Sara Reyes | How I Attended a Sherrilyn Kenyon Signing Event...or New Friends, New Experiences

Books Included:

This week I seemed to spend half my time buying books, getting a ticket for a book signing and then standing in line and waiting for a signing. It probably was only a couple of hours but I'm sure you know what it's like to try to mesh your schedule with a family's schedule especially when there is car pooling involved!

So, here's how it worked out -- I got up before dawn and showered and dressed to leave at 6:30am to go to downtown Dallas on Tuesday, August 4th, the day BAD MOON RISING was officially released. Now in the old days with a "real job" that was my usual routine but it's been a couple of years and I only get up that early to work in my "work clothes" aka pajamas, so to be actually showered and dressed is a shocker, but I managed. Then I drove downtown barely missing the rush hour traffic and just avoiding a few of the angry drivers. Oh, yes, and the sun rose. It may have been beautiful but I was too busy trying to keep my eyes open and avoiding other motorists without the help of coffee. Sigh. After dropping off one passenger I had two hours to "kill" but I had brought my laptop and thoughts of 1) coffee and 2) WiFi danced in my head. Fortunately I found a coffee / restaurant, sadly no WiFi. So, I went in, had breakfast (with coffee, probably a full pot) and did my 'to do' list for the day.

At 8:45am I headed out to the Barnes & Noble to buy the books (Sherrilyn Kenyon's BAD MOON RISING and the BAD series) as I was the designated "buyer" and was very surprised when I got to the store and found it opening to a line of customers. All hot footing it to the SK table of books, then check out and then the Information Desk for the numbered line ticket. Organized but I was grateful for the pot of coffee in me! Finding myself as ticket line holders 16 - 20, I chatted with the CRM and was introduced to another fan who wanted to know all about our book club and "dinner" with Sherrilyn and Dianna Love scheduled lunch for the next day. We chatted and exchanged contact information. Then it was off to find an electrical outlet, a table big enough for two laptops and to see if the 'free' WiFi at BN really worked or not. Success after asking around where they hide the electrical outlets and yes, yes, the WiFi is now free and decent. Settled in for two hours of work when I get a call, my hair stylist can see me an hour early. Much rejoicing but little work done because we're now packing everything up and heading back north.

Then it was two hours as a baked potato, I am so glad I can give some people laughter in their miserable lives, chatting up in the salon and being introduced to another "reader of your stuff." Talked about the book club, Fresh Fiction and the signing the next day. Exchanged information, got nails done, hair washed and styled. The gray is gone for another couple of weeks. Then it was off to meet a business associate. More work. Then it was back down town for a sneak preview of "Julie & Julia," we even take a note book along to jot down thoughts as a review is required for this one. Then after a quick bite at the food court, we enjoy the antics of the free showing preview audience (most won their seats at radio show giveaways and didn't really have the assigned press seats they were trying to use) and watch a lovely film created from TWO books: MY LIFE IN FRANCE by Julia Child and JULIE & JULIA by Julie Powell. A great film I highly recommend it. See Gwen's review.

Read the rest and learn how to enter our Fresh Fiction contest to win the books above by clicking here

Allegra Gray | Are YOU the Heroine?

I admit it. When I think of my all-time favorite romance novels, it’s the guys I remember. Sometimes the plot. But always the guy. The heroic, fire- fighting single dad secret-billionaire with the hot bod. Or the dark, tortured soul needing redemption (still sporting, of course, the requisite hot bod. Perhaps with a few scars).

So why is it, I got to wondering, that I don’t remember the female leads as quickly? The heroines who often are just as intrepid and heroic as their male counterparts?

Because I like to become the heroine while reading. So it takes me a minute, sometimes, to remember there was a female lead (who had a name that most likely was not the same as my own).

Curious to know more? Then click here

Jennie Bentley | When life imitates art and vice versa

Last year around this time, I was getting ready to start promoting my debut, Fatal Fixer-Upper, first in the Do-It-Yourself Home Renovation mysteries from Berkley Prime Crime, featuring New York designer turned Maine renovator Avery Baker, and her boyfriend, hunky handyman Derek Ellis. The book came out in November 2008, and since then, my life has pretty much gone by at warp speed. Launching a first book was insane, and then came Thanksgiving and Christmas, before we sold one house and moved into another in January. Since then, we’ve been renovating what is our ninth house in nine years. All while we’re going about the dual businesses of real estate and writing, and while raising two boys under eleven and caring for the menagerie of pets they’ve accumulated between them.

The latest house is a brick mid-century ranch, long and low-slung, with a big picture window in the front, situated on a large lot surrounded by tall trees. Chapter 1 of Spackled and Spooked has a description that matches that one in pretty much every particular. In Spackled and Spooked, Derek and Avery are renovating just such a house. It’s a local haunted house; I thought the idea of a haunted ranch would be fun.

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Rita Herron | THE DEMONBORN: DARK HUNGER

Myths and legends and the paranormal world

When I first conceived of the idea for the Demonborn series and Dark Hunger, I knew I wanted to write about strong men, demons, crime fighters and the battle between good and evil.

Next, I needed to build my paranormal world and make it different from all the other paranormals out there. What could make mine unique -- fresh?

The answer to that for me was to write about a world that intrigued me, a setting that I felt at home with, but one that naturally lended itself to a dark, eerie atmosphere that enhanced my story lines. I also thought having the paranormal creatures appear in the normal world was even more terrifying than to have a completely fantasy world. What if demons actually existed on Earth?

Born a Southerner, spooky stories about ghosts, local legends, cemeteries, and odd things that go bump in the night filled my childhood. Since my series is a dark, gritty romantic suspense filled with evil demons and murder, my setting had to reflect that same creepy feeling.

Click here to read the rest of Rita's blog, leave a comment or enter her blog contest.

Allyson Roy | COULD YOU WRITE A BOOK WITH YOUR SPOUSE? A QUIZ!

Whenever people find out that Allyson Roy translates into a husband and wife team named Alice and Roy we get reactions from other couples as varied as: “We just luuv doing things together.” -- to -- “We’d be divorced if we tried that!”

Well, we not only made it through our second book -- BABYDOLL comes out today! -- but the first in our Saylor Oz series won a Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence in Mystery/Suspense. To celebrate, we thought it would be fun to have a little quiz aimed at assisting those of you who choose to test the waters of writing together as a couple.

Want to take the quiz? Then click here

Michele Dunaway | What works for me…

Might not work for you. It’s a concept I’ve been mulling lately as I get ready to teach another year of school, where I have to individualize learning to best reach all my students. I was thinking about this concept as I read an article in a writing magazine that said, “write every day, even if it’s for 20 minutes” and also gave other such advice as “keep a journal”.

It’s great advice, sure. But I don’t do either and I’m a published author of 21 novels. I write in big spurts, and then will go weeks and sometimes months without writing a thing. That “20 minutes” the author advises is spent doing all those things I didn’t do during that intense focus on writing.

But that’s me. My big on and off spurts are how I balance and prioritize my time, and that’s what I’ve learned works best for my life. During the school year my priority is on my family and my teaching job. Writing is third. Over the summer, I can easily make writing number two and devote 40+ hours a week to my craft.


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Sandi Shilhanek | Did the economy change your library

This week one of my Yahoo groups was discussing the newest Suzanne Brockmann book, Hot Pursuit. One of the ladies in the group was planning on buying a copy, but the store she went to wasn’t offering a discount, so she did some calling, and found a store with a discount and placed the book on hold. In her doing this she found that the store wasn’t getting as many copies of a book as they might have before the economic downturn, and it led several people to say they either didn’t read Brockmann any longer or they would be getting her book from the library.

This takes me to the next lady, who said she checked her library and they did not have any of Hot Pursuit on order. I found this interesting as I believed her to have been a very popular author, and even with funding dwindling I would have thought they would have ordered at least one copy.


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