Marilyn Brant's Blog, page 25

Copy Edits & A Tale of Two Matchmakers

Resurfacing briefly to say "HELLO!!!" and "Please forgive me for being scarce in the blogosphere this week..."

My copy edits for Friday Mornings at Nine arrived last week and I only have about 8 days to read through them, fix anything and everything I want changed and get it back in the mail to Kensington. This requires (for me) reading through the whole manuscript about 3 times: checking the copy editor's changes (first pass, quickly), making my changes (second pass, v.e.r.y slowly), checkin...

A February Picnic...with Mr. Knightley

Today and tomorrow at VVB32 Reads, there is a most interesting event in progress: "Mr. Knightley's Picnic". Here is the official invitation:

Mr. Knightley's Picnic
February 25-26, 2010
2-day event

An event post will be up every hour from 5am - 5pm PST (join in anytime)

Don't mind the snow or rain storms outside. Grab your picnic basket of goodies and join me for a virtual Regency period picnic hosted by the dashing hero from Jane Austen's Emma, Mr Knightley. The sky will be clear at Mr...

Megan Crane's Everyone Else's Girl

The Girlfriends Cyber Circuit has had the joy of announcing so many great releases and events this month, and we now have the pleasure of visiting with USA Today bestselling author Megan Crane as she celebrates TWO releases in February: Everyone Else's Girl (out now in the U.K.) and, writing as Caitlin Crews, Pure Princess, Bartered Bride (Harlequin Presents).

Megan has written five women's fiction novels, many work-for-hire young adult novels, and five category romances (as Caitlin Crews) si...

Hank's Giveaway Winners PLUS a New Austen Challenge

Without further ado, there are contest winners to be announced! Again, thanks so much to Hank Phillippi Ryan for visiting last week and for being so generous with her books. There were supposed to be two winners for Hank's novels, but Hank writes: "In honor of AIR TIME just being nominated for the AGATHA AWARD for Best Mystery of 2009, three winners! Pamala, L.A. Mitchell and Tonya can get the TIME book of their choice! Just have them email me at hryan at whdh dot com and tell me their choice...

It's 'Drive Time' with Hank Phillippi Ryan

It's a great pleasure to have talented mystery writer and award-winning investigative reporter Hank Phillippi Ryan with us again today as she takes off on her GCC tour for her latest Charlotte "Charlie" McNally novel, Drive Time (MIRA, Feb. 2010)! About the book, Robert B. Parker wrote: "Hank Phillippi Ryan knows the television business entirely, she understands plotting and she writes beautifully. No wonder I loved Drive Time. Anyone would." Plus, it got a coveted starred review in Library J...

Reviewers' Choice Winner!

I found out on Friday that According to Jane was selected as one of CataNetwork's winners for the 2009 Single Titles Reviewers' Choice Award! Very exciting and a huge honor!! The complete list of Single Title winners is here. There were also awards given for Sensual and Category Romance books. Whoo-hoo!

As if that wasn't nice enough, the simply wonderful Laurel Ann from Austenprose emailed me with the happy news that her review of my debut novel was now up on the Jane Austen Centre Magazine's ...

Happy Valentine's Weekend!!

As we kick off the romantic weekend, here's a brief but heartfelt toast from me to you: May your Valentine's Day be wonderful and may you feel the love of good friends and family all year long. :)

For anyone who knows me or has visited my blog at all in the past year, you know I'm a big coffee fan. Well, I got ahold of a great new Starbucks VIA™ Ready Brew recipe and it's on my list of fun things to try out this weekend (along with NovelWhore's Hot Toddy). It's called "The VIAtini" (!!!) and I...

Visiting The Stiletto Gang (+ a Giveaway)!

Good morning, everyone!

Thanks to the lovely Susan McBride (who visited here recently and with whom I delightedly celebrated the release of The Cougar Club--whoo-hoo!!!), I've been invited to visit her at The Stiletto Gang today to talk about According to Jane. I'm giving away a signed copy of the book, too. So, if you'd like one for yourself OR if you already have a copy and would like one for someone else OR if you just want to say hi...please stop by!!

p.s. In the battle between what has mor...

Control Freaks in a Blizzard

This past week, a wonderful NYT-bestselling author, who's been in the business for decades, commented on the inherent irony that publishing is an industry in which nobody really has any control, but just about everyone involved (from editors to writers, etc.) are "overachieving control freaks." I couldn't help but find that painfully funny...and unbelievably accurate.

And then, this morning, a writer on one of my loops pointed us toward this essay by Dani Shapiro. In it, Shapiro quotes a numbe...

Judi Fennell's Great Catch

The Girlfriends Cyber Circuit is back in action! This month is exciting because there are a bunch of great releases, the first being Judi Fennell's final book in her Mer trilogy, Catch of a Lifetime (Sourcebooks, Feb. 2010).

Judi has had her nose in a book and her head in some celestial realm all her life, including those early years when her mom would exhort her to "get outside!" instead of watching "Bewitched" or "I Dream of Jeannie" on television. So she did--right into Dad's hammock with h...