Adrian looks like . . .

I'm gearing up to make the Romance Trading Cards for Adrian.  I have a few possible faces and I  . . .

I just don't know.

These are stock photos.  I have not bought all of them, so I'm only going to leave them up till Saturday.

So, tell me which Adrian you like best.  I'll send Romance trading cards to some lucky poster . . .  *g*

ETA:  There's watermarks on some of the photos.  These will go away.

Photo A

Photo B

Photo C

Photo D

Photo E

ETA:  I went and bought the stock photos so I could leave them up on the bog.

Out in Italian

You know how I find out I've got a foreign language edition ensconced happily on some foreign shelf?

Pick one:

a)  My agent sends me a congratulatory e-mail.

b)  My publisher's two copies of the foreign-language edition show up in my mailbox.

c)  Kindly and alert reader Nina M. sends me the news.



In yet another of my small-minded carpings about covers, I will point out that my Annique and Grey have wandered into the High Victorian era (complete with gas lamps,) and that she has Really Big Hands.

I feel great kindliness toward this Italian publisher.  They translated my very first fiction book way back in the dim ages when folks still wrote on clay tablets and baked them in the sun. Italian Romance readers seem to be a great bunch and I hope they've got themselves a good translation.

Un Amore da Spie is Mondadori 921, neatly snuggled between Maggie Osborne's I do, I do, I do (920) and Johanna Lindsey's The Heir (922).  Un Amore da Spie is pleased to be in such august company and rather enjoying having its very own number.


Un Amore da Spie is available from Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, somewhere, somehow.  Those who buy Italian books will doubtless know how to find them.

Technical Topics: Paying an editor

Here you see me hauling advice back from another spot so I can give it twice.

The question was -- 'Should I pay an editor or Book Doctor to go over my manuscript before I submit it?"

"Hell no," says I.

That is the brief answer.
I do not, perhaps, so much excel at 'brief',  but I can do it.
As you see.
The much looonger advice is below the cut,
where it is fairly happy to remain unless this topic grinds your opticals.

Covers

Covers . . . 
just because I felt like posting covers ...

ETA:  I have moved the covers below the fold so they will not slow the loading of the blog for slow machines.

Dates

I wanted to set the dates here and the ages. I hope I have all these right.

Leesee ...


Doyle and Maggie's Story takes place in July, 1794

The Spymaster's Lady -- 1802

My Lord and Spymaster -- 1811

Her Ladyship's Companion -- 1818


Birthdates. Doyle in 1764. Maggie in 1770. Grey in 1775. Sebastian in 1784 Adrian and Anneka in 1782, Jess in 1790.

Good-bye Jess. Hello Maggie

I sent off the copyedits for My Lord and Spymaster on Tuesday.

This means I'm basically done with it. MLAS is about kicked out of the nest. Soon it'll be out there soaring on its own ... or fluttering on the ground making sad little chirrups waiting for a cat to come along and jump on it.

What lies ahead for MLAS ...

In New York they're taking those copyedits apart and putting them into electronic form, ready to make the galleys.

They'll send the galleys back to me. I'm not supposed to change stuff in the galleys, except typos, but I've picked out two places where I want to make bitty, bitty little changes. Ten or twelve words added in one place. One word changed in the other.

Then I send the galleys back and I'm done.

I've started blocking out the story for Maggie. I have a possible outline. Who is Maggie? What does she want? What does she need? What will she do to get it?

The books

Somebody asked ...


Book #4, (if I ever write it,) will be Doyle and Maggie's story. Set in France and England in 1792. Adrian will have a strong secondary role. I might give some walk-on parts to my old friends. (TBA)

The Spymaster's Lady is the story of Annique and Grey. Set in France and England in 1802. Adrian and Doyle have secondary parts. Giles Tarsin has a walk-on. (release January 2008. Berkley)

My Lord and Spymaster is the story of Jessamyn and Sebastian. Set in London in 1811. Adrian plays a secondary part. Doyle has a walk-on. (release July 2008. Berkley)

Her Ladyship's Companion is the story of Giles Tarsin and (jo tries to remember here) Melissa ... It's been a long time. Set in Cornwall in 1816 or 1818 ...? Adrian plays a secondary part. (release 1983. Avon)