The Dynamic Trio - Blog

I’m a guest over at Jenyfer Matthew’s blog today. I’m talking about my new release, WANDERLUST and also giving away a download of Playing to Win.
Come over and say hello to go into the draw to win.

I’m also over at Naughty and Spice and Pink Fuzzy Slipper Writers talking about exercise and bottom spread.

I’m hosting the Home Alone partay over at the Samhain Cafe yahoo group. We’re telling SECRETS AND LIES! Come join us. It’s hoppin’ !!

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/samhaincafe/
TJ

Wanderlust is out today from Cerridwen Press. Buy your copy here.

Wanderlust By Shelley Munro

Not many people live their dream, but I’ve been incredibly lucky. I’m Anna Tietjens, and I work as a tour leader for Wanderlust Adventures.

My current tour is through incredible India. It should be a breeze, except my younger sister is joining in New Delhi. Things are not exactly civil between us — a childhood full of upheaval didn’t help — and our parents have insisted she travel with me or not at all. I see fun times ahead. Now my boyfriend has turned up without warning. Don’t get me wrong. I really like Sebastian Brady. The sex is good, spectacular even, but meeting a few times a year is enough. I mean, I’m not looking for love or happy ever after.

But worst of all is the bad luck I’ve been having recently. One of my passengers died in Syria, and now it looks like my co-driver might have to leave the tour. Despite the exotic location, it’s not exactly smooth sailing, and I’m starting to think someone is out to halt the tour…

Adventure into Romance
with Shelley Munro

I love this ad. It’s a recent one and it makes me smile every time I see it. New Zealand…gotta love it…

It’s home.

I am sooooo happy about how things turned out for me during my recent travels for work. Yes, I did indeed get caught in the American Airlines ‘your flight is cancelled’ troubles. They called me at 7:00 am (you can set up automatic alerts for your flights and the ‘computer lady’ will call you if there are problems) on Thursday to let me know my Friday flight home was cancelled. Needless to say I was NOT a happy camper. I got on the phone right away, spent an hour and a half, yes people, 1.5 HOURS on hold. But when I finally got someone, I decided that I’d catch more bees with honey that I would with vinegar, right?

Besides, the situation was not the fault of the person who’d answered the phone. So I was very nice. Syrupy-sweet-almost-to-the-point-of-sickening nice. For my trouble I got a guaranteed seat home the next night in first class!

But I didn’t really want to wait until after 9:00pm to get on a plane in Chicago with a storm threatening to roll in. So I arrived at the airport 6 HOURS EARLY, then sweetly begged to be put on standby for an earlier flight. I’m telling you, nice works! Instead of waiting until 9:00 pm to go home, I was on the 3:00 pm flight out of Chicago and couldn’t have been happier!

Go AMERICAN AIRLINES!

Heard back from our editor at Black Lace today and he said he really enjoyed TCOB. His comments made me quite happy and I’m looking forward to plotting out the next book with Megan next week!

Early today I’m off to Anya’s and then on Sunday we’re off to Megan’s! Then we have a photo shoot with the uber fabulous Scott Church on Monday the 14th. Later that evening a book signing at the Waldenbooks in the Lebanon Valley Mall from 6 - 8 pm so if you’re in the area, please do come by to say hello!

And then on Tuesday we’re off again to Pittsburgh for the Romantic Times Booklovers Convention. I’m all atizzy with prep today. The washing machine is going. I’m nearly totally packed but there are always last minute things and I realized Wednesday that I’ll need to take along another small suitcase for extra promotion stuff because we have 68 people and not 50 sign up for our reader party. I’ll also be able to bring back books in it so I suppose that’s a good thing too.

I have not written as much as I wanted to this last week, which sucks. But I’m still good and hopefully I’ll come back as energized to work this time as I did last year.

Cascadia Wolves: Fated

Just wrote a very emotional scene last night but I think it came out well because I cried as I wrote so apparently it translated, or it did to me anyway.

Bookwise I haven’t read much although I did get an early look at Beth Kery’s Wicked Burn and I have to tell you all, this book is freaking amazing. Dark and sharp, totally sexy with an alpha hero who reminded me a lot of Linda Howard’s early heroes. Speaking of La Linda - I read Now You See Her last week and I have to reiterate how much I love her books. I LOVE HER. I’m reading The Ruins now which is uber creepy and I don’t think I’ll be taking it with me on this trip. I did get Karen Chance’s new one and also Meredith Duran’s Duke of Shadows so we’ll see which one I pick for the plane. I may actually do some plotting out of an idea I have as well. I don’t often have large blocks of time that are solely my own so I have a plethora of choices.

Paranormal authors Mandy M Roth and Michelle M Pillow talk books, industry, paranormal, and take reader calls.

Author Lauren Dane joins authors Mandy M Roth and Michelle M Pillow to talk books, paranormal, writing and just about anything else we can convince her to gab about!

Wed April 9, 2008
11am –12pm EST

Listener dial-in number during LIVE shows
(646) 595-3998 (New York number, long distance charges apply)

There is also a LIVE chat during the shows. Follow the link below and look for CHAT LIVE buttons! You can type your questions or comments in there during the chat and we’ll ask/answer them on air!
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/ravenradio

Since I’m attending the conference in San Francisco I’ve been thinking about promo. Last time I went to the RWA conference I distributed bookmarks and business cards via the goodie room and thought I’d do something similar this year. Then last week, thanks to the Marketing for Romance Writers loop, I had another idea. Book thongs.

Hubby and I discussed the idea and I googled for instructions on how to construct a book thong. We decided that the only downside to a book thong would be the lack of connection to my name, but we’ve come up with a cunning plan to combat this disadvantage. Each book thong will have a little label attached and will also be placed inside a ziplock bag, along with an excerpt. We’re also going for a special New Zealand flavor, which unfortunately for all of you is top secret. In other words, I’m not gonna tell.

For those who don’t know what a book thong is, here’s a link to instructions on how to make one plus a photo. Here’s another link to JM Snyder’s instructions so you have two sets of different instructions to compare.

We’d already decided to go for a drive to buy compost and potting mix so added bead shopping to our list. In the past I’ve done several handicrafts including knitting, tapestry, cross stitch and sewing, but I’ve never done beadwork. We walked into a craft shop and had great fun studying all the beads and deciding which ones to buy. I settled for a green theme since that’s what I have on my website. We also purchased dark cord. On arrival home we discovered our cord was a little thick for the beads. Mr. Munro stalked out to the garage and returned with his drill. He had his serious face on so I left him to it. He loves projects and thrives on challenges of all kinds. About half an hour later he’d made three book thongs. I was very impressed.

I’m not spending a fortune and don’t intend to make hundreds of thongs, but a few lucky people will go home with New Zealand book thongs.

This morning I received another good review for Fancy Free. In fact I’m thrilled with the reviews I’ve received so far. Kate Garrabrant from JERR says, “I had some good laughs while reading Fancy Free and Shelley Munro truly writes exceptional sex scenes with two great characters. I would recommend you check a great story by an exceptional author!”

I had my first ever in life, real, honest to goodness book signing yesterday! It was a hoot! Fellow EC author and friend, Lise Fuller, put the whole shindig together (she’s fabulous, ya’ll!) I also met Cobblestone Press author, Diana Bold, who joined us in creating all kinds of mayhem.

We got together at Beth Anne’s Book Corner in Colorado Springs. I tell you, the independent book stores really have our backs. They simply love for authors to come and hang out at the shops and talk to the patrons. And eat lemon cake…and german chocolate cake. Even the lady from the Baskin Robins ice cream store next door came over bearing goodies.

We even met a guy who makes, yes MAKES by hand, chain mail armor. We got some really good pictures, too. I’ll post ‘em here…as soon as I figure out how to get them off the camera!

I left my house Saturday morning with a big, heavy box full of card decks, book marks and, of course, books, including bunches of copies of CARINIAN’S SEEKER, WILD WINTER and FERAL FASCINATION. When I got home, I carried only 4 books into the house. Sold out of Carinian’s Seeker (no surprise there, boy I love that book) and almost all the others.

Not bad for a first book signing! I hope all the others (which have yet to be scheduled, heh-heh) go just as well.

Pictures coming…and no laughing at my chipmunk cheeks!

TJ