Apparently Laurell K Hamilton’s ex-assistant Darla is having a hard time, so she’s been considering burning her college degree and self-publishing her Anita encyclopedia. *g*

Somehow putting my degree on the gas grill isn’t satisfying, so I am going to wait on it. I will find somewhere to burn it, patience is needed is all.

And lets hear it for those that love us! Me particularly. LOL! I am not going to burn the Anitapedia now. Someone I know pointed out, that lots of hard work went in to that so why not self publish since I have been waiting almost nine years. So I will. It needs some tweaks but it is going to go to Lulu.com.

As soon as it is up, I will let everyone know.

Working on some free online classes. Trying to make me more marketable. The money situation sucks, which is why lulul.com. Just trying to hang in there a while longer and hope a job materializes.

Hmmm… Poor Darla…

Via Mrs Giggles’ blog.

I got the link to the following open letter via Twitter from Angela at Reading While Black. The letter is by best-selling African American author, Virginia DeBerry.

Here are some excerpts from Virginia’s letter for those who can’t be arsed to follow the link:

Dear Oprah:

We don’t sing karaoke or dance with the stars. We have been contributing to the cultural landscape long before Jon & Kate, Britney,Rhianna and Chris or Stephanie Meyer and most of America, including you have probably never even heard of us….

We are writers and we are in trouble. Big trouble.

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Because this cover skeeved me out.

The men aren’t even attractive for Oprah’s sake. The eighties hair style doesn’t help either.

It’ll be interesting to see how well this books sells, considering that a lot of romance readers aren’t great at embracing older protagonists.

The book is from Loose ID by the way.

Apparently RWA aren’t renewing DA Jane’s RWA Associate membership, because apparently she doesn’t support RWA or romance authors.

Huh?

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You guys may remember that a while back I shared a lovely, lovely essay written by my daughter a couple of years ago.

Well, it so happens that I’ve just opened an Etsy store with the same name, Her Hands, My Hands.

In it I sell quality, handcrafted knitwear, and  I will be stocking the other sections of the store (virtually) with handmade bookmarks, embroidered placemats and napkins, etc., in the next few days.

As the holiday season is upon us, if you are looking for a unique, affordable gift for that special someone–or for yourself, for that matter–you may just find that perfect item right there. If you don’t see exactly what you are looking for, contact me about custom orders.

(Special thanks to Karen for allowing me to promote my store here. I return you now to your regularly scheduled programming.)

Dark Country, by Bronwyn Parry

The second title in a planned trilogy set in the Australian Outback, Dark Country takes the reader back to the small town of Dungirri. Kris Matthews, the heroine, was first introduced in the course of the previous novel, As Darkness Falls (review here). The hero is bad boy Morgan “Gil” Gillespie, son of the area’s drunk.

Here’s the pretty accurate back cover blurb (from the author’s website):

Most people in the small town of Dungirri have considered Morgan ‘Gil’ Gillespie a murderer for eighteen years, so he expects no welcome on his return. What he doesn’t expect is the discovery of a woman’s tortured body in the boot of his car, and new accusations of murder.

Wearied by too many deaths and doubting her own skills, local police sergeant Kris Matthews isn’t sure whether Gil is a decent man wronged by life, or a brutal criminal she should be locking up. But she does know that he is not guilty of this murder – because she is his alibi . . .

Between organised crime, police corruption, and the hatred of a town, Gil has nowhere to hide. He needs to work out who’s behind the murder before his enemies realise that the one thing more punishing than putting him back in prison would be to harm the few people he cares about.

Kris is determined to help him, but will their search for the truth make her the next target?

My beloved Issek and I had the opportunity of reading this book together recently… (he received a copy, gratis, from the author, and I received an ARC, idem) so, after much cajoling and begging (and perhaps just a wee bit of pouting) he agreed to do another joint review with me.

warning: long conversational review ahead!

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This week’s dilemma is as follows:

You go on a blind date with a guy who seems perfect for you. You go on a few dates with him and grow to like him very much.

One evening, you’re watching the news together, and tonight’s entertainment section features a well known gay celebrity getting married to his long term partner. Your new boyfriend expresses disgust at the fact that the ceremony is taking place at all, and makes some blatantly homophobic comments.

You happen to have a brother who’s gay, and your new boyfriend’s stance offends you no end

What do you? Do you confront his bigotry head on, even though your relationship at this point is pretty new and tenuous? Or do you ignore his comments, figuring that you’ll tackle this issue some other time?

What would you do?

Hmmm, I bet the RWA never thought they’d be in a position where they’d have to un-recognise one of its biggest publishers as a result of their stance on e-publishing companies vanity presses eh?

I’m assuming that most of you have heard about Harlequin Horizons by now? If not, Dear Author has a very informative post about HQN’s newest get-richer-quicker, ethically dubious venture.

For those who can’t be arsed popping over to read the post, (more…)

Regular readers of KKB will know that I’m not a great lover of hysterical historical romances (TV doesn’t count). Oh I read the occasional historical author, for instance I love Lisa Kleypas books, and Elizabeth Hoyt is another favourite, but on the whole, I pretty much try to avoid anything written before 1999.

So it was with trepidation that I decided to pick up Jennifer Ashley’s, The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie.
I decided to buy it because I like unusual heroes, and unfortunately, the heroes that I’ve encountered of late have been a little run of the mill.

Anyway, I needn’t have worried actually, because it was a pretty terrific book. Ashley got all the elements just right, and I finished reading it in no time at all.

I’ve been having trouble reading books till the end lately, so any book that I pick up and read in one go, is worth talking about methinks, so I decided to give TMOLIM a quick plug.

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No, I’m not talking about war and soldiers–I’m talking about teenagers and sex.

I may be wrong–though it seems the CDC is leaning towards agreeing with me–but given my own experiences as a teen (and the fact that I have really vivid memories of many of those… *cough*) it never has made sense to me to say, “just don’t do it and you’ll be fine” and then actually expect teens to “not do it”.

Ostrich and sand kind of thing, I’ve always thought.

And a bit like saying to a young kid, “Don’t talk to strangers!” and then being horrified that the overwhelming majority of abuse comes from people close to the kids.

Teach them all they need to know, and then let them make their own choices–they’ll make them anyway, isn’t it much better that they be informed ones?

Arm your kids with knowledge.