Berzerk

Special Giveaway

Jan Flanders

Real Life Is Stranger

Loree's Lough Down

Confession Corner

Made For Movies

No Place for a Lady

If you’ve ever wondered what Scarlet O’Hara’s life would be like as a cowgirl, make sure you read No Place for a Lady by Maggie Brendan. As a lover of Southern heroines, I felt a kindred spirit with Crystal Clark, the beautiful and spunky Georgia peach who comes to live with Aunt Kate on a cattle ranch in Aspengold, Colorado. Of course, as with all great historical romances, a cool and aloof love interest is waiting for her there, and in this case, his name is Luke Weber.

From the moment I finished the first chapter, I saw the silhouette of Crystal’s...

Real Life Is Stranger

A TITLE ONLY AN AUTHOR COULD LOVE

How likely are you to plunk down twenty hard-earned dollars for a book called How to Avoid Huge Ships? No? How about Bombproof Your Horse? Or Living with Crazy Buttocks? What do you mean, you’re not interested? These are award-winning titles!

Not award-winning books. Just the titles.

Since 1979 the British literary magazine, The Bookseller, has held an annual contest for the Diagram Prize for Oddest Title of the Year. This year’s finalists are:

Baboon Metaphysics [Who knew monkeys cared about the time-space continuum?]

Jan Flanders (Etiquette)

Fiction Etiquette with a Southern Twist Twisted Southern

My aunt Jan is indisposed due to some recent celebrating. I have encouraged her to drink a bit of mint tea (she loves mint, you know!) to settle her stomach. In the best interest of us all, I also mentioned she might want to take it a bit easier—she’s not as young as she once was. She asked me to write a short piece to you in her place this month and to assure you she will return very soon. If I lived closer, I’d take her a hot dish.

Special Giveaway

Christy Barritt Presents: The Evidence Bag

Help keep crime-scene cleaner Gabby St. Claire alive.

Maybe you’ve heard of her adventures through the Squeaky Clean Mystery Series. She’s been compared to Stephanie Plum—only clean. But now she needs your help in order to survive into book three.

Enter the drawing for a chance to...

Loree's Lough Down

The Pitfalls and Perils of Professional Envy

I was chatting recently with a writer pal who told me another writer pal had just slam-dunked a multi-book contract with a major New York house. Big fat advance, higher-than-normal royalties, book tour, ads in the NY Times, the whole schlameezel. Amid my woo-hoos and atta girls, my pal slipped in a couple of snide remarks (punctuated with giggles, lest I think she’s envious), which got me t’ thinkin’ about the sometimes dark and dangerous...

Confession Corner

Special Report on CBE!

The Christian Book Expo in Dallas was a bibliophile’s dream. Unfortunately, it was also either Dallas’ best-kept secret or a victim of today’s struggling economy and Spring Break in Texas. I hurt for those who worked hard planning and implementing it, and I hated to think of all the folks who were missing out. But for those who were there, it was a time of joy and fellowship–and the lighter crowds just gave us more time to hang out together!