A Huge Thank You

Thanks to all who helped me out on the title dilemma. I gave the results of my poll to my editor and she will keep them in consideration when she meets with the Historical team next week. I feel like I’m too close to the book to make any sort of decision, so I appreciate your help!

My brain wandered south and it just occurred to me that I never announced the winner of the May contest. Oops! I drew a number from the newsletter subscribers, and Jeanne Dickson is the lucky winner! Jeanne, e-mail me your snail mail address and I’ll send you a signed copy of Her Irish Warrior and a signed copy of Julia Quinn’s When He Was Wicked. Congratulations!

I have been working on another Irish medieval idea, and I’m in that get-to-know-you phase with the characters. I don’t like outlining characters or interviewing them. I usually find out about them along the way, while I’m writing. It’s fun for me when a character suddenly does something unusual and I think–whoa! Never knew that about you.

Last night, I went out to dinner with two writer friends, Larissa Ione and Laurin Wittig. Right before I met them for dinner, I stopped by the Barnes and Noble across from the restaurant. This bookstore doesn’t carry Harlequin Historicals, so imagine my delighted surprise to find two of my books on the shelf in the “New in Romance” section. Especially considering that Her Irish Warrior is a May release and is not really supposed to be on the shelves any more (Shhh!). I spoke with one of the booksellers and got permission to sign my books. She stickered the books and kept them at her desk to be reshelved.

After dinner, we returned to the store. (How could we not? It’s a bookstore where we can stalk our books!) I found that my books were still on a cart. I wanted so badly to grab them off the cart and put them back where they were, but the clerks were all surrounding that area. Finally, Larissa and Laurin pulled a Mission Impossible and snatched both books off the cart. I, of course, pretended that I did not know them. We repositioned them in the same section they were in before (only, er….at eye level now). Heh. We’re so bad. It’s why I have such fun when we do a ladies’ night out.

We did talk about our auto-buy authors. They were shocked and appalled that I’ve never read J.R. Ward. My auto-buy authors are Susan Elizabeth Phillips, LaVyrle Spencer (before she retired), JK Rowling, and Julia Quinn. How about you? Who are the authors that could write the phone book and you’d buy them?