“Well, is it working?”

Since I first launched my TessaDare.com website, I’ve had pretty much the same excerpt of Goddess of the Hunt available. It ends with this line from Lucy to Jeremy, where she’s asking him if her seduction efforts are having any, erm, measurable effect. That question has hung unanswered in cyberspace for almost two and a half years.

Until now.

Of course, starting Tuesday anyone might buy Goddess of the Hunt at her nearest bookstore and read the entire thing from cover to cover in one sitting (recommended). 🙂 But if you can’t wait that long to read Jeremy’s answer to Lucy’s question, you can download The Dangerous Book of Excerpts today! This is an excerpt booklet the brilliant Courtney Milan designed, and it features lengthy excerpts of GOTH, Surrender of a Siren, and Courtney’s two upcoming releases, This Wicked Gift (in the anthology The Heart of Christmas) and Proof by Seduction. We printed 400 of these booklets to take to RWA National Conference and came home with 30. They were a hot, hot item. The tagline? “Read with caution! You might get sucked in…”

So download if you dare. It’s yours free at this link.… Read More »

Okay, so I have a very loose definition of “tomorrow”… *shrug* Click on any of the pictures for a better view.

Friday was a big day at RWA, and I began it by sleeping late. 🙂 Seriously, I’d planned to attend morning workshops, but I was just so beat by the previous two days’ activities to drag myself out of bed before 9:30 AM.

So my first real activity of the day was to attend the Awards Luncheon, which I would not have missed for the world – because the speaker was none other than Eloisa James. And what a speech she gave.

A Washington Post columnist happened to be in attendance, and you can read his summary and reaction here. (Be sure to scroll down and read the comments for a more rounded view of the event.) For me, Eloisa’s main point was that we can’t be afraid to use the drama and humor of our own lives to fuel our fiction. A quote I tweeted from the luncheon went something like this: “Best-sellers are born of strong emotion, not just lots of sex.” 🙂 I can tell you that there was not a dry eye at our table at the conclusion of the luncheon.

After the luncheon, Courtney Milan and I were on a panel with our wonderful agents, Kristin Nelson and Helen Breitwieser, and historical authors Sherry Thomas and Tracy Anne Warren. The topic of the panel was something akin to “How to be an Anomaly”–which, … Read More »

Whew. Why did I think I’d be able to blog from RWA National Conference? I don’t think I even cracked open the laptop but once. It was iphone or nothing. But anyway, I am finally home and had such a great time. This was my first conference as a really, truly, almost-all-grownup author! And it ROCKED.

The fun started Wednesday with the Eloisa James/Julia Quinn Bulletin Board get-together, catered by the amazing Kim Castillo (we were enjoying the fruits cookies of her labor all week). Later that day, I had my first-ever book signing at the RWA Readers for Life literacy benefit. I only had about 15 copies there, and they were all gone within minutes, thanks to my wonderful friends. I can’t tell you how touching it was to see people I’ve “known” online for three years show up with hugs and misty eyes to support the release of GODDESS OF THE HUNT. I am so blessed with a wonderful network of friendship and support.

Thursday started with breakfast with my roomies Courtney Milan and Carey Baldwin, plus…oh…a dozen? of the historical romance genre’s most esteemed authors. Oh my stars – Joanna Bourne, Sherry Thomas, Mary Jo Putney, and several more – all before I’d had my coffee. I may have dreamed it.

After breakfast, I attended the Rogue Digital Seminar presented by Sarah Wendell of Smart Bitches Trashy Books, Kassia Kroszer of QuartetPress, Angela James of Samhain Publishing, and Jane Litte of Dear Author, … Read More »

I’ve been interviewed by The Season, author Beverley Kendall’s beautiful online newsletter for readers of historical romance.  Bev asked me all sorts of thoughtful questions about Goddess of the Hunt, writing in series, and what I’m working on next. In conjunction with the interview, she’s running a giveaway – one lucky person will win a copy of GOTH and a $15 gift certificate to the online bookstore of her choice!  So click on over and win.

It’s also a sort of holiday season for me…I’m getting ready to fly off to DC next week for the RWA National Conference, which is pretty much my Christmas in July.  It’s definitely the occasion that warrants the most shopping outside of December!  I’ve got my new frocks and shoes and bookmarks and promo buttons (click photo for a better view):

I plan to set up a form on this website, to give away extras once I get home from conference…

If you’ll be in DC, please do stop by and see me Wednesday at the Literacy Signing (even if you don’t buy a book!  Really!), or the panel I’ll be on with authors Courtney Milan, Sherry Thomas, Tracy Anne Warren, and our wonderful agents, Kristin Nelson and Helen Breitwieser – it’s Friday at 2PM.

I’ll try to post a few updates and pix from conference!… Read More »

In case you haven’t seen it, USA Today ran a fabulous article yesterday on the Romance genre. Balanced, thoughtful, positive. Fabulous. Quoted are Eloisa James, Julia Quinn, and Sarah Wendell of Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, among others. It’s a must-read!

And speaking of must reads, my friend and RWA chaptermate DeAnna Cameron celebrates her very first release day today! The Belly Dancer (Berkley) is historical fiction with, as they say, “strong romantic elements.” Here is the blurb:

At the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, the modern, the exotic, and the ground-breaking collide. When Dora Chambers, an aspiring socialite, is charged with the task of enforcing proper conduct at the Egyptian belly dancing exhibition, she finds herself captivated by these marvelous women. And as her eyes are opened to the world beyond a life of social expectations, she finds the courage to break free and discover the truth about her own heart.

Doesn’t that just sound fascinating? And look at that beautiful cover!

Congratulations, DeAnna – I can’t wait to read the book.… Read More »

Goddess of the Hunt releases this month! I’m still floating from the starred reviews in both Publisher’s Weekly and Library Journal, as well as the Top Pick from Romantic Times. On July 15th, I’ll be signing early copies at the RWA Literacy Signing in Washington, DC. If you can’t make it, enter my new contest to win an autographed copy of your own!… Read More »

I got two copies in the mail this morning from my editor’s assistant. (You can click on the picture for a bigger view.) I have since accomplished very little besides gazing into the shiny gold foil and fondling the embossing. It’s real! It’s really real! There are 384 pages inside, and my words are on each and every one!

Goddess of the Hunt got some lovely bloggage this week. Michelle Buonfiglio listed it as a Top Ten Beach Read over at BarnesandNoble.com’s “Unabashedly Bookish” blog, and on Barbara Vey’s “Beyond Her Book” blog at Publisher’s Weekly, Stacey gave it a fabulous writeup (scroll down to the bottom). I’m in the process of writing up all sorts of promo letters, interviews, and guest blog posts for the coming month. Prepare to get sick of me. 🙂

AND – I had awesome news yesterday in the form of an email from my editor. Rights to all three books in the trilogy have been sold to publisher IKAR, for hardcover Slovak-language editions. I’ll be in translation! I can’t believe it.

Needless to say, it’s been a great week. I hope it’s been great for you, too. Have a wonderful holiday weekend, for those who live in the USA!… Read More »

Enter today to win DVDs, coverflats, and yummy treats!

Oh my goodness.  In all the excitement of the last few weeks, I completely forgot that I’ve not yet written up love letters to my last two favorite movies, Cold Comfort Farm and Enchanted.

Actually, they’re easy to combine into one post, because I chose them both for the same reason.  Humor.

Enchanted is a send-up of fairy tales and Disney princess movies (though it is, itself, a Disney movie), and I’m sure most of you are familiar with the plot.  Cold Comfort Farm (based on the comic novel by Stella Gibbons published in 1932) parodies gloomy, gothic Bronte-esque novels.  The film version, starring Kate Beckinsale, Ian McKellan, Rufus Sewell and other greats,  had the opportunity to parody not only the novels, but the costume dramas made from them!

I expect many of you are familiar with Enchanted, (and if not I blogged about it once long ago) but the plot of Cold Comfort Farm goes something like this:  Fresh-faced city girl Flora Poste goes to live with her relatives, the Starkadders, at the aptly named Cold Comfort Farm.  From the batty old woman who keeps to her room because she long ago “saw something nasty in the woodshed”, to the oversexed farm brothers Seth and Ruben, to their fire-and-brimstone preaching patriarch, Cold Comfort Farm is not only a jumble of crazy characters, but a tumbledown wreck. Flora brings to the place a modern sensibility, and through a … Read More »

I’m hard at work on my second book in this new Stud Club trilogy. At the moment, I think we’ve decided to call it TWICE TEMPTED BY A ROGUE. It’s been a mix of rough rough-drafting and research so far. I was joking on Twitter the other day that after four books, I’ve finally broken down and created a research binder, with color-coded tabs and everything. (Note: This is extremely unlike me.) I hadn’t expected to become so enthralled with the research for this book, and I’m a little worried that it’s partly procrastination…but I’ve been collecting and printing out all sorts of images and informational PDFs about the history, geology, climate, wildlife, and legends of Dartmoor.

Beautiful, isn’t it?  The area has such fascinating history (going all the way back to pre-history!) and folklore.  In addition to the tors–the craggy granite formations that pepper the area–Dartmoor boasts ancient stone circles and cairns (tombs), the ruins of medieval tinning operations, rivers and waterfalls, bogs and mires, and more.

“Worldbuilding” is a term most commonly associated with paranormals or sci-fi/fantasy.  It refers to the author’s creation of a fictional universe with its own unique rules, creatures, places and people.  In historicals, our “worldbuilding” is usually less about creating our own universe, and more about evoking a real-life historical setting.  However, every book in any genre involves a certain amount of worldbuilding–where do the characters come from, for one?   How do objects, people, fixtures, buildings relate to one another, spatially or otherwise?  … Read More »

While I was off gallivanting in cornfields, a controversy exploded in the online romance community last week. In case you’ve missed it, the online portion of it started with agent/author Deidre Knight’s open letter to RWA (Romance Writers of America), and RWA President Diane Pershing’s response. Today, Dear Author has a helpful guide to further reactions around the Internet.

At issue are RWA’s positions and policies on digital publishing. Currently, the organization does not recognize any e-publisher as a legitimate publisher (for the purposes of presenting at conference, taking pitches, etc.), because they pay on a no- or low-advance/greater-royalty model, instead of giving advances of $1000 or more for each book. This has resulted in a complete absence of digital publishing education at our upcoming conference. RWA’s current policies have also created ambiguity in membership status–members who publish with an e-press or small press are considered “published” in some respects, but not in others, leading to inequities in contest participation, etc.

I love RWA–both National and my local chapter. But I do think the national organization in particular could be doing far more to educate the membership about digital publishing and e-publishers. Today, digital publishing affects every published and aspiring writer of romance–we all need to understand e-rights contract clauses, the Google books settlement, DRM, and more. And I take issue with the president’s repeated assertion that e-publishing is not the venue of the “career-focused” author of romance. I’ve published with an e-press, and it was very much a … Read More »