Friend, fellow Bron, 2007 Golden Heart winner and soon-to-be-published romantic suspense author Bronwyn Parry has been conducting an on-line survey for her PhD and it will close in the next 24 hours. If you haven't yet participated and would like to join the other 750+ respondents, hurry, hurry, hurry. The survey asks questions about participation in online communities and romance reading and book buying. The data from the survey will be very useful in understanding the ways in which romance genre readers and writers participate in and use online communities.

Such as the one I received from Harlequin's eBook boutique this week for 30% off. Add that to the 10% discount the store already gives and I just bought seven (count them, seven!!!) brand new shiny books for $20. I'm about to settle in for a lovely lazy Sunday afternoon of reading.

Labels: eBooks

Last week, when I finally put together my list of memorable category moments, I was slightly bummed to realise that I had no Lucy Walker books in my collection. She, who was my introduction to romance novels in general and category romance in particular!!! There is a reason for this, which involves my dh (and the d does not stand for dear in this case) and his propensity to "clean up the junk". In this case "the junk" was my books and he did this while I was in hospital labouring for hours and day and weeks (at least that's how I remember it) to give birth to one of his sons. (He didn't touch "my junk" every again, I might add.)

So, after posting my list of favourites I decided to google Lucy Walker to see if there'd been any recent re-releases. You never know. There weren't but what I did find was an eBay auction of a Lucy Walker collection. 30(!!!) books. Including A Man Called Masters. I was all over that and this morning I won. For less than $4. Postage and handling, of course, is ten times that amount but I don't care.

I will have back a piece of my youth, my introduction to romance novels, history and memories and nostalgia. I can't wait for the box to arrive!

Labels: category romance, eBay, Lucy Walker

Nora Roberts has won Book of the Year at the prestigious Quill awards with Angels Fall.

Check it out!

If you love words, as I do, then check out this vocabulary quiz with added humanitarian benefit. For every word you get right, 10 grains of rice is donated to a hungry person through aid agencies. 10 grains? you scoff. Well, more than 16 million grains were donated yesterday and you can add to the total while feeling virtuous about your procrastination. Warning: it is addictive. I want to crack level 42 but I. Just. Can't.

Update: ooh, ooh, I just hit 43!!!

This post has been some time in the making. It was originally inspired by this Paula Roe blog. I started my list, but then it got tooooo long and I put it aside. Then last month my mother moved houses and I decided (at my husband's pointed suggestion) to take a few (!) boxes of surplus books along to her garage/moving sale. So there I was poring (or pawing) over my collections and I found many more books to add to the list. It grew from 30ish to 50ish. I put it aside again.

A couple of weeks back Dear Author posted about category romance and I've only just found time to read all the comments. They provided a timely reminder of why I love these books so much and sent me searching for my abandoned list of favourites.

My immediate problem? Cutting back to 20. Looking over the list and rereading Paula's post, I decided to make mine about the books which made a spectacular impact as a reader or as a writer. Some illicited a light-bulb moment, some were just blow-me-away reads, others represent a particular kind of reading experience that's become a major favourite.

Imposing a one-book-per-author rule seemed like a good way to start cutting the list. Choosing one book per author, not so easy. The books I've listed might not be my favourite by that author, but how do you pick a favourite (for example) from Ruth Wind's amazing backlist? How do you choose one favourite Crusie or a Nora above all others?

So, fanfare please, for my list of 20 Memorable Category Romances. In no particular order, I might add.

1. A Man Called Masters, by Lucy Walker. I grew up on Lucy Walker's romances set in the Australian outback, often with an English heroine, always with an enigmatic hero. She was it, # one.

2. To Tame A Wild Heart, by Emma Darcy. Another outback-set romance, which I loved for the strong Aussie outback heroine and the way she took charge of her problem and set the story in motion.

3. Jezebel's Blues, by Ruth Wind (Barbara Samuel.) My introduction to her amazing writing. Brilliant use of setting--the river, Jezebel, is a major character interwoven into the story arc as well as a metaphor for character conflict.

4. Private Reasons, by Justine Davis. The first Silhouette Desire I read...or I should say devoured. Reread it recently and it's still absolutely riveting. Bonded me with the cool, stiff-suited accountant hero. Just lovely to see him unravel.

5. The Notorious Groom, by Caroline Cross. The ultimate bad-boy-meets-good-girl Desire. Gorgeously written, warm and funny and romantic.

6. The Sister Swap, by Susan Napier. I am an unashamed Napier fangirl and this book is a perfect example of how she takes a classic storyline and twists it into something original, fresh and wonderful. Oh, and then there's the dessert restaurant scene. I feel a yen to reread it right now!

7. Rhys's Redemption, by Anne McAllister. Man it was hard to choose one McAllister. This I chose because of the lesson it taught me, as a fledgling romance writer, about high-stakes motivation. Intense, emotional, lovely.

8. Hell on Wheels, by Naomi Horton. This one taught me that anything is possible and romantic--even a truckie hero and a love scene in his rig--in the hands of a masterful writer. And there's something about Horton's voice, the way she writes, that resonates with me.

9. Killian's Passion, by Barbara McCauley. Again, tough to choose one from the Secrets! miniseries but this was the first I read and it led to me glomming the rest. Plus it's just so delicious and hot and everything desirable.

10. Beth and the Barbarian, by Miranda Lee. This one is all about the guilty pleasures. A sheikh, a feisty Aussie heroine, an abduction. Arabian horses. It's the ultimate fantasy read (and I'm not even a fan of the sheikh romance.) And did I say hot?

11. Baby Down Under, by Ann Charlton. Unfortunately this is the last by Charlton (sob) whose characters are never enlisted from Romance Novel Central Casting. Nor is the conflict predictable in this unusual storyline which also paints Brisbane with loving, atmospheric detail.

12. The Tall, Dark & Eligible trilogy, by Eileen Wilks. I'm not cheating here, really, because this memorable moment is all about the trilogy. Three books, three brothers, concurrent and intertwined timelines. I didn't realise until I was doing my last bookshelf reorganisation, but I suspect this was the unconscious inspiration for my Princes of the Outback trilogy.

13. Her Forever Man, by Leanne Banks. One of my favourites of Leanne's wonderful heroes. A widower, a father, honourable, troubled, bound to do right by everyone he loved. And then there is that piano scene. Hubba.

14. Too Many Bosses, by Jan Freed. You may have noticed that most of my favourites are from the shorter lines but this is my favourite SuperRomance. Loved the characters, the situation, the scenes, the writing. Authentic and real, but without losing the romantic edge.

15. Frisco's Kid, by Suzanne Brockmann. This is probably not my favourite of the Tall, Dark & Dangerous series from a reader's perspective, but to me it was a master class in character, GMC and intertwining the internal and external. Plus I am always a sucker for a wounded alpha!

16. Live A Little, by Nancy Warren. I'm not an easy audience when it comes to humour in romance, and this particular mix of humour and heat isn't easy to pull off. One of the best cute meets ever, the dialogue is laugh out loud funny, and the interaction between h/H is hot, hot, hot.

17. Getting Rid of Bradley, by Jennifer Crusie. Speaking of LOL funny and hot. But it was eeny-meany-miney-mo deciding which Crusie to include. This came out on top because it was an early read which lead me to the brilliance of the others.

18. The McKade brothers, by Nora Roberts. Cheating, but the magic of the Roberts' trilogy (plus one, in this case) lies in the family dynamics so how could I choose one? Although lawyer Jared in that suit...yimminny.

19. The Temptation of Sean McNeil, by Virginia Kantra. Why do I love this book? Because everything worked for me. The everyman hero, the heroine-in-jeopardy, the secondary characters, the romance, the love scenes. It just all came together to press all the buttons.

20. Cullen's Bride, by Fiona Brand. Her debut and long enough to be a single title, but the emotional intensity and the tormented hero just blew me away. Plus, as the first down-under author to sell a debut down-under-set book to Silhouette, Fiona instantly became my hero.

Any on my list make your list of favourites? And if you've blogged a list, let me know. I love to see which books other readers rate as most wonderful!

Labels: category romance

Being a bit of a fan of Mr Clooney and having heard Oscar-worthy performance whisperings, I decided to take myself to see Michael Clayton on opening day at out local cinema. I love going to the movies in the daytime when everyone else is at work. Popcorn and a row all to myself, no whisperers or seat-thumpers in the row behind, and I'm a happy camper.

If you haven't heard, Michael Clayton is a legal thriller...although I think "thriller" is taking it a bit far. I'd call it legal drama, because this is a movie about character rather than plot. The movie tagline (see poster): The Truth Can Be Adjusted. A cool soundbite but not an accurate enacpsulation of the movie theme IMHO.

The setting is a corporate law firm, but Michael Clayton (Clooney's character) is a "fixer" not a litigator. A garbage man, as it were, who's sent in to fix up messy situations. He's damn good at his job, but not so good at fixing his own life. When a bipolar colleague who's defending a chemical firm against a huge class-action suit develops a conscience, Clayton is sent to fix the ensuing mess. He ends up with tough decisions to make about ethics and loyalty, and you're not sure until the last scene which choice he'll make.

I liked it--really liked it a lot--but I suspect plenty will find it too slow-paced and the plot not challenging enough. To me it was all about character, with the plot and the situations Clayton/Clooney comes up against all aimed at working that character arc. So I reckon it's a movie writers will love. Not one for the action buffs, no romance at all, you need to watch and listen and absorb. I need to see it again to work out the point of some of the scenes and character interactions and motifs; I reckon I missed significant detail even though I watched as hard as I could.

Four and a half stars.

Labels: movies

Round 2 of the 70 Days of Sweat Writing Challenge starts today. I've signed up, for incentive and motivation to get some discipline and balance in my life. I have a book due Dec 15 and since this time of year is thick with distractions I want to write every day instead of in my usual fits and starts and last-week immersion.

But I'm also challenging myself in a couple of other areas. So, my aims:

1. to write a minimum of 1000 words every day on 2 contracted books (IOW, after finishing book 1, I'm working on book 2 for the remainder of the challenge which finishes Jan 15, with an allowance for 23 days "off")
2. to exercise (walk, bike) half an hour every day
3. to resume WW points program
4. to limit internet surfing/bloghopping activities to 1 hr per day
5. to do 1 hr per day on promo (incl blogging, website updates, etc)

This week I'm starting on pts 2-5 while doing the preparatory work on the first of the books -- I'm a planner, plotter, so need the ducks lined up before diving into the pages next Monday.

Anyone else sweating with Sven?

Labels: sweating with sven

Last weekend I craved taut, tense romantic suspense but couldn't find a movie with that vibe. This weekend son #3 did the choosing. His mission: a movie we could all enjoy. We = me, dh, two sons; 4 distinct tastes; 4 different visions of what constitutes a good movie.

So.

He chose THANK YOU FOR SMOKING and, honestly, I haven't laughed so much in yonks. I'm even thinking this may shoot all the way to my Top Ten list. Loved the satire, the clever subversive humour, the use of narrator's voice--but then that could be because I loved our anti-hero narrator and protagonist, Nick Naylor (heh), charismatic spin doctor for the tobacco industry, brilliantly portrayed by Aaron Eckhardt (where has he been hiding all my life???)

Nick describes himself as "You know the guy who can pick up any girl? I'm him. On crack." But then he also introduces himself like this: "Few people on this planet knows what it is to be truly despised. Can you blame them? I earn a living fronting an organization that kills 1200 people a day. Twelve hundred people. We're talking two jumbo jet plane loads of men, women and children. I mean, there's Attila, Genghis... and me, Nick Naylor. The face of cigarettes, the Colonel Sanders of nicotine."

Loved the dialogue at the MOD Squad lunches. MOD=Merchants of Death, Nick's best mates being his colleagues working for the alcohol and gun lobbies. Nick(in narrator's voice) introduces Polly, the alcohol lobbyist, thus: "Polly works for the Moderation Council. A casual drinker by the age of 14, Polly quickly developed a tolerance usually reserved for Irish dockworkers. In our world, she's the woman that got the pope to endorse red wine."

Loved the father-son arc, loved how the storyline played out, the irony of Nick's punishment (I love me some irony!), and the satisfying end which remained true to character. Loved all the performances from the secondaries...lemme think. There's Robert Duvall as Nick's big boss, William Macy as an anti-smoking senator, Sam Elliott as the originial Marlboro Man (now with lung cancer), Katie Holmes as a cleverboots journo, Rob Lowe as a bigshot Hollywood agent (the scenes in the offices of EGO are worth the rental alone) and Adam Brody as his assistant.

Highly recommended if you appreciate smart dialogue, a clever script, great performances and humour that's heavy on the irony and not so much on the political correctness.

"We don't sell Tic Tacs, we sell cigarettes. And they're cool, available, and *addictive*. The job is almost done for us."

Labels: movies

Just received the cover of my January 08 book, the first in a super glamorous new series called DIAMONDS DOWN UNDER and I love it! I'm showing the whole spread because the scattered diamonds on the back are so pretty, although the clarity of the pic doesn't do it justice.


HIS LOVER OF TEN MONTHS.
HIS WIFE OF TEN DAYS.
HIS EX OF TEN YEARS.

Ric Perrini, chairman of Blackstone Diamonds and Sydney's sexiest bachelor, still had one elusive prize to catch... Kimberley Blackstone. Luring her back to her estranged father's company, back to her birthright, would be Ric's toughest job ever. Luring her back into his arms, his most pleasurable. Ric had laid claim to part of Kim before; this time he'd accept nothing but her total surrender...

DIAMONDS DOWN UNDER
The cut, clarity & cost of family

Labels: covers, Diamonds Down Under, Vows and a Vengeful Groom