Vanessa Jaye's Blog, page 6

Better late than never

Lately? Swear ta gawd if my head wasn't screwed on to my neck I'd lose it.

I did a guest post over on Bitten by Paranormal Romance today. So when did I send that sucker in? erm... yesterday evening....

Then promptly forgot to do an announcement post here. ::headdesk::

But it's up and it's about character arcs vs character reveals, so go on over a take a boo and say something why dontcha?

Bitten By Paranormal Romance


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Scaling Mt. Toberead

I have boxes of unread books, unpacked from our move into this house 5yrs ago, downstairs in the basement, as well as unread books stacked two deep in the basement bookcases.

Then there are the mushrooming piles of books in various rooms upstairs...


This is one side table in the livingroom:



And these shopping totes/bags are tucked under the other sidetable.



I can't be arse to go upstairs and take pics of the bags/piles of books on my bedroom floor, but they're equal to, if not more than, what's in the livingroom. Keeping in mind these are just print books and not to-be-read ebooks, it's time to take action. I can only deal with clutter/mess for a certain amount of time before taking a scorced earth approach to the problem. Subconciously, clutter makes me edgy.

Though sorely tempted to just cart the books off to the UBS without reading them, I can't make myself do it, so time for some goal setting: The Procastination Station 2012 Bag O' Books Challenge. (that title is a little self-defeating. Think about it. lol) I may do some reviews/commentaries on some of the books, but mostly will just keep track of my progress here on the blog.

Going to start with one of the smaller piles on the side table:


Hopefully I'll read all 7 books by the end of January.

Kresley Cole's If You Decieve
Lynne Graham's Jewel In His Crown
Martha Grimes' I Am The Only Running Footman
Jo Goodman's Kissing Comfort
Theresa Meyer's The Hunter
Jane Goodger's When A Duke Says I Do
Justine Musk's Univited

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MERRY CHRISTMAS & HAPPY HOLIDAYS

Have a wonderful day today, hopefully full of laughter, love, good company and good food. (Or maybe some well deserved peace and quiet? *g*.)

D'oh!

Once again I come creeping in after a long absence. :-P This has been a very, very, very hard year to get through. It took a lot out of me, which meant I kinda hunkered down in survival mode and didn't expend myself in anyway unless necessary. But here's to next year being (much) better. So today's plan is: we get the Christmas tree up and the gifts wrapped and I get a good start on the manic-super-extravanza-awesome-house-cleaning-before-Santa-arrives-apalooza.

On the writing front, I'm still plugging away on Mitch's story (follow up to Hunter of the Heart). And speaking of Hunter, here are a couple of reviews I stumbled across in the last couple of days:

Over on Two Lips Reviews they gave HotH 4 lips out of 5!:

"Ms. Jaye draws the reader seamlessly between Tessa's growing self awareness and Nate's journey as he lets go of his grief. The emotion and passion felt by both leaps from the pages. As a reader, I wanted to cheer when Tessa stood up for herself and bop Nate on the head when he was missing the point. I grinned and sometimes laughed out loud with the dialog between Nate and his friend Mitch. This story was well written. This author is a new one for me and I am looking forward to reading more from Ms. Jaye in the future."


And Happily Ever After Reads gave it 3.5 stars out of 5:

"This was a nice, shorter read, and I recommend it to anyone looking for a quick shifter story with some angst and some hot lovin'."


:D


And now for some fun. This quizz made me laugh my ass off when I read the answers. I got 3 out of ll right, so forget about housework, I'm going to have a stiff drink and go back to bed now - lol - but see if you can do better. The answers are in the comments.

Read carefully before you answer ...

1. Johnny's mother had three children. The first child was named April. The second child was named May. What was the third child's name?

2. There is a clerk at the butcher shop, he is five feet ten inches tall and he wears size 13 sneakers. What does he weigh?

3. Before Mt. Everest was discovered, what was the highest mountain in the world?

4. How much dirt is there in a hole that measures two feet by three feet by four feet?

5. What word in the English Language is always spelled incorrectly?

6. Billy was born on December 28th, yet his birthday is always in the summer. How is this possible?

7. In California, you cannot take a picture of a man with a wooden leg. Why not?

8. What was the President's Name in 1975?

9. If you were running a race, and you passed the person in 2nd place, what place would you be in now?

10. Which is correct to say, "The yolk of the egg are white" or "The yolk of the egg is white"?

11. If a farmer has 5 haystacks in one field and 4 haystacks in the other field, how many haystacks would he have if he combined them all in another field?

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ETA- fixed broken link

Sleeping with Bob (joke)

Want to write up on post on what I've been doing re current writing projects later today or tomorrow, but until then, I was just going through my inbox and got a good chuckle for this one:

Sleeping with Bob

The guys were all at a deer camp. No one wanted to room with Bob, because he snored so badly. They decided it wasn't fair to make one of them stay with him the whole time, so they voted to take turns.

The first guy slept with Bob and comes to breakfast the next morning with his hair a mess and his eyes all bloodshot.
They said, "Man, what happened to you?
He said, "Bob snored so loudly, I just sat up and watched him all night.."

The next night it was a different guy's turn. In the morning, same thing, hair all standing up, eyes all bloodshot.
They said, "Man, what happened to you? You look awful!
He said, 'Man, that Bob shakes the roof with his snoring. I watched him all night."

The third night was Ken's turn. Ken was a tanned, older cowboy, a man's man. The next morning he came to breakfast bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.
"Good morning!" he said.
They couldn't believe it. They said, "Man, what happened?"

He said, "Well, we got ready for bed. I went and tucked Bob into bed, patted him on the butt, and kissed him good night. Bob sat up and watched me all night."

Guest Posting over on Beth Kery's Blog Today

In celebration of her upcoming release Silken Rapture, Beth is running a Silken Rapture Contest, Kindle Touch Give-away from Nov 7 - 22nd.

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If you haven't tried one of Beth's books, well what the heck are you waiting for? The lady has mad skilz when it comes to writing hot, emotional romances with strong heroines and to die for heroes. I have this upcoming release on my tbr list.

Anywho, today my day to participate in contest and I'll also be giving away a copy of Hunter of the Heart to one commentator, so come on over to her blog and get a peek at a new/another excerpt from Hunter of the Heart!

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ETA: Sorry for the multiple posting folks. Something went wonky with the blog & this post got merged/scrambled with the previous post from Monday. I think I fixed the probem. I hope. :P

Guest Posting over on Beth Kery's Blog Today

In celebration of her upcoming release Silken Rapture, Beth is running a Silken Rapture Contest, Kindle Touch Give-away from Nov 7 - 22nd.

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If you haven't tried one of Beth's books, well what the heck are you waiting for? The lady has mad skilz when it comes to writing hot, emotional romances with strong heroines and to die for heroes. I have this upcoming release on my tbr list.

Anywho, today my day to participate in contest and I'll also be giving away a copy of Hunter of the Heart to one commentator,

Author Rec- Jill Mansell

I tend to do all my book talk over on Goodreads these days, but thought I'd give a shout out to a new-to-me author.

I picked up Jill Mansell's Perfect Timing via the company book exchange program.

Book Blurb:

When you meet the man of your dreams on girls night out, it's hardly…Perfect Timing

In this fresh and funny contemporary romance by bestselling author Jill Mansell, Poppy Dunbar's whole life gets turned upside down after a chance encounter with a handsome stranger...

Never a troublemaker, Poppy had always been content with the way things were supposed to be done—which included marrying predictable Rob McBride. But that was before she met Tom Kennedy the night before her wedding. Could she really be falling in love with a stranger?

Unable to forget Tom, or go through with the wedding, Poppy runs off to London. Her new life and colorful friends are anything but predictable. Misunderstandings, family secrets, and jealous quarrels ensue, but can Poppy stop running long enough to figure out what—or, rather, who—is in her heart?

After going through a bit of a funk reading, I pretty much inhaled this book. It was just fun! Loved the characters and was very interested in all their stories. While there is a main protag/heroine in the two books I've read so far--Take A Chance on Me, was the second, which I didn't love as much because the romance storyline wasn't as prominent--there's actually a number of secondary stories lines with supporting characters that I got quite caught up in.) And it'll not all zany fun. In fact there's very little zany, but there is an exploration for friendship, love, family. Painful betrayals, and renewals/rededications to lives made. There's also great dialogue and those situations that are embarrassingly cringeworthy but will have you chuckling all the same.



These books are chick-lit (or Brit-lit), but there is a nice romance thread through out. I think I'm well on my way to buying her backlist. Next up for me is: Kristin Higgins, you'll like Mansell.

It's November 1st & Hunter of the Heart is now available

Wo0T!

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Can you believe it? When the manuscript sold November seemed soooo faaaar awaaaaay. And now here I am deep into plotting/(re)writing book 2 in the series.

Just remember this book has:

A hunky werewolf hero

A hunky were-panther side-kick (whose book i'm writing now)

A hunky were-Tiger boss (in a bit part, but i have plans for Alejandro later in the series)

A hunky, erm, scary... shape-shifting...erm.. summin.

Action & Danger!

A cruise ship!

Heat! (the tropical island type)

Heat! (the boom-chica-wow-wow type)

True luuuurve that conquers all!

Not as many exclamation points as I've used in this post!

and last but not least humour.

It's a bargain, i tell ya. ;-)

I've posted excerpts from Hunter here and here, and ofcourse there's an excerpt at Samhain where it's now on sale!

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Happy Halloween!

I'm over at Southern Fried Chica's today.

Unfortunately I'm doing this post here from my iPhone, so no Halloween pics to liven his post up. But you might get a chuckle out of the post on SFC: http://southernfriedchicas.com/2011/1...[image error]