My Favorite-est Game Ever is Free

But only until December 27.

Ah, Wonderland.

I totally luuurve this casual game series. It is the cutest thing you've ever seen until you realize how challenging the harder levels are.

How much do I love it? With my club membership, I can buy any game I want from a game portal for $6.95, but for these games I go to the original publisher, Midnight Synergy, and pay $20 because I want the company to prosper.

Now they are giving away the game that started it all. If you want one, go here and scroll down. Happy Holidays!

No Rest for the Deadline-Addled

It's been a week since I turned in a pseudo-complete draft of NOT QUITE A HUSBAND and I feel completely out of breath. I've been running around the house trying to put some organization into our sadly disorganized existence, in front of the computer replying to all the accumulated emails, updating my website, and making a Xmas newsletter, and doing the usual mommy stuff, including freezing my rear off on the coldest day of this season--so far--helping out at the junior kidlet's school trip.

And after a whole week of rushing about (okay, there was a day of writing in my contemp romp and a half-day of frowning over the next historical project), I look around and these are the things I have not done:

1)Send Christmas presents to agent and editor
2)Read either of the manuscripts I promised I'd read for possibly blurbing
3)Sort and shred the mountain of statements that have been accumulating since I was still in grad school
4)Put up our paltry few strings of Xmas lights, b/c junior kidlet delights in them
5)Laundry (His Hawtness dealt with the previous load, and since I'm not currently on deadline, I feel like I should do more.)

Boy, more and more I'm beginning to think people love historical romance for the abundance of servants! And maybe they read Harry Potter for the house elves. :-)

Before I rush off to fight the neverending War on Dirty Clothes, let me point you to RT's website, where you'll find the video interview I did with the awesome Morgan Doremus during RWA San Francisco. You can also see the videos here and here.

I was rather wondering about the timing of the videos being featured on RT. Morgan Doremus had told me that usually they'd haul out the clips when there's some news about me or my book. And then Meredith Duran told me that PA has been nominated for a RT Best Historical Debut award. I haven't seen it posted anywhere so I'm going to have to trust that Meredith wasn't just having fun with me. :-)

Okay, off to the seasonal frenzy again.

Dec 10 Update: Sent presents. Put up lights. And did laundry. :-)

Christmas Giveaway

Jan 2, 2009 Update: Did I say I was going to announce the winner on Dec 25? Well, Christmas day saw me snowed under revisions. But finally I found some time to visit my dear friend the random number generator, and here is the winner: Jenny Schwartzberg. Congratulations Jenny!

Yay, free stuff!

I recently chucked over a $25 Christmas bonus to my web designer, Frauke Spanuth of Croco Designs (whose latest showpiece is the Dear Author overhaul). And Frauke, as fabulous a woman as she is a graphic designer/code master, offered me a $25 X-mas voucher to giveaway.

What can you do with a $25 design voucher? Well, you can get yourself a set of banner/badge ads designed for All About Romance, for instance, which she has done for me recently. I think my bookmark design was for about that much too. Throw in a bit more cash, and you can get yourself a web template, which I got at the beginning of 2008 for $75, if memory serves. (Of course prices are subject to change without prior notice, etc.) And if you don't have a webpage, she does great myspace layouts too--I'm going to have her do mine next year.

(I host my newsletter through Frauke's other company, Janus Portal, and let me tell you, a more economical deal on e-newsletter hosting I couldn't find.)

Sooo, what do you have to do for a chance to win this fun little prize? Well, since I've recently said that I should do more for my publisher, I'm going to do just that. Tell me about your favorite Bantam author(s) in the comment. (And since this is already my blog, you can leave me out.) :-)

I'm going to start.

First up Shana Abe, one of the most lyrical writers working today.







Mary Balogh, who's going to have 4 books out back-to-back early next year.







Sarah Addison Allen, whose debut Garden Spells I enjoyed very much.





Linnea Sinclair, a fellow Nelson Literary Agency client, is published with Bantam Spectra.








Jill Sorenson will have her Bantam debut released January 27, 2009.












Sharon Page will have her Bantam historical debut released February 24, 2009.













And my agent keeps telling me that if I want to do a big martial art epic, then I need to read Diana Gabaldon's Outlander--and of course, Gabaldon is a Bantam Dell author too.




Wow. Pretty darn good covers one and all.

Now it's your turn. Tell me which BantamDell authors rock your world. And if you have testimonials of Frauke's fabulous work, feel free to gush also. :-)

Updated to add: The winner will be picked on December 25, of course. :-)