All The Love In My Junk Folder

To celebrate the upcoming release of Twelve Days of Love from Ellora’s Cave http://www.jasminejade.com/ps-9071-50-twelve-days-of-love.aspx  I’m on a blog tour. The UNValentine’s Day Blog Tour, that is. Why UNValentine’s Day? Because I think the hype that surrounds that day is just too much and leaves us with high expectations that usually fall way short. Of course, that’s not true with Twelve Days of Love. Valentine’s Day is everything my heroine Eden ever dreamed of. But shouldn’t we be celebrating love all year long—not just one day? If you’re a reader of romances, that’s something you already wish for—a year round love fest. Some of you are even lucky enough to have that. But some of us…

Well, we soldier on. LOL

One of the things I’m doing for my blog tour is sharing VD disaster stories that were sent to me, and I did just that over at Melissa’s Imaginarium the other day. Check it out: http://melissasimaginarium.blogspot.com/2011/02/valentines-day-and-author-tess-mackall.html

Today I want to talk about love in some unusual places—my junk folder, for instance. Yeah, even in the spam cage you can find love if you just look. LOL I had been expecting an email from someone and it was way overdue. So I had this light bulb moment and checked my spam. Yep, it was there. And while there I perused the other emails that had been captured as well. Amongst all the Irish Sweepstakes lottery wins, all the male enhancing drugs, and everybody and his brother trying to sell me something, I found some real pearls. Pearls for this blog anyway. lol

Take a look at your spam. I bet you’ll find them too. The sender will have names like this: Abdul, Hakeem, Saami, Hassan, Ibriham, Kofu, Ahmed, Mohamed, and even a Daniel. Now I’ve got nothing against anyone looking for love, but could someone tell me why the overwhelming majority of these names sound Middle Eastern? With the world political climate the way it is right now, one would have to wonder why I’m getting invitations of love from mostly Middle Eastern men. Are they trying to get my money (can’t get blood out of a turnip so that doesn’t really scare me, lol) when they have all that oil? Or are they trying to lure me into some terrorist cell using love to brainwash me? LOL

Now before anyone throws rocks, this is all in good fun. They’re working some kind of scam for sure. We all know that. And just because they have Middle Eastern sounding names doesn’t mean they are terrorists, of course, and it doesn’t mean they are swimming in oil either. I’m just joking about all of that. They are very very probably just your plain, ordinary, run of the mill, asshole. And I think they’re organized too. lol

Why do I think they are organized? Because they almost all start out with this same line:

“I see your picture on your msn profile. I am most interested in getting to know you. I will send you picture.”

First off, the only picture on my MSN account is of a goldfish. Yeah, a damn goldfish. He loves that? Okay. To each his own. Never heard of a goldfish fetish, though. HA! But that’s the nature of spam, isn’t it? It’s an email to the world—cover all bases, hit everyone hoping to reel in a big fish---OKAY! Now I know why they are so attracted to my goldfish pic. LOL

There is also a pattern to these emails too. Within a few minutes of receiving this email, you also get one from Mohammad asking for your help. He’s got loads of cash stashed away, and he can’t get it out of the country without your help. HA! Don’t ya just love it?

Well, not everyone is as skeptical as you and me. Not everyone is savvy enough to know what these people are all about. They also lurk on dating sites. Mostly the free ones. I know someone who fell for one of these dudes. Now she was lucky enough to figure it all out before she actually gave up any money, but the “relationship” went on for a couple of months and she was pretty taken with this guy.

And it was the week before Valentine’s Day when all this came crashing down on her too.

You see, she’d kept it all a secret. Believing and not quite believing at the same time. Telling someone would have stopped it long before, and I don’t think my friend really wanted to be stopped. She was hoping against hope that it was real. She shared some of their emails and IM conversations with me and quite frankly? He talked a good game.

And it’s not just these scam artists out to break your heart either. Have you ever talked to someone who got involved in an online “affair” because of interaction on Facebook or MySpace? I heard from a MySpace friend I hadn’t chatted with in quite a while. She sent me a message telling me all about how her heart was breaking. As it turned out, she’d flown half way across the country to finally meet the man she’d been talking to online for an entire year—one of the reasons she didn’t talk to me or anyone else all that time—and yep, he was there to greet her all right.

But…she didn’t recognize him. Turns out he’d sent her his cousin’s picture. The real dude—the one who had written her poetry, sent her flowers, talked to her on the phone for hours?—he was a mere shell of the physical picture she had kept in her head all that time. The lie broke her heart AND her spirit. And you know what? She feels guilty that she can’t care for him now just because he doesn’t look like his picture. I explained to her that she had been lied to and she should focus on that. But she thinks of herself now as being shallow because the man is NOT six-two and built like a brick outhouse. Sooner or later I think she’ll figure it all out, though. I hope. But it just happened a few days ago. She was to stay with him for two weeks—through Valentine’s Day before she returned. She stayed exactly forty-eight hours—in a hotel—crying—before she came home.

When you’re searching for love it just seems like the playing field is littered with mines just waiting to blow up in your face. We’ve all had our heart broken at one time or another. It happens. You can’t make someone love you. And sometimes you can develop feelings for someone they don’t return. All of that is understandable. But when someone lies to you, treats you badly just because they can? Well, that’s a whole different kind of heartbreak, isn’t it. The former you can get over eventually and chalk it up to experience. The latter isn’t so easy to get over. Your ability to trust just isn’t the same, making it harder to get back up on that horse and try again. But most people do try again. There is always that little flame burning inside of us that can’t quite let the chance at love go by. That’s where all that frog-kissing comes into play I guess. And boy some of us have kissed a helluva lot of them for sure. Lol

This Valentine’s Day you’ve got a little help with the whole love thing. On February 11^th—this coming Friday—Twelve Days of Love releases. You can read it in bed with your honey. Trust me. It’ll jumpstart your heart and a few other things as well. Lol And in addition to Twelve Days of Love, my fellow author and friend Darah Lace has a release that very same day—Bucking Hard. So you now have two books to read that are guaranteed to get your lovin’ on!

Blurb for Twelve Days of Love by Tess MacKall:

Eden Riley left her high school geek days far behind. Or so she thought. But when she returns to her hometown and comes face to face with the local heartthrob, sparks ignite like a chemistry set on crack. Super-smooth Nick Lancaster sets her nerves jangling and thrusts her libido into overdrive. But can the former geeky girl overcome her insecurities and jump his sexy bones?

Nothing suits former jock and debate team star Nick more than sparring with the one-time nerd. He’s just itching to get up close and personal with her high-velocity curves and tangle with her on the nearest bed.

With Valentine’s Day fast approaching, all bets are off when Cupid draws back his bow and Nick has only twelve days to convince Eden she belongs with him, in his heart and in his bed.

For a full excerpt, click HERE.

Blurb for Bucking Hard by Darah Lace

All her life, tomboy Bradi Kincaid has wanted two things—a career as a veterinarian in her hometown Grayson, Texas…and Mason Montgomery. Problem is, he’s her best friend and according to him she’s “one of the guys”. Convinced he’ll never see her otherwise, Bradi comes up with a sure-fire plan to get over Mason—flirt a little, dance a lot and get laid.

What Mason imagines doing to Bradi is just all kinds of wrong. But the woman on the dance floor isn’t the girl he grew up with. She’s hot and sexy and turning him on. Him and every other man in the bar. She’s also had too much to drink and is unaware of the trouble she’s inviting. He does what any friend would, he steps in, then sets out to teach her a lesson.

But before the sun rises, Mason discovers Bradi has a thing or two to teach him.

For a full excerpt, click HERE.