Wednesday, April 28, 2010

I've Moved!

If you have bookmarked my blog as being at www.annemcallister.com/blog you won't be here anyway. You will be where my regular ongoing content is and will be.

But those of you who have found my blog on blogspot and wonder why it's stagnating, please go to to Anne McAllister's Blog and find out what's going on now.

Thanks to blogspot for being such a great host. I have enjoyed being a part of the blogger group but as my blog has grown, it needs to be associated with my website.

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Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Where I've Been

It seems like I do a lot of apologizing on this blog lately. And I'm doing it again, but life as I have recently come to know it has been getting in the way of regular posting.

My mother has been very ill and continues to be, and so I have not had the time to post -- or even to write the book I'm supposed to be writing -- that I would ordinarily have.

On top of that, the day after we came back from New York, my dear friend and traveling companion for the journey, Nancy the Cat Slayer, lost her son in an accident.

If there is anything worse than losing a parent by inches, it is losing a child in a matter of moments. He was the best friend of one of my sons for years and years.

Suffice to say, life around here has not be full of fun and games of late.

I will be putting together the last two weeks of April's worth of books for the Great Book Give-Away and I appreciate your patience. Rach, if you read this, I'm still in the process of getting your book mailed. Everyone else who has won a book so far, I've posted the last of them through March. I'm working on sending out those from the first two weeks of April.

Bear with me. We'll get there.

If you want one of the writing books, let me know. I've still got a couple of them left.

Cheers? Well, yes, it will be again sometime soon.

Oh, and big Hank is one today -- so there are bright spots in life.

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Friday, April 09, 2010

New Cover for Demetrios's Book


Life seems to be getting back to what passes for normal in this neck of the woods. For the moment at least.

And one sign is that I actually had time to go looking for Demetrios and Anny's book cover. It used to be that someone from Toronto sent them. And they still will, if you remember to ask. I haven't had time to remember to ask.

But the other night, I was online and I thought, Hmmm . . . it comes out in UK next month. I'll have a look.

And there it was!

Am I pleased? Oh, yes.

Somehow the covers that look like they've been inspired by From Here to Eternity just work. They're intense, they're romantic. They're unlikely to introduce some incongruity -- though I do recall an Alp in my Bahamas on The Inconvenient Bride which was my other FHTE cover, and which, in spite of the Alp and the fact that most of the book took place in New York City, has always been one of my favorite covers.

This new one, now called The Virgin's Proposition, is lovely, too. At least in my mind. He looks enough like Demetrios to work for me (sadly, Raoul Bova doesn't do book cover modeling!) and she could be Anny.

What do you think?

I know they are changing the covers on Mills & Boon Moderns (which end up here in the US as Presents or Presents Extra) and I have seen the new ones. They are okay. This one is better. So my thanks to the artist whoever he/she is -- and the models, whoever they are -- for making me smile, for putting a good cover of Demetrios and Anny's book.

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Thursday, April 08, 2010

Great Book Giveaway -- Redux

The books for the Great Book Give-Away in April will be late coming to the contest page because my webmistress is now on vacation and due to circumstances beyond my control, I wasn't able to send her the list before she left.

I can, however, tell you the first two weeks' worth of books here, and the questions required to enter the drawing.

If you want to be eligible to win one of them, send your answer to me either from the bottom of the page at the "contact Anne" link or from my contest page. I will add your name to the list. Also, please include your name and snail mail address as well as the answer so I can just send out the books without having to track you down.

I'm still trying to catch up with everyone who won a book in March because I was gone for the last part of it and then those circumstances came along and I never got back here after March 31. So, my apologies for being late. I hope it won't happen again. I may need to ask you for a snail mail address if I don't already have one. It will only be used to send your book.

For the first week of April some of the books have to do with writing. So if you are a writer or interested in what writers read about when they are reading "how to" books and inspirational tomes, sign up to win one of the following books:
  • Jessica Page Morrell, Writing Out the Storm
  • Susan K Perry, Writing in Flow
  • Chris Baty, No Plot? No Problem
  • Jane Yoken, Take Joy
  • Elizabeth Lyon, A Writer's Guide to Fiction
  • Noah Lukeman, The Plot Thickens (there's some underlining in this one)
  • Donald M Murray, Shoptalk
To enter the drawing, send me your name, address and answer to the following question:
In my mini-series Beware of Greeks, all of her heroes are Greek but one. I calls him my "honorary Greek tycoon" because he tried to take over The Santorini Bride until I gave him his own book. What's his name and what's the name of his book?


The second week we have:
  • Anne McAllister, Antonides' Forbidden Wife
  • Cecelia Ahern, If You Could See Me Now
  • Hester Browne, The Finishing Touches
  • Lucy Gordon, Farelli's Wife
  • Barbara Metzger, The Hourglass
  • Fiona Walker, Lots of Love
  • Sherry Thomas, Delicious
To enter the drawing for this week's books, send me the answer to the following question (also include your name and snail mail address): I wrote a mini-series for Harlequin American called Quicksilver. There were five books in the initial series. Thirteen years later I wrote a sixth book which came out as a Desire. Who was the hero and what was the name of the book?

Remember, if you enter for one week in April and you don't win, you are automatically entered in all of April's drawings, so you are welcome to answer the question and get another entry, but your original will still qualify you for the entire month's drawings.

Mitch and Micah are eying the treat box eagerly, raring to go and pick winners.

I'm putting together the books for the rest of the month now. They should be posted sometime around the 15th. Heather The Webmistress will be back by then, tanned and rested (I hope), and she will add the above, plus the rest of the month to the contest page.

I must admit I'm re-reading bits and pieces of the writing books before I send them off, looking for inspiration for Yiannis and Edie's story. I know a lot about her, oddly. I know less about him.

He's the Savas Mystery Man -- last noticed to any degree by his family when I wrote Tallie and Elias's book, The Antonides Marriage Deal. Back then they still thought of him as a "forest ranger" because he'd worked for the National Forest Service a couple of summers while he was in college. That's a part of who he is -- or was. It's not who he is now.

Finding out who Yiannis is now is turning into a very interesting project. He owns a Porsche. An accomplished flirt, a notable playboy.

Yiannis?

Apparently.

Who knew? And why? What happened?

Ah, backstory.

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