R.L. Naquin's Blog, page 5

News for Fairies in My Fireplace

This is going to be a quick one today. (That’s what she said.) I have news I really wasn’t going to share quite yet, but what the hell. I tell you everything, right?

Last night, I stumbled across this: Fairies in My Fireplace.

I don’t have a back cover blurb for you or cover art, and I don’t expect them for another month. But, holy crap, book three is already up on Amazon for pre-order.

And the kicker? I was not the first to find Fairies on preorder. Judging by the Amazon rank on it last night, several people already ordered copies. (Thank you!)

Accompanying this astonishing fact is another that threw me for a loop. According to Amazon, the release date has been moved up by almost a month.

So, for those of you who’ve been telling me you can’t wait until September 30th because it’s not soon enough, there you go. It’s September 2nd, now. Booya.

I swear, I thought I just finished promoting the second book’s release. Now the third one is already up for pre-order, and the release date is five months after the last one’s.

I think I’d better get back to work on book four. You people are eating them faster than I can cook them.

See you real soon!

Urban Fantasy vs. Paranormal Romance

I’m seeing a lot of blurring lately between the terms urban fantasy and paranormal romance. The whole genre labeling thing is skewed, relatively new and, some would argue, unnecessary. 

But getting the right label on your book puts it in front of the your target audience, so it’s a marketing thing–important, whether we like it or not.

My books, as you probably know if you’re reading this, are not romance. They are not categorized as romance. However, since my publisher is an imprint of THE romance publisher of all romance publishers, readers often make the assumption that it’s paranormal romance. Occasionally, their disappointment is reflected in their reviews. However, like most books of any genre, there is some romance in it, and in most cases, that’s enough for people.

My books are urban fantasy.

It comes down to this: Urban fantasy is a subgenre of contemporary fantasy, which is a subgenre of fantasy. Paranormal romance is a subgenre of romance. They aren’t related. If you look at them like a scientific classification, you have to go all the way back to their phylum, fiction, to find their relationship.

They share types of characters, sure. Vampires, shifters, monsters, etc. But the story structures are totally different. The point is totally different. Take away the romance in a straight-up urban fantasy (if there is any), and it’s the same story with a small hole in it. Take away the romance in a paranormal romance and you’re left with a six-page training montage and a very lonely, confused main character.

The problem is not that paranormal romance isn’t good or isn’t a valid genre. The problem is the blurring that’s going on. Readers seem to expect more romance in urban fantasy lately, especially from a female author. (I seriously doubt Jim Butcher gets criticized for not having enough romance in his urban fantasy.) More and more often, I’ve run across discussions where readers and bloggers regard urban fantasy as part of the romance genre. Not all of them, mind you. I’ve also seen several who clearly list both on their websites. Still, the trend to mash them together is troubling.

I’m currently reading a book that’s irritating the crap out of me. No, I won’t tell you the title. I don’t roll that way. But it’s marked as both urban fantasy and as fantasy romance. I came for the urban fantasy story, but unfortunately, the romance storyline is so overpowering, the action, adventure, and magic in the story are secondary to this unrealistic, draggy romance. The action and magic are window dressing to an unremarkable romance plagued by insta-love and The Big Misunderstanding.

Clearly, I am not the target audience, here.

I get the whole mashup thing. I really do. Done well, it can be fun to read a bunch of genres smashed together into something new. This is not what I would call a mashup, though. It’s a new breed, and it’s what a lot of people think urban fantasy is.

So, what do we do with something labeled as fantasy romance? I think the idea here is that fantasy is the adjective, and romance is the noun. That makes it a romance that’s placed in a fantasy setting. If I, as the reader, find the romance to be overpowering, this is my fault for disregarding the label. I brought expectations into the reading that didn’t reflect the information I was clearly given.

Or maybe it’s just not a good book. I’m finding it more and more difficult to judge these days. But that’s a blog post for another day.

With digital imprints, authors no longer have to fight so hard for shelf space. But there are infinitely more books available through digital channels. If we can’t clarify and agree on genre labels, how can we get the attention of the people most likely to enjoy our books?

Is there really a difference between urban fantasy and paranormal romance anymore? When you choose a book, do you even care what subgenre it is?

Am I just being nit-picky?

Monster in My Closet Fan Art

Do you see this magnificent artwork? Do you see what it is? That’s the first scene of Monster in My Closet, complete with Zoey in her Hello Kitty nightshirt and Maurice reading the newspaper in her kitchen. Also, the infamous toilet brush held aloft. Clearly, this is filled with awesome.

I could tell you that some random fan sent this in and try to impress the hell out of you with my fame. But I’d rather fess up and tell you the truth: my incredible, talented daughter made this for me for Mother’s Day. She’s far more impressive than I am. And yes. I cried when I saw it. Seeing Zoey and Maurice outside of the pictures in my head is pretty special.

So, yeah. My daughter did this.

I’m going to leave you with that. I have most of a novel to write in the next month and a half if I’m going to make my deadline. I’ll try to check in often with short posts for awhile, rather than rare posts that are longer. Fair?

If you are a mom of any kind, I hope you had a wonderful weekend. If you are not a mom in any way, I still hope your weekend was awesome.

See you real soon!

The Role of Luck in Fantasy with Shawna Reppert

Due to the RT Convention and post-convention damage repair (catching up on book four work), I’ve been absent from here again. I’ll be back on track next week, and you may even start seeing me pop back in over at the Confabulator Cafe. Until then, I have something special for you.

Behold! We have another Carina Press/Here Be Magic author as a guest. Straighten your tie, sit up straight, and be charming. Shawna Reppert’s fantasy novel, The Stolen Luck, just came out. It seemed appropriate that she come talk about luck, what with all the gargoyle snot and leprechaun thugs running around here. Make her feel welcome, please!

Luck plays a large part in fantasy and in its deep roots—folk tales and legends. A chance meeting at the crossroads, a stranger at the door, a magic sword, a cloak that when thrown down becomes a raging river that blocks one’s pursuers. Doesn’t this reliance on luck violate the injunction against deus ex machina as a plot device?

Not in the folk tales, and not in well-crafted fantasy.

In folklore, one’s fate flows from one’s actions. In other words, you get what you deserve. Make a stupidly selfish bargain at the crossroads and pay with your soul. (Unless you are clever enough to outwit the devil himself, a whole subgenre of crossroads stories.) You and your descendents may be blessed or cursed forevermore depending on how you treat the stranger at the door. Magic swords and other talismans must be earned either by acts of courage or acts of kindness done without hope of reward. The gods only bestow gifts on those who earn them.

You will find this pattern repeated in modern fantasy. In Tad William’s Memory, Sorrow and Thorn trilogy, the protagonist frees one of the Sithi (an elf-like race) from a woodsman’s trap, creating a debt of honor the repayment of which causes ramifications through to the end of the trilogy. Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit acquires an elven sword and a whole lot of treasure because he dared the discomforts and dangers of Thorin’s quest.

These patterns are so deeply ingrained in our subconscious that we may not consciously recognize them. It wasn’t until I started this blog that I realized some of these patterns moving through my own novel, The Stolen Luck. The friendship my protagonist’s ancestors showed to the elves won them the talisman know as the Dupree Luck. When they failed to support the elves at a time when mortals turned against them and drove them from the Sunlit Lands to the Lands Between, they ceased to deserve the Luck that had been given to them.

Although they didn’t lose the luck until generations after the Dupree’s failure to act and the proximate cause of the loss was a mortal thief, symbols work on a deeper level. On that level, the story question posed by the plot arc could be defined as ‘will James Dupree become worthy of holding the Luck again?’

Pay attention when you’re reading. If you find yourself being bothered by a convenient bit of luck in a poorly written piece, odds are that the good fortune was put there for the convenience of the writer and was not earned by the character in either an actual or symbolic sense. But when you find yourself glowing with happiness when a character gets exactly what they need, most likely the character in some way earned it.

You can argue that real life doesn’t work that way. You’d be right. In real life, evil is often rewarded while the best people can’t seem to catch a break. (I like to believe that justice will come in some cosmic timescale, but that’s just a personal belief.) Readers come to fiction to escape the real world, to spend some time in a space where things do make sense and things do happen for a reason and perhaps to carry forward some hope that maybe, just maybe, on some level the real universe makes sense as well. If I’ve given them that escape and that hope, I’ve done my job as a writer. And if I inspire someone to go out and make their own luck and make the world a better place in the process, I’ve done my job as a human being.

Happy reading and best of luck to you all!

The Stolen Luck

How far will a good man go to save his home and loved ones?

Lord James Dupree must recover his family’s stolen Luck, the elven talisman that has protected the Dupree lands for generations. Without the talisman, the Dupree vineyards are failing and creditors are closing in. The Luck is his only hope of saving his home and his family from poverty and ruin.

Despite his abhorrence of slavery, James wins an elven slave in a game of cards. The slave, Loren, provides the only chance to enter the Lands Between and recover the stolen Luck. Despite James’s assurances and best intentions, Loren does not trust his new master and James finds it all too easy to slip into the role of slave master when Loren defies him.

As the two work together through hardship and danger, James finds himself falling in love with Loren. And when a hidden enemy moves against them, he must choose between his responsibility to his family and his own soul.

Buy it on Amazon, B&N, or directly from Carina Press

Keep in touch with the author:

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Twitter: @ShawnaReppert

Amazon Author Page

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A New Adventure: RT Booklovers Convention

This is how I picture RT will be. Only, you know, with people.

I haven’t said much about the RT Booklovers Convention, since so many other things have been going on. Now is the time. This is the week.

If you follow any writers on Twitter, you’ve probably seen at least a little of the buzz. Writers are tweeting what they’re wearing, who they’re rooming with, and what parties they plan to attend.

It’s the social event of the season for writers.

Now, we’ve discussed before what a hermit I am. Most writers are. This event is where all the hermits come together and act like they’re not hermits. I’m a little on the terrified side. But I’ve been assured that most of the other people are, too.

So. If you’re in the Kansas City area, come to RT and hold my hand. If you’re planning to be there, drop me a blog comment or an email. I’d love to see you.

I’ve got a fairly full schedule of breakfast dates, a luncheon, and a couple of cocktail parties, but I’ve still got room in there to hang with you.

Also, on Thursday I’ll be doing this: E-Book Expo

I’ll be sitting at a table giving away more lucky gargoyle snot, postcards, bookmarks, and also selling books in conjunction with AllRomance.com, who are the book vendors for the event. And, yes. If you ask really nice, I’ll be happy to autograph your boob, just like I did for Amanda and Ashley at Planet ComiCon.

I’m totally cool that way.

When I come back, I’ll share pictures. It’s five days long, but I promise not to drag out the report like I did with Branson.

See you real soon!

Trip Report, Part 4

Last one, I promise. If you’ve made it through all three previous installments, plus my husband’s recap, thank you for sticking around. If you’re just joining us and you’re interested, here’s a list:

Trip Report, Part 1
Trip Report, Part 2
Trip Report, Part 3
Strange Lights and Missing Time in Branson, Missouri

How in the hell can anybody spend so long writing about a trip that only took a day and a half? Beats me. Go with it.

If you’ve read this in order, then you already know about the four-hour time warp in the clutches of a time-share presentation. I just want to add a few things before we move on.

The room where we waited for forty-five minutes was tastefully decorated and quiet, very much resembling a doctor’s office waiting room. When our guy came to get us, he walked us down a nice hall with office doors on either side. I expected to go into an office for the spiel. No. The quiet hall dumped us into an enormous, buzzing room filled with fifty or more tables.

At least half those tables were occupied by people like us, listening to people like our guy. Every time somebody actually made a sale, a champagne bottle popped, and the room exploded in applause. It happened far more often than you would think, and there were a lot of champagne bottles lined up waiting. It was disconcerting as hell. I cannot make this up.

Four hours is far longer than certain feminine products can hold up. Too much info, I know, but I need you to understand how terribly uncomfortable the whole thing was.

Complaining about your kids being monsters in public is a really weird sales technique.

Obligatory fridge magnet.

When we said no after that long, long spiel, he called his manager over. Yes, he called him Bud, but he also called him by his full name. I swear, I thought if your first name was Boudreaux, they didn’t let you leave the bayou. Side note: I’m totally using that name in book four, so keep an eye out for it.

By the end of the tour, our sales guy asked if we would still be on vacation the next day. My husband said yes, but I said that no, I had to get back to work, since I have a book due in August. He asked what the next book was about.

“You,” I said. “I’m writing a book about the last four hours of my life.”

He laughed, but it was an uncomfortable laugh. Another side note: I’m pretty sure I’m actually going to use the experience in the next book. If I can use it to make Zoey and Riley go on a similar adventure, the time wasn’t totally wasted.

Last thought before we move on: Yes. I know we were stupid for going. Honestly, we were curious, and the whole trip was about doing goofy things. We just didn’t expect it to take four hours.

So. With a four hour drive ahead of us and psychologically worn out, we almost went home. The things we had planned to do held little charm for us now. But Kevin insisted we not let the whole day get wasted, so we hit Ripley’s Believe It or Not Odditorium.

Totally worth it. I saw things, man. Awesome things. Creepy things. Wondrous things.

The world’s biggest ball of string–not to be mistaken for the world’s biggest ball of twine, which is kept elsewhere.

Dude. I saw the worlds biggest ball of string. I’ve been hoping for that my whole life!

Reproductions of deformed animals, a wax model of a lizard man, the Roman Coliseum built out of playing cards, real shrunken heads, a life-sized cowboy made out of matchsticks, and a million other crazy things. If you’re ever in a town that has one of these, go. It’s insanely fun.

We bought a fridge magnet, of course, to commemorate our trip, but by then it was nearly dinner time. We needed to go home.

Every food place in Branson was suspect at this point, since breakfast had done its best to kill us. We hadn’t eaten anything since then, but decided to get something later. We’d had our fill of Branson. We would grab something in Springfield.

Last side note: My grease levels were still not at normal range yet. I couldn’t eat more than a few fries before feeling queasy. It was days before I felt myself again.

Stuffed ferrets playing cards and dressed as people. Plus a fancy lady-squirrel. Your argument is invalid.

So, there you have it. A ridiculously long trip report in which very little happened.

The universe owes me a trip to Disney World, I think.

Thanks for sticking with me. Have a great weekend!

See you real soon!

Trip Report, Part 3

Sorry I kept you hanging. Let’s get back to the recap. This time, it’ll go a lot faster, because I plan to cheat. I’m going to have help on day two.

But first, we have to finish up day one. We pulled into Branson, Missouri, perfectly timed to check into our hotel. My husband splurged on a suite because he loves me. We didn’t need the full kitchen or even the plush living room. No. He made sure I had a nice tub to soak in, and that only came with the full suite. He’s a good guy.

We relaxed for a bit (and poured over the many pamphlets we’d collected at Fantastic Caverns, then pulled ourselves together to investigate this weird town everyone always tries to sell us on.

The main drag was cool, and got cooler as it got darker. There are basically two main choices for what to do in the evening in Branson: Dinner or a show. We were there the day before the official season started, and it was a Thursday. Many of the shows we might’ve been interested in weren’t going on that night. In the end, we decided not to spend $100 for a pair of tickets to a show we weren’t that interested in.

And dinner? Did you not read Trip Report, Part 2? Dinner wasn’t happening. So full.

So, we drove around. We oohed and ahhed at the lights, the giant King Kong hanging from the Hollywood Wax Museum building. And ultimately, we discovered a little gem we didn’t know to ask for: A Disney Store outlet. I bought stuff. Crazy stuff. I’m wearing the Duck Tales tee shirt and the Maleficent nail polish right now. When I’m done, I will put my laptop in my new Mickey Mouse laptop sleeve. I made out like a bandit, and it was super cheap. I hate shopping, so this was kind of a weird deal.

We drove around some more. Watched people driving go karts on a weird multistory winding path, and we got frozen custard, which I took back to the room and ate in the bathtub while I read a book. (My bathtub at home sucks. Don’t judge me. It was my vacation.)

So, a pretty quiet, relaxed end to a great day. Day one was a success.

And then there was day two. Oh, Day Two. Why do you hurt me, so?

On our trip to Denver, I Googled “best breakfast in Denver” and found what really had to be the best breakfast in Denver. It was fantastic. The same strategy in Branson failed like a giant failing thing on the last failing planet in a failing solar system.

No. I won’t tell you what restaurant it was. But if you’ve never eaten sausage patties fried in lard, I wish you great success in avoiding it for your entire life. I think, somehow, even my apple juice was fried in lard.

I take it back. I figured out who she is. Her name is Dalena Ditto.

Somewhere in there while we were trying to figure out which food was the least greasy so we could get at least a little protein out of the meal, Branson royalty came to our table. I don’t know who she was, and I seem to have lost the postcard she dropped on our table featuring her dressed as Wonder Woman. But she invited us to come to her show. Also, I’ve never in my life seen so much glitter in a red lipstick. Her lips looked like Dorothy’s shoes. I couldn’t look away from them. They were beautiful. It seemed a little formal for breakfast, but, hey–it was Branson. Before you ask, no she wasn’t dressed as Wonder Woman when she came to our table. She was in a rhinestone cowgirl outfit. It was spiffy and bright.

Anyway, neither of us ate very much, but what we did eat made us so queasy and glassy-eyed that we stumbled unaware on the way out directly into the red, manicured talons of the Southern Goldnecked Tourist Vulture.

Now, here’s where I break with tradition. I don’t normally refer to my husband by name, but if you’ve stuck with me through all this, you deserve to know what happened next, and he’s already written it up here: Strange Lights and Missing Time in Branson, Missouri.

Go read that. And yes, that’s really my awesome husband. Apparently, his post got a hit on a Branson site, which a Branson message board picked up on. They are not happy with him. There’s a link to that hilarious discussion in the comments to his post.

I will be back Friday to wrap up the trip.

Didn’t I tell you I was going to milk it for as long as I could?

See you real soon!

Trip Report, Part 2

Bigger than a human head. Note the paper towels and bucket of silverware.

I’ll try to move us along a little faster with this road-trip recap. But I promise nothing.

So, we left Fantastic Caverns and made our way through the city of Springfield and out the other side, to arrive at Lambert’s Cafe, stop number two in the the Great Tourist Adventure.

As is my custom, I will now digress.

When I was a kid, we took a few cross-country car trips. Mostly, I remember my little brother puking on me multiple times, and I remember having to walk through a Stuckey’s rest stop/restaurant/gift shop to get to the bathroom to change my clothes.

I also remember the billboards for Lambert’s Cafe. And no, we never stopped there. But how do you not notice “Home of throwed rolls” on the sign? Even as a kid I wanted to correct the grammar.

Brilliant marketing strategy. It stuck with me all my life.

The point is, they wouldn’t stop. But you know what? When I got older, I drove back and forth across America repeatedly (often for no good reason), and I never stopped either.

So. When my friend Kate (Hi Kate!) said I should go there on the Crazy Kitschy Vacation of Campiness, I had to jump on it. I waited my whole life for this.

I’d been warned how insanely popular this place is, and that at peak times, you can wait an hour or two to get in. I planned accordingly. By the time we got to Lambert’s, it was about 2:15 in the afternoon. We went right in.

Everybody was super nice. Not like “highly trained professional servers in a five star restaurant” nice. No. More like “Hey, neighbor, come on in for a cup of coffee and a sammich” nice. And that was why we had a problem. But I’ll get to that.

People wander around this place with food. Not plates of food. Pots of food. And ginormous carts loaded with ginormous rolls. Which were, in fact, throwed.

See the picture at the top? Those were the drinks they served us. Enough soda to drown my enemies in, because the cup was bigger than a human head. Did you see the roll of paper towels behind the soda troughs? Yeah. Those were so we could defy the laws of space and time and start eating before we’d even ordered any food.

A guy with a Godzilla-sized pot full of fried okra came by and offered us some. We were, as you would expect, confused. We had no plates. We hadn’t ordered yet. He instructed us to tear off a paper towel. Then he piled fried okra on it. You’d think, since he was walking around with it, the food would be cold. Nope.

Then the roll guy came by. He kindly didn’t chuck his last roll at my head. So that was nice. Husband and I shared the roll, while roll guy went back to refill his multi-level roll cart.

Eventually, we ordered, and our regular food came to us. Our super-nice, welcome-to-our-house server apologized. They ran out of chicken, so they gave me the last two pieces. When more was done, she’d bring the rest out. I looked at my plate and felt a moment of fear. There was no way I could eat everything as it was. Plus, the fried-potato lady came over and put some on my already full plate. The black-eyed-peas and macaroni-and-tomatoes girls were easier to turn away.

But then, more rolls came out. The rolls were really, really good.

We’re going to digress again for a moment. Put on your digression helmets.

I suck at sports. P.E. class was a source of dread for me. My feet do okay, so dance steps, aerobics, that sort of thing, I’m fine there. Hand-eye coordination is non-existent. So, I was dreading the roll guy.

He had something I wanted. I wanted it bad. The rolls were so good. But he was throwing them. If I wanted a roll, I was going to have to catch it.

I weighed the pros and cons, and finally got my husband to catch a roll for me. We split it. The sorghum lady came around with a can of sticky stuff. We tried it. It was good.

I needed another roll. My husband refused to catch it for me. No. If I wanted it, I’d have to earn it.

Now, this would actually make for a better story, I think, if I either a) flew out of my chair and made a dramatic catch that stunned the crowd and garnered wild applause, or b) missed and got a black eye or had the roll land in my bucket of Dr. Pepper.

I think the roll guy took pity on me. He tossed it gently. I caught it. I split it with my husband, having lived through gym class one more day.

I’ve gone long for no good reason, so let me just tell you why the friendliness of the people nearly cost us our lives before we wrap this up for today.

We ate a lot. It was delicious. But we kept eating way past where we normally would have stopped. In a restaurant, you stop when you’re full. At someone’s house, you keep eating to be polite. Without realizing it, we felt like we were guests in someone’s home, not customers. We nearly ate ourselves to death.

Because the food kept coming. God help us, they just kept bringing us more food.

Fridge magnet number two in our fabulous tourist travels.

It finally hit me when I reached for the third piece of chicken (which she did, indeed, bring out later), bleary-eyed, weak, and queasy, that I realized why we were still plugging along.

We stopped eating.

We said no to dessert.

We lived to tell the tale.

On our way out, I felt smug as I stepped over a loose roll someone had dropped. I didn’t miss my roll. I’ll always have that.

Plus, I have the cool fridge magnet we bought at the gift store. See it?

We’re so close to Branson, now. I’ll be back Monday with Part 3.

See you real soon!

Trip Report, Part 1

Is that really George R.R. Martin sitting across from me? The world may never know.

Let me start this weird, mini-vacation recap with a confession. I never meant to go to Branson in the first place. Ever.

I am not their target customer. Every few weeks, a telemarketer calls offering me a free trip to see the wonderment that is Branson, Missouri. I’m afraid I got snarky and mean on the last call. I told them we hate Branson and we’re Disney people. Then I hung up, feeling superior, because, hey, how many freaking times can they call and have me explain that, no, we’re not interested, thank you.

So, you know, I already had the shame of that bit of mean-spiritedness hanging on my head when we slunk into town for an overnight adventure.

To be fair, Branson wasn’t where the plan started. My husband made a comment about Fantastic Caverns, and I said I’d never been. We decided it would be fun to do a little road trip to Springfield, since it’s only about three hours away. And, hey. We’ll stay the night. My husband went to book a room, declared the Springfield Marriott to be boring, and booked the one in Branson, an hour away.

From there, the mini-vacation of kooky touristy stuff was born.

So. Let the recap commence.

Day one was actually pretty awesome. We left in the morning, grabbed some Dunkin’ Donuts, and listened to various Disney podcasts on our way out. Googlemaps took us the back way to Fantastic Caverns, but that was part of the adventure. The caverns were gorgeous, educational, fascinating, and dark.

I would like to make a comment here about the bathrooms. While they were quite clean, I found the gaps between the stall components to be extra wide. I mean, really wide. From where I was sitting, I was able to make eye contact with two of the people waiting in line for my spot. Seriously. I had the fleeting thought that I was actually home asleep and having one of those dreams again.

It reminded me of a time when I was a teenager and my best friend and I were using adjacent stalls in a restaurant bathroom. We both happened to look up at the same time and realized the ceiling, for some strange reason, had a large, shiny metal plate attached, and we were looking right at each other. (Hi, Murffy!)

But I digress.

On a side note, I think George R.R. Martin was on our cavern tour with his family.

Fantastic Caverns fridge magnet. Just because.

(See picture above.) Man, years from now he’s going to look at that souvenir picture and say, “Holy crap, honey! We were sitting with R.L. Naquin that day and didn’t even know it!”

True story. In my head anyway.

In the gift shop, I bought a rock and a magnet for the fridge. And when we left, we went on the main road instead of going the back way we came.

A half hour or so later, we arrived at our second stop, Lambert’s Cafe. Home of the “throwed rolls,” where good grammar in advertising is optional.

And I think I’ll tell you all about that on Friday. Because, yeah, I can milk a lot of blog posts out of this strange little trip we took. We’ll talk about urban fantasy and paranormal romance another time. You know, once I’ve gotten all the mileage out of this thirty-six hour trip as I can.

See you real soon!

One Last Interview and a Preview

Vacation is over. We took a short trip, which I’ll tell you about on Wednesday. In the thirty-six hours we were gone, a lot of weirdness occurred. It deserves its own post.

For today, I have one more interview to share with you. The lovely Larissa of Larissa’s Bookish Life asked me to do an interview right at the peak of my blog tour. I was drowning in blog posts and interviews at that moment, and I cackled like a madwoman.

Then I pulled myself together and told her yes. She gave me plenty of time, though, so I was able to rest up and give her interview my undivided attention. Also, if you don’t have a copy of one of my books already, she’s running a contest to win one. If you do have my books, enter anyway for a friend!

You can find the interview here: R.L. Naquin Interview at Larissa’s Bookish Life

I know this is a short post today. I’ve got words to write. Wouldn’t you rather read a new book than a bunch of long-winded blog posts? Besides. I’ll have some of those here, too. Wednesday I’m going to tell you about my trip to Branson, Missouri. And Friday, come back for a discussion on the difference between urban fantasy and paranormal romance.

Here are previews:

Wednesday–Bats, rolls chucked at my head, greasy food, sparkly lips, four hours I’ll never get back, and the worlds biggest ball of string.

Friday–Bitch, whine, grump, respect, Jim Butcher, whine.

Are you intrigued? Baffled? Queasy? Does your hair hurt? Check out my interview at Larissa’s, then come back on Wednesday to find out how you, too, can make $120 on your vacation and nearly pee yourself in the process.

See you real soon!