A chuckle @ Mrs. Giggles

Today was a banner day! It started with my oversleeping by 45 minutes, so there went my morning walk. I figured then that the rest of the day would follow that path – and thankfully, I was wrong.

Rather than going down hill, things got better! I found a wonderful review for The Matchmakers in my in-box!

Amanda Haffery of Paranormal Romance.org had this to say:
"Fast-paced, characters you can believe in, romance and faerie folk....what more could you ask for?... an enticing web of passion, romance, paranormal and suspense..."
Read the full review HERE

These days, reviews tend to trickle in very slowly, so to get one only a week after release is like winning the lottery! And, to really defy the odds, this wasn’t the only one!

I found out later on today that I’d been Giggled! Now, Mrs. Giggles has a rep for being harsh on books, so I always approach her reviews with my fingers over my eyes. Lo and behold, she gave The Matchmakers a 79!

Now, I could pull out the flattering quotes from her review, like where she says: “There are plenty of humorous moments that have me chuckling out loud as Callie tries to get Nick to cooperate with her. Nick's reaction to Callie's presence is amusing too. These two are fun to read...” or where she calls the book “a fun bouncy read,” but honestly, I think I enjoyed some of her more disparaging remarks even more.

I must confess I giggled a bit myself when I read her assessment of my hero Nick as: “[a] dim-witted asshole with the handprints of a million skanky women all over his much-used body.” ROFL. Come on, that’s funny. If Calliope weren't such a sweetheart, she'd probably have called him that herself.

Even better, she suggests: “Shouldn't we, I don't know, make him spend a week or so in a decontamination chamber before we allow him to have sex with another woman?” Snarf! I’ve often thought that about many a romance hero to be honest. I suppose my Nick is no exception.

I don’t know if the review will garner me sales or turn some potential readers away, but either way, I did actually enjoy it. Thanks for the giggle, Mrs. Giggles!

OH – and one more thing – I happened by Fictionwise today, where The Matchmakers is already available, and I noticed that it is listed as Erotica. Please note – The Matchmakers is NOT erotic romance. It’s sexy, sensual romance, yes, but it’s not erotica!

The Desert Island Dilemma

Back before the school year ended, DD told me about an assignment she had for English class. Her teacher tasked a group of 14-year-olds with answering this question:

If you were to be stranded on an island forever, and could bring only three things with you, what would they be? [No boats or modes of transportation allowed.]

DD chose her two best friends and a canister of oxygen – she explained that the three of them would be laughing so hard one of them would need to be resuscitated.

At dinner we posed the question to DS, who, after some deliberation decided on a ray gun [a death ray of course], a pen disguised as a tape recorder [not to be confused with a tape recorder disguised as a pen mind you] and an endless supply of edible goop [this is a child who doesn’t even like Jell-o, so I don’t know how eating goop for the rest of his life would work out for him.]

DH was a bit more pragmatic. He said he would take a Swiss Army Knife, the Boy Scout Hand Book and an endless roll of duct tape so he could MacGuyver the hell out of that island. I guess the idea of just taking MacGuyver didn’t occur to him. Maybe if MacGuyver was female...

Anyway...I thought about it for a while and after the obvious choices: John Barrowman [so what if he’s gay?], Keanu Reeves and David Boreanaz - I decided if I really, really had to choose, I’d take: a carpenter [who looked like David Boreanaz] a chef [who looked like Keanu Reeves] and the Professor from Gilligan’s Island [who had a makeover and now looked like John Barrowman].

What [or who] would you choose for spending the rest of your days living the LOST life?

Happy Fourth!

Have a great day! We'll be working on FINALLY opening the pool today. Thanks to some amazingly wet, cool weather, we haven't had a hot day around here since...like...April.

What are your holiday plans?

Long-awaited release day!

This one's special...and it's available today from Samhain Publishing!

Two wrongs don’t make a right, but they just might make a perfect match…

Nick Garret is flypaper for females, and he likes it that way. Women stick for a while, and when it’s over they fly away. So does he. Then one rain-slick night a young woman steps in front of his pickup truck, and his jaded, cynical life takes a sharp swerve toward trouble.

Calliope did the only thing she could think to get Nick to steer his truck—and his life—in a new direction. Banished from the Fae realm for granting a wish gone bad, her punishment is an impossible task; redeem the unredeemable Nick Garret. If she fails to help him pair three couples in everlasting bliss, he’s doomed to never experience real love. And she will share his fate—as a mortal.

Nick can’t decide if this charming, exasperating woman is a dream come true, or a saucy, sexy nightmare sent to drive him insane. Yet something about her makes him want to rise to her challenge. He’ll do anything to make her stick around a while.

Besides, how much trouble can one half-naked, seemingly wingless faerie be?

Warning: This title contains sensual love scenes, mischievous Fae, removable wings and hot men in tool belts.

For more information on The Matchmakers, visit Samhain today - special price available at MBaM!

Read an excerpt here!

Ranger vs Morelli

This one is for all you Plum fans out there.

I just finished reading Finger Lickin' Fifteen, the latest in Janet Evanovich's series about disaster prone Trenton bounty hunter, Stephanie Plum. [I have no idea why this hasn't been made into a TV series, I think it would rock!]

I won't reveal any spoilers about this installment of the ongoing saga. I'll just say, I envy Ms. Evanovich's ability to keep a series going for fifteen books and to keep fans wondering will she or won't she with regards to her heroine's two equally yummy love interests.

For those of you not in the know, Ms. Plum has two gorgeous men in her life - hunky Joe Morelli, one of Trenton's finest and mysterious Carlos Manoso, aka Ranger, fellow bounty hunter and security company honcho.

One offers stability, the prospect of a home and family, a solid future - and the other offers endless adventure and sex so hot she can't even bring herself to repeat their one night stand. I know the debate runs hot on which one Stephanie should ultimately choose - but I've got to say, I'm a hands down Ranger fan. Maybe I feel that way because Stephanie is a fictional character, and therefore her life can go any way Ms. Evanovich wants it to go, so why shouldn't she have all the fun and adventure she can get? If Ms. Plum were a real person, I might be in the Morelli camp...then again...

Well, for all you fans out there, weigh in. If you could choose Ranger or Morelli, which would it be?

The end of an era x 3

This week has been a bit of a stunner on the pop-culture front. First , Tonight Show icon Ed McMahon passed away a few days ago after a long illness.

Earlier today, '70s pin-up and quintessential Charlie's Angel, Farah Fawcett, died after a two-year bout with cancer.

And just this evening, the King of Pop himself, Micheal Jackson, died suddenly from a heart attack at age 50.

I'm always struck by a mix of emotions when celebrities die. On a shallow level, it's news, it's gossip, it's that OMG moment because even though there are greater tragedies occurring all over the world at the same time, you know this will be headline news above war, injustice, crime, etc.

On a deeper level, there's the feeling that though these people were somehow removed from every day life and led almost fictionally dramatic or often charmed lives, they were still people with families who loved them and they will be mourned just as members of any family would be.

Then there's sort of a global level - it amazes me how the passing of an entertainer, an actress, a singer, even a princess, can make the whole world sort of stop for a moment. Whatever my personal opinion of a celebrity might be, I must always give them credit to have had the ability to touch so many people. To have been known and loved by millions around the world is an accomplishment in itself.

Too much knowledge is a bad thing

I’ve ruined another reader.

I didn’t plan on it. It really wasn’t intentional. I plead not guilty, even though I am. I turned my own mother into an EDITOR.

{hangs head in shame} I apologize to all you authors out there whose books my mother would have happily read without complaint. Now she’s nitpicking punctuation and it’s all my fault.

After a spirited discussion not long ago over dinner, in which Ursula took over my body and began ranting about the misuse of punctuation – the abundance of ellipses, the use of semi-colons in place of commas, the unmitigated rain of exclamation points – my mother started to analyze the books she reads.

Now she finds the misuse of punctuation as irritating as Ursula does. And she yelled at me about it.

My mother is an avid reader. [That’s where I got it from.] She buys TONS of books, most by mail order, so her postal carrier tends to glare at her house when he walks by. She reads and reads and reads. And she enjoys the vast majority of these books. She reads for the story, so up until now, the words have faded into the background for her. Then Ursula got a hold of her and bent her year about bad grammar and now she notices things wrong with the books she reads, and I get blamed for it. I would yell at Ursula, but she’s busy editing right now and she might hurt me, so I’ll just have to keep quiet about it for now.

Does your inner editor make it hard for you to enjoy reading? And is it Ursula’s fault?