Julia Rachel Barrett's Blog, page 119

Got those old post World Series Blues…

Seriously!  I am feeling so down.  What am I going to do without baseball?  I don't like professional football, hate pro basketball…should I start watching hockey?  My son is a hockey freak and one of my daughters is getting into it.

Maybe I'll do some cooking and baking and freeze everything for Thanksgiving.

So…interesting stuff, not me-related, well, some might be me-related.

I want to eat here – http://www.brownsugarkitchen.com/

I have a serious craving for the buttermilk fried chicken and cornmeal waffle with brown sugar butter & apple cider syrup.  A SERIOUS craving.

I want to do this – http://www.liquidfusionkayak.com/

I am thinking about switching my blog to this – http://www.tumblr.com/why-tumblr

*Readable – http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/8080503/Being-a-prolific-author-isnt-a-bad-thing.html

*Extra Readable – http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2010/10/books-electronic-publishing/

So you all may or may not have been paying attention when I mentioned that I was reading Cutting for Stone – the book by Abraham Verghese.  This is a book everyone loves, including my hubby and my sister.  For the life of me, I could not get into it.  I struggled to read half the book and then called it quits.  However, another book about Africa has caught me tight – hooked me with the very first sentence and I have not been able to put it down.  It's a work of nonfiction but it reads like fiction – "I think I first realized something was wrong when our next door neighbor, oom Piet Oberholzer, was murdered." Gripping from word one.  Mukiwa, A White Boy In Africa, by Peter Godwin.  When I finish this, I plan to continue reading his story in When a Crocodile Eats the Sun.

Oh…nice review for Daughters of Persephone here – http://realmsonourbookshelvesofficial.blogspot.com/2010/11/review-request-julia-rachel-barrett.html

So what's new with you?

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EPIC Finalists and Seven Sexy Scribes.

[image error]EPIC Finalist List:

http://www.epicauthors.com/epicwinners2011.html

Anthology Division

The Cougar Book by Jolie du Pre (editor) with Jeremy Edwards, Rachel Kramer Bussel, Sascha Illyvich, Heidi Champa, Tara S. Nichols, Craig J. Sorensen, Donna George Storey, J. C. Wesner, Randall Lang, Madeline Moore, Bill Brent, Adriana Kraft, Keeb Knight, Jolene Hui, Dona Lee, D. L. King, Doug Harrison, Brenna Lyons, Emerald, Trish DeVene, Julia Barrett, Blue Canyon, Shanna Germain—Logical-Lust Publications.

Erotic Romance Division

Contemporary Romance

*Beauty and the Feast by Julia Barrett—Resplendence Publishing, LLC

Science Fiction Erotic Romance

*Captured by Julia Rachel Barrett—Siren Publishing, Inc.

I'm in such amazing company that I tried to upload the entire list of finalists but could not.  Please go to the EPIC site and check out all these wonderful titles!  These are outstanding authors!

I participate in another blog site, Seven Sexy Scribes – http://sevensexyscribes.blogspot.com/

We're a fun bunch of authors and we're inviting you to follow us!  We have a membership drive going on!  If you join this month, you'll receive either an e-copy of one of my titles or a signed (by me) hardcover copy of The Cougar Anthology – see EPIC finalists above! Sign up by November 30 and let me know so I can check it out – email me at Julia@JuliaRachelBarrett.net

Oh…my menage, One Four All, is now available on Amazon for your kindle reading pleasure!

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In the immortal words of Tim Lincecum…f/ck yeah!

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Or as my guy, Andres Torres (on deck) shouted to Aaron Rowand (at the plate) about Edgar Renteria's home run – "He tol' me he was gonna do it!"

I never in a million years thought I'd get to go to a World Series game.  For real.  Amazing.

Before AT&T Park opened (as PacBell Park), my husband bought two seats, two season tickets – not because we thought the Giants were all that – even though they are – but because we love baseball and the park is brilliant.  He was there for the first game of the first season – unfortunately I wasn't because he'd promised a friend that second seat on opening day.

This 2010 has been my favorite, albeit tortuous, season…ever – I love this team of freaks, geeks, rookies and rejects.  I have been holding my breath for months, hoping the Giants could pull it off, seeing the potential yet knowing how young some of these players are.  We even nicknamed our puppy Buster Nosey.  Well, they did it, and damn…winning is sweet.

So, catch up news…speaking of sweet, Charlie at The Smart Girls' SciFi blog gave my science fiction romance, Captured, a sweet review.  http://smartgirlsscifi.wordpress.com/

Susi, The Geeky Bookworm, read my sci fi menage – she's such a sneak!  She called it's hawt.  I have to laugh at myself, I mean, I went for it, and it's a fun ride, but War and Peace, it's not.  One Four All – in Susi's words:

"OMG this one was hawt. As the name implies we have a Menage à Quatre in this one. We are thrown into a foreign world and discover it's secrets while watching this rather hot relationship develop. I loved how Ms Barrett succeeded in making her characters so real and unique. For me it's always like reading about real persons- their conversations and behavior is something I could imagine happening in real life too, beside the actual 4 lover part- I'm not sure that this would work out- but a nice fantasy nonetheless." She says she'll be posting a full review sometime soon.

Sandra Cox has read and reviewed the first two books of my four-part science fiction series – Daughters of Persephone, Exile and Return.  She's posting it Wednesday at her place:  http://sandracox.blogspot.com/ I know she and I would both appreciate it if you drop by – the review is short.

Oooh, I got some swag!  I never get swag, but I won two books this week.  Check it out!

[image error]I won a copy of Virgin River, by Robyn Carr, from Penelope's Romance Reviews, which is totally cool because the heroine is a nurse-midwife – which is what I originally trained as.

I also won a copy of Mr. Darcy's Obsession, by Abigail Reynolds, from Sourcebooks.  Cool!

(Had to stick the headlines in there. 

Here's my own quickie review of Linda Howard's Mr. Perfect – I totally adore Linda Howard and Mr. Perfect is, in many ways, vintage Howard.  There are some great visuals, ala, the sexy cop-neighbor love interest hero.  I like the mouthy heroine for the most part…occasionally she comes across as a bit much.  I think the biggest disappointment for me are the secondary characters. Aside from the hero, who doesn't play the huge role her usual heroes do – oops, he kind of has a  huge role, i.e. , significant attributes, I couldn't relate to the secondary characters.  Ah well…still an enjoyable read overall and one of her books I had not read before.

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Yesterday's Indiscretion, a new release by Harris Channing

[image error] Yesterday's Indiscretion

by Harris Channing

Be very careful what you wish for…

Thirty-something kindergarten teacher Lindy Whittaker has decided it's time to marry and start a family. Steven Hamilton, a successful businessman, seems to be "Mr. Right."

But when Michael "Mac" MacIntyre, her former lover, who happens to be ten years her junior, comes to town, will he ruin all of Lindy's well-laid plans? Will she find love in stability or in passion? And will the choice she makes lead her into blissful happiness or terrifying danger?

Buy Link:  http://www.bookstrand.com/yesterdays-indiscretion

Author's website:  http://harrischanning.com/

From Harris…When I was a kid, I remember my mother saying to me once, "It used to be so much easier to look cute.  Now I have to work at it."  At the time, I didn't think that could ever happen to me.  Hell, I was always going to be 21…wrong!

I'm twice that now.  And I can tell you, it's getting harder to look cute!  Base, blush, eye shadow, mascara, lotions, tweezers, hair gel and spray are all staples in my medicine cabinet.

But being a little older shouldn't make one feel less sexy, should it?  And in some way, these feelings I have over my fading youth inspired me to write my current release, YESTERDAY'S INDISCRETION.  Granted, I have seven years on the heroine, but some of the issues she has are truly mine and I believe the issues of many women over the age of 35.  Am I attractive?  Am I sexy enough?  I think these are universal questions that women of all ages have.  And Lindy faces these things and more in my book.

But the difference in age of the heroine is hardly the whole story.  YESTERDAY'S INDISCRETION also has a lot of romance, suspense, great sex  and even my first ever…OMG that was really lousy sex!

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Woody Allen, genre fiction and how a story turns on coincidence.

[image error]Regardless of his Lolita obsession -

see Manhattan with a young Mariel Hemingway -

and his early tendency to clone the acting of his leading ladies – i.e., first wife Louise Lasser, Diane Keaton, and Mia Farrow – Woody Allen deals in Jewish neurosis and existential dilemmas – Love and Death, Crimes and Misdemeanors, Hannah and her Sisters, and one of my favorite movies, Match Point, starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers and new leading lady, Scarlet Johansson.

I will never forget the bank robbery scene from Take the Money and Run, and the discussion about the robbery note…paraphrasing here…It's says gun. No, it clearly says gub, that's a 'b'. No, that's an 'n'. I still laugh about the orgasmatron in Sleeper.

Anyway, on to the theme of this post – one coincidence.  Allen tackled the ultimate moral dilemma in Crimes and Misdemeanors – can an otherwise righteous man get away with murder?  What does it do to him?  How does it change him?  Or doesn't it change him at all?  He addressed the same subject in Match Point, except this time Rhys Meyers plays a bit of a sociopath who gets involved, and in over his head, with a not-too-bright, but beautiful woman who is also a user.  When Johansson's character turns shrewish and she threatens the perfect life Rhys Meyers has so carefully crafted, he plans the perfect murder.  The question is, will he get away with it?  He does, but only because of one thing, and it's the same sort of one thing those of us who write genre fiction use all the time…the coincidence – the hand of fate, the intercession of the gods.  Why am I thinking of this?  Because the exact same coincidence occurred in the second game of the World Series – which as you all know, I AM WATCHING!

Game two turned upon Texas Ranger Ian Kinsler's almost home run.  Did you see it?  He smashed a ball to the wall and it looked as if it would go over.  He'd have a home run and turn the tide for the Rangers.  Instead the ball bounced up in the air and fell back into the field, and Kinsler ended up with a double and the Giants won game two.  It was one of those paradoxical either/or moments – a game changer either way.

So it is in Match Point.  The outcome hinges upon one thing – a ring that Rhys Meyers tosses into the Thames, except the ring hits the top of a fence railing and bounces up in the air. It doesn't fall into the Thames, it falls onto the sidewalk, where it is picked up by…and the rest is history.  It's a game changer – Match Point.  Rhys Meyers gets away with murder because of that singular accident of fate.

I love game changers.  It's the coincidence that propels the story.  A dropped scarf, a note passed into the wrong hands, a horse slipping on an icy road and tossing its rider just as Jane Eyre happens to be returning from town late in the evening.

Even Jonathan Franzen, NYT-appointed god of literary fiction, uses the game changer in his book, The Corrections.  A man is about to live out his dream – leave his cold, withholding bitch of a wife, his miserable job, his troubled children, and move to an island off the coast of Africa.  What happens?  The ring falls onto the sidewalk.  The ball bounces back into the field.  He arrives home to tell his wife he's leaving her, but before he can open his mouth, she announces that she has cancer…match point.

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Courage

Ina May Gaskin says in her book, Spiritual Midwifery, that the antidote to fear is courage. She's quoting her husband, sixties' guru Stephen Gaskin.  For information and history, look up The Farm:  http://www.thefarm.org/

At one time, I studied to be a midwife.  Of course I sort of went the other direction and became a hospice nurse, but when I was pregnant with my three children, Spiritual Midwifery was my go-to handbook.  I learned to ride the wave, surf the contraction, and that the antidote to fear is courage.  It's a pretty amazing book.

Anyway, one of my father's dear friends just died. He was actually a few years older than my dad, but they'd been friends for a long, long time.  My dad's friend had just been to meet with his priest when he felt a pain in his back.  He drove himself to the hospital and he learned that he had a dissecting aortic aneurysm.  His choices were pretty grim – surgery and the significant risk of brain damage, kidney failure, blood clots and death – or he could do nothing and die.  He decided against surgery.  He lived for sixteen hours after his diagnosis.  His kids all had time to get in to say goodbye.  His friends came to say goodbye.  He had a final visit with his priest and he died.

He told everyone – I've lived a good life, it will be all right.  He laughed and joked and died peacefully.

I think it must be like knowing that you will face a firing squad in the morning.  That's courage.  But the thing is, he fought in WWII on the beaches in Normandy and he saw his friends mowed down right and left.  He said once that he never understood why it was they died and he lived.  That sort of thing changes a person.  He faced death then, he faced death now and he triumphed.  Makes me very sad and happy at the same time.

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The Ephemeral Nature of Happiness

Or why we love to read romance.

Since we're all enjoying our weekend, I'll keep this short and sweet.  If there's one truism I've learned over the years, it's that happiness is fleeting.  There are no guarantees.  Like my father says, the only things we're guaranteed in life are death and taxes.  Thus, I postulate, the popularity of romance in all it's many wild and wonderful genres.  Romance is a fantasy of the highest order – the fantasy of true love, and if well written, the reality of true love.  Like any good work of fantasy, romance plucks us out of our ordinary existence and plunks us into the extraordinary.

There's something so fetching about the extraordinary.

I've actually been reading!  Shocking, I know.  A couple ebooks and Mr. Perfect, by Linda Howard – not my fave of hers, but colorful, some very nice visuals….

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From Anny Cook – Brilliant!

[image error]Alpheli Solution

When Danamara Higgins is attacked by a vampire, her life turns upside down. Vampire Bootcamp class seems to be the answer to her prayers. In her wildest dreams, she doesn't consider meeting not just one, but two hunky vampires who take her—in the car, in the shower, in the living room, in the hot tub, in hand—as they teach her everything she'll need to know about her new vampire life.

For centuries, Pierre has loved and pursued Julian with no success. After a hostile takeover of Julian's financial assets, Pierre is positive Julian will have nowhere else to turn. Julian, though, chooses to teach the Vampire Bootcamp class rather than surrender to Pierre on unequal terms. When one of Julian's students approaches him for help identifying her sire, Julian is stunned that she is his alpheli—an extremely rare mate whose blood will allow him to subsist on real food. What will that mean to his love-hate relationship with Pierre?

There are just one or two problems. Danamara is descended from Pierre's bloodline. And she's on someone's hit list. Julian and Pierre find unexpected erotic rewards and eternal love when they join together in a brutal war to protect their alpheli's life.

Buy Link: http://www.resplendencepublishing.com/m8/251-201-107-452-2–alpheli-solution-by-anny-cook.html

When Julia asked me to write about Alpheli Solution, I thought no problem. Hmph. That's not exactly the way it worked out!

Once upon a time in my other life I taught Computer Bootcamp classes. Now you may not know or believe it, but romance authors don't often write about their own lives. Frankly, they're not very glamorous. Occasionally, we use bits and pieces from our lives, though. I sat in front of the computer thinking about my experiences as an instructor. Surely I could use some of them?

The problem was to settle on a subject. I didn't want to use computers. Then I hit on the idea of Vampire Bootcamp. Of course, all the vampires out there seem to be alphas–at least the heroes. So why was my alpha teaching Bootcamp? Ahhhh. He was suffering temporary financial embarrassment.

Generally, I begin a new story with a "jumpstart". That's a few pages to see how things are going with my idea. Maybe I have to change it. Maybe there are too many problems to work out. Maybe… the entire story derails and runs off on its own track, leaving me behind.

That's what happened with Alpheli Solution.

It morphed into a ménage when Pierre decided he wanted to be part of the romance. He wasn't willing to give up on Julian. Then Danamara insisted on tossing in her two cents worth. After a scorching kiss from Pierre, she fell into lust with both of them. And to tell the truth, Julian wasn't to broken hearted over the way things fell out.

And that should have been it. Right?

No, no, no.

All these other characters kept leaping into the story, creating problems and chaos. Gabriel, the vampire cop, just couldn't wait until Julian had things worked out. Gabe needed help immediately. And Donal, Danamara's brother really, really didn't like vampires–so much so that he kept trying to kill her.

Sigh.

After battles, mysteries, and oh yeah, a LOT of hot sex, they finally worked out their happy ever after! Especially the hot sex…

***My two cents worth – Alpheli Solution, by Anny Cook, is one of the best books I've read in a long time.  I could not put it down – read it all night!  Go!  Buy this book!  Julia

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All these books are doing things!

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All right, trying to catch my breath.  As I started to say the other day, Beauty and the Feast – my contemporary romance about food and falling in love, is an Epic eBook Finalist in the Contemporary Erotic Romance Category.  Captured, my wonderful science fiction romance, is an Epic eBook Finalist in the Science Fiction Erotic Romance Category, and The Cougar Book, by Logical Lust, which contains my short story, You Might Just Get It, is an Epic eBook Finalist in the Anthology Category.  Wow!

Okay, so what is My Everything – my sweet romance/suspense doing up there?  There's a great review posted on Fire Pages http://firepages.wordpress.com/ – Zee loved the story – so do I – it's my book that nobody reads but when they read it, they fall in love with Ben and Grace.  I keep saying, My Everything is my red-headed stepchild!  Today, or tomorrow, depending upon where you live, Fire Pages is hosting a contest, of course the prize is an ecopy of My Everything, and Zee is posting an interview she did with me about the writing of the book.  Come by, this is a fun interview, and I'd love it if you read the review too!

Here's just one little paragraph from the review:  Barrett has a fantastic writing style. It is very fluid and easy to read. I love how she fills every page with action, driving the story as well as the characters throughout the book without any excess filler or fat. I also appreciated how Barrett doesn't introduce too many characters in her novel. I really got to know Ben and Grace on a personal level, and became quite invested in their happiness. Overall, this is a grand slam title for Julia Rachel Barrett, and I absolutely recommend My Everything to anyone who enjoys a well crafted novel.

In other news – I attended my very first World Series game ever…ever!  Totally cool, completely exhausting and my Gigantes won.  Oh happy day!

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Stacey Espino has a new release!

[image error]Angelina k nows all about survival.  She can handle the tough city streets where crime and chaos are the norm.  When she finally flees to the protected community of West Caper, she meets her match with the handsome small town cop.

Brandon is everything Angelina is not.  He's only known safety, security, and the love of his family.  When he tries to bring Angelina into his world, she resists, unable to settle down and trust after living a life on the run.

The walls around the town are unable to protect the couple forever.  Will Angelina's past threaten the new happiness she's found with Brandon?  Can the secret she carries help a world set on destroying itself?

Buy link: http://www.evernightpublishing.com/beyond-the-wall.html

To Plot or Not to Plot

Beyond The Wall is quite different from my usual books, although I do write in many genres.  The type of book I write next depends on my mood—paranormal?  western? menage? M/F? I went on a futuristic kick, writing Beyond The Wall and Womankind around the same time.  This book started out with a character and a single scene in my head.  I wanted to create a strong heroine that didn't need anyone to help her, including a man.  She could survive under the harshest circumstances and believed emotions were a weakness.  So—Angelina was born.  Add her complete opposite, Brandon, and a complex love story was created.

I never plot, never.  Although, I may write notes.  Hey, I have to keep track of names in a menage like the rest of them.  But, seriously, I need notes on names, towns, character traits, etc., but I don't plot out my stories.  Each book springs from a single idea and I develop a world and characters around it.  The characters lead the story and it often comes out much different than I expected.

What's your style?  Do you research, and/or plot out your story before writing?  Or do you let your muse take control and follow it obediently?

Thanks for having me, Julia!!!

No, Stacey – my treat!  Loved the book!  This story is different, dark, intriguing, and very, very sexy.  The heroine is tough and scarred, a real survivor, while the hero has a kind heart and good intentions.  Kept me up all night!

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