Using the Real World

The real world is very handy.

Margaret Mayo reminded me of that today when I saw her comment on my granddaughter Ellie's fall in my previous blog piece.

Margaret wished Ellie a speedy recovery (good news -- she's basically recovered. Just has to get the staples out next week). And then Margaret went on to say she hoped I -- and Ellie -- didn't mind if she used a similar incident in her book, that she needed something to up the stakes, heighten the tension.

No, we don't mind.

In fact, in a few years, when she's old enough, Ellie will probably think it's super to have been an inspiration (though no doubt her mother will be happy if she's not inspiring anyone again any time soon).

And I totally identified with Margaret's comment because 'real life' events are, let's face it, the hangers on which we hang our books.

Yes, of course there is imagination. But writers use their imagination the way potters use their hands.

It's hard to make a bowl or a pot or a pitcher out of a potter's wheel and a pair of hands and nothing else. Likewise, it's hard to write a book without something concrete to work with, to let our imaginations play with, to mold and shape and make an integral part of our story.

Heaven knows, I've taken bits of real life to use in my books right from the very start.

My first book, Dare to Trust, took a man with malaria and a teacher with a fiance she was having second thoughts about, and threw them together for the summer in the house right behind my own.

Oh, I moved the house to another state not far away. And the man with malaria in my book was Colin Davies, an archaelogist, but he reacted to his malaria pretty much the same way a professor friend did when he suffered the same disease. The teacher with second thoughts -- well, she was a reflection of a roommate I had once who had similar second thoughts.

In all these cases, the 'real life' part was a starting point -- bits of reality on which to hang the story I wanted to tell.

Over the next 60 odd books, bits and pieces of real life have been starting points. Or high points. Or low points. Or turning points.

Miles Cavanaugh, in Body and Soul, broke his foot sticking it in a door. I knew how his foot felt. I'd broken my own (not sticking it in a door).

Did his crisis about leaving the seminary come from real life? You bet it did. Not the particular events in this case, but the conflict of emotions behind it.

And then there was the stick Jill accidentally clobbered Luke Tanner with in Cowboys Don't Quit. Yep, another real life event. As was Jake Brosnan's jelly fish sting in Lightning Storm.

Lest you think all the real life events are disastrous, they weren't. Real life was the inciting moment that began one of my books. I'd asked for a particular Penney's dress shirt model to be my hero on the cover of Dream Chasers. He really looked exactly the way I pictured Owain O'Neill.

Amazingly enough, the artist got him. He did a lovely cover. And later, when I was interviewing him about cover art for a workshop, the artist said to me, "You know your hero? He said no one had ever asked for him specifically before. He'd like to meet you."

I ask you, how can any writer pass up an idea like that?

Thus was Jack Neillands born -- and turned up on the doorstep of writer Frances Moon, completely disconcerting her and pretty much turning her world upside down.

That book was called Imagine because, basically, that's exactly what I did -- and so did Frances. (This was in the days when titles were not nineteen words long and stuffed with hot button words).

In any case, I'm all for using the real world. That's what I went to Cannes for, after all.

So, by all means, Margaret, use Ellie's 'event.' If you need blood and gore details, send me an email!

Hope it works for your story. Be sure to let us know when to watch out for the book!

Revenge of the Book Nerds

A couple of writers and readers whose blogs I frequent have been answering a book meme (something to displace what they should be doing, obviously. Ask me how I know this.)

So I thought, you know, I can displace as well as anyone. So here goes:

1. What author do you own the most books by?
Besides myself because my publisher sends them to me? Mmm, probably Tony Hillerman. Or Jane Donnelly. I have collected sets of both. I think, actually Jane D wrote more books. But they're both definite faves.

2. What book do you own the most copies of?
I have too many books to own mulitple copies of any except by accident. Ye gods, the mind boggles. I do have, by accident, two copies of The Structure of Cornwall if anyone is interested in the other one. Just let me know.

3. What fictional character are you secretly in love with?

Luke whose last name I can't remember from Lisa Gregory's The Rainbow Season.

4. What book have you read more than any other?
Persuasion, I think.

5. What was your favorite book when you were ten years old?
The 13th is Magic by Joan Howard which I wrote a blog piece about a couple of years back. It's still a wonderful book.

6. What is the worst book you’ve read in the past year?
The worst book I read is one I am sure I didn't finish, so I'm not even talking about it.

7. What is the best book you’ve read in the past year?
Any of the C S Harris books about Sebastian St Cyr. They were all dynamite reads. Also the Temeraire books by Naomi Novik. And Joanna Bourne's Spymaster books.

8. If you could tell everyone you tagged to read one book, what would it be?
The Day the Cowboys Quit by Elmer Kelton. It's readable, has a compelling albeit reluctant hero, and it captures a sense of American history and self-identity in a short space.

9. What is the most difficult book you’ve ever read?
Maria by Jorge Isaacs, because most of it was about the jungle (or if it wasn't, God help me) and I didn't have the vocabulary because it was in Spanish, and I hate reading description and skip it in English, but there was no way to skip this. So I plodded through. But I didn't enjoy it.

10. Do you prefer the French or the Russians?
Neither.

11. Shakespeare, Milton or Chaucer?
Not Milton. Shakespeare probably, though what I've read of Chaucer I've liked. I was a Spanish major. Ask me about Cervantes or Pio Baroja.

12. Austen or Eliot?
Is there a choice? Austen, hands down.

13. What is the biggest or most embarrassing gap in your reading?
All of Stephen King, Jane Eyre and Silas Marner and The Mill on the Floss. And if you consider it an embarrassment -- which I'm not sure I do -- the Russians and the French.

14. What is your favorite novel?
Oh, there are too many. Persuasion, probably. But I think Jane Donnelly's Behind a Closed Door ranks right up there.

15. Play?
Mary, Mary by Jean Kerr.

16. Poem?
The one about James James Morrison Morrison by A A Milne.

17. Essay?
Any of the ones in Jean Kerr's Please Don't Eat the Daisies. Or most anything by Corey Ford.

18. Short Story?
I don't read a lot of them, but I used to find good ones in the women's magazines my mother subscribed to. I can't remember the authors, though. And Corey Ford wrote some good fishing and hunting ones in my dad's old Field and Stream mags.

19. Non Fiction
The World We Have Lost, by Peter Laslett

20. Graphic Novel?
Dunno.

21. Science Fiction?
The Temeraire books by Naomi Novik, and Dragonsong and Dragonsinger by Anne McCaffrey.

22. Who is your favorite writer?
Hard to limit it. How about Jane Austen, Tony Hillerman, Elmer Kelton, C S Harris, K M Peyton?

23. Who is the most over rated writer alive today?
That's a matter of opinion.

24. What are you reading right now?
Rumour Has It, by Jill Mansell.

25. Best Memoir?
Seldom Disappointed, by Tony Hillerman.

26. Best History?
The World We Have Lost, by Peter Laslett.

27. Best mystery or Noir?
When Serpents Sleep by C S Harris.

Now I need to get back to working on Demetrios. He needs help and if I'm not there to give it to him, no one is. Seb will be here Friday to blog.

And I will be blogging on the I Heart Presents blog tomorrow (Thursday). Please stop by and say hi or ask questions.

If you want to do the Book Nerd meme, I hereby tag you. That means you, especially Kate Walker, who has finished her book, but probably doesn't have many brain cells left to do anything really creative.

Just cut and paste and fill in the blanks. And link back so I can go read your answers. Maybe I can find more books I want to read. More displacement. Poor Demetrios.

Books On The Move

I had an email this morning from a friend who lives in Oman.

He said he'd just picked up a copy of my book Cowboy on the Run in the teachers' room at the university where he teaches.

I was pleased -- and a little surprised -- to learn that Rance and Ellie have made it halfway round the world to be discovered by a friend in Muscat.

But his email reminded me again of all the places our books go.

Of course I know that they are translated into lots of languages. I've seen mine in over 20 now, and it never ceases to give me a thrill to open the boxes or envelopes that bring me these foreign language editions.

But it's even more fun to hear of people I know who have found them "in the wild," so to speak.

I've found a few myself. I found a copy of the Spanish version of Dream Chasers at a flea market in Barcelona quite a few years ago. And a few weeks later when I was in Budapest, I found a French copy of one of my early Presents at the train station.

I ran across a much worn and, I hope, read copy of another at a church sale in near Gore on the South Island of New Zealand.

And a couple of years ago a friend brought me back a copy of a Japanese language version of an Anne McAllister book when she visited her family in her hometown near Tokyo.

Now that Harlequin Mills & Boon are officially coming out in India, I am hoping to see a copy of one of mine from there.

I have had lots of letters from Indian readers, so I know the books get there one way or another. "From Singapore," one reader told me a few years back. But now I'm hoping that they will be even more widely available.

Have you seen my books in bookshops or flea markets or church rummage sales where you live?

If you see an Anne McAllister book where you are, please drop me a note an tell me where.

I'd be thrilled to know where they are turning up -- even though I must admit to envying my books the fact that they are more widely traveled than I am!

Reading to Kids

Over on the Pink Heart Society blog this weekend I wrote about the joy of reading to children. It's one of my favorite things to do -- and I miss having children around to read with on a regular basis.

I'm thinking, though, that with Skype becoming a regular part of my life these days, that the day isn't far off when I might get to read distant grandchildren a bedtime story via computer.

What will I read them? Several of our family favorites are over on the Pink Heart blog. But there really wasn't room there for everything. And there won't be here, either. But I promised to list a few more just in case anyone wants a good shopping list for kids' books this holiday season.

I'm leaving out the stuff on best seller lists now. You can all find those front and center at every bookstore you go into. The ones I'm talking about here might have been best sellers in their day -- or maybe there were just really good books to read and share. We loved them, anyway. I hope you do, too.

Frog and Toad were big hits at our house. All the books about Frog and Toad by Arnold Lobel went through several paperback incarnations here because they got worn out from so many readings. Finally I went to hear Mr Lobel speak at a children's literature seminar and bought autographed copies of F&T -- one apiece for two of my children. He drew them each a Frog or a Toad inside with his inscription. What a Christmas treat that was.

I mentioned several Russell Hoban books on the Pink Heart. But I didn't mention How TOM Beat Captain NAJORK and his Hired Sportsmen. If you haven't read it, do. Tom is a terrific hero. Utterly competent in a completely do-it-my-own-way fashion. No wonder I love him -- he's the quintessential McAllister hero!

Hoban's The Little Brute Family and The Stone Doll of Sister Brute are fun reads, too.

We've worn out copies of Clyde and Wendy Watson's wonderful Father Fox's Pennyrhymes and John Burningham's Mr Gumpy's Outing. Both of them are a delight to read aloud, as is Wanda Gag's Millions of Cats which is older than I am, and the fabulous, rollicking A Roundabout Turn by Robert H Charles (the L Leslie Brooke illustrations are fantastic, too) which is older than my mother.

People who live where we live thoroughly enjoy curling up on cold winter nights and reading Virginia Burton's Katy and the Big Snow and Ezra Jack Keat's The Snowy Day. I suppose kids in warmer climes would like it for the novelty. We like it because we're warm when we read it and we know what it's like outside!

When we traveled we brought home kids' books from where we went. The favorite by far were the Ivor the Engine books that came home from Wales. We all become great fans of Ivor and his engine driver, Jones the Steam.

For older kids, you might track down the wonderful Ghost of Thomas Kempe by Penelope Lively, any of the many books of K M Peyton (I defy you to read Pennington's Last Term -- in UK, Pennington's Seventeenth Summer without cracking a smile). And if you have a horse-mad child on your list, Peyton can help there, too. Or you can go for the Black Stallion books or Misty of Chincoteague.

Want a little US history? Start them young with Jean Fritz's books. She's written quite a lot since we read And Then What Happened, Paul Revere? Now you can cover a lot more ground with Shh! We're Writing the Constitution and Why Don't You Get a Horse, Sam Adams? and others besides.

Move on to Newberry winner, Johnny Tremaine, and later classic My Brother Sam Is Dead. Or try to find books by Patricia Beatty (libraries may still have them -- and they definitely should) like How Many Miles to Sundown? and Who Comes to King's Mountain?

Want a little mystery, a little satire, a little sly humor? Try Buffalo Arthur or any of the other Arthur books by Alan Coren or try Sid Fleishman's McBroom stories.

Read Mark Twain's "The Literary Offenses of James Fennimore Cooper." To kids? Yes, to kids. My sixth grade teacher read it to our class and we were laughing so loud that the teacher next door had to come in and tell us to be quiet.

Want serious stuff? Read Katharine Paterson's Bridge to Terabithia, Madeleine L'Engle's Wrinkle in Time, Gary Paulsen's Hachet. Immerse yourself and your listeners in Susan Cooper's Dark Is Rising series, the Narnia books of C S Lewis, or Philippa Pearce's Tom's Midnight Garden.

I could go on. And on. And on. I won't because the revisions still need to be finished.

But tell me some of your favorite books from your childhood. As I said on the Pink Heart, Gunnar is teaching Micah and Mitch how to pick winners (not always successfully as a lot of treats -- and a lot of slips of paper are getting eaten in the process), and they will be picking a winner on Monday from the commenters here and on the Pink Heart to get a copy of my new book, Antonides' Forbidden Wife. Be the first in your neighborhood . . .

Mitch and Micah, I fear, take bribes. So I'm not letting them read the comments.

What's On Your Book Shelf?

Liz Fielding posted a list of "the top 100 books" put out by the British National Endowment for the Arts.

She got it from Kate Hardy. Kate got it from Michelle Styles. Michelle got it from Amanda Ashby. Amanda presumably, got it from someone else. Or maybe she actually reads the literature put out by the National Endowment of the Arts.

Anyway, the National Endowment people say the average reader has read 6.

I've read slightly over half.

I don't remember a lot about most of the ones I've read. Quite a few were read as part of lit courses I took, not because I was enthralled with them. But some I genuinely loved and went back to read on my own again. And again.

Others -- let's be honest here -- I hated.

And I had a heated discussion with The Prof about Madame Bovary (as always), since he loves it and I hated it. Ditto Gone With The Wind (well, he didn't love it, but he thought it was worth reading).

He said, "It's an American Madame Bovary."

And I said, "Exactly."

And he said, "They're anti-heroines, Madame Bovary and Scarlett O'Hara. You're not supposed to like them."

And I said, "Why would I waste time reading books about people I don't like?"

So, I'm a philistine. Get over it. He has. Sort of.

Anyway, here's my list. The ones I've read are in bold. Read it over and let me know which ones you've read and what you think of the list.

By the way, the comments (go to the link and scan to the bottom) over on Liz's blog are well worth reading -- as well as Liz's own comments on the ones she's read. So check them out.


1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen (first time I read it I was too young and bored. Then I reread it and loved it.)
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien (yes, indeed, some of us haven't)
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte (and yes, there are actually romance writers -- well, one anyway -- who haven't read Jane Eyre)
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling (does it count that I've read five of them and have the rest? I'll get to them someday)
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee (amazing book)
6 The Bible (probably not all of it, but most)
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte (yes, you can be a romance writer and not have read this)
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy (we read a lot of Hardy in school)
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller (loved it!)
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (does half count?)
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks (bought it for my dad)
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger (ah, teenage angst)
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot (still not a big fan)
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell (hated the movie, won't read the book)
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens (like Hardy, we read Dickens till our eyes fell out)
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck (from a long line of dust bowl Okies, it cut a little close to home)
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame (loved it)
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen (loved it)
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne (over and over to my kids and never got tired of it)
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery (all the Anne books! Yes!)
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons (loved it!)
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon (memorable, moving)
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy (I told you we read a lot of Hardy)
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert (hated it)
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Flynn's Back!

It isn't that Flynn doesn't want to share the limelight.

Well, maybe it is, because I'm pretty sure Flynn thinks PJ will have lots of opportunity to promote his own book in the next few months.

So when I got an email today from Maggie at DailyLit.com telling me that One-Night Love Child was going to be part of their series of books available by email, I told Flynn and he immediately said in his Earl's Voice, "And you've put it on your blog, of course."

He's really getting into his role as the earl, our Flynn.

Well, I was heading off to the dentist right then, and so I couldn't.

But as soon as I got back and found him tapping his toe and looking expectantly at me (I was going to say, Looking expectant, but he doesn't. That's Sara.). So I hurried right in here to post the good news.

DailyLit, in case you aren't familiar with it, sends out daily emails of the books it makes available through the site. It's like getting your own serialized version of a book daily to have with your morning coffee or on your lunch break or whenever you have a few minutes and want to dip into the daily read.

Those of you who read Kate Walker's blog know that her Spanish Billionaire, Innocent Wife was chosen to be given away as a free promotional title. It came out in June 2008 and is available through the summer.

So you can see what it's like by reading Kate's wonderful book. Or you can choose One-Night Love Child or any one of hundreds of books -- not only romance -- and for a modest sum have it delivered to your email box daily.

Flynn wishes they'd send his articles and books out that way. Mostly he hopes you will go check out his book there if you haven't already read it in book or e-book format.

And he was delighted to hear that when I told the DailyLit people his story began in The Great Montana Cowboy Auction, they said they'd look into including it among their offerings. I hope they do. It would be terrific to have Sloan and Polly's story available again.

On the road again . . . again

After you have written 61 books (which I have, apparently) and you are embarking on the 62nd, you begin to think you've been this way before.

Maybe not quite this exact same way, but some of the memories evoked are the same even if the sights along the way are not.

When I was reading Twyla Tharp's The Creative Habit last spring I wrote several blogs -- one of which is here -- about it which, having gone back and re-read them now, make me recognize the efforts. It isn't that I wasn't aware of them before, but I think it's the ritual I am more aware of now.

There is, of course, the box. Or the collage. Or the heap of papers, books and sundry junk piled in the corner that is my treasure trove for the book. Every book has one. Or at least it has something -- some collection that I go to in order to discover the flotsam and jetsam that I will need to create the novel.

Oddly, though, when I did the collage for Flynn and Sara, nothing in the book turned out like the collage -- well, except for O'Mally and Liam.

Flynn changed as the book went on. Sara did, too. So did the castle. And the setting? Well, it started out in New York and never went there at all in the finished book.

Much the same thing happened to Sebastian and Neely and their box. The box is wonderful -- very impressive. And nothing much remained of the things I put on the box, either. The story took on a life of its own.

It began with the box, yes. But then it took off from there.

So starting over with Christo and Natalie, I don't expect to end up with what I start out with, either.

Just as well. It shows the characters are growing, developing their own story, finding their own way to their happily ever after.

At least I hope that's where they're going. They haven't seen fit to tell me yet.

But I'm turning up every morning -- and so far it's working.

GBGA -- This Week's Winner

This week's winner of the Great Book Give-Away is Lidia!

Congratulations, Lidia! And thanks to all the rest of you who commented this week!

Lidia gets the five books promised, but if Dina, Ellen, KimW, Mads, Mags, and Christa will also go to my website, hit the "contact Anne" tab and send me a mailing address, I'll send along a book for each of you as well. Some of you have won earlier, but all of you have been faithful in the extreme. Thank you for that.

So, send me your address and I'll send you a book from the GBGA bag.

Today I went to my genealogical conference which was excellent. Colleen Fitzpatrick spoke on "forensic genealogy." It's fascinating and she has a really interesting website if you're interesting in taking investigative skills and such to the genealogical and local history front.

I'm blown away by some of the information she can get out of a photograph or a database.

In life on the writing front, tomorrow the MIA Chapter Eight frog will be making his appearance at last.

I know now why he's been missing so long. I don't want to spook him, though, so I'm not commenting until he's here and things are under control.

Gunnar says thanks for the treats to everyone who entered. He hopes we'll do it again -- soon.

And I hope you'll keep coming back and commenting anyway because it's not as much fun talking to myself.

They're predicting a 50% chance of snow tonight. Good grief!

The Last of GBGA IV

We're most of the way through the bag of books now. I have some that will be more appropriate come Christmas, and a few others that I'll give away as time goes on, but this will be our last week of the Great Book Give-Away for now.

In June I'll be away for a week, so maybe I can do my posts ahead of time and give away books that week.

Anyway, for now, the last, but certainly not the least of the Great Books is Ginna Gray's In Search of Dreams, a Silhouette Special Edition. I tend, you may have noticed, not to read a lot of category series books.

Well, I read some, but mostly I try to read outside the field I write in. But I have long made an exception for Ginna Gray. Ginna writes from the heart. Her characters always touch an emotional chord for me. Plus she writes about the west, and that's always a draw.

In Search of Dreams tells the tale of J. T. Conway and Kate Mahoney. It's been so long since I read it that I can't tell you the details at all. But I know it touched me because I've hung onto it for nearly eight years!

So there you have this week's group:

• Morrigan's Cross by Nora Roberts
• Charming Grace by Deborah Smith
• Four In Hand by Stephanie Laurens
• Promise Me Tomorrow by Candace Camp
• In Search of Dreams by Ginna Gray

Make a comment sometime this week and Gunnar will find a treat with your name on it. If you are the first one he picks, you get the books.

He thinks we should keep this going indefinitely. He says there are still waaaaaay too many books in this house and he'd be happy to find them new homes -- particularly if treats are involved.

I say, enough. For now.

I need to focus on Seb and Neely's frogs this week. The missing in action Chapter Eight is about to hop into view (I hope). And tomorrow I'm going to a genealogical conference which should be fun -- and instructive. So I need to focus.

Stay tuned. Gunnar will be back tomorrow night with the winner.

Long Time Favorite

Back in the dark ages -- well, the 1980s -- when I was first getting started reading -- and writing -- romances, I found a few authors whose books were automatic reads.

One of the earliest among them was Candace Camp, who at the time was writing historicals as Lisa Gregory and contemporaries as Kristen James. It didn't matter what she wrote, I read it. And I loved them all.

To my way of thinking her Kristen James book, The Sapphire Sky, is one of the best contemporary single title romances of all time. I read it often, and it never loses its intensity or its charm. And Nick, ne'er-do-well that he is, is one of my favorite heroes.

And her Rainbow Season, written as Lisa Gregory, is probably in my top three all-time favorite historicals.

Dynamite books, emotional blockbusters, both of them. She's well worth watching out for. And she's now written fifty or so more terrific books.

One of them is Promise Me Tomorrow. Writing now under her own name, Candace Camp, she tells the story of beautiful thief, Marianne Cotterwood, and Justin, Lord Lambeth, the man who is trying to figure her out.
Promise Me Tomorrow is a delightful book of engaging characters and secrets galore.

Do you have favorites from years ago that you go back to? Which are they?

Regency Romp

I love regency novels. Of course Jane Austen is a favorite -- particularly Persuasion and, of course, Pride and Prejudice, though I've never felt the same warmth for Emma.

I'm also extremely fond of Georgette Heyer and have a collection of the new Arrow editions of her books (which are not in my bag of 'finding new homes for'). Sorry about that.

But today's book is a delightful regency romp by talented, clever, witty NYT-Bestselling author, Stephanie Laurens, called Four In Hand.

And no, she's not referring to horses.

The title refers to the four stunningly attractive, perfectly delightful Twinning sisters -- including the irresistible Caroline -- whose guardianship it befalls Max Rotherbridge, the Duke of Twyford, to inherit.

Max, a regency rake of the first order, is not given to "guarding" women's virtue. He would very much like to bed, not wed, the delectable Caroline. But even a rake like Max knows that isn't in the cards.

On the contrary, it's his duty to protect her from men such as himself. It's his duty to protect all the Twinning sisters from unprincipled men and bad alliances. Max has his work cut out for him.

I found Four in Hand to be absolutely delightful. If you like regency romps, I'll bet you like this one.

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Lovely HM&B medical author Margaret McDonogh has just sent me a picture of a frog she stumbled across.

She says that, given the look on his face, he could be my Missing In Action Frog #8.

Margaret has a good eye for resemblances. It is my frog indeed. Though why he also reminds me of Jack Nicholson, I'm hard pressed to say.

Oh, and IF I get my book done by May 1, I get to go to visit youngest grandchild who is now crawling like a Marine from room to room. Such a talented girl.

Brick Walls and Mazes

No, I'm not talking about writing novels, though I could be.

There are times when writing Sebastian and Neely's story has felt like I've been wandering around in a maze, and that the only way out is to scale over a brick wall, but someone keeps moving it!

Fortunately it wasn't like that today. Today Seb and Neely and I had a very good day, and I've left them happily liplocked for the moment while I come over here to announce that today's book is a hardcover copy of Charming Grace by the talented amazing Deborah Smith.

If you have read Deborah's books, you already know how great she is and you need no introduction. If you haven't, you should. And Gunnar will try to see that you win this week because Deborah is an amazing writer. Charming Grace is an amazing book.

Grace is dealing with enough pain in her life for any ten women -- most of it suffered when her dearly beloved husband Harp was killed in the line of duty as a member of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation while protecting a hospital's patients from a killer. Harp is a hero -- and someone wants to make a movie of his life.

Grace is not thrilled. And she's even less thrilled when she comes face to face with the man making the film and his bodyguard/sidekick/enforcer ex-con buddy, Boone. Grace has issues. Boone has issues.

And Deborah Smith does inter-personal "issues" better than anyone. She never skims the surface of her characters. They are real and flesh and blood, and if you look closely you can see them bleed on the page.

I love her books because she doesn't shy away from tough stuff. Smith's characters never get to take the easy way out. You will laugh with them, cry with them, and cheer for them to find their happy ending. And chances are it won't be exactly the ending you expect.

Great book. Comment this week and get in the drawing.

I spent the day when I wasn't with Seb and Neely preparing and then giving a talk on Brick Wall Ancestors and various ways to trick them into telling you what you need to know about them. It's surprisingly like writing, really. You have to sneak up on them, come at them from where they least expect it. And never give up.

It works lots of the time -- for both genealogy and writing books.

And thanks to all who asked, the frogs are mustering. Making great efforts to get themselves properly aligned before send-off. Of course frog # 8 is still MIA, but I have hopes he'll turn up shortly.

Here We Go Again!

For the fourth week (and we're about halfway through the book bag) I've got books to give away to a lucky reader -- or someone willing to bribe Gunnar with treats.

This week starts off with the inimitable Nora Roberts and the first book of her Circle Trilogy, Morrigan's Cross.

As more books of Nora's have become part myth, part legend, part relationship and romance, so it is with Morrigan's Cross, which begins with the hero Hoyt on a quest. His quest takes him from 12th century Ireland to present day New York City. It involves all manner of mythic and legendary events.

I have enjoyed Nora's books for a lot of years -- and my favorites are the ones with less supernatural elements and greater emphasis on the characterization of 'regular people'. They are the ones I go back to over and over. Particularly, in this vein, I like Chesapeake Blue.

Morrigan's Cross is a little more supernatural than I usually read, but it has many of the hallmark features of the best Nora Roberts books.

It might be exactly your cup of tea. Certainly the interplay between the characters is vintage Nora and not to be missed.

If you are this week's winner, let me know what you think.

To get entered in the drawing, just make a comment this week. Gunnar has rumpled all the comment papers so much that I'm starting anew. So if you are interested in being part of his treats ritual and having a chance for this book and four others, including one by the fabulous Deborah Smith, jump in.

Ellen mentioned frogs and Michelle wanted to know how they are going -- pretty well, thank you. But some are still Missing In Action and they'd better show up in their dress greens by the end of the month.

That's when they board the email for Richmond and the editor. I'd hate to leave any of them out! The ed would probably hate it, too. I am having trouble imagining what she'd say if I sent in a book with no chapter eight because number 8 frog had declined to appear.

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And for the reader from Venezuela who asked about Sentimientos Equivocados, Lo siento pero no se come se llama este libro en ingles. Y no tengo el libro aqui para mirarlo y descubrir quienes son los caracteres. Si lo supiera, podia decirle algo sobre ello, but hasta que aprenda cual es, no puedo ayudarle. Lo siento. (Siento tambien que no hay accentos que puedo usar en escribir este blog. Y favor de disculparme los errores en espanol.)

Gunnar's Pick!

Gunnar and The Prof have come up with another winner.

Of course you're all winners in my book, but this week's winner of the five book give-away is Patricia!

Congratulations, Patricia. Now you'll have more multi-tasking to do while you read all the books as well as do all the other stuff you have in your life!

Go to my website and hit the Contact Anne tab to send me your snail mail address and I'll post your books as soon as I can. Hope you enjoy them!

Gunnar says he wants to pick more winners because having to wait for Saturdays for his treats is getting old. But I like going to the post office once a week, so we shall see who persuades whom.

Anyway, starting on Monday there will be a new set of books for this week (while Gunnar and I negotiate)

In the meantime I'm trying to get Seb and Neely out of the gate. They have less than two weeks to get all their frogs in a row (we've gone off ducks this year. It's the year of the frog hereabouts -- which is appropriate seeing as how the back yard has been a swamp since the snow cleared off). So wish them luck. The frogs are hopping every which way at the moment.

GBGA -- end of week III

I feel like I'm writing sequels here with these acronymns and roman numerals. But that's shorthand for Great Book Give-Away and, obviously, the last of week three.

As I had trouble getting to my books this week I've been slacking and haven't given you daily updates. Sorry. Next week more of the furniture will be back in the bedroom and out of my office, presumably allowing me to actually get at the books.

In the meantime, the last two books for this week's give-away are Scandal's Daughter, the terrific first novel by yet another fabulous Australian writer, Christine Wells, and the inimitable Stephanie Bond's mystery/comedy/romance/whatever, I Think I Love You.

In Scandal's Daughter, Sebastian Laidley, is your rather typical regency rake, but he's no stereotype. He's complex and layered and in a quandary when he discovers that the girl he's known forever has somehow grown into a very appealing woman -- and her dying grandfather who is his godfather, expects him to find her a husband.

This is not as easy as it might be since Gemma is the daughter of a scandalous woman -- and since Sebastian discovers, to his consternation, that no potential husband measures up and he would prefer to have her to himself.

The relationship between Sebastian and Gemma is great fun. Christine's dialogue is witty and her characters' dilemmas worth reading about. I loved this book and am waiting with bated breath for Christine's next title.

What can I say about Stephanie Bond? She is a writer of so many voices and so much talent. And I never quite know what to expect from her books, so opening on is always a bit like getting a present from a favorite aunt on Christmas morning. I never know what it's going to be, but I'm always pleased.
I Think I Love You is the story of three sisters, Justine, Regina and Mica -- and the chaos that is their life -- or lives. Or something. Add in a local bad boy, a pair of squabbling parents, a lifetime of sisterly battles and resentments, an unsolved murder and you have a story with more twists and turns than a bowl of rotini.

So that's the week's books:

• Odd Mom Out by Jane Porter
• Midnight Bayou by Nora Roberts
• Untouched by Anna Campbell
• Scandal's Daughter by Christine Wells
• I Think I Love You by Stephanie Bond

And a pretty appealing bunch of books they are, if I do say so myself.

If you've commented in the last three weeks, you're in the drawing -- not that I wouldn't like to hear from you again and often -- but once you're in the drawing, you're in the drawing.

Gunnar will choose on Saturday morning (he's sending me out for more treats this afternoon). And I'll post the winner as soon as he and The Prof have done the ritual and Gunnar has made his choice. (postscript to Byron: he has not yet seen any bribes . . .er, treats from across the pond).

If you win, please let me hear from you by Tuesday or Gunnar will have to go through the whole terrible ritual again (unless he picks a backup, which he probably won't because, um, well, there will be treats involved, won't there?).

# # # #

Seb and Neely are getting down to business, I'm happy to report. They seem to have been inspired by my jaunt off to see Miss Pettigrew. Neely has been muttering things about "living for a day" too. I wonder if they saw it, too.

Books and Miss Pettigrew

I said on Tuesday that I couldn't get to my bag of books to give you titles for the give-away. Well, I still can't, so I'm going to have to just tell you what the top two books in the bag are, and they can be the next two books, though I can't give you much of a rundown on them because it's been a while since I've read either one of them.

Suffice to say, they're good books or I wouldn't have bothered to hang onto them.

First, Nora Roberts's Midnight Bayou which I've had for a long time, but I'm weeding out hardcovers and it's a hardcover. It's set in New Orleans. There's some spooky stuff going on, I do remember that much. And it's one of those Nora books that I often went back and dipped in when I was wanting a little deep south atmosphere without having to get on a plane and go there.

The other I do that with is Tami Hoag's Lucky's Lady, but I can't give you that because I've lent it to someone. Maybe later.

And the second give-away today is one of two Anna Campbell's RITA finalist books, Untouched. It's the story of Grace Paget, who is kidnapped and taken to a remote country manor surrounded by a high unscalable wall, and told she must give herself to a madman -- satisfy his every desire -- or lose her life.

Talk about high stakes. The story of Grace and her 'madman' is intense indeed. Read it and you'll see why Australian Anna Campbell has taken the world of historical romance by storm.

# # # #

Seb and Neely and I have been having long days and nights and I'm happy to report that we're getting somewhere. Can't exactly tell you where without giving away the book, but rest assured it's moving. And keep your fingers crossed that we don't hit any doldrums between now and the end of the month.

# # # #

I went to a movie today -- because Seb and Neely had cooperated so well I thought I'd do them a favor and leave them to their own devices for a while (no, it's not that time of the book yet, but they had a good time anyway).

So I went to see Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day -- and loved it. I went because of Lee Pace, who I first discovered in Wonderfalls and have now seen in a lot of stuff. And I make it a point to watch what he does because he makes interesting choices in the roles he picks, and he's grown up to be quite a hunk. And even if he is a month or so younger than my youngest son (argh!), he's very appealing!

And then I discovered Ciaran Hinds was in it, too. And if I've got to get old, the fact that Ciaran Hinds is around for 'older women' certainly takes the sting out of it!

Not only that, there were Frances McDormand and Amy Adams and Shirley Henderson to delight in, and a wonderful late 1930s period piece that was beautifully shot and brought to life.

It was a pure delight all the way around. Couldn't have found a better way to spend the afternoon. Thank you to everyone involved in Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day. It would be worth paying evening prices for. And I don't say that often.

In Limbo . . . or chaos reigns

If you were here a couple of weeks ago or more, you may remember the "dusting" and the "home improvement" blogs. Well, since then we have been living in increasing chaos.

First the mattresses left, then the new ones arrived. But they couldn't come upstairs because we had to strip wallpaper and then paint and then carpet and THEN the beds could come up.

So for the last three weeks, they've been in the living room. Having three big dogs is enough of a movable suite of furniture. Add to them the mattresses and box springs and frames, plus the furniture that actually belongs there, and you've got a mess.

So . . . we got rid of the wallpaper and George the painter did come and paint. He actually painted three times before we got the right shade of blue. It's not that I'm picky (well, not very). It's that little strips of blue never look the same when you get them on the wall when they look BLUE!!!!!

From now on, when I paint, remind me that I want to buy a gallon of white and then a quart of whatever color we think we want the walls. And then we're going to very carefully and sparingly add the tiniest bit of color to the white. Because if we don't, yikes, it's like living in an Easter basket. Which is why George had to paint it three times.

And now the carpet is arriving. So tonight we moved the last of the furniture out. So my office is full of furniture and the hall is full of furniture, and there is just barely room enough to turn around everywhere upstairs, EXCEPT in the bedroom, which actually echoes.

Tomorrow the carpet is being laid. Then we can start moving stuff back in. And throwing other stuff out. LOTS of stuff is going to get thrown out. Or maybe I'll give it away on my blog -- though other than the books, I don't think you would want any of it.

Sadly, the bag of books from which I am picking give-aways is on the far side of all the furniture and I can't climb over it to get to the books. So I will be adding two books on Wednesday to make up for today's missing book.

In the meantime, it's National Library Week, so go to the library and check out books while you're waiting for me to come up with more give-aways. I love libraries. All the books I'm not giving you guys I'm going to give the library.

Does anyone want books about writing? If so, say so. I've got some of them, too, that are looking for a good home.

Great Book Give-Away III

One side of Jane Porter writes great intense, emotional rollercoastery books for Harlequin Presents.

Another side of Jane writes quirky lively chick lit/mom lit books like Odd Mom Out, which is this week's number one give-away book.

I love Jane's quirky single title books. I love her characters, like Marta, who is so not what her conformist daughter Eva wants her mother to be, and Eva, who is so not what Marta expected in a daughter.

This is a wonderful book about expectations -- about our own and the ones that others have for us. It's all about discovering who you really are -- and that whoever you are, it's okay. Jane does a brilliant job with vulnerable people trying to be tough enough to survive. She knows them inside and out.

I loved the book. And apparently the preliminary RITA judges did, too, because Odd Mom Out is a RITA finalist this year. I'm crossing my fingers for it.

Drop by and comment and you could be the lucky winner of Jane's Odd Mom Out and four more terrific books this week.

* * * *

All the grandsons were here for the basketball tournament. That was fun. I even got some pictures. Now I won't have to scrabble around at the last minute for photos for the Christmas letter come December!

How nice to get something done ahead of a deadline for once.

* * * *

Seb is discussing life with a bloodhound and a litter of kittens. Neely has stood him up. Oh, dear.
What is it about middles that reminds me of knitting? Badly.

And the winner is . . .

Gunnar and The Prof went down to the basement and did their complicated treat ritual again. Gunnar now looks stuffed to the gills with treats. And he has made his choice.

This week's winner of The Great Book Give-Away is Ellen!

Congratulations, Ellen! I hope you enjoy all six of the books that will be coming your way next week.

Please go to my website, click on the "contact Anne" label on the left hand sidebar and send me your mailing address. Then I can post your books.

Hope to hear from you by Wednesday. If not, I'll have Gunnar pick an alternate winner. Many thanks to everyone who commented this week and last. You were all in the drawing this week.

You will all be in next week's drawing as well. On Monday I'll announce the first of the books to be given away this coming week.

In the meantime The Prof and I are off to watch oldest grandson play in a basketball tournament this weekend.

And, of course, I have Seb and Neely to deal with, too. Right now we're looking for a transition. Sometimes those are easy. Sometimes sitting and staring at a blank page is the order of the day. I fear it's one of those days. Let's hope it's not one of them again tomorrow.