HelenKay Dimon

…fabulous author and awesome friend Alison Kent!!!!

It is a profoundly gleeful day in my house. It is a perfect storm of HelenKay happiness over here. See, I love college football, am a political junkie and am fascinated by true crime. And how, you ask, are these things related? Well, today is the first day of college football. In fact I am watching my undergrad alma mater (Syracuse University – go Orange!!!) play right now.* The presidential campaign just got more interesting. And I’m reading a book called FATAL JUSTICE that analyzes the Jeffrey MacDonald case and Joe McGinniss’ book about the same (FATAL VISION).

Notice how I didn’t say I was writing… Yeah, I’m doing that too. I just put aside a new idea I was working on to do a few revisions on IT’S HOTTER IN HAWAII. All is well.

*For the record, when I attended Syracuse football was an impressive thing. I even traveled to the Sugar Bowl to watch ‘em tie – yes, tie!!! – Auburn. Stupid Auburn…

The new Romantic Times came out this week. It’s the October issue. And, yes, TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT is not reviewed in it as it should be. A kind reader already emailed me to warn me. I actually knew earlier this week. It’s was a mix-up that had nothing to do with Donna, Jill and HelenKay. We were good authors and got the novellas in on time. This one was out of our hands.

The book is an October release, which means it comes out at the very end of September. Due to the printing schedule of RT, it will get a review but not until the December issue. These things happen. Rather than make you wait, I thought I’d reprint the beginning of my novella from this collection, Can You Hand Me The Tape?

Natalie just got out of a bad relationship. She escaped with her dignity…but forgot to grab the sexy tape she made for her then-(idiot) boyfriend. She turns to her ex’s legal partner to help her retrieve the item in question. But have you ever tried to ask your work enemy for a favor? Yeah, not easy.
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“I need to talk to you.” Asking anyone for help made Natalie Pritchard uncomfortable. Asking this guy made her downright twitchy.

Spencer Donovan stopped in the middle of shrugging out of his overcoat. “What are you doing here?”

She would have been offended at his tone except she asked the same question about forty times on her walk from the courthouse to Spence’s office. Her current sorry situation kept her distracted and off balance, which explained why she stood in the middle of the room with melting snow dripping down her chin and not a clue about how to begin her story.

“I followed you,” she said just jumping in instead of over-thinking the situation.

“From the garage downstairs?”

“From the courthouse.” Over several blocks, through security in lobby, up fourteen floors, past his assistant Sue, and into the private office suite. She now knew Spence was not an easy man to stalk.

“That’s almost two miles,”

He acted as if the feat were impossible. And, since it felt more like ten miles, all of them straight uphill with ice blocks for feet, she could understand his confusion.

“A bit more than two actually.”

“That explains the shoes.”

She glanced down at the hiking boots making her feet look like she wore a size fifteen or whatever size a giant wore. “They kept me from falling down on the way over here.”

“It’s snowing.”

His comment was not exactly news. “Mixed with freezing rain. Yeah.”

She lost feeling in her face ten minutes earlier. The freezing temperatures in Washington, D.C. wiped out all of her nerve endings and left behind only a wet, shivering mess. At that moment she felt strands of her hair sticking to her face and counted the lack of a mirror in the room as a small mercy.

“Did Charlie send you in to talk to me?” Spence’s dark brown eyes glanced past her and out into the empty hallway of the flashy office behind her.

Charlie Adams. The very big, very nasty and very annoying reason she now stood in a puddle in front of Spence’s desk.

“Why would you think that?”

“Charlie’s tried everything else to piss me off during the last two weeks. It was only a matter of time until he used you.” Spence sat back in his oversized black leather chair.

“No one uses me…” His words sunk into her brain. “And why would my coming here tick you off?”

“Yeah, I wonder.”
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Want to win a copy? Yeah, there are rules: (1) you have to leave a comment here about holiday books, the authors in this collection or any other relevant thing; (2) you need to read the antho and post your thoughts/a review; (3) you need to have a blog or website where you can post a review/your thoughts (whatever they are) on the antho; (4) you need to post your review/thoughts by September 15th; (5) you can only enter the contest once; and (6) you need to be a U.S. resident for this one – sorry.

I’ll pick two winners and post their names here (in an Update) by Saturday morning. Good luck!

UPDATE: I just realized that my idea of Saturday morning was probably afternoon on the East Coast. Sorry about that. I should have said morning PST. Anyway… The winners are: DINA and BRANDY. Congratulations!!! Email me with your addresses.

In the Little Slice Of Awesome Department… RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW is this week’s book club choice for DearReader.com and the Books-a-Million BAMM Book Club. Join the forum and get in on the discussion.

In the Smackdown Department… The new Author Talk video is out. This one highlights Jackie’s Kessler’s upcoming book, HOTTER THAN HELL. Hotter? Yeah, I don’t think so. Ignore the title differences because my guy in HOT AS HELL is hotter. Uh, hello? That’s obvious. Jackie is trying to win the Hot title by writing demons and stuff, but that’s just cheating. Being from Hell should not automatically make a dude hotter. Nice try, Jackie.

Here’s the video which proves, in my view, that Jackie is a trying to use her demon voodoo to win the Hot contest:

And here are the covers that settle the matter once and for all. Come on! It’s obvious. Anyone, except maybe a demon, can see my guy is far hotter.

I had one of those “woe is me” mornings. You know the ones. You wake up, start thinking that something isn’t going well and then you begin doubting. You spin until all of your thoughts are negative. Then I read the blog of romance fan and frequent commenter Angie-la. It was the ultimate reality check.

My heart goes out to Angie-la and her family. What happened is too horrible to contemplate. If you have a moment today to think about her and her family – pray, send good thoughts or whatever you believe in doing – please do it.

Proof that love makes you lose your freaking mind:

According the the Chicago Sun-Times, a bride and groom were tasered and arrested during their wedding reception. Yeah, you read that right. It’s a familiar story: bride gets drunk, police are called, couple spends wedding night in jail. Who hasn’t been to one of those?

Here’s my favorite part of the story:

Gallery co-owner Tom Burnison, however, said that, fueled by alcohol, [the reception] got out of control and potentially dangerous, including when a guest heaved a metal lamp into a plate glass window. “Calling the police was a last resort,” Burnison said.

Lamp throwing. That’s usually after the father/daughter dance and before the cutting of the cake, right?

And the couple got in trouble again two days later when the police were called on a noise complaint. The groom enjoyed a second round with a taser. There also was some talk of the groom throwing the bride down the stairs during the incident, but that charge got dropped. ‘Cause thise story isn’t bad enough without adding in some spousal violence.

Seems to me alcohol counseling might be the best gift for these two…and an anger management course for the groom. Just saying.

…unusual about this book cover:

Answer: The author’s name isn’t on the cover. The author is Aury Wallington. There’s an “About The Author” page at the end and her name shows up on an inside page, just not on the cover.

This is a tie-in novel to the tv show Heroes. Obvious, I know. Just thought I’d point it out in case anyone got lost. The idea is that someone other than Wallington created the tv show, but she’s writing the related novels. I get it. The thing I don’t get is why her name isn’t on the cover. Other tie-in authors get to have their names on the covers. Look at Lee Goldberg’s Monk books, Tod Goldberg’s Burn Notice books, Nancy Holder’s Buffy books, heck even Wallington’s OC books.

I’m sure this is some kind of the publisher insisted or the show’s creator insisted thing. Still, it’s just nice for authors to get all the credit they can. Seeing your name on a cover is one of those fabulous things. Of course, the hardcover of this book was a bestseller, so Wallington gets to celebrate that.

Today is one of those days where I don’t have a thing to say. Strange, I know. Anyone who knows me knows I like to chat. But I feel a bit rundown. No idea why. I’m not sick. Got plenty of sleep. And, really, it’s not as if I’ve been running marathons over here. I exercised (well, I did yesterday), but not to the point of exhaustion. Just normal stuff that usually gives me an energy boost. Despite all that, I feel like napping and that’s about it.

Rather than sleep – ‘tho that is tempting – I’m going to start reading this and hope the inspiration to write or do anything hits me:

Anyone else feeling the blahs? Maybe it’s just an end of summer thing.

In the I Hope This Is A Joke category…

Some publisher has an ad at Craigslist looking for individuals to ghost sign newly released books. Yep, I said ghost sign. Uh, really? Is signing that hard?

For those of us who sell 10-12 books at a booksigning on a good day this seems odd. I’m sure actual bestsellers get a bit more tired at the signing than I do, but still. Why would this ever be necessary or appropriate?

Here’s my favorite part of the ad:

Requirements:
You must be able to demonstrate your ability to precisely copy the authors’ signatures. You will have to come to our signing location in West LA to show us your ability, and will be hired on the spot if you perform well.

Well, sure. It would be an outrage to get an autographed book where the autograph looked fake. Getting one that looks real, however, is just fine. Everyone knows that.

I’m blogging at Access Romance today. Stop by and say hello.