HelenKay Dimon

Tomorrow is my birthday – yay to me! To celebrate, my hubby has planned an overnight trip to Los Angeles. Back in December 1998, we started our honeymoon in Marina del Rey before heading out to Fiji, so we kind of have a soft spot for the area. We’ll be staying at the same hotel from the first night of our honeymoon. Isn’t that cool? We plan to visit some family, eat too much, walk around and otherwise enjoy a little time together.

Hope you all have a great weekend!

You still have time. If you want to write for Kensington Brava, are thinking about writing a romance, love writing contests or whatever – enter the Brava Novella Contest. It is not too late.

During the last contest Sylvia Day wrote her entry in a short time and sent it out. I wrote mine in an hour, slept on it and sent it the next morning. We both finaled. Sylvia was the Reader’s Choice winner. We both now write for Brava.

UPDATE: Jordan Summers wrote hers in a day as well, and she won the contest the year she finaled!!! She published two novellas with Brava and now has books coming out from a whole bunch of publishers. So, see, there’s plenty of time to get yours written and in.

Really, you can do this. There is nothing to lose and everything to gain. You have until midnight central time on September 30th (Sunday). Get it done.

You always hear about how wacky authors are…and they are. This article at CNN called Real Life Plot Twists Of Famous Authors sounds as if it might give some insight into all that wackiness. Actually, some of the info is pretty tame. Some is not. Still, if you’re one of those folks who likes to know what’s happening behind the scenes, you might want to check this out. After all, can you live without knowing this:

-Horatio Alger, Jr. admitted to sexually assaulting two boys.

-Sherwood Anderson died from a toothpick in an hors d’oeuvre.

-O. Henry (William Sydney Porter) had a little problem with embezzling.

Wonder what an article on the secrets of romance authors would look like. Yeah, probably not good.

A few weeks back I asked for volunteers to red a few Avon Red books and give us their thoughts. Darlene and her hubby, Mr. Wonderful, did a he said/she said review of two Red titles here. Tammy G. took up the challenge as well.

Here are Tammy’s fabulous thoughts on Dahlia Schweitzer’s Seduce Me and the anthology If This Bed Could Talk. Huge thanks to Tammy!

The blurb for Seduce Me says:

This intimate collection of short stories explore the myriad of roles and dynamics that create our relationships––messy and needy, loving and hating, wanting to conquer and be conquered. These stories describe planned and accidental encounters, attempts to find reality and attempts to create roles. What is real? What is not? Does it matter when we’re clawing at each other in the bedroom?

Told from multiple points of view and detailing with multiple scenarios, Schweitzer tells gripping tales of a woman and her boss (who is really in control?), of a woman and a surprise gift (do clothes really make the woman?), of a man and a woman who inject desire into their relationship by not having sex, of a man who pays for the pleasure of doing your dishes in nothing at all…and many more.

Tammy says:

This is not my normal reading material. However I was amazed at this author’s gift of the different tales in this book. It has desire, multiple scenarios, masturbating, sex with same gender and sex in a cab.

Seduce Me contains twelve wonderful erotic intimate stories. The author has captured both male and female’s point of view on sex.

“At Work” – You will hear from both the male and the female, how they feel, what they are thinking with everything they do.

This book is very HOT!

____

Then we have the anthology If This Bed Could Talk. The B&N blurb doesn’t say much, only:

A trio of writers explores the allure of the deliciously wicked and brings us three tales of modern love and lust—stories guaranteed to turn up the heat!

Tammy is much more helpful. Here’s what she says about each novella:

Agent Provocateur by Liz Maverick

Vienna James was a weapons specialist, a gunrunner, a target shooter, she was captured. In Center City the Strike Policy is three crimes, three captures and it automatic execution unless you are bought on the auction block as a slave or something. That is where Vienna found herself right on the auction block it was down to the last second before Michael Kingston decided to buy her. Devlin & Michael just happen to be attending the auction when Vienna caught their eye she looked like Julia. Julia was Devlin’s fiancée whom Pierce Mackey stole and now is dead. Pierce, Devlin and Michael once were very close, but now are enemies. Michael & Devlin want to use Vienna as a weapon against Pierce. Michael is chosen to train Vienna however they happen to fall in love. Michael is now having problems knowing Pierce will be touching Vienna. Watch the sparks fly. Very Hot!

Unrequited by Kimberly Dean

Trista Christiansen has been single for eight months since her divorce. She was starting to regret her decision to go out on a date, her first one since the divorce, Cliff was a nice man, and she just didn’t want to get his hopes up. Cliff’s plan was to go to the Blue Muse (French food) but some how ended up clear across town at the Blue Moon (bar & grill). Trista was so not dressed for the Blue Moon, but they would not make it to the Blue Muse in time for their reservations, so decided to eat at the Blue Moon. After she was seated she felt a pair of eyes on her she looked around and made eye contact with her ex-brother-in-law, TY Christiansen. He looked betrayed. After all after the divorce they’d been close; he was always there for her. When Cliff took her home she found TY waiting. TY makes his intentions clear. Complete seduction. It gets really hot!

Victim of Deception by Lynn LaFleur

1910 – Aaron and Mary were in love, they had a baby girl about 5 months old, named Katie. They wanted to give Katie a brother or sister however Eva who worked at the general store wanted Aaron for herself. When she couldn’t have him, she shot Aaron and Mary then cursed them both. “You’ll be together, but will never be able to touch each other again. You’ll suffer from your lust for all eternity” Eva took Katie to raise as her own.

Present Day – Karessa Austin is Aaron and Mary’s Great, Great Granddaughter. Karessa’s Aunt Grace has died and left her an old Victorian house. She doesn’t think she needs it until she steps inside. Karessa can’t bring herself to sell it so she decides to renovate it and move in. She took to reading her Great-grandmother Katie’s diary. Katie was having doubts that her mother was her mother. Karessa had fallen in love with Maxwell Hennessey, whom she now doesn’t want anything to do with even though no one has ever been able to make her feel the way he did while making love. He tossed her love aside and chose to go after hidden treasures and became a multi-millionaire. Now there is another treasure hidden in Karessa’s home Max is after. He still loves her, she still loves him. But will she take him back or will he go after the treasure? Her Great, Great Grandmother thinks maybe if they get back together they can break the curse. Can Max give up the treasure for love this time, can they break the curse?

Thanks Tammy!!

The first book I read post-deadline was J.R. Ward’s Lover Unbound. The review of it is up at PBR right now. After writing the review, I checked out what Dear Author and others had to say about J.R. Ward’s newest. Seems some folks think Ward lost some of her luster with this installment. I understand the complaints but still feel the Ward love.

I have always insisted that if you’re looking for a huge paranormal romance, the Brotherhood books are not your answer. To me, these books are less about romance and more about what I view as a vampire family drama, sort of a Band of Brothers for vampires. In fact, I found the romance in Lover Unbound to be the least interesting and least developed aspect of the book. It was too contrived, too fast, too…something. But forgivable because the strength of Ward’s writing comes from her ability to create this huge, seemingly unwieldy world, keep it straight, build on it and move it forward. The hints of future planted in Lover Unbound prove Ward has an overall plan. I praise and adore Ward for that.

In many ways Lover Unbound is hard to talk about because the entire thing feels like a spoiler alert. Won’t even try to give a plot summary here. Read it yourself. Not sure what else to say except for what I said in an email to friends this morning: “Once again I devoured the book then looked back in stunned admiration at what Ward accomplished and how she hooked me despite significant flaws.”

That is Ward’s gift. She creates reading addiction. For that I continue to be a dedicated fan.

After I hand in a book, I wander into bookstores, get a latte and look around. This week’s wandering resulted in purchases. No surprise there since post-writing is heavy reading time. A few of my book choices this time around came from seeing covers on MySpace and then seeing the books on the table. Yes, I am the marketing department’s dream. I see something more than once and decide it will be a violation of the Laws of the Universe not to purchase it.

My first purchase was Midori By Moonlight by Wendy Nelson Tokunaga

The story goes like this:

Midori Saito’s dream seems about to come true. Too independent for Japanese society, Midori is a young woman who has always felt like a stranger in her native land. So when she falls in love with Kevin, an American English teacher, she readily agrees to leave home and start a new life with him in San Francisco—as his fiancée. Kevin seems to be the perfect man. That is, until he dumps her for his blond ex-fiancée, whom Midori never even knew existed. With just a smattering of fractured English, not much cash, and a fiancée visa set to expire in 60 days, Midori realizes she’s in for quite a struggle. Unable to face the humiliation of telling her parents she’s been jilted, she decides to go it alone, surprising even herself as she proves she will do almost anything to hang on to her “American Dream.”

This sounded different and interesting. Still not sure if I love the cover but since it grabbed my attention, I’m thinking it works.

The second book (I really bought five but only two were MySpace related) is Confessions of a Prep School Mommy Handler: A Memoir by Wade Rouse. Honestly, I picked this one up because the cover and title made me think “chick lit” and the author is a guy. Then I realized this was a memoir on a subject often covered in fiction – covered to the point of beign overdone. But, this one came from reality which made it special. Decided I wanted to read a real experience…and I had this discount coupon so that the hardcover price did not phase me.

The book is described like this:

When Wade Rouse—a rural, public school graduate who grew up more Hee Haw than Dynasty—was hired as the director of publicity at the prestigious Tate Academy, he quickly discovered his real job was to make a few of the very pretty, very rich, very mean mommies of the elite students happy.

Following a year in the life of the super rich and super spoiled, Confessions of a Prep School Mommy Handler is hilarious, heartbreaking, and deliciously catty.

Thoughts?

Today is the day. It’s the final day of the The Seventy Days of Sweat Writing Challenge. To all who participated – congratulations on your hard work! To those who followed along and are toying with the idea of giving the Sweat Challenge a try, it’s not too late because we’re doing it again.

To wrap up this Challenge, go over and do your final check in. Get inspired by the successes – big and small – of the participants. Be amazed at the progress and work accomplished by some of your writing brethren. And, don’t get discouraged if you did not meet all of your goals. Trying does count for a great deal here and continuing to write is ultimate goal.

So, take a little break and then check back in on the Sweat Challenge on October 1st to read about the next round.

Am I the only one who didn’t know the new Borders site is up and running? In case you wanted to do a search for my books (well, I did…), I saved you the trouble. You get this page of book covers and then click from there.

The more places to buy books the better.

I just turned in a single title. This one will be out in November ‘08. Sounds far away but it’s really not in publishing land. At this point, my brain is in that mushy swiss cheese state. Not attractive.

While I gather my six brain cells together to form a sentence, I thought I’d pass on the information about the Four Hot Authors For Fall as set out in Entertainment Weekly. Alison already reviewed one of these books here which proves Alison is a woman in the know. The authors are:

*The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz – Described as: “The stunning story follows a Dominican ghetto nerd growing up fat and lonely in Patterson, N.J. (Díaz’ own hometown), struggling to beat the generations-long curse that has plagued his doomed family.”

*Before I Die by Jenny Downham – A debut novel about “…16-year-old Tessa, who is dying of leukemia and wants to cram a lifetime of experience…”

*Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures by Vincent Lam – “…a collection of 12 linked stories about aspiring physicians…”

*Heartsick by Chelsea Cain – “…a well-wrought thriller starring a deliciously creepy female serial killer.”

I have Heartsick. Not sure if I’m loving the others.

Every now and then you want to read a book about a wedding. It can be a runaway bride romance or a former-boyfriend-steals-away-his-ex-before-she-can-get-married story or a matchmaking tale or something similar. To satisfy those cravings, I give you the following books I discovered through MySpace:

Once Smitten, Twice Shy by Lori Wilde. You see this cover and know there’s a bride in there somewhere, right? This is book #2 in her Wedding Veil Wishes series. The back cover goes like this:

Wedding videographer Tish Gallagher is at the end of her rope. Her business is about to go bust. She’s just spent her last buck on nonreturnable (but oh so fabulous) shoes. And her most sustainable relationship is with a pint of Haagen Dazs. So she makes a wish on the lucky wedding veil to get out of debt…and sees the man she never stopped loving, her ex-husband, secret service agent Shane Tremont. Sure, their chemistry was off-the-charts sizzling hot, but their clashes were legendary, and no amount of longing will change that.

When her dream job of recording the first daughter’s wedding appears out of the blue, Tish knows it’s her only shot to get out of the red. Just one teensy glitch: Shane is the groom. From the moment they see each other, she knows nothing’s changed–the same old black magic is still between them, as irresistible and potent as ever. But he’s promised to another and Tish has been burned before. Will she always be…ONCE SMITTEN, TWICE SHY?

Next up is a book to which all women can relate: Bad Bridesmaid: Bachelorette Brawls and Taffeta Tantrums–Tales from the Front Lines by Siri Agrell. If nothing else, check out Agrell’s website.

The publisher describes the book this way:

I just can’t have any negative energy around my wedding.” This is what Siri Agrell’s best friend told her just before kicking her out of the wedding that Agrell had spent many months—and dollars—preparing for. Her offense? It’s not that she slept with the groom, or even the best man. She didn’t get drunk at the shower. She didn’t buy the cheapest casserole dish on the registry.

Now she’s putting all that experience and fan mail to good use: like no other book on the market, Bad Bridesmaid is a hilarious tale of weddings gone wild, full of anecdotes and advice from women worldwide, and the perfect gift to get former, current, and future bridesmaids ready for action (or therapy). It’s time to give the bridesmaid back her voice, her independence, and the natural waistline that has long been hidden under layers of responsibility and badly constructed tulle!

What do you think – interesting or just guaranteed to give you tafetta flashbacks?