Archive for July, 2008
Dear Ms. Pierce:
 You are a new to me author and I have to say that this book has me conflicted. On the one hand it contains a lot of trite writing and plot elements: the merry band of friends, their loving wives who appeared in previous stories and are now great friends, and a revenge plot. On the other, some of the scenes really contained raw emotionalism that moved me.
Lord Townsend Elliot Lidsaw, Viscount Everod, has been estranged from his family for twelve years. His father banished him after Everod and his father’s young wife, Georgette, were caught dallying in the gardens. After almost being garroted by his father, Everod left but vowed revenge. When Maura, the niece of Georgette who was responsible for tattling on Everod and Georgette, arrives in London to have a Season before marrying Everod’s brother, Everod sees his opportunity. He’ll seduce Maura, strike a blow against his family, and ruin the plans of Georgette all in one fell swoop.
Everod is presented as an angry man, ruled by his emotions which makes a revenge plot difficult to carry …
I’ve been a crappy blogger. I blame it on the hectic schedule yesterday. I volunteered at both the am and pm sessions of the literacy signing. In the pm, I served as a low tech Vanna White without the sequins as I recorded the winning raffle numbers on a white board.
There were thirty eight baskets with an average of $200 or more per basket. It was pretty impressive. All the money raised through raffles or book sales go toward literacy. It is a pretty awesome thing.
There were no thigh highs or swan hats this year. The ballroom was big, very noisy and hot. I didn’t get to see much but from what I did see, the event was a success.
There were a couple of video crews. The Today Show was there and someone with AVON on their t shirts. Am not sure what that was about. I’ll try to hunt down Julia Quinn and see if she knows.
I’m moving fairly slowly this am as a result of imbibing too much wine. I’m meeting Heather Osborn for breakfast to pitch my idea of a paranormal blog. Just kidding. About the pitch. Not the other stuff. …
Dear Ms. Fisher,
 You are one of the greatest food writers of the 20th century. But I didn’t know it when I first came across you work 2003, completely by chance, in a vacation condo in Corpus Christi. The bookshelf in the condo had a few magazines on coastal living and three books by you. That night, after I’d put my baby to sleep, I sat in the bathroom—all the other rooms were filled with snoozing relatives—and read your tightly wound account of a once-superb waiter become alcoholic and dismal, a punch-to-the-stomach tragedy in a dozen pages.
At the end of my three-day stay, I was seriously tempted to take your books home with me. I didn’t. But I never forgot the strange, stark powers of your narrative. So when I saw The Art of Eating, an omnibus collection of five of your best-known books, in early 2007, again accidentally, while looking for a copy of Larousse Gastronomique to help with my research into 19th century French cuisine, I began reading immediately.
Or rather, I began reading The Gastronomical Me, the fourth volume in The Art of Eating and your memoir, immediately, because as much …
Sarah from SB, Kassia K from Booksquare, Marcella White Campbell, aspiring romance author, and I were interviewed by The Today Show. The show will air on Friday 8:00 EST. Also interviewed were Nora Roberts and Beverly Jenkins.
That’s all my fingers can type right now.
Dear Mrs Ruff,
 Having read the glowing review of your first book at The Romance Reader, I decided to take a chance. After all, who doesn’t want to read about buff men paid lots of money to stay in buff condition while they live the American dream – getting paid to play a sport? But though I like lots of things about it, it’s not going to get as high a grade from me.
Samantha James’ introduction to her advertising company’s newest client’s employees is one lots of women might enjoy. The locker room of the Seattle Rainiers is packed with handsome men in various states of undress when Samantha is lead through on her way to meet their manager. Afterwards, he takes the time to introduce her to all the players including pitcher Jarrett Corliss. I was impressed with the fact that you don’t have any of these men act in stereotypical “get this broad out of here – women have no place in sports!” ways. They accept her as professional paid to revamp the Rainiers poor public image, to get fans interested in the team again and …
Got up early this am for real work stuff and then left to have some breakfast. Saw early birds Alyssa Day and Caridad Ferret who graciously invited me to joins them. We had buffet if you wanted to know. I had fruit and three pieces of bacon. I figure it all balances out.
Day and I exchanged some lawyer war stories and Ferrer suffered our chatter.
I’m now standing in line for Registration which has an inordinately long line for the H-Mcs. Should have chosen a different last name.
 Cotillion: a dance with elaborate steps and figures
My romance reading group is composed of eight women whose ages span a healthy quarter-century. As a group, although the membership has ebbed and flowed, we’ve met for nine years. We each have our likes, dislikes, and areas of expertise. Several members judge national romance contests from the reader’s point of view. As an author myself, I judge unpublished contests and then take tremendous delight when we come across a newly published book that I read in its first-50-page infancy.
We pick a book to read per month and over the course of these years, we’ve tried all the categories. Very few selections have been universally beloved. We also like first printings, not trusting reprints to hold to the mores of when the original was published. We’ve been to RWA National Conference booksignings, the local ones held by the closest RWA-chapter, done a stint at an Romantic Times convention, and have co-hosted, along with the local library, as many as eight area romance authors for a meet, greet, and sell.
As readers, we are jaded.
I give all this background to introduce our latest reading jump, Georgette Heyer. I …
The bathrooms at the DFW are disgusting. I felt like needed to shower after exiting.
And of course my flight is delayed for no apparent reason other than the mechanic ran off with the log book. So I am running an hour late. At least. I wouldn’t really mind but that I am rooming with some people who were kind enough to take me in tonight because the hotel had no room and I don’t want them to be kept up all hours waiting for me. That and I have a telephone hearing I have to take at 6:30 in the morning and would like some sleep.
Oh the front door is closed. We may be leaving.
We finally did leave. I watched three episodes of Dexter. Holy creepy batman. Definitely not a show to watch during meals.
I read half of the Jaz Parks book too. It is interesting but kind of confusing. There are scenes which contain several people but for much ofthe passage it is like they aren’t even there and then toward the end, they talk or take action which has me paging backwards wondering what I missed.
Am on the Bart now.
…
Dear Ms. Dahl:
 Had you not sent Dear Author the ARC of this book for review, the cheesy cover, hackneyed title, and curious cover quote from Eloisa James – “So hot the pages smoke . . . ” – would have thoroughly deterred me from picking it up on my own. Which would have been a shame, as A Rake’s Guide to Pleasure is a much better book than all of those superficial markers suggest.
Both Emma Jensen and the Duke of Somerhart are in disguise, she as a widow of body, and he as a widower of heart, two incredibly lonely people who are grieving for more losses than they can even let on to themselves. The duke, Hart (or Winterhart, as he is now casually known), has never fully recovered from an early emotional loss, a true fall into love that ended disastrously and with incredible public humiliation. Emma has lost the entirety of her family, including a thoroughly reprobate father and an uncle whom she loved and who provided what little security and happiness she had after her mother’s early death. Left with a very small inheritance, Emma remains …
Read 1 chapter of Bitten to Death. Am slightly confused but am enjoying Jaz’s bloodthirsty behavior (not literally since she is not the vamp). But then felt queasy and decided to watch the season premiere of Dexter. Watched half. Still feeling queasy. Tried yo eat somr trail mix and drink half my $1.99 pint of water. Dammit. Why didn’t I bring dramamine. Must stop for drugs at connecting flight.
Touched down. Smooth flight. Only 10 min delayed. Missed connecting flight information. Have 3g capability for the iPhone. Holy crap that is so much faster than Edge (not that most of you care).
I took a nap on the flight after trying to read and watch a shoe and feel quite good right now. Do I stop for
Dramamine or not? Can’t decide.
My in flight reading material.
1 quart bag of toiletries per traveler? Just 1. Gah. How supremely frustrating. I’m determined to carry on and not check. I hate airline travel. Why ate we the only industrialized nation without high speed rail?
Dear Ms. Thomas,
 When I read your historical romance debut, Private Arrangements, in February of this year, I was enchanted. The note I wrote in my book log reads as follows: “Excellent, excellent debut. Beautifully written and characterized, and quite different from the usual historical romance (especially in allowing a heroine to be less than saintly). My only complaint is it could have been a little longer – the ending felt a bit rushed.”
So, my anticipation level was quite high when I opened Delicious. Happily, I was not disappointed.
The story begins with this irresistible line:
In retrospect people said it was a Cinderella story.
…that line and my experience with your earlier book were enough to signal that I was in for one subversive fairy tale. And who doesn’t love a subversive fairy tale?
In 1892, Bertie Somerset unexpectedly drops dead at his Yorkshire estate. The death comes as a shock to everyone; Bertie was only 38 years old and not known to be in bad health. Among the surprised mourners are Bertie’s notorious cook and erstwhile lover, Verity Durant, and his estranged half-brother, barrister and rising politician Stuart Somerset. Bertie’s tangled and fraught relationships with both …
When I first started DearAuthor two years ago, I thought I would be just another reader blog. I had a couple of friends who had blogs (Rosario and Keishon) and I loved reading Maili’s blog (miss McVane terribly). I wanted to part of that reader network.
As DearAuthor grew, though, I began to fret about its growth. I started checking the blog’s statistics constantly, not just once a day but several times a day. I wanted to be bigger and appear higher in the google rankings. While on the one hand I was stunned and appreciative of the growth, I began to want more. The worst offshoot of the DA growth was the animosity I started to feel toward the Smart Bitch website. Around the winter of 2006, I began to resent the SB site and the SB creators tremendously.
With every accolade they received (and they have been nominated for bloggie awards, featured in Sadie Magazine, guest columns at Tango, named one of PC editor’s top blog reads and rightly so), my little green monster was fed. I would get …
Karen Scott links to a post by Lee Goldberg who linked to a post here at Dear Author. Certainly that is some kind of circle jerk, but on an interesting and important topic.
Apparently Affaire de Coeur has a policy of providing positive reviews and articles to publishers based upon the amount of page space that is purchased. Additionally, and possibly more damning (I know! what could be more damning) is that according to Goldberg:
I’ve just discovered that their advertising director, Bonny Kirby, co-owns the disgraced Light Sword Publishing company with Linda Daly (a court recently fined Kirby and Daly thousands of dollars for defrauding authors). This explains why Light Sword titles consistently got positive reviews from Affaire De Coeur and why Daly was the subject of a cover story. No reputable magazine would review books published by their advertising director…or feature her partners on the cover. It’s a sleazy, unethical conflict-of-interest.
I’ve not ever read/purchased/seen an Affaire de Coeur magazine but I have seen them quoted multiple times in books and have been in business for over 26 years. It seems that the paid review is becoming more and more commonplace. I know that …
Dear Ms. Enoch:
 I really adored After the Kiss and I was hopeful, given the prominence that Bram was given in AtK that this would be his book. However, it is not. This is the story of Lieutenant Colonel Phineas Bromley who ran away from the world and joined the Royal Dragoons in his youth because of something horrible he had done. Ten years later, Phin was going home at the request of his sister, Elizabeth, who had suggested in her last missive that their brother, Viscount Quence, was on his deathbed.
When Phineas arrives at Quence Park in East Sussux, he finds William, Viscount Quence, looking pretty hale for a chair bound individual. William was paralyzed in a riding accident that occurred, coincidentally, 10 years ago. While Elizabeth’s summons are based on false reasons, what is real is a number of strange occurrences that are taking place at Quence Park, a string of really bad luck that is threatening the estate and the heritage of the Bromley family. Elizabeth begs for him to stay without giving him the reasons why and Phin decides that he has neglected his …
Audio books will no longer be sold on cassette tapes at Hachette due to poor demand. Cassette player sales have dwindled dramatically with sales dropping from 18 million in 1994 to 480,000 in 2007. Frankly, it surprises me more that anyone is still buying a new portable cassette player.
Cassette audio books accounted for 7 percent share of the audio book market and while retailers have, for the most part, discontinued their inventory, there still is a small consumer base of libraries and truckers who keep up demand.
Via New York Times.
We are starting a new series called “If You Like” which will be hosted by various readers, authors and bloggers of Dear Author. The purpose of the post and the comments is to explore what we like about a particular iconic author and what other authors have books like the iconic author. Dr. Sarah Frantz, Assistant Professor of Literature at Fayetteville State University, and regular contributor to the awesome blog called Teach Me Tonight, is hosting  this If You Like entry on Suzanne Brockmann. Suzanne Brockmann’s latest release, Into the Fire, is the 13th book in her famed Troubleshooter series.
If you would like to host an “If You Like” post, please email me at Jane at dearauthor.com
***
Suzanne Brockmann
Once upon a time, I was browsing in a Waldenbooks and saw a two-for-one deal: Suzanne Brockmann’s The Unsung Hero came free with a re-issue of her one and only time travel, Time Enough for Love. TEFL looked intriguing, so I bought the other book so I could get it. It was intriguing, but TUH, one of the most exquisitely plotted books I’ve ever read, truly rocked …
Bloggers aren’t the only ones recounting their adventures in San Francisco. Authors do it (and have done it before bloggers even began attending). Jude keeps track of everyone at Blogging Nationals where you can find the most up to date information about RWA San Francisco such as Louisa Edwards pre-conference horror story of the hotel running out of power. Bring a flashlight, kids, and possibly an extra battery for the laptop.
Kristen Painter and others are keeping track of what the YA authors are doing. Fictionistas will be doing a series of interviews with the YA Rita finalists (both the Young Adult category and the YA books in the Best First Book category) during the week of Nationals.
Come check out what Melissa Marr, Maureen Johnson, Simone Elkeles, Kelly Parra, and Rosemary Clement-Moore have to say. And as an added bonus, if you post a comment during that week, you’ll be entered to win a totebag full of YA books from the conference! It’s that simple. The more times you post, the more times you’re entered to win, so check out each day’s interview.
Interviews will be posted from July 28-Aug 2 at www.fictionistas.blogspot.com.
And …
 Last week, Sony announced two new features to its ebook reader that makes it one of the more attractive options for ereading. First, it announced a book light overlay that mimics the LightWedge. I’ve always thought that eink devices were physically missing an important feature – a backlight. E-ink technology actually prevents a backlight so the only way to adequately light the unit is a front light. The Lightwedge-like booklight is a step in the right direction.
The second piece of news is that Sony adapted its software so that Sony Reader owners of the PR505 (second version) could now read Adobe PDFs and ePubs. This is really a seismic change because readers are NO LONGER TIED to shopping at the Sony Connect store. Readers can now buy books from Harlequin who provides every single one of its series books one month before their paper release date. Readers can purchase books from Fictionwise and take advantage of the micropay rebates or they can purchase books from BooksonBoard which often has the cheapest ebook prices around, even better than Amazon.
More importantly, Sony’s …
edited to correct city name
Dear Ms Haney,
 After a weekend spent watching “The Mummy” and “The Mummy Returns,” I was in the mood for ancient Egypt. When I saw your books listed at Fictionwise and they were offering Buywise discounts, well it was a good deal. I’m slightly confused about the order in which the series should be read but from what I can gather, you went back and wrote this book as an intro to the already established series. Correct me if I’m wrong.
I love the historical detail and agree that it’s a fine line between a) including enough – especially for a time period that’s not used often enough for readers to be familiar and comfortable with it – b) not having enough or c) going overboard. I could feel the baking heat, see the blinding sun, smell the sweat. Thank you for including reminders about the importance of religion in the lives of the characters. But lots of these characters seem fairly naive. Bak wonders that anyone could attack a woman, he marvels that anyone would be willing to risk punishment to commit murder or other serious crimes. Really? …
Welcome to First Page aka Query Saturday. Individual authors anonymously send a first page (or query) read and critiqued by the Dear Author community of authors, readers and industry others. Anyone is welcome to comment. Published authors may do so under their own name or anonymously.
Readers, though, the way that I look at it is this: Would the hook itself interest you in reading the book. If yes, what interests you and if not, what would you change to make it more appealing?
***
When Asa sidled into my office with that pinched expression on his face, I didn’t bother looking up from my laptop. “No.â€
“C’mon, Cyn. You don’t even know what I’m asking yet.â€
“Yes, I do.†I stabbed a few keys and stopped the playback on a full view of last night’s scene—not as gruesome as it could have been, but the lack of gore didn’t make the victim any less dead. “You want me to translate. And I’m busy.â€
Asa sighed. He ambled over, stopped in front of my desk and fingered the leaves of my dwarf Chinese evergreen. “Don’t you ever water this thing?â€
“It’s supposed to droop,†I snapped. Behind me, the photo printer whirred and fluttered …
Dear Ms. Teglia:
 Okay, some background about this review. I had hoped that you would send Wicked Hot as you had all of your other books but I swore I hadn’t received it and when you sent me your contribution for the DA iPhone bookshelf, I tried to hint around that I would love to read the book. Instead of offering, you replied something to the effect of can’t wait for you to see it on the shelves.
So I mentioned that I was excited about reading your book to a friend of mine and she reminded me that not only had I read it a long time ago but that I had recommended it to her. Sadly, my mind being the sieve that it is and I couldn’t find my notes on the book and had to re-read it for the review. In any event, I enjoyed it as much the second time around.
Edna is a succubus. She seduces. Steals souls. Damns people to hell. It’s her job. She got stuck with the position as a punishment …
 Caridad Ferrer is famous for many things, a few of them romance related. She’s written a RITA winner novel, Adios to My Old Life and this year she’ll be presenting at the RITAs in another vintage gown. Why another? Because last year, the fabulous Ferrer wore Maggie Gyllenhaal’s Oscar dress. Yes, I didn’t mistype that.
Caridad followed up her RITA winning book with another award nominated book, It’s Not About the Accent a book that she hopes will give readers the opportunity to “gain a greater understanding on how surface impressions are but a fraction of what makes us individual.” Good advice for all of us with RWA coming up.
***
Well, aside from the obvious, which is it’s the height of summer and I live in Florida where we have two seasons: Summer and Not Summer. Obvious aside, July’s historically been a memorable month for me. My anniversary is in July, my son was born in July, and I made my first sale in July. July 2005, to be exact and the way it happened wasn’t at all how I would’ve expected, starting with what …
MPD Enforcer 2.0 is a blog about the Memphis Police Department and run by an anonymous blogger. The blog has been critical of the MPD, citing examples of sexual harassment and prisoners’ rights violations. The MPD would like to shut down the blog and has filed a lawsuit and subpoenaed the information from AOL.
Those seeking the identity of bloggers have largely been unsuccessful in the courts and Ars Technica posits that this suit will likely meet with the same fate as the others.
For those who say that this isn’t fair, please note that there are no charges of defamation or copyright or any illegal acts that are taking place on the blog. The only alleged wrongdoing is that the blogger is anonymous. And before anyone cries, “but I have the right to face my accuser”, that only applies to you if you are charged with a crime. It’s part of the Sixth Amendment
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district where in the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law,
…
Dear Ms. Thomas,
Book two and all is still well between us. Keep this up and I’ll stay a happy woman and keep writing you nice reviews. I used to think I didn’t care for Victorian era historicals – something about the facial hair of the men and hairstyles of the women – but you’re still luring me into parlor palms and antimacassars.
I’ll admit that when I started the book, I wasn’t too sure for a while exactly what was going on. The heroine is a fallen Lady who cooks divinely, yea even unto making English people sit up and notice. I got that. She’s got an illegitimate son but he’s in a good home and being raised to be a gentleman. So far so good. Her employer just keeled over during the soup course and, what’s this?, they’d had an affair and he refused to marry her after she thought he would? And then she remains his cook for 10 years? Even after she had a ‘one night to remember all my days’ with his illegitimate half brother. Oh my. What’s going on here?
And the half brothers who used to …
All of Amazon’s activities in the last few months have resulted in nothing negative despite the bad press. Total revenue was up 41% in the second quarter. Total media sales rose 32% and net income rose 102%.
Read more at PW.
Dear Ms. Mallery:
 July, August, and September sees the release of your Keys’ Bakery sisters series. The series begins with Claire, a piano virtuoso. Claire has been estranged from her family since, well, almost forever. When she was 3 years old, she walked up to a piano and started playing and her life changed forever. She began lessons and practicing and at age 6 left the home with her grandmother to start her career as a classical pianist. When she was older, her mother left her family to be with Claire. Nicole and Jesse were left behind and Nicole, at age 12, had to be mother, daughter, and bakery worker. Jesse was the irresponsible one. They both blamed Claire for the failure of their family and want nothing to do with her.
But then Jesse calls and tells Claire that Nicole is going to have surgery and that Nicole wants Claire to come and help. Claire thinks this is a chance, an opportunity to reconnect with the only family she has. She’s also got some performance issues so running off to help her sister is …
This is really, really good news for ebook readers. The Sony Reader will now accept and read encrypted PDFs and the new ePub format. I believe that you should be able to access prior purchased Adobe PDFs and future purchases of Adobe PDF on the Sony Reader. Opening up the reader to accept other DRM’ed platforms is a big step toward making it easier for a consumer to adapt to ereading.
Via Teleread.org
Sony Reader has released a cover for the Sony Reader that contains an integrated light. It’s like the Light Wedge and runs off two AA batteries. It’s a beautifully elegant solution and I would love to see one of these suckers in person. Click on the MobileRead link to see the picture.
One thing that this shows is that Sony is listening to its customer base and that the Kindle is making Sony more competitive. The cost is $69.99.
Via MobileRead.
Dear Ms. Carlyle,
 Well, after my last letter to you, I bet you never thought I’d be writing another. I dare say you probably wanted to give me a total body paper cut and then pour lemon juice all over me. But I’m a sucker for Jane saying, “No, really, it’s good. You should read it. She didn’t back out of having Kieran be a real rake, didn’t dumb him down, didn’t pull his claws.” And as I found out, Kieran actually has a real reason for his self-destructive behavior instead of just sulking and being melodramatic for no good cause.
I did have to get past the prologue which I found to be terribly overwritten and filled to the brim with adjectives. And the fact that except for a few phrases thrown into her speech here and there, the ‘raised in France’ heroine doesn’t sound very French. I thought it odd that Xanthia would haul off a guest during her after dinner party for a private chat instead of circulating as a good hostess should. The conversation between Kieran and Gareth during the first scene at Tattersalls made me think to …
We’ve been invited to engage in a Q&A with NYT Bestselling Author, Suzanne Brockmann. Her latest TroubleShooter book is on shelves now (and is being offered with 100% micropay rebate at Fictionwise). According to the press release (which I am too lazy to rewrite), Into the Fire is “[b]rimming with thrill-chasing action, suspenseful kidnappings, and no-holds-barred passion and features Vinh Murphy who has ” been off the job battling booze, blackouts, and bumming it from shelter to shelter since an assignment left his wife, Angelina, dead. His saving grace, though, is Hannah Whitfield, an old friend and the only person from his “old†life that he turns to.”
This actually sounds interesting although I’m a bit worried about the name Vinh. Are all characters going to be having extra “h’s” in their names? I am digressing here. What I need is help with questions. Interesting questions. Not questions like “where do you get your ideas” because I know that it has been asked and answered before.
Maybe questions like – what do you think of John Edwards and the fact he was caught in the Beverly Hills Hotel visiting his secret …
Tor started a promotion to advertise it’s new blog or website (or both) a few months ago by giving away a free eBook every week. In an increased effort to draw traffic, Tor has decided to put up download links for every book in its promotion which are good until Sunday.
That’s alot of free ebooks. I’m going to download Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn for Ned. Ned’s finishing up the Lois McMaster Bujold Miles Vorkosigan series and will be looking for something to read. Not that I think Sanderson is a Bujold kind of writer (or maybe he is, as I’ve not yet read him), but he has been tapped to finish off Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series.
For romance readers, there is a download available of CT Adams and Cathy Clamp, Touch of Evil, and Patti O’Shea’s In the Midnight Hour.
The Tor site also has some gorgeous wallpapers that you can download and use as the backdrop for your computer.
Dear Ms. Medeiros:
 Although I have Heather and Velvet sitting on a bookshelf in my house, I have not yet read it. In fact, Some Like It Wicked is my very first Teresa Medeiros book. That may have been a good thing, as I really had no expectations, but it also turned into a disappointment, because the book did not at all wow me.
When we first meet Catriona Kincaid, she is dropping in – literally – on her cousin’s clandestine seduction by dashing young Naval officer Simon Westcott. Catriona is a ragged 15 year old who must suffer the cruel bullying of her cousin Alice, but who will gladly endure all the pinches and insults in the world for another moment with Simon, for whom she spends the next five years secretly pining, all the while growing into a lush and plucky Scottish beauty. Having been sent to live with her uncle and aunt after her parents were killed in Scotland by the English, Catriona harbors two secret dreams: returning to the Highlands and assisting her older brother in reclaiming their family heritage and land, and marrying the beautifully wicked Simon …
Dear Ms. Denison:
 I think I read a Janelle Denison book before. Maybe in a category format? I can’t recall. Wild for Him is the seventh book in a Wilde series. The previous six books featured Wilde family members and this one starred Ben Cabrera, a friend of Joel Wilde. I did wonder why it was Wild instead of Wilde given that all the other books had Wilde in it. I’m thinking that it had to do with Cabrera not being a Wilde family member but I confess to spending some minutes pondering this in my mind.
Ben Cabrera is a former marine who is part owner of the Elite Security Specialists bodyguard firm. Nathan Delacroix is a gubernatorial candidate who receives a threatening letter that if he doesn’t drop out of the race, the thing most precious to him will be harmed. Nothing is more precious to Nathan than his twenty-seven year old daughter, Christine. He calls on ESS to provide 24/7 bodyguard service for Christine until the election date.
Christine isn’t thrilled about the 24/7 babysitting service but she understands her father’s desires to …
Publishers’ Weekly is reporting that the Los Angeles Times is laying off two book editors and ceasing to print its Sunday book review section. If I recall correctly, LA Times started a book reviewing blog and excluded romance but included mystery, science fiction and fantasy so my feeling toward this is total apathy.
 more cat pictures
1. Label the books in a series either on the spine or on the front or both (preferably the spine if that is the only place). I.e., Kresley Cole’s Hunger Like No Other is Book 2 in the Immortals After Dark Series so it should have #2 on the spine or on the front. The first story is The Warlord Wants Forever which is part of the Playing Easy to Get anthology.
Readers need to know these things so that when they go on a glom, they can easily pinpoint the books that they are missing in the series.
2. Include a relationship chart in the beginning of every book. Most books published today are series books, all somehow related to one another. It would be very helpful if, at the front of the book, all the books in a series are identified in the way in which they are related to one another and what characters appear in which books.
I.e., in Meljean Brook’s series, the first full length story features Hugh and Lilith in Demon Angel. …
Symtio is a new “digital merchandising solution” for retailers. Essentially there are gift cards that you buy in the store which entitle you to a download of an ebook or audiobook. I’m not sure why you just don’t buy online, but it does make a decent gift idea.
Here’s a Youtube video of how the audiobook version works.
I’m doing some maintenance on the DearAuthor bookshelf for the iPhone and it will be inaccessible until further notice. Thanks guys!
While the jury is still out on the efficacy of book trailers, publishers, authors, agents and the like still crank them out like they are the best promo thing since well, blogs, I guess. The latest entry into the grab the attention of the reader and shake them down for money is the Dorchester Shomi Book Trailer Contest to be judged by the famous Stephen King.
Better than Stephen King judging the contest, in my opinion, is that the winning book trailers will be played “at a movie premiere in New York City as well as a theater in the winner’s home market.”
Read on for more
STEPHEN KING TO JUDGE SHOMI BOOK TRAILER CONTEST
Filmmakers Challenged to Synthesize Two Storytelling Media
New York, NY * July 21, 2008 * Dorchester Publishing and Circle of Seven Productions have teamed up to present a contest offering a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for amateur and professional filmmakers who also love books. Participants will create book trailers based on their favorite novel in the SHOMI series of modern-day fantasy fiction. The best trailer * as selected by internationally bestselling author Stephen King * will be shown at a movie premiere in New York City as well …
Dear Mr. Bonnamy,
 My fellow reviewers know I’m always on the lookout for historical romances that utilize the rare and unusual setting. “Hero, the Amazon” certainly does that as well as give us an Amazon for a lead character. It’s filled with adventures centered not only in and around the Mediterranean but also ranging as far as prehistoric Britain. But I have to be honest and say that it’s not what the typical female romance reader is probably looking for.
Did Amazons really exist? Lots of characters in the novel are surprised to meet one and more than one states s/he thought Amazons were only a legend. I think you do a great job of portraying how one might have acted and what her background could have been. Hero is proud of her heritage, her training and her abilities yet she also accepts the reality that she was captured in battle and has now been a slave for a decade. Life as a slave isn’t great but she’s adapted, works hard, follows the rules and has hopes for the future.
She knows she was lucky to escape death after raising …
Over at the Smart Bitches, SB Sarah blogged about the workshop that Courtney Milan is doing about wills. The workshop will take place on July 30 as part of the Beau Monde conference. This conference is in San Francisco so it fits neatly into the RWA conference schedule.
Among other things, Courtney Milan will tell you why you can’t condition the money in a will bequest on marrying another person. While this is a historical romance conference, it affects contemporary romance books as well. If I don’t see another “You must marry x person or you will not be given the millions in my estate” plot, I would be pathetically grateful.
Will related plots are possible the worst offenders of the law out there (although poorly written sports romances are right behind it). If you are thinking about writing a book featuring a will plot device, please go to this workshop and be educated.
Jonathan Karp’s* piece in the Dallas Morning News on Sunday confirms many of the feelings I have about the state of publishing today. It’s overcrowded and publishers are driven to almost gimmick like lengths to make money. (No. 5 on his list of ways to produce growth was “Cut costs, pray to the gods of movie tie-in paperback editions, or hope that one of your authors gets his or her own talk show.“)
Karp also addresses the frenzy to increase output noting that his favorite books were years in the making but that popular fiction writers have to produce at least one a year now or maybe even more.
Karp ends with noting that the barriers to entry into the publishing are declining with the rise of POD. That’s not necessarily a good thing. Thanks Kay for the link.
*Jonathan Karp is the publisher and editor-in-chief of Twelve, an imprint of Hachette Book Group.
Dear Ms. Briggs,
 Once in a while there comes a book that sweeps you off your feet, a book you fall in love with so completely that it is hard to do justice to that love in a review. Alpha and Omega and Cry Wolf made me feel that way.
Because of the way I read them — first Alpha and Omega (from the anthology On the Prowl), then Alpha and Omega again, and then again Alpha and Omega, then Cry Wolf, and then more bits and pieces of Alpha and Omega and favorite parts (which means a good portion of the book) of Cry Wolf — and because they follow the same main characters and the same romantic relationship, it is hard for me to separate the two. I am, I think, going to have to review both together.
Here I sit, bleary-eyed from lack of sleep, trying to explain the euphoric grin I’m wearing. If someone had given me a bare bones description of Alpha and Omega — “Alpha werewolf hero, sexually traumatized heroine who possesses special abilities she is unaware of, and instant attraction between mates” — I might have …
Apparently, this is the Year of Acheron and YouTube has the video to prove it. Sherrilyn Kenyon’s video book trailer is kind of scary. If the book delivers this kind of chills, it would be pretty awesome.
I mentioned recently how much I would love for publishers to move to e-arcs as it would be so much cheaper, allow for more copies to be distributed, and create a smaller ecological footprint. Another reviewer asked me the appeal of ebooks as she wasn’t quite there yet.
I think that becoming e- acclimated takes time and an open mind. If you aren’t prepared to allow yourself to take a chance with e-reading, I think that you’ll not ever like it. And I think that each reader has to be ready for the e-reading experience because it isn’t just for technogeeks like myself.
Each person’s entry into the e-market will be different. There will be some readers who will never go, tied too strongly to the paper and glue. Other readers will make the transition gradually due to various reasons, but I’ve seen, time and again, that those who do make the transition using a decent e-reading device often become e-vangelists.
Readers who read on the desktops/laptops alone will never be ebook aficionados. The constant flicker of a monitor screen tires ones’ eyes and it might seem to much like work with so many of …
Dear Mr. Strand,
 When I read the title of your book “How to Rescue a Dead Princess,” I knew you were a different kind of author. And that I had to read this book. I did and loved it and then went out and bought lots of your other books. You can thank me later but right now I want to talk about this book.
Elrod is great. His friend Scoopy is great. I bet Elrod will grow up to be the kind of guy women call “cute.” Women are more likely to marry cute guys than the class stud so Elrod just needs to be patient and get over his crush on Julie – oh and maybe stop writing bad poetry for a few years. I just hope he doesn’t name any of his children “Sludge” which I think is great for a stuffed bear to be carried around during his health class “learn to be a parent” week but maybe not such a great name for a real daughter.
And I’ll also bet that he’s going to be one of the most …
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