Yesterday was opening day for one heck of an online fundraiser for the fight against diabetes, organized by romance author and mom, Brenda Novak whose son has diabetes. Brenda Novak's Annual Auction for the Cure of Diabetes--I think this is the 8th annual--runs from May 1-May 31, 2012 where hundreds of items are up for auction and all proceeds are donated to diabetes research. Many items will appeal to book-minded folks whether you're a reader, aspiring or accomplished author, as well as many other kinds of items such as hand crafted jewelry and other gifts, beauty & fashion and even sports memorabilia.
Every year my friend Phyl [See Phyl's Quilts & Books!]--whose son also has diabetes--makes a donation to the auction either with an actual quilt she has made or the promise to make a custom made quilt to the winner's specifications. She's so creative and talented! I've been admiring her quilts for years now. This year, Phyl's donation is the offer to make a quilt that features up to four high resolution book covers like the one below Phyl sewed and gifted to Brenda earlier this year. Isn't it gorgeous?
Phyl has more photos of her book cover quilt on her blog at Auction time!
It's a clever and creative way to showcase your favorite books and would make a great gift, too! You can bid on Phyl's quilt offer HERE.
If this isn't your thing, that's okay! Be sure to look around for other items--there's bound to be something there that interests you.
Did you know Lisa Kleypas has a new book coming out in January 2012?
If you've followed my blog for a while, you know I'm a big fan of Lisa Kleypas, so naturally I'm super excited to hear she has another new book coming out soon!
Rainshadow Road is a contemporary romance and takes place in one of my favorite places--the Pacific Northwest. Isn't that cover just so pretty?
Needless to say, I cannot wait to read Rainshadow Road!
For a sneak peek, you can read an excerpt from Rainshadow Road on Lisa's website following this link: http://bit.ly/j5qdP8.
I'm sure Rainshadow Road will make it to your wish list once you read the excerpt, too!
NOTE: I am one of "Lisa's Divas" - a group of select fans who share info & content related to Lisa's novels and get sneak peeks & swag in return.
It seems like just yesterday that I was anxiously awaiting the release of Carolyn Crane's debut novel, Mind Games. That was back in March 2010, and now here we are only days away from the release of Carolyn's second novel Double Cross on September 28, 2010!
Double Cross is the second book in this fascinating, inventive and unique urban fantasy trilogy featuring the quirky Justine Jones. I read Mind Games back in April and found it just as creative, fun and sassy as I expected based on what I know of Carolyn's online personality and writing style.
Justine Jones is the heroine in this trilogy, and I use the word heroine loosely. Oh, she doesn't have a dark or evil side and isn't even that dangerous, really. She's just a regular kind of gal. If you consider someone with extreme hypochondria who can't keep her fears at bay as normal, that is.
Justine's extreme hypochondria is like a commodity to the eccentric and powerful mastermind Sterling Packard who takes up permanent residence in the Mongolian Delites restaurant. Talk about strange. He promises Justine relief from her extreme hypochondriac inspired fears if she joins his team of disillusionists-- a team of quirky misfits who fight the paranormal criminals in Midcity, USA.
Justine develops interesting relationships with both this disillusionist mastermind Sterling Packard and the dashing Midcity Chief of Police, Otto Sanchez all the while trying to save the relationship she has with her boyfriend Cubby and trying to figure out what the heck she's doing. Throw in cast of fellow misfit disillusionist crime fighters and you've got one mind bending whirlwind of a story.
Double Cross promises to be just as fun and fascinating as Mind Games as Justine Jones continues to wrestle with her conscience over the whole disillusionist stint while Midcity is terrorized by scary-assed serial killers.
How can you not be intrigued by The Justine Jones: Disillusionist trilogy?
Well, here's you chance to win one of FIVE copies of the upcoming release, Double Cross or one of a couple of copies of the first book in the trilogy, Mind Games!
Author Brenda Novak is hosting her 5th Annual Online Auction to Benefit Diabetes Research. The auction opens today and runs for the whole month of May. Last year, the auction raised over $250,000! Since Brenda is an author, many, if not most of the items up for auction are related to you guessed it . . . reading and writing! There are literally hundreds of items of interest for readers of ALL genres and for authors as well. For the reader, there are autographed books (including many ARCs of upcoming releases), lunch dates with authors, and other great items.
For those of you who are aspiring authors, there are even opportunities for you to bid on manuscript critiques and other evaluations related to getting published.
In addition to book related prizes to bid on, there are items such as trips, tickets to shows, autographed CDs, collectible items, paintings, and hand crafted items such as jewelry, beaded purses, and quilts. Speaking of quilts....
My blogging friend Phyl of the blog Phyl's Quilts & Books has sewn the gorgeous quilted wall art shown here that she has so generously donated to the auction. Isn't it pretty? You can see some close up photos of the details at Phyl's blog HERE.
I first 'met' Phyl last summer on my blog when I posted about my cross-stitching hobby and she popped on to comment about her love of quilting. Of course, since we both also have a passion for reading romance, our blogging friendship was sealed! Needless to say, I've been following Phyl's blog since then and hence have followed Phyl's progress on this quilt. I truly admire Phyl for putting her time, effort and love into such a beautiful piece in order to donate it to this wonderful cause. If you have ever made a handmade gift for someone, you know what it is like to be inspired by your friendship or love for that person as you spend all those hours working on the piece. You enjoy the craft even more knowing you are going to give it to someone who will cherish it forever. In this case, Phyl poured her heart into this beautiful wall art with thoughts of donating it to this auction, knowing the bids on her quilt will be funding diabetes research which will affect the lives of anyone who has diabetes. I admire the quilt as well as Phyl's giving spirit. :)
If you want to put a bid on Phyl's quilt, click HERE.
You can browse the hundreds of items by category HERE or from the sidebar of the auction website.
I noticed there is an ARC of Nalini Singh's upcoming July 2009 release Branded by Fireup for auction. I want it. :)
My friend Amy has been a romance reader for several years and has recently had a book of her own, Bound by Magic, a paranormal erotica story, published with Red Rose Publishing. She has also been writing the sequel titled Bound by Fate. In addition, she has recently finished writing a story from a different world, Spirits Unveiled which will be self published with LULU.com.
Amy has recently realized, however, that while she enjoys writing stories, she doesn't enjoy any of the parts that follow the creative writing process in order to get published. For her, the best and most rewarding part of writing--aside from the creative outlet of the writing process itself--is the feedback she gets from her friends when she shares her stories. So she has decided to leave the stress of publishing behind and focus on the fun--simply sharing her stories with her friends, which she will do on her blog Romance Book Wyrm.
Amy will be posting one chapter at a time every Monday on her blog starting today with her story Spirits Unveiled. Here is the cover art and the story blurb to whet your appetite:
Raina fears not the enemy she liberates, but a threat from her own clan. The intensity of their attraction tastes of destiny, and together they will right a terrible wrong.
In a land where people carry within themselves an animal spirit lives four clans; Bear, Wolf, Hawk and Tiger.
Darien, leader of the Wolf clan, finds himself captured and imprisoned by his enemy, the Bear clan.
Emotionally battered her entire life, Raina, daughter of the Bear clan leader, fears a forced marriage to a horrid man looming in her future. A plan forms--free the prisoner in exchange for his protection to find her safety.
Inexplicably drawn to each other, Darien struggles with his inner yearnings. They are from rival clans. Yet with every touch, every heated kiss, he is unable to deny what his body craves.
Secrets and visions are revealed and hope lies within Darien and Raina if they can only embrace who they truly are, for the Spirits have destined the two to make right a terrible wrong that took place a thousand years ago.
Sounds interesting, doesn't it? Click HERE to go read the first chapter of Spirits Unveiled now.
Be sure to join me in making Amy's blog one of your routine blog stops on Monday mornings and sample some of her work. It's free, it's fun, and what better way to start your week than with a fun and sexy read?
If you enjoy Amy's stories, you can purchase her first novella, Bound By Magic at Red Rose Publishing HERE. You can read reviews of Bound By Magic at Night Owl Romance here and at Paranormal Romance Reviews here.
Or maybe I should have used 'promoting' instead of 'pimping'?
Naaah... pimping is definitely more eye-catching! I like it. (I just hope Megan doesn't mind...). Besides, the regulars to my blog know what I mean. Other random hitters will quickly realize there is no sex for sale here at the happily ever after.
Got it? No sex for sale here! I'm just pimping (as in promoting) author Megan Hart's blog and books. Here we go....
I read a very amusing rant on Megan Hart's blog this evening about how we, the female adult of the home, have to constantly nag the other people in the house to flush the toilet, turn off the lights and pick up their stuff, etc., etc., etc.
Anyway, I got such a kick out of Megan's post. She occasionally does these neat video blogs and so I've gotten to know her voice and intonations and subtle gestures (Okay, Megan, if you read this, don't freak out... I'm not stalker material. Besides, gas is way too expensive for me to be traipsing across state lines right now, so you're safe...). So when I read Megan's written posts on her blog now, it really feels like she's just talking to me. Personal. Yeah, so I was reading the post, nodding my head, thinking, "Yup. That's my house, too!" Let me just say its pretty darned comforting to see that leaving their shizz shit strewn throughout the house isn't exclusive to my family unit, you know?
But then it got better. One of the comments-- by Sandy-- was this awesome google joke and I just had to share:
What a woman says:
This place is a mess! C’mon, you and I need to clean up. Your stuff is lying on the floor and you’ll have no clothes to wear if we don’t do laundry right now!
What a man hears:
Blah, blah, blah, blah, C’MON, blah, blah, YOU AND I, blah, blah, blah, blah, ON THE FLOOR, blah, blah, blah, blah, NO CLOTHES, blah, blah, blah, blah, RIGHT NOW.
Oh man. I wish. As long as he put his shit away first. Then he can give me all the jizz he wants.
Okaaaaay..... where was I?
Oh yeah!
I had something else from Megan's blog to share with you! She's running a contest on her blog and the prize is a free copy of her Spice novel Tempted! Go read my Tempted review and if you think it's a story you might be interested in, enter Megan's Tempted contest.
Yeah, so I read and reviewed Tempted earlier this year and liked it so much that I decided to glom Megan's backlist. Well, I haven't glommed very well yet. Since Tempted I've only bought and read her novella This Is What I Want. I have both Dirty and Broken on my wish list, though, and I've read a few great reviews on Megan's recent novella, Reason Enough, which is a story on the main characters from Dirty, so I know I'm going to end up reading that as well.
Megan's next full length Spice novel, Stranger will be available January 2009. You can get a glimpse of the sexy cover here and read an excerpt here.
