And the winner is…

After receiving many entries in our May contest, from all over the world, the grand prize winner is…Jonna Smith! Congratulations, Jonna! You’ll be receiving a Mother’s Day gift basket with chocolate, hand lotion, bath salts, and signed copies of Her Irish Warrior, All Night with the Boss, and Hired By the Cowboy. We hope you enjoy it! Our runner up was Sheina Alinsug who will receive signed copies of all three books. Thanks so much to everyone who entered.

One of my favorite activities at the WRW Retreat was the Annual Jeopardy game. Pictured to the left is my team, a group of historical romance writers. And let me just say, if you ever have to play a game show, get Julia Quinn on your team. She won “The Weakest Link” and proved her game show prowess for us. Pictured from left to right: Julia Quinn, Kathryn Anderson, Sophia Nash, me, Kathyrn Caskie, and (I feel like the worst sort of schmuck, but I think the last person was Sandy Rangel(?)). From the beginning, we knew the game was not going to be fair and this was emphasized over and over.

Our hostesses were Kathleen Seidel, Jennifer Enderlin, and Karen Rose Smith, pictured from left to right in their red sequined gowns. My biggest surprise was the singing portion of Jeopardy. Jennifer Enderlin came up with the category “Jews Who Rock” and the hostesses would sing the opening line and guess which Jewish singer wrote/performed the song. Shauna Summers, editor at Bantam, proved to be the most competitive person I’ve ever seen. I think she would have launched her body across the room to get the judge’s attention when she knew the answer. It was hilarious.

At the end, it got sillier and sillier until we were all cheating like crazy during Final Jeopardy. In order to ensure a win, Shauna offered everyone in the room book contracts. Needless to say, she won. Here, you can see her being hoisted in her victory chair.

Just for kicks, I’ll list two questions that were asked. See if you can guess the answers! (Answers must be in the form of questions)
1. This pair of authors, a mother and a daughter, were famous for writing “Vindication for the Rights of Women” and “Frankenstein”
2. (Name that Jewish singer. Bonus points for the song. ) “Her name was Lola . She was a show girl.”:banana:

A Book on the Shelves!

I can hardly believe it’s May and my book is now on the shelves. Wow. It’s just surreal to think about, and thrilling, too. The best part is receiving mail from strangers who have written to say they liked it. It just means the world to me. A book is so much like a child that you want to guard and protect it, and it’s nerve-wracking sending it out into the world. I need to take a field trip to Wal-Mart to photograph it on the shelves.

As I mentioned before, this past weekend was spent up in Harper’s Ferry. This was the scenery right outside my bedroom window. To make it more inspiring, Carl Sandburg slept in the same room that we did. A little literary inspiration?

Friday night was mostly for socializing and meeting up with friends. I roomed with two aspiring authors, Stephanie Buchanan and Sharon Wray, who were incredibly nice.

Donna, Natalie, and I are in the process of drawing from our pool of names to select the winner of the April contest. Hopefully we’ll be able to announce it today! We had entries from all over the world, including the Philippines and Egypt. Whoever the lucky winner is, I have lots of goodies.

And since it’s now my release month, I’ll be coming up with a May contest soon. Things have been a little crazy with teaching and my son in sports, not to mention book #3 which is due in 30 days. I’m in the middle of revisions right now, and they’re going well.

I’ll leave you with a larger photo for you to enjoy. Unfortunately large photos tend to mess up the formatting of the blog, but you’ll get the idea. Have a wonderful day!