My Friends Rock!!
My birthday is right around the corner. Some of my good friends at work surprised me yesterday with FIFTY roses to mark my fiftieth birthday. That vase is so heavy it made the shelf above my desk sink a little. Fifty roses have a good bit of weight to them! Can you imagine my surprise at seeing this huge vase full of roses? I still get teary-eyed when I lean over to enjoy them. 🙂
AND my friend Tina Holland (author tina holland www.tinaholland.com) made me a book trailer as a present!
I’ll have a complete post about my birthday party on Thursday.
T13 / 13 Facts About the After the Crash World
My attention has been pretty well fixed on the world I’ve created for my After the Crash series for about 2 years now.I told myself that after I submitted Book 3, Tracking Tami, that I would take a two week break from writing. I submitted the manuscript on Saturday, August 13, and I haven’t actually written anything since then. But I can’t seem to let go entirely. I’ve been thinking about the man that Sky has become since he left the Pack to go work in Omaha. I’ve been considering Sherry’s fear of Stag, the wolf who has claimed her as his mate. I’ve wondered how Quill has coped with knowing that his mate is married to another man. Here are some facts about the world I’ve created.
1. The Clan is made up of descendants of Native Americans who left the reservation in South Dakota to live as their ancestors did before the reservation days. They left to isolate and protect themselves from the plagues decimating the population.
2. The Woman Killer Plague flares up again in the late spring of 2065.
3. Jelly’s full name is He Eats Jelly.
4. By the time Quill returns to the Pack after working in Omaha for a few years, Taye and Carla are the parents of two sons.
5. Glory gives birth to the Clan’s first girl baby in 30 years in January, 2066.
6. Shadow is delighted and terrified to be the father of a daughter. He wishes they would have had a few sons first so he’d have some help protecting the precious girl. But she’ll have plenty of male cousins to watch out for her.
7. Sherry Rowe is the illegitimate daughter of an African American soldier who was stationed Korea, and a Korean woman. Sherry lived with her mother in Korea until her mother died when Sherry was six. She was sent to live with her father in America, with the children he’d had by his legal American wife. Sherry never fit in with either family.
8. Unlike most of the unmarried or mated men in the Clan and Pack, Tracker is not a virgin.
9. Glory’s high school enemy Heather has become the high priestess of a cult that worships sex. I wonder if she regrets it?
10. Sky has been a naughty boy while living in Omaha, the new Sin City. It all started out innocently enough, but if Taye knew what his cousin has been up to he might not let Sky claim Rose as his mate.
11. By 2073, Omaha has some electricity as well as a municipal waterworks.
12. Shadow’s brother Jimmy White Elk dies in a bar room brawl and his widow leaves her three teenaged sons with the Clan when she remarries. She is much happier with her townie husband, but visits her sons several times a year, and they often stay for months in the winter.
13. Co-pilot Connie Mondale breaks her vow to never marry.
Paperback Copy of Sleeping With the Wolf
I have had my first book, Sleeping With the Wolf, put into print through CreateSpace. It is available through Amazon, or I believe you could ask your local bookstore to order it for you. Book 2, Wolf’s Glory, should be available by August 29. You know, I really love the ease of digital books. But as an author I have to admit that it is fun to hold my book in my hands. Here is a picture of me, Tina Holland and Laura Ficek (two lovely ladies from my critique group) and I’m the short dark haired one holding the book 🙂
I’m also offering two copies in a giveaway on GoodReads, so if you’re a member there, go enter the giveaway. If you’re not a member you might like to look into it. It’s a fun placefor book lovers.
Goodreads Book Giveaway
by Maddy Barone
Giveaway ends August 31, 2011.
See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.
And the Winner of Wolf’s Glory is …
Etal!! Congrats! I’ll be emailing you in a minute. 🙂
Thanks for entering, everyone!
Lori Foster’s Reader & Author Get Together 2011
I’ve now been to my first ever writer conference and it was great! I was afraid it might be a bit of an ordeal for me since I tend to be overwelmed by crowds, but it wasn’t like that at all. I wandered around after registering, looking for online friends, but I didn’t see anyone I knew so I sat at a table with these three lovely people.
Maureen,Wendy and her daughter Lilly were very friendly, and Wendy had even read Sleeping With the Wolf! I felt like I had made some new friends.
Later that evening I did find some Divas. It was marvelous to meet them. Now when I am online it will be even nicer because I’ll be able to put faces with names.
I didn’t know I’d have a place at the book signing table so I was totally unprepared. I was seated beside Dana Marie Bell, who was very friendly. I got a lot of great ideas about what to bring for a signing when your books are in e-format. I handed out the rest of my romance trading cards, signed a few shirts, bags and even a kindle cover.
Steph Smith, who recently moved back to Cincinnati, dropped in to say hi and have a drink. Here she is with Romance Diva Neith (Elise Logan)
I even got to meet a couple Diva’s husbands. this is Paige Tyler and her husband Paul. I really enjoyed them. 
I didn’t get half the pictures I wanted to. I met so many people that I wish I had photos of like Mary Quast and Rita Sawyer and Nalini Singh. Virginia Cavanaugh and I goofed around in the photo booth. My scanner isn’t the greatest, but here we are, being silly and having fun. It was a great weekend for me and I’m looking forward to doing it again.
Reviews
Last week, Sandy from All About Romance made a blog post about romance reviews. She was speaking specifically about how easy it is to form online friendships between authors and reviewers and how such friendships could produce a review that was not completely honest. I was interested to see it, since I’ve been thinking about reviews with my next book coming out in a couple weeks. I would far rather have an honest review than one that just said vague, nice things.
No author wants a review that goes like this: “This book was awful. The only reason I finished it was because I had to post my review of it. Take my advice and don’t waste your time or money.” This is a prefectly valid opinion of a book, and the reviewer is entitled to his or her opinion. However, a review like that isn’t helpful. As a reader I want to know what it was about the book that the reviewer found so awful. The thing they hated might be what makes me happy. The same goes for a glowing review like this: “I loved this book! I’ll be reading this author again!” To be perfectly honest, I’ll take the good review over the bad one any day, but as a reader I want to know what the reviewer did and didn’t like about a book. It helps me decide how my limited book budget will be spent.
Do you review? I don’t mean just the people who review for a site, but also those who review informally on Good Reads and Amazon and those places. If you read Sleeping With the Wolf or Wolf’s Glory and want to leave a review but hesitate to be completely honest, don’t. Hesitate, that is. If you disliked my book, say so. Please be nice about it. “This book sucked!” may describe your feelings about it, but it isn’t helpful for other readers. “This book started off good but lost steam half way through and I just never got back into the story” or “I didn’t like the heroine. She was too operfect for me to relate to” helps a reader know why it sucked for you.
A reviewer should never have to soften a review so as to not offend an author. Then it’s no longer a review but an ego-stroker. We authors can always use some ego-stroking, but a review may not be the place for it. A negative review can be hurtful, but if the reviewer is honest and resepctful, an author accepts it and moves on.
Viking Wire Weaving Jewelry
A lovely handmade necklace and matching bracelet made of sterling silver wire in the simple and elegant style popular in northern Europe from 700 to 1100 AD. This was made to be a prize in the Not Going to Conference Conference on Romance Divas. Or maybe it will go to Diva Fest at nationals. 🙂 I’ll let Cup decide.
The Weaverfields Heir by David Bridger
A new release – THE WEAVERFIELDS HEIR by David Bridger
When Kate Richards inherits a dilapidated English estate from her estranged grandfather, she finds herself thrust into a world full of hostile new family members, mysterious Romany tenants, and strange visions of “the net” – an invisible web that connects everything in the universe. Kate thinks she’s losing her sanity, but the odd family stories and disturbing tales of locals convince her that something sinister is going on at Weaverfields, while the inescapable pull of the net draws her deeper into the secrets of her new home.
But with those secrets come danger, and an old evil that refuses to let go of its hold on the net – or on Weaverfields. The only person who seems to understand is Joe, a Romany street artist with his own ties to the land. Kate and Joe must master the net before the past intrudes on the present… in very ugly ways…
Read an excerpt and buy The Weaverfields Heir at Etopia Press.
13 Things I’ve Made This Year
Time for Thursday Thirteen. Here are thirteen things I’ve made in 2011: 
1. A warm handknit balaclava for my brother.
2. A Moebius scarf/wrap for a friend.
3. A dishcloth and scrubbie for the next door neighbors.
4 & 5. A hat and scarf for me
6.The petticoat to go with my steampunk outfit
7. The bustle skirt for the steampunk outfit
8. My steampunk outfit sans hat
9 & 10. I hand dyed the yarn and hand knit the socks for a secret sister sock exchange.
11. Socks that I knit for ME!
12. Sandbags for the flood fight
13. Wall Art. The covers of my two books framed between two handcarved wolf mirrors that friends gave me as a congratulatory gift for my first release.
Her Own Best Enemy by Cynthia Justlin
In honor of Cynthia Justlin’s birthday later this week, she’s holding a $0.99 SALE on her romantic suspense, HER OWN BEST ENEMY. This is a limited time sale, so grab it while it’s cheap!
Desperate to track down her ex-husband who disappeared along with their son, Grace Stevens delves into his past and uncovers evidence of a shocking dual life. The man she thought was an ordinary computer consultant is in fact a former high-ranking Special Forces officer with unique skills in military intelligence. With nowhere to turn she is forced to plead for help from Keith King, the one man she hoped to never see again. Against her better judgment she’ll have to put her child’s fate into his hands.
Keith has officially hit rock bottom. Framed for the theft of deadly missile components, the cynical Special Forces officer is in danger of losing the only thing he can count on: his career. His one shot at clearing his name lies in locating Grace’s ex, who was working with Keith on a secret mission to take down a cutthroat military traitor. But to team up with Grace he’ll need to spend 24/7 with a woman who has every reason to hate him. Out to use each other for their own agenda, desperate mother and disillusioned soldier find they must work together to stay alive, and in the process discover that sometimes even the best of enemies fall in love.
