Suits on Sunday

The Male on Sunday is being held back on the Pink Heart Society blog so he can have his rightful place on a Monday. I'll be sure to let you know when he's up.

To compensate, I'm providing a few suits on Sunday as a follow-up to our discussion on the Love Is An Exploding Cigar blog about the romantic fantasy of men in suits. If you didn't find one to your liking in the last batch (Abby did!), you might find one here.

Enjoy.





























































Oh, and Sally, here's one for you in not the same kind of suit, but, hey, it's a suit of sorts -- and he's definitely got what it takes.

Male on Sunday?

Over at the Pink Heart blog, where I am a regular columnist, albeit a sporadic one due to the nature of scheduling, I was tapped to do a September 30th Male on Monday.

Now, Male on Monday slots are always hard to get as there are a lot of people who are very willing to do the research involved. (Are you surprised?)

But back in August, the scheduler, the wonderful Ally Blake, wrote me and asked if I would do my Hugh-in-a-towel retrospective mid-month and the "spare" Male on Monday for September 30th.

As I had a Male on Monday candidate up my sleeve anyway, I said, "Yes!"

So, I began my research, and I researched very hard indeed. I even watched a few movies which is, of course, very difficult (under deadline, I'm not kidding, it IS sometimes difficult to find the time). But I persevered because this Male on Monday is worth the effort.

Tonight, as I was finishing the piece, I thought, "Wait a minute. It's September 28th. It's Friday. That makes Saturday the 29th, which makes the 30th . . . Sunday."

So, I've written Ally with the dilemma as I see Nicola Marsh has a Male on Monday post ready to go, too.

It may turn out that we have a surfeit of Males on Monday at The Pink Heart (Can there really be a surfeit of Male on Monday caliber men?) Or it may be that we save my guy for some other time (he's not going to vanish, and he'll probably only get better with age).

We'll see. I'll probably put up some more men in suits on Sunday by way of compensation!

Or I could write chapter three. Someone is actually paying me to do that (provided I get it done).

Happy Birthday, Lil Pink Dancing Guy

As the founders of The Pink Heart Society may realize, if you let people who live on the other side of the world celebrate Lil Pink's birthday, by the time it is their day to celebrate, most of the rest of the world is more than halfway on their way to tomorrow!

So, my apologies for being "late" for so many of you who are also celebrating, but it really is only 7 in the morning here!

Anyway, the lil pink dancing guy is almost to the end of his birthday celebration. He's been dancing all over the world since September 1st gathering up goodies to celebrate. And if you've been following his travels and are taking part in the GIANT HAMPER contest, you've almost finished your list.

Today I get to give Lil Pink his prezzie -- and when I chose it I had no idea that these tickets would be quite as sought after as they are.

For his first birthday, I'm giving Lil Pink tickets to the next Green Bay Packers home game!

Where I live that's definitely a present we'd almost all like to get (well, there are some Bears fans around, and my grandson is a Vikings fan - yikes!) but Lil Pink and I will be heading off to watch the so-far-undefeated Packers and their 17 year veteran quarterback Brett Favre!

Happy birthday, Lil Pink! Hope you enjoy the game.

Eamon and Abby Sitting in a tree . . .

Well, maybe not in a tree and not K-I-S-S-I-N-G. Yet. But things are progressing.

Remember Eamon the sheep that Abby Green sent me from the far reaches of Ireland?

Well, if you don't, here he is. He's on my bookshelf staring down at me as I write.

Remember Eamon's Greek cousin, Mr Bushy Moustache. Abby sent him to me from her trip to Greece (research, don't you know?).

Remember Eamon the Apron (who actually sounds like a Welsh chef, if you ask me) that Abby sent from, um, well, I don't exactly know where. Dublin perhaps?

I thought that all this Eamon sending was getting a little one-sided.

Yes, I've threatened to write her a hero called Eamon. But I'm up to my eyeballs in another book right now. And I need to get back to Seb and Neely at some point. So Eamon-and-Abby The Book might be a ways off.

Consequently I decided she needed a reminder of Eamon in her life. Preferably somewhere she couldn't miss him -- like in her bed.

And so my version of Eamon went winging her way late last week. (Those are little sheep if you can't tell what the black and white things are!)

She says he has arrived. She especially likes the black sheep among the others. I see character development on the horizon.

And other things, too, as now she's gone to bed with him. Quick work, Abby!

Men In Suits part 2

Over on the Exploding Cigar blog I promised that I would put up a few Men In Suits. And since pictures are always worth thousands of words (just as those of us addicted to Hugh-in-a-towel), here they are (I hope . . . if the blog is cooperating).

Catching Up

Hey, it's me, Spence.

Anne has gone off blogging on Exploding Cigars or something. And before she left, she said, "You try to get on our blog. I can't do it." So as I've been asked, here I am.

I'm glad to be back actually. I've been doing a lot of traveling (taking Sadie along) and we're beginning to see copies of the book places. We saw it in UK and Ireland in September (well, it still is, isn't it?). But we're also seeing copies turning up in the US. Anne says it's coming to Australia and New Zealand in October, too.

Kind of exciting. No, actually very exciting. And Kate Walker just came back from some Mills & Boon meetings in London and told Anne that Harlequin Mills & Boon are opening an office in India and starting in November, I think, the books are coming out there, too. Maybe not ours in the first batch. But maybe ours sometime. That will be cool.

So, let's see if this posts.

Men In Suits

Tomorrow -- Tuesday, September 26 -- I'm the guest blogger at Love Is An Exploding Cigar, which is the blog by a community of writers who always have interesting topics and guests and prizes to give away.

I'm talking about Men In Suits because, let's face it, Spence wears suits and he was touted as a tycoon and promoted on eharlequin in their "romancing the boss" promo. And also, let's face this, too, I don't often write about men in suits, and so Spence is worth celebrating.

What is it about Men In Suits?

Well, we all have our opinion. And I'll be sharing mine over there tomorrow. Stop by if you would like to comment. If you register (which is free and simple) you will also be eligible to win a copy of The Boss's Wife For A Week and you can, thus, be the first on your block to read one.

If you don't win there, my own "Romancing the Boss" contest still has almost a week to run. Be sure to stop by my website and enter. The winner of that contest not only gets a copy of Spence and Sadie, but lots of other great books as well.

See you on the Exploding Cigar. And don't forget I'm over at Jane Porter's Bulletin Board all week this week.

For all parents

Every once in a while something pops up in email that must be shared.

A friend sent me this video and it has made serious inroads into my writing time. I keep watching it and grinning and nodding and laughing -- then feeling the tug of a tear at the end because it is oh-so-true.

Anyone who has had kids -- or who has been one -- will know what I mean.

Thanks to Mr Crawford, whoever you are, for creating the bedtime version of Pachelbel's Canon in D.

Enjoy!

Blogging blogging everywhere . . .

Sometimes I wonder if I would write more on my book if I wrote less here. But I don't think I would. I think the writing is entirely different.

And because I am trusting that I'm right and I'm not denying my book anything, I'm also blogging elsewhere this coming week.

Starting tomorrow you will find me over at Jane Porter's Bulletin Board where I'll be chatting with whoever drops in. So if you are of a mind to, please stop by and say hi. Ask questions. Make comments. Glad to have you.

And while you're there, take a look at Jane's books. She's written Presents for several years now (I met her in 2000 and she was pretty much a newbie then, but that's quite a while ago) and she's very good at it. But in my humble opinion, she's even better when it comes to writing her mainstreamier books.


I adored her first one, The Frog Prince. I gave it to everyone I knew. I was a one-person Jane Porter booster club with that book (and I wasn't alone. I'm sure there were/are lots of other Jane fans after that book, though probably they didn't all buy as many copies as I did). Then she went on to charm me with Flirting With Forty. And now I have Odd Mom Out in my hot little hands (and no time to read it! Drat, drat, drat!).

But I will read it on the plane to Seattle, Jane. Did I tell you I'm coming? No, probably not. But I am. And you read it here first. Soon, too. But we'll talk about that later.

The other place I'm blogging this week is at Love Is An Exploding Cigar, a fun "community" website where lots of people chat and guest bloggers can talk about whatever they are interested in at the moment -- and if you are very lucky you can win books. Pretty neat place to be. Anyway, I'll be over there on September 25th. So if you want to have a chance to win an early copy of The Boss's Wife For A Week, stop by and visit. You will have to register to comment, but it's free and easy. Hope to see you there.

In the meantime, my two new lovers, PJ and Ally, are cooperating beautifully. I don't know that they are especially glad to see each other again, but I'm certainly glad to see them!

In fact they are demanding that I get back to them. And I really need to because tomorrow we have a grandson's birthday party to go to and I need to get as much writing done as I can first. Got to have this story wrapped up before I head off to Seattle.

Keep your fingers crossed for LOTS of character cooperation.

Did I mention Seattle?

Making Other Plans

It was John Lennon, I think, who said that life is what happens when you're making other plans.

I'm here to tell you that stories are what happen when you're writing -- or trying to write -- other books.

Seb and Neely and I got ambushed by another story. A far more insistent story than Seb and Neely's right now, to tell you the truth. This sometimes happens.

I've written 59 books. And some of them have made sense right from the beginning and were clear sailing all the way through. Well, with ONE OF THEM that was the case.

And the other 58 had varying degrees of fits and starts along the way.

Four of them got waylaid by other books. I started them and, er, well, something happened. Either the book didn't go the way I thought it was going to, or the editor in charge thought something should be different and I couldn't see it that way and so I couldn't bend my mind around it, or the hero and heroine were walking down the street to the cafe and never got there (yes, Flynn and Sara, I'm talking about you!).

Anyway, sometimes things like that happen. And then, what's an author to do?

Well, in this case, Seb and Neely are going back in their box to get chummy and think about what they want to do down the road a piece. And I am joining another couple on their way to a happily ever after. It's pretty exciting because they are definitely eager to get going.

Interesting things are happening. We've left Seb and Neely in San Francisco. We've gone back to New York. Hawaii might turn up. So might Greece. No idea where this story came from.

Writing. A surprise a minute.

Mindboggling, that's what it is.

The Legend in a Towel

While Eamon is quickly becoming legend of sorts here, the first LEGEND I've been part of is the story of Kate Walker's and my talks at the RW New Zealand (they say RWNZed) and RWAustralia (they said RWA and pay no attention to the one across the sea) which were punctuated by the appearance of a certain man in a certain towel whenever we needed to make a point.

It's amazing how often we needed to make a point.

Hugh-in-a-towel's appearance at our talks became noteworthy. I'm fairly sure that if the Christchurch journalist who interviewed Kate and me had known about H-I-A-T, he would have been scandalized and even more dismayed than he already was. He thought we were "condescending" to write for "stupid women" and should be ashamed of ourselves for taking advantage of them.

I'm not quite sure how we were taking advantage or why these women were "stupid" (anyone who finds Hugh-in-a-towel appealing and believes in a happy ending is not stupid at all in my book!). And I am quite sure I've never ever condescended to anyone in my romance novels because I love writing them and love writing about relationships and I would write them even if no one published them or paid me (but you don't need to tell Harlequin that).

But I'm sure he would have Disapproved. Too bad.

I doubt Hugh would disapprove. And his being there -- albeit two-dimensionally -- made the talks more fun. Not to mention memorable -- as they are continuing to be a point of reference three years later.

Actually the talks aren't, but Hugh definitely is. And RNA (that's UK for RWUK. Well, not really, but there are similarities) have invited me to speak next year on the Myers-Briggs Temperament Indicator. That's what I talked about (theoretically) Down Under, so maybe they are hoping for an appearance of Hugh-in-a-towel as well.

Anyway, the point of this is to say that the Powers That Be at the Pink Heart asked me to write about the Legend of Hugh-in-a-towel -- how it began and what it all means -- and so I have. And it's up on the Pink Heart blog tomorrow (which is already today in Australia and UK so it's already up there, which is why I'm writing about it here now).

So if you have not yet had your fill of the Hugh-in-a-towel Legend, please drop by. Find out why a picture is worth a 1000 words -- and what those thousand words are.

Eamon . . . again

I really have to write a hero named Eamon. And a heroine named Abby, of course.

Abby Green is simply goading me into it. This all began when I was trying to find a name for Flynn Murray's horse-mad younger brother. I wanted to call him Eamon. I thought it was a good name. In fact I almost got to name a son that (so there, Abby!). Only a family name came first.

But I liked it then. I still like it now.

Suffice to say, Abby doesn't. Or says she doesn't. She complains that it is the name mothers give 50 year old bachelor farmer sons who wear cardigans. I'm relatively sure the sons in question weren't born age 50 -- or in cardigans -- but Abby is insistent.

She made such a fuss that I took her at her word and named Flynn's brother Dev instead. He seems like a Dev and I am perfectly happy with the name.

I probably would have let the Eamon issue die a quiet death, but Abby went on holiday to some remote spot in Ireland and found a postcard with, she says, Eamon on it (though this Eamon's cardigan didn't seem to have buttons and seemed to be rather, um, attached). So she sent it to me.

I thought he was a handsome sheep. I said so.

Then Abby went on holiday to Greece. I had an email when she got back saying that Eamon's cousin was on his way. I thought I'd get a Greek sheep next. But I got a Greek shepherd instead. At least I guess he's a shepherd. Still no cardigan, but he does have a rather woolly mustache.

And then last week, out of the blue, Eamon appeared again in yet another form. This time he's on an apron. And a very sprightly lad he looks, too. I wore him on the weekend. We baked together. Then we cooked a roast for dinner. He's a very good cook.

Do you suppose this means that my Eamon should be a chef? Maybe not. I can't see my editor thinking that was a "Presentsy" occupation. Got any ideas, anyone?

Other than Abby, that is, who seems to have far too many ideas and way too much time on her hands!

All I can say, Abby is, just you wait. Eamon is going to come calling at your house next. He thinks you're quite enchanting. And he's impressed that you are paying so much attention to him.

He thinks that you might just be protesting a bit too much!

More Than You Ever Wanted to Know ...

Julie Bonello, who wrote a terrific review of The Boss's Wife For A Week, contacted me after she'd read it and asked if I would do an interview for Cata-Romance, the website that focuses on series romance novels.

I was happy to oblige (it beats writing Seb and Neely). And so she sent questions and I answered them, and the result is up on the Cata-Romance site here. So if you are bored or trying to avoid doing whatever it is you're supposed to be doing (like writing Seb and Neely or your own version thereof -- which might be cleaning the oven or scouring the steps or folding laundry or adding long columns of figures), by all means stop by and check it out.

I haven't forgotten that I'm supposed to be showing you the latest enovinification (that's Eamon in sheepshape) of Abby Green's dearly beloved. He is, as I mentioned, in apron form at the moment. I have been trying to download from my camera, but there appears to be some momentary glitch.

So I will be back with Eamon. He's too good to miss. And he is quite the chef. He helped me make chicken and artichoke hearts a couple of nights ago.

What? Did you think he could only make corned beef and cabbage?

Old Dogs and New Tricks

The old dog would be me. The new trick is figuring out what I'm doing with my blog and my website.

My webmistress has set it up so that I can use Contribute to edit it. And as soon as I get the hang of Contribute, we should be fine.

At the moment, I'm pretty basic in my ability to cope. I have not yet mastered word wrap. There doesn't even seem to be an entry for "word wrap" in any of the "help" menus I've found.

I'm considering buying a book that will get me up to speed (old dogs can read, after all, even if they aren't really great at website stuff). Anyone have any good recommendations on books that can teach me what to do with Contribute 3.1 (I think it's C3.1)? I found three on Amazon, but I'm not sure which of them would be the most useful.

All this is not getting my book written, either. But it's getting closer. I do have a second line now, to go with my first. This is promising. Now I only need about 200 pages more of them. And they have to make sense.

Bob

It's one of those weeks apparently.

First there was Boomer. Then there was Madeleine L'Engle. Now there's Bob.

You can read a tribute to Bob by his dearly beloved Kate Walker on her own blog today. Suffice it to say here that Bob was a very fine cat indeed.

He was the alpha cat at Kate's house, not because he was bigger than any other cat or smarter than any other cat or more arrogant than any other cat. He wasn't even a billionaire tycoon cat.

He was the respected elder. He was the one who knew not only how things were, but How They Should Be. He was the arbiter of life in the household. Spiff is kind and gallant, Dylan is feisty and a bit of a rogue, Sid is swagger and headbutts and oodles of charm.

Bob was all about respect. He was a minimalist sort of cat. He didn't have to do anything more than Be. And that was enough. He got the job done with a minimum of fuss. Want a mouse? Right. Bob would get you a mouse. Want a bird? No problem. Want these papers sat on so they don't blow away? Can do.

He didn't throw his weight around (he didn't have any to throw). And he wouldn't have anyway. It wasn't his nature. He had The Look. And even Sid backed off that look.

Last time I visited Bob I took some bags of greenies for him and his cohorts. It's the only time I saw Bob deliberately say, Back Off to his feline friends. The greenies were his. He liked them and that was that.

He also decided he liked me more than he did BG (before greenies) because every morning I would awaken to hear him under the bed -- the sound of a rusty carburetor turning over. And over. And then when he was sure I was awake, he scaled the quilt and climbed on the bed. Then he poked until he convinced me to roll onto my back, whereupon he planted himself on top of me and continued the carburetor tune-up. As an alarm clock, Bob had no equal.

Kate said he was at peace now. He could be. He could also be telling off those fecking so-and-sos who made such a botch of things that he knew should be run better. I think heaven will be better run now that Bob is there. I feel sure the mice and birds will be paying closer attention.

Spiff, Dyl and Sid will have their work cut out for them taking over Bob's jobs.

But no one will ever take over being Bob. No one could.

Blog Switching

According to my webmistress, there is a good chance that the blog will switch over to its "new" address starting Monday.

So, if you are ordinarily a visitor and you find that it's G.O.N.E., please go to my website and access it from there. Then you can save the "new" URL if you want to and everything will be hunky-dory again. I hope.

I will be tracking down all those folks who have kindly linked to my blog and will be asking them to update their URL links as well. I don't think it will take a long time. And it should go fairly smoothly. So bear with me through it, please. In the end, it is supposed to be a more seamless interface and there will be less chance of "losing" posts.

All you need to remember for now is to go to http://www.annemcallister.com and click on the blog tab. It should take you right where you need to go.

See you there!

Madeleine L'Engle, 1918 - 2007

There are obituaries galore today for writer Madeleine L'Engle who died September 6, 2007 in Connecticut at the age of 88.

They are interesting reading and remind me of several of the sixty books -- including Newberry winner, A Wrinkle in Time -- that Ms. L'Engle wrote over her long career as a writer of both fiction and non-fiction for children and adults -- indeed for readers of every age.

But what they especially remind me of is that while Ms L'Engle may have died in a physical sense, very much of the essence of who she was and what she believed lives on.

That's the way it is with writers.

I had an editor for a number of years named Patricia Smith. She is well-known and highly regarded (to put it mildly) among those who have been privileged to work with her. She had -- and still has -- profound insight into writers and story. And she taught me a lot about the emotional landscape that I write out of. She made me appreciate it for the fertile ground that it is.

In every writers' work, long after the writer herself is no longer, vestiges of that emotional landscape live on.

So, though I am saddened by Ms L'Engle's passing, I am grateful for the gift of her books, of her sharing her own emotional landscape with readers of the past, present and future.

I didn't read her books until my own children were reading them. But they were as rich a fare for me then as they would have been had I read them as a child. Possibly they were richer because I brought more with me to their reading. I'm sure my daughter who has read them over and over feels the same way.

Ms L'Engle's fiction was always fascinating, engrossing and demanding. Not for the faint-hearted, I would say. When I was working on my master's thesis on children's literature and theology, I often came back to her because there was such a dimension of faith in her works. Theoretically she often wrote "for children" but she was often quoted as saying she wrote for them because what she had to say was too difficult for grown-ups to comprehend.

I'm not sure about that. But I do believe that she wrote out of a profound sense of the individual's place -- and importance -- in the universe. And she believed in the power of love.

She once asked, "Why does anybody tell a story?" And then she answered her own question. "It does indeed have something to do with faith -- faith that the universe has meaning, that our little human lives are not irrelevant, that what we choose or say or do matters, matters cosmically."

I think a lot of writers would say that about their work. And while my own books may be very different from Ms L'Engle's, I know that I share that faith. I also believe in the power of love.

Rest in peace, Ms L'Engle. Thank you for sharing your emotional landscape with generations of readers worldwide. Your work will speak for you for many years to come.

Eamon revisited . . . or revisiting

Abby Green's dearly beloved Eamon (the sheep, not the hero) arrived this afternoon!

I wasn't expecting him. She'd said she was sending a copy of her latest book, The Kouros Marriage Revenge, and so I was prepared -- and delighted -- to see it (great cover, Abby! Lucky you!).

But I wasn't expecting another version of Eamon. This time Eamon is gracing an apron. He's a very sprightly looking sheep and I'm quite enchanted with him. As soon as I get my camera out of my pack from where it has been since I got back from The Granddaughter's, I will take a picture of Mr Eamon the Apron Sheep and post him.

In the meantime, you will have to make do with Eamon the Postcard Sheep and Abby's terrific cover.

I'm happy to report, as well, that I've finally got a first line for Seb and Neely's book. It only took four weeks. Fortunately a few of the other lines have come more easily. Now to make it all work together!

There might be a book in these two yet.

Spence and Sadie -- Reviewed

Spence and Sadie have had their first review!

Or at least they've had the first review that has come to my attention. Over on Cata-Romance, you can read the full review.

But in brief it says: "The Boss's Wife for A Week is vintage Anne McAllister and readers who love books where the emotion is powerful, the repartee sparkling, the characters richly drawn and three-dimensional and the sexual tension absolutely electrifying will devour this book in a single sitting!"

Wow. Thank you, Julie at Cata-Romance. I'm thrilled that you liked it.

Julie has said lovely things about Spence and Sadie, too. She said he was "a hero to die for." I'm sure he won't find anything to dispute in that. And she calls Sadie "strong, sassy and extremely likeable."

She uses other words, too, like: "vibrant, passionate and unputdownable." Spence and Sadie and I are, to put it mildly, chuffed.

I got home this afternoon. I have a granddaughter-sized hole in my life which her parents had better fill with pictures. My son with the camera phone (not the same son) helped a bit by sending me a pic of his three year old twins. They definitely fill the hole.

I experienced the Boomer sized hole at Linda's house when we drove back there from the airport. And while his brothers, Homer and Spyke, do their best -- they aren't Boomer.

Tomorrow I'm going to put all this emptiness into Seb and Neely and make them distract me. Wish me luck.

And stop by the discussion on eharlequin to toss in your two cents worth on business-place romances. Is it the inequality in power that shifts when suddenly love equals the playing field that makes readers like that setting? Is it because so many of us work outside the home that we can see all kinds of possibilities there for romance?

What do you think?

Remembering Boomer

When our dog Gunnar was just a little chap, my friend Linda also had a little chap of her own. He came to them at the age of 1, the day after his first birthday, from a family who couldn't keep him because one of their children was seriously allergic to dogs.

On their way home from Chicago, where they adopted him, they stopped by to visit us and introduced us to Boomer.

We had lost our dear first golden AJ (against whom all others will forever be measured) earlier that year -- and even though we had two more golden girls and a very rambunctious Gunnar (who was a puppy until he was seven years old at least) -- Boomer instantly won a place in our hearts because he was so much an AJ sort of dog.

He absolutely wriggled with happiness at the joy of being our friend and visiting in our house. And he made the AJ noise for me which is sort of a moan of happiness or pure bliss or something like. He did it for me (Linda says he never did it for anyone else) so Boomer and I definitely bonded.

He bonded with Gunnar, too. Linda brought him to visit every time she came for a year or two (she lives about 75 miles away so we don't see each other all that often). But Gunnar never forgot Boomer and Boomer never forgot Gunnar.

They absolutely flung themselves on each other the instant they saw each other and they wrestled and they romped and they threw each other around and mostly they slobbered and spit on each other so much they were (sorry, but it's the truth) like two giant spitwads instead of dogs. They were the definition of puppy exuberance.

No one ever played the way those two played.

And even though they got older and each got siblings they learned to play with, I don't think anyone ever replaced Boomer in Gunnar's estimation as the best playmate in the world (well, Jake did, I guess, but that's because Jake let Gunnar win even when he could have clopped him one).

I spent the night at Linda's before catching the plane to come to the granddaughter's. When I got there, Boomer flung himself at me the minute I walked in the door. He wriggled and wiggled and beamed and bumped me with his head.

And he made his noise. A lot of "I'm sooooo glad to see you. You are my Very Best Friend," noise. He even spent a good part of the night on the floor of my room and he was right there to see me off in the dark of morning when I left.

I expected to see him when I got home tomorrow. But Linda called today to say that Boomer has crossed the rainbow bridge, completely unexpectedly.

He had a tumor no one knew about on his spleen. That is exactly what caused AJ's death, but in this case it caused Boomer's spleen to burst, and by the time they knew what had happened, he was nearly gone.

Letting him go then was the only merciful thing they could do. But it makes me cry even now just thinking about it.

The blessing of dogs like Boomer in our lives is so profound, yet sometimes it seems so fleeting because it hurts so much to lose them. Boomer died 10 years to the day that he came home to Linda's house. He had a wonderful life. He was loved and adored by all who knew him.

Everyone at our house will miss him. And we will always remember him for the joy he brought into all our lives.

Fare thee well, Boomer. We love you and we'll miss you. Thank you for being you.

Romancing the Boss

As much as I hate putting up another blog before Hugh gets his full 24 hours, I need to tell you that this week on the eharlequin site I'm chatting with whoever drops by on the subject of "Romancing the Boss in honor of the release of The Boss's Wife For A Week.

If you click on that link it should (I hope) take you there. And I do hope you'll drop by because I'm going to feel pretty silly talking to myself.

Spence and Sadie have already turned up. Jayne from eharlequin was so taken with Spence when she dropped by the blog here that she stole his comments and put them up there. What she doesn't realize is that Spence is A Force To Be Reckoned With and will very likely be talking about a whole lot of things unless he's firmly reined in.

While I expect he'll reappear there tomorrow sometime, I hope you will, too. And if you have recommendations for great "Boss" or Business setting romances from your keeper shelves, please drop in and let us all know about them.

My most recent favorite Boss (Spence excepted of course) is Liz Fielding's Max Valentine from The Valentine Bride.

I have others on my shelves at home but since I'm not there, I can't tell you the exact titles. But I remember some Charlotte Lamb books and some Jane Donnellys that were terrific.

Which "Boss" romances do you remember well? Come by the eharlequin site and tell us about them.

The PHS Hugh Jackman Tour 2007

Those lovely ladies over at The Pink Heart Society in their zeal to celebrate the lil pink dancin' man's first birthday have launched The PHS Hugh Jackman Tour 2007.

Because Hugh was the first Male on Monday at the PHS -- and because he is so very easy on the eyes, thus making research not especially strenuous (except on the heart rate) -- we've been given the green light for a second go round.

"Pick your favorite Hugh Jackman pic and post it," they said.

Yeah, sure. Like there's one.

I have a whole folder dedicated to Hugh on my home computer. Sadly it hasn't traveled with me to the granddaughter's so I'm having to research all over again -- what hardship!

But here are a few of those recently grabbed that appeal to me. I don't think you need further commentary, do you? Just enjoy.

And be sure to stop in at the Pink Heart on Tuesday September 18th when I will be revealing all about the legend of Hugh-in-a-towel.