Jane Litte's Blog, page 995

First Page: Untitled

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Chapter 1 - Malta 1804

If I needed someone to slit a throat or steal a purse, Eaton thought, I would come here to find him.

William Eaton had arrived early for that evening's rendezvous with the British agent, Burton Grey. Grey had picked a bad place for their...

REVIEW: Mardie and the City Surgeon by Marion Lennox

The last person Mardie Rainey expects to see on her doorstep is her childhood sweetheart, Blake Maddock. Fifteen years ago, Blake Maddock had walked away, leaving her teenage heart sore and broken. But now—with a thunderstorm raging overhead—she can't turn him away, nor the injured border collie in his arms….

Blake Maddock spent his life running from one tragic mistake… Now the frightened boy has become a formidable man—and he's coming back for the woman he has never forgotten….

[image error]Dear Ms...

Friday News & Deals: Apple Tries to Take Over Educational Publishing & Grand Central Launches a Romance Imprint

Apple made it's education announcement yesterday introducing iBooks 2 which allows you to view books made with iBooks Author. iBooks Author has been described as "Garage Band" for books.  Essentially it is a purportedly easy to use tool to create interactive books rich with multimedia such as audio, video, and animations that will be well suited for interactive learning.  AND! iBooks Author is FREE. Amazing, right?  Only if you read the EULA, Apple says that you can only sell your iBooks...

REVIEW: The Bro-Magnet by Lauren Baratz-Logsted

Dear Ms. Baratz-Logsted:

I saw this book on NetGalley and requested it immediately. I started laughing about about 5 paragraphs in and didn't stop. Johnny Smith is a guy's guy. He loves sports. He belches at the table. He wears his baseball cap backward. He hosts a weekly poker game and has been the best man 8 times. He's like the Pied Piper of men. Yet this has not translated into many women for him. Instead he is 33 years old, single and with no female opportunities. He was interested in...

GUEST FRIDAY FILM REVIEW: Starman

[image error]Starman: 1984

Starring Jeff Bridges and Karen Allen

Genre: Science Fiction/Romance Grade: B+

Jeff Bridges' star turn in CRAZY HEART got me thinking about all his other movies I'd enjoyed. From my memory banks, I pulled a favorite I had seen but once, STARMAN. Would it be as sweet a romance on second viewing? But first, I had to find a copy and as luck is, well, fortunate sometimes, a VHS tape for a dollar landed on the library's used book sale table. Happy, lucky, me.

Karen Allen's star may...

REVIEW: Colorado Dawn by Kaki Warner

Dear Ms. Warner,

I am a big fan of Western romances and your books have been praised by many of my trusted reviewers. So when I was offered the opportunity to review your latest, the middle book in the Runaway Brides trilogy, I was happy to accept. Although I haven't read the first book, I felt this novel largely stood on its own. My reading experience was very mixed, but by the end I understood why your work is so popular. Be warned, readers, this is going to be a long review, but Colorado...

Thursday Midday Links: Maggie Stiefvater on Reviews

Because apparently the YA author flameouts are unending, we've got two more for you.  First up is agent Elena Roth and author Kiera Cass ineptly plotting "quietly" on twitter to upvote positive review and downvote a "bitch"'s negative ones. Then we have Maggie Stiefvater (she of the romances are "trite, formulaic" mentality) who tries to argue that the only legitimate reviews are ones that are in the form of an academic thesis. She knows this because she wrote history papers in college. And t...

What Jayne is Reading and Watching in late December and early January

[image error]Fruitcakes and Other Leftovers by Lori Copeland – cute name, right? I loved it too but the kooky aunt finally did me in. A little kook here and there in a story is fine but 'all kook all the time' wore on my nerves. They make medication for people like this. I also had issues with the heroine's change of heart as far as her home town is concerned. For ages all she's wanted is to get out and move to a big city – which I thought might be a welcome change from the usual Small Town Life is...

REVIEW: A Wind Out of Indigo by Callan Primer

Dear Callen Primer:

Thank you for sending me your book for review.  I really liked the idea of this book as pitched in the review query and initially I was very excited about where the story was going.  Alice Standish, former mistress of the King, is kidnapped and brought to the palace.  Either marry Louis Montanero, the margrave and Warden of the Night or suffer dire consequences at the hands of the new Queen, Marie, who is now Queen of Day but cousin to Louis.  Some of the lowlanders still c...

Stop SOPA/PIPA

On Wednesday from 8 am EST to 8 pm EST, Dear Author will join others like WordPress and Wikipedia in going dark. We are joining these other sites in solidarity to protest SOPA and PIPA, in their current incarnation, bills that will be used to censor the internet.

Think of it this way. A number of authors host their own message boards. If one user posts a link to an image of a hot guy that is copyrighted, someone else could get that author's site pulled down. If an author posted a video f...