Squeaking In To Say Hello

Hi everyone! I'm Claire, and I'm one of the newer Roses on the vine. I'm very excited to be here. There's a lot of great talent on this blog, a lot of even greater people, and I look forward to the future with these fine ladies.

So, I guess this is where I talk about me huh? I hate talking about me. But we'll give it a whirl.

I was published in 2008, with my first book, Seduction's Stakes, at The Wild Rose Press. I wrote it on a dare, more or less, with surprising results, and that began my publishing career in Contemporary Romance -- which was nowhere in my line of sight when I began writing. I was firmly rooted in historical with a bunch of zany paranormal authors critiqing me. (Zany authors who went on to become my closest friends, I must add.)

I write paranormal, contemporary and historical as Claire Ashgrove. I also write under the pen name Tori St. Claire. I have several releases coming from August to January, and I hope you'll check them out. Misunderstanding Mason is a novella coming this month. Immortal Hope is my passion, the culmination of a year of research, and it comes out in January.

I'm a chocoholic, a tad horse-crazy, and when I'm not writing I'm chasing my two young boys around our farm. Inevitably, the Newfy is loping around behind us, drool flinging, tail knocking out whatever's in her path, and close on her heels is any one of our other four dogs.

I look forward to meeting all of you, and sharing in the tales here on the blog. I'll be semi-absent for awhile, on my first vacation ever -- to Hawaii! And I'm really excited about that right now. So if I come back singing Island songs, just bear with me for a while. It will pass. I promise.

With all that said, I'll leave you with the "official" intro, and I'll be back at the end of the month!

~Claire
www.claireashgrove.com

Claire Ashgrove has been writing since her early teens and maintained the hobby for twenty years before deciding to leap into the professional world. Her first contemporary novel, Seduction's Stakes, sold to The Wild Rose Press in 2008, where she continues to write steamy, sexy stories for the Champagne and Black Rose lines. Adding to these critically acclaimed contemporaries, Claire’s paranormal romance series, The Curse of the Templars, will debut with Tor in January 2012. For those who prefer the more erotic side of romance, she also writes for Berkley Heat under the pen name Tori St. Claire.

Claire lives on a small farm in Missouri with her two toddler sons, fifteen horses, four cats, and five dogs. In her “free” time, she enjoys cooking, winning at rummy, studying ancient civilizations, and spending quiet moments with her family, including the critters. She credits her success to her family's constant support and endless patience.