Last weekend I joined Shelfari and have spent far too much time this week adding my keeper books, tagging them according to genre, choosing my Top Ten, checking out other users' shelves and building up my friends' list...because you can never have too many friends, right? I love books. I love databases. This is like manna from heaven.

There's been mention made in a number of author groups about Shelfari "spamming" in-boxes with invitations to join. I say, not Shelfari's fault. The invitations are issued at the user's say-so, although I understand how this could happen inadvertently. And I commiserate with folks who've been inundated with unwanted invitations.

So, if you're considering the Shelfari experience, a word of warning. In the sign-up process there's a screen which gives the option to send invitations to your contact/address book. If you elect to do so, Shelfari sends out the invitations. To all your email contacts. And follows up a few days later. If you value your friendships, choose the link to “skip making friends now” and do your own inviting of readers. Don't risk them thinking they've been spammed.

That's my best advice. Otherwise I'm having fun building My Shelf of favourite books. And if you are a member or do join, look me up, check out my books, say hello.

Labels: reading

There aren't a lot of authors whose upcoming releases I absolutely cannot wait for...and whose books subsequently never disappoint. Loretta Chase definitely tops the list and after reading the RT review of her May release, I want it NOW! Although not having it right now is good, because I need to be writing. And Chase's stories are not ones I can sip a chapter at a time. I tend to devour them in one sitting. I'm hoping I can put my greed for this one on hold until after my May deadline passes and my book is gone.

Here is how RT summarises the storyline of NOT QUITE A LADY.

"Many wonder why Lady Charlotte avoids marriage, turning suitors away and remaining in the country. It's because long ago she loved with great passion and was betrayed, forced to give up her newborn child. Now, she strives to be the perfect lady -- and she is until Darius Carsington takes over the property next door.

Darius prides himself on his cool head and his studies of the mating habits of animals. When he takes a woman to his bed, it is more as a study than a grand passion. But his icy demeanor begins to melt after meeting Charlotte, and he can't understand how she's immune to him. She's the challenge he's been missing, and he's intent on enticing the very good girl to be just a bit wicked. He's in for a surprise when she meets him head on, but it isn't until a young boy enters their lives that they learn the greatest lessons in love."

Are you counting down the months/weeks/days until the release of any particular book? Is there an author whose books you MUST HAVE! as soon as they're released?

Labels: Loretta Chase, reading

I love the marriage-of-convenience storyline. I was reminded how much when I treated myself to Lisa Kleypas's Devil in Winter yesterday. I chose this title pretty much on spec, and because Kleypas has rarely let me down in the past. When I opened the cover and read this excerpt, I was sold.

"It's not a love match," St. Vincent said in a clipped voice. "It's a marriage of convenience, and there's not enough warmth between us to light a birthday candle. Get on with it, if you please. Neither of us has had a proper sleep in two days."

Silence fell over the scene. Then the blacksmith's heavy brows lowered over his eyes in a scowl. "I don't like ye," he announced.

St. Vincent regarded him with exasperation. "Neither does my bride-to-be. But since that's not going to stop her from marrying me, it shouldn't stop you either. Go on."

Naturally, there turns out to be enough warmth between the unlikely couple to light that candle in a hurricane...although that doesn't surprise them as much as the fact that they do get along. The dislike doesn't last a tiresomely long time, as happens in some books (the ones that leave me wondering how long the happy-ever-after can last, when there's only lust and belatedly-professed love, but no like.) He ignites the quiet strength in a previously shy, stammering wallflower. She brings out the best in the previously indolent, spoiled rake. And that's the kind of romance I always enjoy, where character growth comes out of the relationship. Where they're both better people because of each other.

Have you read a marriage of convenience story recently? Are you a fan? Do you think they still work in contemporaries today?

Labels: marriage of convenience, reading

Hundreds of nominations have been tallied into lists of finalists in eHarlequin.com's Readers' Choice Awards for 2006. If you read lots of Harlequin books, then go take a look and cast your vote for your favorites before March 14.

Labels: awards, Harlequin, reading

I will get to the memorable read in a few, but first a quick lesson in Australian geography. A range of mountains (which, by international standards, are more akin to large hills) runs the eastern length of our country, separating the heavily populated coast from the significantly less populated interior. One of the first challenges for early European adventurers was traversing that range. From where I live (the interior) we have to cross The Great Divide to get to the beach.

(Mini lesson over.)

Crossing the mountains on Sunday, we drove past a guesthouse where mt dh and I spent a romantic weekend many years ago. We reminisced about that weekend and the convolutions that got us there. I'd booked the accommodation, booked the babysitting sister-in-law, and then Wheel of Fortune rang with an invitation for a return appearance. They were doing a Champion of Champions week. Would I be interested?

Long story short, I arranged to fly to Adelaide (South Australia) for the taping and back to Sydney from where I would catch a train to the Blue Mountains guesthouse. My dh would drive up from the other side and there we would meet. Kinda like a clandestine rendezvous. Cool and romantic.

It all worked out as planned and there I was at Sydney Central, waiting for my train. I browsed for a book to read on the several-hour journey and I picked up my very first Silhouette Desire. Title: Private Reasons. Author: Justine Davis. Why this book: I love me a romance which is also a horse story. This one featured a free-spirited heroine who ran stables and she was training this fabulous black stallion. Quite the picture she made for our hero, a starchy accountant single-father, battling to understand his rebellious (horse-loving) teenage daughter.

This book made such an impression on me. I loved the characters, the sensuality, the storyline, and I gulped it down cover-to-cover on that train trip to the mountains. I hadn't yet started writing but when I did this book, on some subconscious level, influenced the kind of books I would write. I love writing opposites-attract stories. I love giving animals/pets a secondary role. And I did write my own starchy single-dad financier and my own free-spirited heroine.

A lot of books are brilliant, wonderful, cover-to-cover, can't-put-down indulgences, but this one made such a mark I can still remember the whole story of HOW I came to read it as well as the read itself. How about you? Do you have one such memorable read, where you remember where you were and how you came to choose that book?

Labels: Australian life, holidays, reading, Silhouette Desire