Jan Irving's Blog, page 14

Cover art contest kicks off and news

The Rainbow Awards Cover art vote is on. Just looking at all those lovely covers, heaven.

Find it here and happy voting. Apparently if you leave a comment, you might win an ebook from one of the participating publishers.

I am having a good time with my work right now. Since my character Sam Masterson of Sam's Reviews is not only an ex marine and knitter but also a gay romance writer, I'm having the fun of putting in excerpts from Sam's first book into the story. And I couldn't stop myself fr...

A taste of Nathaniel, next in the Sylvan series

Nathaniel is the next story after Sylvan and Luke. I've been having fun lately writing it. Here's a wee taste.

"Freak!"

Jeremy shoved Samuel into the gulley between the unpaved country road and a stand of birch trees.

Samuel didn't know what else to do, so he got back on his feet, feeling something raw on one knee. He blinked at the boys from Sylvan's country school who had followed him.

"Nothing to say, freak?" Jeremy asked him, raising dark brows. He'd asked the same thing when Samuel had brou...

Elisa reviewed Luke

I'm making good progress with Straight Cowboy. Almost finished chapter 8 of 10 now. Hoping to finish this week. As to what I'll work on next perhaps in little bites along with finishing my holiday story Sam's Reviews, I don't know. I have so many ideas lately. Sometimes I think I should have a poll from my readers. I may not follow it, but it would be interesting to see what people most want to see. ^^

Elisa reviewed Luke here .

The Boxer reviewed

An interesting review of The Boxer here .

Nice review for Born to be Wylde

Busy working on a brand new novella called Straight Cowboy after being enticed to write it by a friend as well as my holiday story Sam's Reviews.

In the meantime, Born to be Wylde was reviewed by Literary Nymphs here .

Review for The Boxer

Review for The Boxer by Scandalous Minx at Literary Nymphs, a reviewer who also read The Janitor. I liked her perspective from both books and I was pleased because this is what I hoped to attain with The Boxer.

Take a look here .

Writing news

Some news to share. I was offered a contract for Sahara Blue from DSP which would mean the spin off from Mastering Toby should be out in November. And Luke was voted book of the week over at The Romance Studio so anyone who voted for that, this is your doing. You can see it here though you have to scroll down a little Luke at TRS . I'm editing Jesse now. I'm hoping to get that story in by around the end of this week. I really loved working on this one, kind of like Luke.

Behind the scenes: Jesse and a special sneak peek

I had the opportunity to do some really fun hands on research for my upcoming contemporary Western Jesse, due out November. Jesse gets into the world of draft horses and carriage drivers.



This weekend while on a research trip, I snapped a quick picture of one of the carriages going by and this second picture is very special...because it was taken by me riding shotgun right next to the carriage driver. He invited me up to talk to me about how he does his job. It was so extremely cool. I had th...

Nice review for Sylvan

Sylvan had a nice review from Cassie at Joyfully Reviewed .

I'm almost finished Jesse. One more chapter...maybe an epilogue. This story will be longer than the contemporary westerns I've done to date.

Behind the scenes: Born to be Wylde

I've been studying with a Japanese Canadian potter for almost a year now so some of what I learned came out in Born to be Wylde. Ken Ito is a potter who has a day job as a deputy. His home and the things he creates show him as a man of two worlds, the perfect man to understand and become the mate of the unusual Wylde, a man some judge as a dangerous freak.

Above you can see the vase that inspired the piece that Ken is holding on the cover. The vase is for Ikebana, created by my teacher...