Day Two of Celebrating…and the Giant’s Causeway

Yesterday’s winner of Lord of Sin was comment #9: Cathie! Congratulations, Cathie. E-mail me your snail mail address and I’ll put your book in the mail.

Today, up for grabs is Ex and the Single Girl by Lani Diane Rich. Just enter a comment below and I’ll draw another lucky winner for this book.

I’m still skimming the web for photographs and images for my first cover. It’s a little daunting, to say the least. I haven’t an artistic bone in my body. I will leave the decisions up to the masterful art department.

Okay, back to my Ireland blogging. On our second day in northern Ireland, we drove to the Giant’s Causeway. Along the way were breathtaking views of the coast. It was incredibly windy. Picture yourself wearing vertical hair. Yep, that’s about right. One of the more interesting castles was the remains of Dunluce castle, shown here. It’s crumbling into the sea right now, but it was originally built in the 13th century by Richard de Burgh.

When we arrived at the Causeway, we opted to take the shuttle down to the bottom of the coast. The Causeway is made of huge basalt hexagonal columns. They form a hill, similar to the old videogame Q-bert. We roamed the rocks and ventured a little closer to the huge waves. It was amazing, seeing the colors of brown and gray against the dramatic cliff. This is a picture of me at the Causeway.

Here’s one last view of the ocean along the North Atlantic coast. All I can say is, I would not want to be a fishing boat. Shipwreck city! One interesting facet of the northernmost part of Ireland is that it’s very close to Scotland. On a clear day, you can actually see Scotland from this coastline. The Scottish brogue has made its way into the languages, too. Many of the folks in this part of Ireland had Scottish phrases as part of their dialogue. I had to smile when the clerk handed me my “wee” credit card back.

Tomorrow I’ll blog about Bushmills. Feel free to post a comment to enter for a book! Thanks again to everyone who has posted their congratulations on my first sale to Harlequin. I am truly thankful to everyone for all of your support!