Thursday, February 26, 2009

The wait is over!

That would be the nerve wracking wait for the first review on a new book. LOL

While busy with revisions on book 2 of the cougar series, I received notice of two reviews and that was my collective sigh of relief you heard the other day.

I'm really very excited so let me share before I burst.

"This story is hot, hot, HOT! Lucas is a Black Cougar shifter and Kira is his destined mate. This story is well-written and very sexy."

Ireadromance.com

To read the full review click here

"This is a curl-your-toes and makes-you-sweat type of fantasy novel. It is highly erotic, amazingly sensual, and just a little bit naughty."

Coffee Time Romance

To read the full review click here

Sorry my post is so short this month but here at Casa Gayle the adults are fighting the flu and the kids are taking care of us. I'm anxious for spring and warm weather so we can put the dreary sick winter behind us.

Take care,

Eliza

Friday, February 20, 2009

The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

The good is that it's almost March and I have two books hitting the shelves...yeah!! Darkness Revealed (Cezar's story) as Alexandra Ivy and Seducing the Viscount (a regency historical) as Deborah Raleigh. It's always thrilling to walk into a bookstore and catch sight of your work, although it can also be incredibly nervewracking. You just never know how people are going to react and while you do your very best to write a story you love...well, it's a crap shoot :) The bad is that it's the middle of winter and although the ice has finally melted here it is still gray and cold. Yuck. I'm sooooo ready for spring to come. If you all have any hints of chasing away the winter blues I would be extremely grateful (unless it's chocolate...I'm way too tired of my exercise bike to have to add and extra five miles!). The ugly? Well, I'm not sure if it's ugly or not, but I'm in the first stages of plotting out Salvatore's story, which means character profiles, plot diagrams, research...yada yada. My office is a mess of papers and books and the walls covered with maps and the rest of the house...oy. Spring cleaning is going to take a bull dozer!
Hope all of you are surviving winter, oh, and if you happen to catch sight of my latest release I would love to know!

Wishing for spring,
Alex

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Awards, Releases, Sales & Contests!

My turn to post today... it's been a rough few weeks with very high highs and very low lows. Typical of the publishing business, as I'm coming to learn.

So for the high points: an ARe Best Selling Author of the Year Award, two RORR Awards for two of my books - Davin's Quest and FireDrake - two Ariadne Awards nominations (please vote!), some Fantasm Award nominations (please vote here too!), a 2008 Reviewers Choice Award from eCataromance Sensual for FireDrake, and a couple of SAMMIE Awards for having books in the Top 10 Best Sellers of the Year for 2006 and 2007 as well as a Reader's Choice Award for 2008 for FireDrake.

My latest release, Rare Vintage, is currently in the #1 Best Seller position at MyBookstoreAndMore.com. If you haven't gotten your copy yet, I encourage you to check it out! It's the tale of the Master Vampire, Marc LaTour, and Kelly, the human woman destined to be his mate. She would give her to save his, but can he save her from himself?

Stella and I had a fun time running all over the Javits Convention Center here in NYC at the NY Comic Con a couple of weekends ago. It was great to see her and cool to witness the madness that is ComicCon. ;-) I've also been doing a lot of traveling to places with *gasp* no internet, which is a bummer, but otherwise having a grand old time in this cold weather.

I also sold a new book to Samhain Publishing. The title is Inferno and it's the sequel to Lords of the Were that lots of readers have been asking me about for the past year or two. I'm glad to finally get this out there (and get the readers off my back! LOL). It picks up where Lords left off, with the sexy bad boy vampire, Dante, and his fey knight friend, Duncan. They're in New York City and a pretty little lone wolf is spying on them. We begin edits shortly, so the book will probably be out this summer in ebook formats, then next year in print. I'll keep you posted, but you can check my website in a few days to catch the new page that will be going up for the book shortly.

FireDrake has been receiving a lot of awards lately and it will, in fact, be my very next print release, at the end of March. It's part of my Dragon Knights series, but it can definitely be read on its own and is meant to be the start of a new "series" of tales within the framework of the Dragon Knights world. It's a menage story featuring two knights and a gypsy spymaster who is destined to be their mate. And let's not forget the meddling dragons who fight alongside their knights! LOL. They play matchmaker in this one and do a damned fine job of it too. ;-)
FireDrake will be officially released on March 31st, but you can pre-order it now on Amazon, if you're so inclined.

I won't trouble you with the low points of the past few weeks, but believe me, they were pretty low. Unfortunately. But not to worry. I'm doing my best to keep a positive attitude and working my tail off on my next books. I have a futuristic to finish and am working on a new werecreature (bears this time) story for later in the year. Wish me luck!

Oh, and if you like to win free ebooks, visit my personal blog every Thursday this month for a new contest in my "Scorching February" promotion! Here's the link to the currently running contest. Hurry and enter! Next Thursday, there'll be something new up for grabs, so remember to visit! :)

Bianca D'Arc

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Follow me...

So I just lost an entire post. Goddamn browser. so this one is going to be a lot shorter, as im over it and cant rewrite the damn thing once again.

Feb has been pretty damn good. Great signing on the 7th, cant wait to do it again with the girls in September. Comicon was great as a fan. I got some great goodies, books and ARC's and comix and posters, and saw a bunch of great stuff including Jin from LOST and the lawyer from BSG. Yes it was fun.

(I was going to post pictures here but Yahoo and Firefox HATES me today!)

I'm not going into my issues with the publishing industry and Comi-Con except to say after sitting in on a few panels, I am convinced that there is NO ROOM for anything unique in NY publishing this year. a bunch of pubs have at least 4 books coming out about a PI that solves supernatural crimes and at least 4 UF books about a kick ass heroine that is written in the 1st person. I swear that's the majority of what is being offered for Publishing this year. Talk about flooding the market. When is NY going to get a clue that readers want other stuff?

So I have some good news, but to hear it, your going to have to follow us over to DUAL VOICES today.. Which is why this post is called Follow me. I would love to post it here, but DUAL VOICES doesn't get nearly as much love as it could... so I will announce there.

So... Follow me....

Friday, February 6, 2009

I'm Back!!

Yes, I know it's been a whole month since I said I was on my way into surgery, but it's kind of taken this long for me to recover enough from the whole ordeal to focus on writing two words together.

For those not in the know, I went in for gastric bypass surgery. Well, let's just say it wasn't as routine as we would have liked. Sometime after surgery I threw a clot that went into a bad place. Of course we didn't know this until my blood pressure bottomed out and my insides ruptured. Even so, they couldn't figure out what was going on so they rushed me into surgery to seek out the problem and...luckily for me my surgeon is a flippin' genius. So he fixed me up and after a blood transfusion and almost a week in the ICU I was finally able to come home.

But wait. Don't think the gal my surgeon has nicknamed 'Trouble' is done. No. About 10 days after my release I wake up with screaming pain in my back and I can't draw breath for my life. The verdict? You got it...pneumonia/pleurisy. Can I just say it FREAKIN HURTS! Anyway I could barely move until about two days ago. Now I am finally able to breathe and move around and basically feel normal. That's why I am late doing my blog here. It's going to take another week or so before I am healed up so I ask you all to bear with me if you've written me email. I will get around to it eventually, I promise! Just give me time :) For those of you who sent me well wishes, I thank you. As you can see, I really needed it!!

Hugs and kitties
Jacki Frank