone will vote for it and it’ll be included! And of course I’d hope that for any of the stories I’ve written. But “A Woman of Uncommon Accomplishment” is the story that snuck up and stole my heart, and it would be particularly wonderful to have this one make it into a print anthology.

I thought I’d post an excerpt to try and encourage some more votes, and I’ve decided on the first kiss between our heroine, Mary Bennet (yes, that Mary Bennet), and the incubus she has accidentally summoned and bound to her, who calls himself Nick. Romantic, eh?

As we join them here, they are finishing up a crash course in magic that Nick has been giving Mary in hopes of fulfilling the terms of the spell she cast. There’s a bit of saucy language in the scene I’ve chosen, as well as the kissing, but nothing too scandalous. So read on for an excerpt from “A Woman of Uncommon Accomplishment,” originally published in Circlet Press’s Sense and Sensuality:

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Circlet Press is turning twenty, and in celebration they’ll be releasing a best-of collection featuring works from their ebook anthologies. They’re taking votes to help decide which stories to include – and one of mine is on the shortlist!

So head over to this link to vote: http://www.circlet.com/?p=3777

And pick me! Pick me! By which I mean, please vote for “A Woman of Uncommon Accomplishment” by Elizabeth Reeve (from Sense and Sensuality). As much as I love each and every one of my stories, that one is probably my very favorite, and I would be so, so thrilled to see it in this collection.

I would also like to recommend to your attention “Ink” by Bernie Mojzes (from Whispers in Darkness) and “Hunter, Prey” by Marie Carlson (from Like Tooth and Claw), which are two stories on that (excellent) list that I adore.

I don’t usually make New Year’s Resolutions, mostly because I always forget. And the sorts of things that I would probably resolve to do are the sorts of things I get all resolve-y about as soon as I think of them anyway, rather than waiting for a new calendar year. Which is a good thing, since my moments of pledging to do better tend to be about housework, which can pretty much never wait until the next available January.

But! This year, I made a resolution! In 2012, I am going to read through at least half of my to-be-read shelves – those books that pile up whenever I buy the next hot thing or see a sale or discover a new favorite author and snag her backlist…until they fill multiple physical shelves and an equal number of virtual ones.

I swore this on the sword of my ancestors – by which I mean, I said it out loud in front of my husband and the parakeet, at least one of whom was probably even paying attention – and then started to worry almost immediately. I didn’t resolve to read all of my TBR books, because I’m not a hopeless optimist, but would I be able to manage even half? I ran from bookcase to bookcase and fired up my reader software and did a quick count, determining that a rough half of my TBR pile at that very instant would be about 60 books. Oh my.

So I made a second resolution, which was to not buy any new books until April, at least. Two things immediately happened. First, I started really wanting a lot of new books. I mean, I always really want new books. But this was the “put my credit card somewhere inaccessible, quick!” level of book coveting. Second, while I was distracted by my intense focus on not buying any books, I somehow managed to download something like a dozen new titles that I got for free one place or another.

Self! What the hell? This is not helpful!

But… Free books! You can understand my weakness, I’m sure.

In any case, though I have been ever-so-good about not buying anything, my TBR pile has actually gotten larger since January. And I’m pretty sure that if I tried to keep myself from downloading freebies (limited time offers!) as well as making new purchases my head would explode, so I suspect that will keep happening.

So I’m going to refine my resolution a little bit. The goal now is to read at least 60 books over the coming year that I already owned before…um…let’s go with “today.” I should probably date that back to January 1st, but I received books as presents over the holidays and some of them not until after the new year and blah blah blah – the goal here is to prevent cranial fireworks, right? Right.

Here’s what I’m going to do:

• Go through the house and actually catalogue all of the physical TBR books and add them to my Goodreads account with a handy-dandy new shelf tag (tbr-in-2012 has a nice ring to it, I think).
• Do the same with my ebooks.
• Read at least 60 of these bad boys in the coming year.

And here are some things I’m going to try to do:

• Don’t buy new books until April! (Hey, I said it in front of the parakeet. He’ll be disappointed in me if I renege.)
• Read at least three books from the TBR before every new book purchase after April. (Hahahaha!)

And hey, while I’m at it:

• Blog about this regularly, because my efforts to stick to it are sure to be hilarious.

Whispers in Darkness, which contains my story, “The Dreams in the Laundromat,” has received some really nice reviews! Two of them mention my work specifically, and I’m going to quote them here.

Amanda Gannon of Adventurotica described Whispers in Darkness as “a rock-solid anthology,” and has written an in-depth review. Here’s what she said about my story:

No description of this story’s particulars can convey its appeal. It is definitely the odd story out; it’s a college story, and the setting and voice are more frankly modern than any of the others. It’s also a sweet story, not horrific at all. And it’s extremely hot.

It’s a beautiful exploration of the vulnerability of revealing yourself to another person – how we are all to some degree alien to ourselves and each other. It’s odd that a Lovecraftian erotica story should be touching, but it really was; terrible secrets, if shared, can lead to great intimacy. And, apparently, mind-blowing tentacle sex. The attention to detail in the sex scene is first-rate. It feels real, and if it doesn’t make you at least a little envious, I will mail you a dollar.

The author took a risk submitting a story that is not meant to be horrifying, and the editor took a chance including it. I am so glad they did, and enjoyed the pleasant surprise.

AncientHistory at Yog-Sothoth also wrote a review, saying of my story:

Short but brilliant, set in the modern day and reads like National Lampoon’s sequel to The Dreams in the Witch House. Actually, this is probably the only story of the bunch I would love to see a sequel to, since the eponymous Laundromat is never visited directly in the story. Reeve’s dialogue and college-think is clever and fun to read, and refreshingly honest for the brand of horny college student we all wish we’d run into. The phrase “Arkham-bad” has now entered my personal lexicon.

One of the other authors in the anthology, Annabeth Leong, described “The Dreams in the Laundromat” as “the sweetest, most romantic tentacle sex story I’ve ever read.” (She includes a nice, lengthy excerpt from her story, “The Artist’s Retreat,” in that post which is well worth checking out, by the way – I love the way she echoes Lovecraft’s writing style, and you can see a lot of that in the segment she’s chosen.)

I’m glad to see that what I was aiming at with “The Dreams in the Laundromat” – weird, sexy, sweet (and more than a little goofy) – seems to have hit the mark with more than one reader. And I’m not gonna lie…the idea of writing a continuation of “The Dreams in the Laundromat” has occurred to me. We’ll see!

I have cover art to share again! Here’s the cover for the upcoming Whispers in Darkness anthology, from Circlet Press, which will contain my story, “The Dreams in the Laundromat”:

Tentacles!

Whispers in Darkness is a collection of erotica inspired by the works of H.P. Lovecraft, and should be available later this month.