HelenKay Dimon

I’ve seen the cover for CAN’T STAND THE HEAT by Louisa Edwards a few times now. It totally works for me. What do you think?

In the fabulous news department: I just accepted an offer to write for Harlequin Intrigue. Yay!!!!

I don’t have any details except for a deadline, but I’m super excited. This series is much more romantic suspense-y than the books I write for Brava. It’s about the men of The Recovery Project, a top secret quasi-governmental agency that fronts as an antiques salvage operation. Their real business is finding people who do not want to be found and rescuing those who do.

So excited!!!!

Dear Author and Booksquare have stories about how Amazon has de-ranked the books of several authors it deems to have “adult content”…whatever that means. I guess “adult” is code for “inappropriate” in this context. Erotic romance, erotica and some literary titles have lost their rankings. Why does this matter? First, censorship is a bad thing. Second, for the authors who have seen their books de-ranked it’s terrible because de-ranking the books means those books don’t come up when someone does a search in books under the author’s name. It also impacts bestseller lists and a host of other Amazon functions. Basically, the authors’ books disappear in some contexts. It’s as if they don’t exist.

According to Publisher’s Weekly, Amazon is calling this a glitch. Convenient, huh? Amazing how the word “glitch” came up only after people started really complaining. If you don’t believe Amazon’s excuse – and, honestly, I don’t – there is a petition you can sign.

And for those who think this is bad but that it doesn’t impact you? Yeah, well, it does. Tomorrow the bookstore could decide that what you read and write is inappropriate and make it disappear from the search screen. Don’t think it can’t happen. James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room and Annie Proulx’s Brokeback Mountain, both kind of big books, got de-ranked. Who knows which books are next.

In case you hadn’t heard, zombies are in. Need proof? Well, according to Publishers Weekly, the guy who took Jane Austen’s work and wrote Pride and Prejudice and Zombies just scored a $575,000 deal to write two more zombie books. The next one? Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Not kidding.

The author’s name is Seth Grahame-Smith. And, yes, I think the guy is freaking brilliant.

In addition to my usual request that authors update their websites. I have a new general request of all authors: if you have a blog or a website please, please, please include an obvious and easy-to-find link to your books. I visited a favorite author’s blog today through blogspot or some such thing and could not find a clear link to her bookshelf. I visited another author’s website after she posted a “I have a new website” email on a loop. So, I went and then got frustrated because with all the links on her spanking new website NONE of them were to her books. Grrrr…

I often wonder if I wrote about a romance heroine with the same luck I have – breaking stuff, dropping stuff, running into stuff, buying defective stuff – if anyone would find her realistic. I’m thinking I’d get a lot of the “too much stupid stuff happened to this heroine” type of reviews. Just like how I got a lot of “a casino wouldn’t lose electricty” review remarks after VIVA LAS BAD BOYS even though the idea came from an actual blackout that happened at Bellagio while I was there with my hubby a few years ago.

Today’s calamities: broken vacuum, broken bathroom fan, bra underwire incident. Ugh.

I am blogging at Access Romance, talking about one of my biggest fears and giving away a copy of IT’S HOTTER IN HAWAII.

Did that last part get your attention? If so, come on over to AR and say hello.

This turned out to be a movie watching weekend. That sounds like a good thing. Yeah, not so much.

First, we watched the second X Files movie. To borrow (and slightly modify) a line from Galaxy Quest (a movie I adore), did they ever watch the show? The X Files movie was so disconnected from everything that’s gone before…and it sucked. The plot was like a bad episode of Law and Order. Gillian Anderson looked fabulous but, otherwise, the movie was just not good.

Second, we ventured to an actual movie theater and saw Duplicity. I wanted to love this. Really. The commercials reeled me in. Clive Owen is, well, Clive Owen and there’s just nothing wrong with him. But the chemistry between Clive and Julia Roberts was wasted here. The plot was convoluted but ultimately clever. But that didn’t take away anything from the mediocrity of the movie. And I would like to point out that I didn’t like Clive’s last movie, The International, either. the lack of sparks. So sad.

Third, we stopped at Blockbuster on the way home from the movie to drop off the X Files rental and pick up Role Models. Now, I didn’t expect much from this third movie other than juvenile toilet humor. But, really, it’s much better than that. In fact, it’s pretty funny. One of my favorite character actors, Jane Lynch, is in it. She’s always good. Paul Rudd is strangely adorable. The movie works.

Off to read the newspaper…

I woke up to find an odd headline on Drudge and a link to a story with this title, Japan Aims For Walking Robot On The Moon By 2020. The photo on Drudge relating to the story is kind of priceless. Looks like a psycho Barbie or something:

And, yes, there’s a book idea in there somewhere.

I’m running a contest along with fabulous authors Alison Kent and Jill Shalvis. You can win a Sony eReader, autographed books and gift certificates.

Here are the rules:

*Copy the code beneath the graphic on the contest page, and post it to your Blog, MySpace, Facebook, Website, or anywhere contemporary romance readers visit to talk books!
*If you can’t post the graphic, talk up the contest on message boards, reader chat loops, blogs – anywhere readers who love contemporary romance hang out – and include the link to the contest page.
*Once you’ve done so, come back here and enter the contest. In the comment box, give us the URL to the page where you’ve posted the graphic, or tell us where you talked up the contest. We may not be able to read your comments, but we want to know anyway!
*Winners will be chosen at random from all completed entries. Only entries received through this website form will be considered eligible.
*International entries are accepted.
*Winners drawn and notified June 1, 2009
*Valid name, email address, street address (for mailing purposes only), and comment information required
Entering the contest grants us permission to add you to the mailing lists for HelenKay Dimon, Jill Shalvis, and Alison Kent
*Except as required by law, information will never be given to a third party.
*Neither Jill Shalvis, HelenKay Dimon, or Alison Kent will be held responsible for technical failures.

And, no, this is not an April Fool’s Day joke. It’s real. Good luck!!