First, before I get into what this post is about, I want to make a Public Service Announcement. Grimspace releases in six days (officially), although it’s already out in some stores. There are a number of sites running promos, doing interviews with me, and/or giving away copies of the book. Lauren Dane, Carrie Lofty, and May, are all giving away free loot, so you’ll want to check that out. Look at my Appearances page to see where else you can find more goodness.

Moving on. Today, I’m starting a post series, which will stretch over a number of weeks. See, I got to feeling nostalgic about some of the authors I used to love when I was pretty dang young. In college, years after they came out, I glommed Kay Hooper and Fayrene Preston Loveswept novels like they were crack.

So I hunted up an online used bookstore and ordered a batch of old Fayrene Preston titles. I was curious how their awesomeness would stand up to my fond memories of them — and how an old school romance would compare to the ones we have coming out today. What would’ve changed? Would an alpha from ‘88 be different than an alpha in 2008?

Well, that’s what I’ll be talking about today.

First, let’s take a look at the cover art. (My husband was kind enough to scan the book for me. Thanks, honey!)

We have a classic clinch. Long “Dynasty” hair on the heroine; the dress looks 80s to me, especially the fabric. I think I had something like that for Homecoming in high school! Hero man has wickedly feathered hair, and he looks terribly serious about planting one on the heroine, who may have fainted at the idea of his tongue.

Great title, though. It directly references the color of the hero’s eyes.

In terms of art style, though, it’s not as dated as some covers I’ve seen. In fact, it immediately brings to mind this more modern cover; the couple has just been updated a bit.

In the Kresley Cole cover, we get grunge hair on the hero as opposed to super-feathered coif. The woman is wearing a backless dress instead of an itchy 80’s lace and lamé creation.

Interestingly enough, I do recall the gold dress on the cover from a scene in the book. So props to the Loveswept art department for paying attention to detail.

Enough about the the external, though, right? Let’s get to the meat of the book! Sapphire Lightning had a particularly unreal air, as compared to modern category romances (except possibly the Presents line, but I don’t read many of those). I think category romances today try to keep things more accessible to the everyday woman, more relatable as opposed to pure escapism.

In Sapphire Lightning, the hero is the CEO of a huge corporation, and he’s filthy rich. He comes from a prominent family, and his bitchy old grandmother is the social arbiter of all things upper-crust in the town where they live. Sounds like a Presents plot waiting to happen, right? Now all we need is a feisty, impoverished single mother to turn his world on its ear.

Well, we get a heroine who is a mother, yes. But she’s not single. She was married to his cousin, who hated his stiff and proper relatives in the States, so he ran away to Ibiza to learn to be an artist, where he met the heroine and married her. Yes, that’s the twist. She’s not poor or feisty. Her father is a renowned artist. Her husband (who died like a rock star in a plane crash) studied with dear old Dad. Her mother is a Pulitzer prize winner novelist.

The heroine herself is accomplished in every possible regard: so perfect, graceful, funny, witty, a tender, loving mother… and she’s also a famous artist in her own regard, but nobody knows her true identity because she wanted to make it on her own, not trading off the reputation of her parents. Naturally, the hero cannot help but be overwhelmed, for he has never been confronted with such a feminine paragon before.

The plot is quite delightfully over the top. Nobody in this backward little town seems to have a clue how they got on before Toni showed up to teach them the error of their ways. She makes people’s lives better just by coming into a room and smiling with her glorious topaz eyes. She organizes a carnival for impoverished and/or sick kids instead of the stuffy old ball they’ve always had before. The ladies of the town social club come to her house and she gets them drunk, so their husbands come to pick them up and everyone is happy because they all have drunken sex and the tight-hipped bitchy women are suddenly easy-going and satisfied. Thank god for liquor!

Toni only came to town to sell off her husband’s house and then she intends to head back to sun-drenched Ibiza to rear their son. The baby is more like a doorstop than an actual child; he serves to show how awesome and selfless Toni is. She’s never tired or irritable or covered in spit.

For his part, Linc makes up his mind to have Toni in a stalker-style way. He sees her on the beach and WHAM. This formerly iron-willed, self-controlled CEO is a yammering fool with sweaty palms and a stiffie that won’t quit. Since he knows everyone in the small town, he calls the realtor Toni has asked to sell her house (Linc has slept with the realtor!) and he bribes her not to list or show the house. That high-handed move immediately put my back up.

But after a while, Toni’s attraction to Linc makes her rethink selling the house. So she calls the realtor and asks her not to show the house, proving our alpha did, indeed, know the little woman better than she knew herself. I sighed.

Toni’s interactions with the hero are delightfully hilarious. I have no doubt that at 16, I would’ve found this book the height of yumminess, but now, many years later, I find it has a high cheese factor as well, all the absurd delight of a soap opera. See, the hero and heroine (Linc and Toni) go back and forth like so:

“I’ve wanted you from the first moment I saw you. Your grace, your charm, your feminine mystique. I must have you!” (Hard punishing kiss)

“No, no, no, no, no! My husband hated you! I was a bad wife to him, and I didn’t love him as I should but I’ll be a good widow, I swear. I cannot make the beast with two backs with the one man he–mmf. Mmmmmm…” (oooh, swoon! Lightning bolts in my girlie parts…)

Then there was some silly melodrama about how Linc had supposedly burned down the shed where her dead husband used to paint in secret. Kyle, the dead husband, was making a portrait of the bitchy old grandmother to win her love, but Linc spoiled all of that. Toni found a letter written by Kyle in his old papers and she couldn’t believe she had gotten down with a man who could do such a cruel thing, so she started avoiding Linc, which broke his sensitive alpha heart.

Later, Toni’s house catches on fire during the carnival (not sure why because they were up on top of a Ferris Wheel, nearly having sex), and Linc runs in to save her artwork because “nothing beautiful should ever be destroyed” and she’s like, “ZOMG, he couldn’t have burned Kyle’s paintings! He values art and beauty! He would never do that! OHNOES, what have I done?! He’ll never forgive me.”

Which I thought was sort of backward thinking. I mean, if Linc really hated Kyle, maybe he wouldn’t give a shit about his paintings. Or maybe Linc was just trying to impress the chick he wanted to keep boning until they were old and gray? So she goes to Linc and tells him about her epiphany, and he’s like, “Hmf, it’s too little, too late!” And stalks off, despite the fact he had been Hoovering her hooters up on a Ferris Wheel ten minutes before.

Anyway, it turns out that the bitchy old grandma burned down the shed because she was mad Kyle wouldn’t go to business school, and she thought if she destroyed his work, he’d get over his artsy fartsy phase.

A lot of stuff didn’t add up or make sense, but it was a fun book in a totally “Dynasty” way. They finally got together when she groveled for doubting him and proposed marriage, after turning him down numerous times. Would I say it holds up to modern romance novels? Probably not. But it was a fun trip to the past nonetheless.

What about you guys? What old favorites have you re-read that made you go, I liked this?!

Yes, dear readers, I’m doing a meme voluntarily. I found this one via random web meandering, and I don’t think I’ve done it. My version is modified from the original, which was long and boring.

Here’s the fun part. Instead of tagging people to do it on their blogs, I want you to do it with me in comments. So tag — you’re all it! Throughout the day, I’ll give out random prizes like books and gift certificates. You never know who will win or why. (Or what, for that matter.) It all hinges on my mercurial nature. Mwahahaha!

Why am I doing this? Well, I’m so excited about Grimspace’s release (and the fan mail I’ve been receiving from folks who won ARCS) that I can’t think of anything else, but I don’t want to spend ten paragraphs blathering about that. What’s squee-worthy to me might be tiresome for others, and I don’t want to bore y’all. So we’ll do this meme. Prizes awarded. Fun had by all!

Last Book Read: Chill Factor by Rachel Caine

Last CD Purchased: James Blunt, All the Lost Souls

Last Song Listened to: James Blunt, Same Mistake

Last Thing Cooked: Thai peanut noodles.

Last Thing Eaten: A nectarine.

Last Thing Bought: Marzipan for my husband.

Last Game Played: Neverwinter Nights 2

Last Delightful Surprise: The title / theme for my Corine Solomon books.

Last Embarrassing Experience: Being so nervous about having my author picture taken that the photographer asked me if I needed to take a walk to relax. It only got better when my husband examined the first shot and said, “Honey, you look like you’re about to cry in this one!” Sigh.

Last Achievement: Figuring out how to fix the end of BLUE DIABLO (formerly Corine Solomon, book 1)

Now it’s your turn. (Last means most recent, of course.) Feel free to ask about any of my answers as you do your memes, if you want more info. Let the games begin!

No, it’s not Grimspace.

Rather, I should say Annie Dean has a book coming out tomorrow. While you don’t need to have read The Average Girl’s Guide to Getting Laid to enjoy My Valentine, you might find it helpful, if only to see the full dynamic between our hero and heroine, Darnell Valentine and Maya Hanoush. In My Valentine, you’ll find out where that unresolved tension comes from.

First, here’s the blurb:

Then…

Once upon a time, a lady named Beatrice loved a dissolute lord, who gave her a child and never knew. They shared a brief, magical affair that ended at sword point. And on Valentine’s Day, after watching the man she adored breathe his last, she died for their love.

Now…

Darnell Valentine used to be a geek. His life is pretty good these days, other than the odd déjà vu and the occasional sense he’s been there and done that. He has just one significant problem — he’s been in love with Maya Hanoush forever. And she won’t give him the time of day.

But he has a funny feeling time is running out, so this year, he’ll claim Maya as his own. He somehow sees the way things should be, instead of as they are. Can a beta go alpha and teach his woman she can trust him with her very soul this time around? Only if they put the past behind them for good.

Maya Hanoush has no trouble getting men, but she can’t keep them. For reasons she doesn’t even understand, she keeps Darnell at arm’s length. Though they’ve been friends since childhood, she always feared taking the next step with him.

Lately, she’s been having crazy dreams and flashes of things she shouldn’t remember, things that never happened. She might just be losing her mind.

Ancient secrets, treachery, longing and despair lie between them, unresolved, unseen, and unsung, adding to the weight of a secret shame Maya guards like a junkyard dog.

But if she doesn’t put the pieces together in time, she’ll lose him forever. Again.

***

Sound hot? If you’re in the mood for smoky, erotic interracial paranormal / reincarnation romance, you won’t want to miss it. This goes on sale tomorrow, but I feel like giving some lucky winner a sneak peek today. So I’m holding a quickie contest. That’s right: twelve hours, no more, no less. And the lucky person who makes the 50th comment wins a copy of My Valentine. It will take skill, timing, and a touch of luck, but it should be fun!

My comments count toward the total, but I won’t win, naturally. So let’s rack ‘em up.

(You can talk about anything you want in comments, as long as you’re posting five words or more. No spamming, no random links. We’re gonna have a conversation!)

It’s been quiet here, now that I’m done traveling for a while, and I’m getting a fair bit of work done. I finished up proofs on My Valentine this week, so it’s going to formatting, and will come out on Feb 5. I don’t think I’ve ever had two releases in the same month before.

It’s been a week for firsts. Grimspace has been Klausnerized! Which is to say, she got some facts wrong. I would like to state, for the record, it is not the Conglomerate that controls interstellar travel. This part made me giggle:

This is a grand space opera in the tradition of Star Wars with a romantic subplot that adds spice to the fast-paced, character-driven story line. Readers take a glorious roller coaster ride around the Aguirre galaxy filled with alien species on worlds that seem real due to the vivid descriptions. However, with all that going for it, GRIMSPACE belongs to the kick butt heroine.

Hear that? Forget stars — I got a whole freakin’ galaxy!

Another first… I found a Grimspace ARC for sale on eBay. Now I don’t mean to dig up all the drama that was very well covered on Smart Bitches, (although if you want to rehash it, you’re welcome to) but I had to mention this. The bidding is up to $22 for a copy of Grimspace, and a new Kay Kenyon book. Mind, I’m not pimping this auction, which is why I’m not linking it. But good gosh, I didn’t think anyone really knew who I was yet. And I can’t believe anyone is willing to pay nearly double the cover cost of the book, just to read what I wrote a little early! That sort of thing is reserved for famous authors, isn’t it?

I’m amazed. I’m supposed to be outraged because it’s unethical and possibly illegal as well, at least before the release date. That doesn’t bother me quite as much as my uncorrected ARC being sold, though. There were a number of mistakes fixed before the book went to print, and I don’t enjoy thinking of a reader paying a higher price for lesser quality. I mean, the core work is the same — don’t get me wrong. But it’s not as good as it will be. I guess I’m a perfectionist.

I can’t help thinking, damn, if this eBay bidder wanted an ARC that bad, she should’ve just emailed me. I won’t be able to hook up everyone who emails me once I’m better known, but now? Yeah. This is the time to register as one of my biggest fans, get in on the ground floor, so to speak, as I’m not overwhelmed with reader contact, at this point. The fact that someone would take the time to write me a fan letter, explaining why she wants to read my book so bad? It would make a difference. I’d drop something in the mail.

So I’m puzzled and flattered at the same time while also wishing this unknown person wasn’t paying for uncorrected work. But then again, maybe she’s a huge Kay Kenyon fan, and is just buying Grimspace because it’s a package deal.

Anyway, I’ll be revising Corine Solomon, book 1, on Monday. (There’s another one for ARC collectors to covet!) In the week ahead, I’ll also be featured on Dear Author, giving away more copies of Grimspace.

 Edited to add: The Grimspace Publicity Juggernaut has started its engines. You won’t want to miss that.

And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for…

*drum roll*

Winners!**

Wendy, JSL, and Emma: email me your addresses.

**JSL’s plight moved me, so I selected her entry myself. I then picked the next two winners randomly.

I’ve been busy this week. I finished the proposal for Jax books three and four. I was writing book three, Doubleblind, until my editor slid revisions for Corine Solomon #1 my way. I hope to have a title for that soon!

And guess what? Eileen Wilks emailed me last night to let me know our workshop for RWA National in SF this year has been approved. You read that right. I’m doing a panel with Eileen Wilks, Catherine Asaro, and Cindy Hwang, called Writing–and Selling–Crossover Fiction. (It’s okay for you to be impressed; I’m impressed as heck myself.)

But wait, there’s more! I also got a box of beautiful ARCs for Grimspace this week. Who wants one?

In comments, tell me why I should hook you up with a free book**, and eight days from now, I’ll evaluate your entries and pick a winner.

**extra points will be given to those who appeal to my ego and flatter me within an inch of my life. Funny is always welcome. No credit whatsoever will be given to comments of five words of less. You’re gonna have to think on this one!

First, go read this article.

A car for $2500? Seriously? How cool is that! It will change the lives of many who could never afford the lowest price tags, and who have no credit to speak of. More importantly, they’ve made a number of changes / innovations to the way that cars are distributed. Check this out:

Just like a bicycle, it will be sold in kits that are distributed and serviced by the entrepreneurs who will assemble it for the consumer. Tata won’t elaborate, and will only say “the distribution system will be a variant from the norm. It will remove some of the layers in distribution and service.”

The dealer will build the freakin’ car for you! On site. That’s about the best thing I’ve ever heard because the guy you bought it from has nowhere to pass the buck. He can’t blame the guys in Detroit or Tijuana or wherever. It all happens on his premises.

I must note, however, that this design looks a lot like Johnny Cab from Total Recall. If I get into the back of this thing, and some robot head asks me, “Welcome to Nano Cab, where to, ma’am?” I’m probably gonna run away. Just sayin’.

Would you buy a car like this? It’s supposed to get 50 miles to the gallon, exceed all environmental standards. They’re saying that India has basically reinvented the wheel with this thing. I think it’d probably be awesome for city driving, but I dunno how it would do for long road trips.

Anyway, I have a winner to announce:

Tez Miller, come on down!

Shoot me an email, and I’ll get you hooked up with an awesome prize package.**

**author’s note: Expect me to respond after Monday. I’ll be heading out of town again at stupid o’clock in the morning. I’m spending the weekend in San Diego, where I’m gonna see friends, hang with my agent, buy books, and generally have a kickass time.

Have a great weekend, y’all!

I’m in Cancun, on vacation. I’ll write more next week, I promise.

 For now, why don’t you tell me where you’d like to go? What’s your dream vacation? Talk to me in comments and I’ll mail someone thing cool next week. Happy New Year!

As the year winds down, I can’t help but think that I’ve been beyond blessed in ‘07. I signed with a wonderful agent, made some fabulous new friends, and ‘08 promises all sorts of excitement. I hope you met all your goals for the year, and are excited about the new one to come.

I don’t have a lot to say at the moment, and this is my “off” time, where I don’t talk about myself or put myself in the spotlight more than I must. Everybody needs time to recharge — well, this is mine. So I won’t bore you with talk about what I ate for dinner today, or what I did with my family.

But this is what I ask of you: take some time to think about what you want most out of life. Do you have it? Then say thank you in whatever way is most meaningful to you. And if you don’t, how can you go about getting what you want? Maybe you need to figure out what that is, first. If you need advice, need to vent, or need a friendly, impartial ear here at the holidays, I’m listening. If not, that’s cool too.

Finally, I can’t wrap this up without announcing my big winner. I can’t tell you how touched and flattered I was by the response y’all gave to my contest. 150 comments? Holy crap! I think that might be a record. In the end, it was a close race, but LAURA J. wanted it most. She needs to email me with her address. I’ll head over to the post office later today and mail out prizes.

I wish you all the brightest season, the best of everything, and a rip-roaring New Year. I’ll see you, dear readers, in ‘08.

Give it away, give it away, give it away now.
Give it away, give it away, give it away now.
Give it away, give it away, give it away now.
I can’t tell if I’m a king pin or a pauper.

Can you tell me what song this comes from? You can? Then what’re you waiting for?! Because the first person who names the title and band in comments wins a special secret prize as part of my kick-ass new contest.

Ah, I see your ears have perked up. Did I say… contest? Well, of course I did.

I happen to have in my hot little hands, thanks to my wondrous editor Anne Sowards, a galley for GRIMSPACE. This little beauty arrived today via FedEx, and I cried tears of joy. (No, really, I did. Ask Lauren). So of course, in my delirious excitement, I must mail it to someone else post haste. Tis this season, right?

I’m going to make this one simple because I can’t be arsed to think up something more involved. Would you like this signed ARC? Then show me the love. No, better yet — SHOW ME THE MONEY. No pansy drawings this time — the person who comments most on this post gets the ARC. I’ll mail it right to your house, months before you could buy in stores, along with a limited edition postcard of the cover art and a special Jax magnet. Is that avarice I see gleaming in your eyes?

If it is, if you want the fierce future-love explosion of goodness otherwise known as GRIMSPACE, then your topic is music — discuss your favorite songs, bands, what you’re listening to now, what artists you miss, where are they now questions, whatever. YouTube links to songs you like are permitted, but otherwise your comment should have content (no one word posts!) and/or respond to things already being discussed.

My next entry goes up the day after Christmas, which is when I’ll announce the winner. So what are you waiting for?! On your marks, set, go!

*Sexalicious bookmark / banner design by Bettie Sharpe

The kids woke up me this morning, fighting outside my bedroom door. It was earlier than I prefer on a Sunday morning, so I wasn’t the sweet June Cleaver type of mom right then. Not that I ever am.

I didn’t say, “What do you need, darlings?” I growled, grumbled something that I’m sure was a threat, such as, “Go away, or I’ll shave you bald and give you both a sheep dip,” and then finished with, “Go eat a donut or something. Come back later.”

To nobody’s surprise, except perhaps the Siamese cat (who bears a perpetually surprised expression due to a quirk in his physiognomy), the children did not go away. They instead reduced the argument to stage whispers, which came to me in fits and starts. When I heard “…broke it…” and “…that poor dog…” I had no choice but to come out of my cave. Like any mother bear, I emerged full of righteous indignation. What the hell could they have possibly done, so early in the morning, that required my intervention?!

Damn. Why did I reproduce? And then I remembered, it was never really a plan, just something that sort of happened as an adjunct to something else (which is the best birth control the world).

I got downstairs to find the kitchen in shambles, trash lying about, dirty dishes on the table, and… they’d already eaten all the donuts. Dammit, I wanted one of those! I then discovered that the crisis was a broken water dish. That’s all. And my two children were unable to locate a suitable bowl in the cupboard on their own. Now mind you, the broken dish? Not dangerous. Just a cracked plastic container. They were reduced to helpless bickering when it came down to selecting a bowl that would tide the dog over until we got up an hour or so later.

I’ll skip all the ranting, but I did, in fact, go postal for a good ten minutes. My children can be adorable, but they’re not so much with the problem-solving. I came to myself ranting about being stranded in Austria with an ounce of weed and no passport, and then what’re they gonna do? Neither one of them had an answer.

Since I was up, I decided to finish the laundry, which only worsened my mood. I hate laundry. I hate lugging it, I hate washing it, I hate handling wet clothes. I merely dislike folding it, because at least it’s warm, soft, and good-smelling, which it assuredly isn’t before. I have my doubts that passion can thrive in any setting where you’re forced to deal with your man’s cooty-full drawers.

That took until nearly lunchtime, so I had to chivvy my brood into bathing and getting dressed. I needed to do some grocery shopping, and I thought we’d get lunch out. Well, traffic was hellacious because it’s almost time for Posada and people will be having parties every night. Service was slow at the restaurant, but we eventually got our meals, and moved on to phase two, which was shopping.

Shopping with my whole family is like something out of a Chevy Chase movie. My husband doesn’t understand that I have a system. I’ve learned the layout of the store, and I can buzz through at a dead run, grabbing this or that, and be out in twenty minutes, if I’m left to do my job. Today, it was stuff like, “Honey, where’s the cat litter? What brand do we buy…?”

Well, for the love of God, I grab it on the way out because it’s near the checkout lines. Please don’t mess with my system! It took a good fifteen minutes extra because of the family help. My son wanted to eat every sample we passed, despite the fact that we’d just eaten lunch. And the crowds were just insane. If I’d spent any longer in the store I would’ve started running people down with my buggy.

By this time I had a pounding headache. Luckily, I keep Advil in my purse, so I downed some on the way home and tried to pretend it was later than three p.m. We put away the food, and by four, I had made a run for the bedroom, which I should’ve locked. Because my husband kept coming in to “check on me” and kiss me awake, which is code for, “Honey, I love you. Please get up and deal with the children. I don’t want to be alone with them anymore. The boy has a weird look in his eye and the girl won’t stop complaining. They want me to play board games, sweetie. BOARD GAMES. For the love of God, HELP ME.”

His distress notwithstanding, I managed to milk that nap for almost three hours. I made him feed them too. Mwahahaha! My evil knows no bounds. By the time I came down, the house smelled like burning. Andres had made dinner, you see.

We watched some TV together, and I felt more or less normal again. The urge to kill had faded almost entirely. And then the guys started teasing our daughter about her stench (for those who don’t know, she’s had a cast on her foot for three weeks… she tore some ligaments in her ankle). They drove her into a high frenzy and then capped it by joking that there were probably dead bugs inside there. At that point, her hysteria wasn’t going to end unless we did something drastic.

The cast was due to come off in a couple of days anyway, so what could we do but get the tools and remove it ourselves? It took like two hours of tag-team sawing while the Simpsons played and her brother made dismemberment jokes. Dear readers, the operation was a success and the girl reports her ankle is healed. We told her not to run for another week and take special care with it until she gets used to being cast-less again. She took a normal shower for the first time in weeks and put lotion on. Now everyone is sleeping peacefully, and I’m looking forward to another day like this tomorrow.

No, we’re not the Simpsons. But we could be. So if you ever envy my glamorous writer’s life… you might wanna rethink that. I have a dog who steals my underwear and my shoes, and a cat who cries when I take a bath. I have kids. I have a husband.

Do I need to go on?

So tell me about your latest bad day. How does your family get on your nerves? I know you love them and all, but you can vent. I won’t tell. Do the holidays make it worse?

PS - Jolene needs to email me. She won the Season of Giving contest.