Some more questions

More questions --
And more, well, answers.


8)  How did she .  . . .  put such nuances into her dialogue?

For me, dialog is something I hear. 
A 'voice' comes from listening to people speak.  The written language is helpful, but the heart of it is the sound.

If it's French accents, I have to go sit and listen to French people talk.  I was lucky enough to live in France.  There are movies with authentic French accents I think . . . (she says vaguely.) 

East Enders is a good start for Cockney.  I watched a lot of BBC.

Yorkshire dialect was Herriot and the movie Babe and the bits and pieces they have recorded on dialect sites.

I'd say you build a voice by spending days and weeks listening to the accent you want to reproduce. You keep at it till you 'hear' the voices in your head.
Trying to hear voices is not universally excellent advice, but it's good advice for writers.

9) Does she place hooks purposefully every half chapter?

I do?

I mean . . . yeah.  Right.  I do.

Ok.  I don't know about planting hooks purposefully in any particular places, but I do want the reader to have questions about what's going to happen next.  This is the narrative drive thingum. 

10) Does she plan out her POV characters?

Oh dear. 
Sorta.

In Spymaster's Lady I didn't do this very well, as a matter of fact.

What it is . . .
In a Romance genre book. you have two POV characters, the hero and heroine.  This is right and traditional and works very well and it's what I fully intended to do.  The two POVs go switching back and forth at frequent intervals so you see motivation from both sides.
I knew I'd be using more heroine POV than hero, because this is really 'her' story.


I ended up with three other POVs.
Sorta by accident.

I did the in-cuts with the villain in Omniscient Narrator. They're not in any character's POV. An example is the scene where the villain goes to the little hut on the beach and questions the fisherman about Annique leaving the Normandy coast.  This is all written as if some undefined person was watching the scene.
Omniscient POV.

I had two other scenes that were supposed to be Omniscient Narrator. 
Adrian is wading out to the smuggler's boat.
Galba is playing chess.

The scenes ended up in Adrian POV and Galba POV.  I didn't plan this at the beginning, but when I came to writing the scenes, I just couldn't keep out of character POV.

It's bad technique to go wandering into random heads all the time, but then I went and did it because I thought it told the story better.  
I'm weak.


11) What's been the reception - from the pub world and readers to Spy series?

People have said such wonderful things about the book.
For instance, the ALA listed it as the 2008 Romance genre book to recommend to Library readers. I am so surprised and pleased.

The funny thing is, I seem to get folks who like the book and people who hate the book with a burning passion. 
Not so much in between.
Odd, that.

More Questions

Couple more questions.


3) How long did it take you to write THE SPYMASTER'S LADY? Was it your first
manuscript?

It's not my first manuscript. I wrote a sweet Regency Romance for Avon back in the early dawn of the modern era. Then I went to work overseas and raised a couple kids and got busy writing lots of impenetrable technical non-fiction.

For years, I wrote fiction in little corners of time. I wasn't satisfied with any of it. I wanted to expand the scope of the story and I couldn't seem to do it. I have maybe four or five completed manuscripts trunked away.

Maybe I was learning my craft.
I dunnoh.

Somewhere in there I started playing with scenes that would eventually end up in the Spymaster's Lady manuscript. Worked on them a bit and didn't get far. I'd get all complicated and tangled up in plot. Put it away. Worked on some other projects.

Then in February of 2003 I got evacked out of Saudi Arabia to the US and found myself with time on my hands. I picked up the notes and bits of scenes I had in a folder for Spymaster's Lady. I liked my characters. I liked the scenes. The plot was garbage. But I could write another plot.

"Let's run with this one," I said to myself.

Eighteen months later the Spymaster's Lady manuscript was finished.
 

4) What was your journey to publication?  

As I say, I finished Spymaster's Lady in mid 2005.  It was on the shelves in July 2008.  Three years.

First came the strange and horrible process of writing a query letter and a synopsis. And I started the next manuscript, because that's what you do when you are writing your query letters.

It was time to go agent hunting. I looked up the RWA list of agents who represented Historical Romance. I subscribed to Publisher's Marketplace. I bought Jeff Herman's Guide and the Writer's Guide to Literary Agents. I searched the web for the agents who represent my favorite authors.
I made spreadsheets. I googled agents.

I came up with a list of the five top agents I could possibly want. The dream agents. The A list.
I mailed out queries.  I guess it was August.

By the end of the month, I had three requests for the full manuscript. A month after that, I got 'the call' and signed immediately.
This was all Good, Excellent, and Scary.

The agent began sending the manuscript out to publishers.

And I started collecting rejections from major publishers. I got six or seven of them. Some found the plot unlikely; some already had a full list of Regency Historicals; several liked the book but didn't think they could sell a French-set historical. One editor pointed out that I seemed to have problems with grammar and usage. Was English my native language?

The agent said not to be discouraged. Finish the next manuscript, she said. Spymaster's Lady would sell, but it might not sell as the first book.

Then, in December, an editor moved to a most desirable publisher. The agent sent Spymaster's Lady to her.  On January 18 I sold the manuscript of Spymaster's Lady, (then called ANNEKA,) and a second, to-be-written manuscript, (that was JESSAMYN which became Lord and Spymaster,) in a two-book deal.

Spymaster's Lady hit the stands 18 months later.

photocredit.  The bathtub is supposed to be a gift from Napoleon to somebody in Louisian, so it's a period bathtub

Some questions

I received a few questions lately from a couple places.  Thought I'd share the answers here. This is the first two questions.

1) What's your process? Are you a plotter or does the story unfold as you write?

Both, I think.

Way back at the start, first thing, I dream up my characters. I get a sense of the story I want to tell about them.
Then I write a 'plot outline' that says what happens.
Then I sit down to do the long, discursive, inefficient, stiff, stupid, misspelled, repetitive rough draft.

So the first thing that gets written down is a stark little outline of the action. This is plot. This is What Has to Happen.
This 'plotting' is sketchy. Think of those three-line blurbs you get from the TV guide.

What the plot outline looks like:

Scene: The Bad Guys fire through the windows in Meeks Street and run away. Nobody gets hurt.
or
Scene: Annique and Grey go walking along the Dover Road. Something exciting happens.
or
Couple of scenes: Annique gets away from Grey and goes to England.


So first I have the Story in my head. 'Annique grows up. Annique must make a choice.'

Then I come up with a plot. The plot is the set of actions I use to tell that Story. The plot is how I pace the action and set it in logical sequences. The plot gives me a structure where problems get presented one-by-one and then solved one-by-one or stored up to get solved at the end.

Then, when I have a plot, I sit down and tell the Story inside the plot structure.

So I would 'plot' a set of scenes of Annique and Grey walking the Dover Road. I know this has to be an 'on stage' journey because the action is there to give me space to do Relationship Stuff. Also, I need to give the reader a sense of time and space passing.
I plot that, 'something exciting happens,' because the hero and heroine can't go all that distance all smooth and easy like a couple of UPS packages.

But I don't know that somebody takes a shot at Annique till I sit down to write the rough draft.

I don't go into the rough draft cold. Even while I'm writing along, I'll be using my leisure time when I'm washing the dishes and chopping onions to think about the scenes that lie ahead. I remind myself of the practical stuff I have to accomplish and the pacing needs. I shuffle possible places and characters back and forth in my head.

By the time I sit down to write the first rough draft of the scene, I have pictures and dialog. I can drop into the scene. I can go in there and throw words down.
But the rough draft continually tosses up stuff I didn't plan. I never saw it coming. Stuff that surprises the heck out of me.


2) Did the idea for THE SPYMASTER'S LADY arise from your love of the time period or did you research as you wrote?

I was familiar with the time and place.  Writing gave me an excuse to learn even more.

I knew I wanted to write genre Romance in the Napoleonic time period.
(Such sexy clothes.)
What I love about this era . . .
This two or three decades when the Eighteenth Century turned into the Nineteenth is the great watershed in how people in the Western World think about human rights and freedoms, about the importance of the individual.

There is a tremendous philosophical battle going on in this period. When the Declaration of Independence says -- "We hold these truths to be self evident; that all men are created equal." -- this is a New and Exciting Idea.

image attribution Blastmilk.

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.

In Japanese

I am in Japanese.

This is so wonderful.

I do hope this is a good translation. It's not just that I want Spymaster's Lady to be available to readers in Japan.
It's ...
(Ok. I'll admit it.)
I want somebody to read it
and say -- Manga!!
Yes. I want Annique to be a manga.
I have many unrealized dreams.
This is a particularly intelligent cover. Look at those wonderfully symbolic white cliffs of Dover. The scene where Annique comes ashore at Dover is not just a random point in the book. It's the division between dark and light. The turning of the action.
And the cliffs give a sense of the 'fortress' England presented to any invasion from France.

As to Annique . . .
This is not the face I picture for her,
but it's somebody I like the looks of.
It is here, at Amazon Japan, ready for all your Japanese Christmas shopping needs.
And see Spymaster's Lady visiting the Mejiro Gardens in Tokyo. Here.
Sherry Thomas tells me the title translates as The White Cliffs of Dover on the Other Side.
This, I like. Oh yes.

Chinese

We're coming out in Chinese.
'Chinese, Chinese, Chinese,' she sings.
Lord and Spymaster and Spymaster's Lady will be out in Chinese

in a really bitty bitty print run.

If the books were beer, the Chinese run would be a microbrewery.
Largest reading population in the world.
A handful of books.

I am continually impressed by the oddness of reality.

Little bits of Good News

I know. I know.

I promised I would be done with the manuscript on August One
and said I'd show up again bright and happy and full of blogwords after that.


Ummm .... Not quite.
I'm still stuffing the story octopus into the plot coke bottle.


So, not so much keeping up with the blog is going on, though it is only a postponement of blogkeepery and a veritable torrent of creativity will be unleashed when I finally finish the manuscript.

Maybe.


Two nuggets of news:

My Lord and Spymaster is out in Russian. Here. I had forgotten this was going to happen.
The title seems to be, 'My Sweet Spy'.
.

See the cover? Isn't that pretty?

In this case it is Sebastian who cannot keep his shirt on.
(Metaphor-taken-literally-itis sweeps Romancelandia.)
And Jess is blonde.
Yes. Yes. Yes.




The other news is that the French rights to Spymaster's Lady have been sold. Woot woot. Yes!

That one I'll be able to read.

Oh Frabjous Day.

Jo
My Indian name is AshkoHaHa.

A Spanish Excerpt from Spymaster's Lady

The first chapter of Spymaster's Lady in Spanish can be found here..


Desarmado por un baile
Joanna Bourne
Editorial : Valery
Precio: 16,95€….

You can order it here.

Por supuesto, ella estaba dispuesta a morir, pero no
había planeado hacerlo tan pronto o de un modo tan incómodo,
y que llevase tanto tiempo, o que lo haría en manos
de un compatriota.

Se desplomó contra la pared, que era de piedra y muy
sólida, como suelen ser los muros de las cárceles.

—No tengo los planes. Nunca los he tenido.

—Soy un hombre de poca paciencia. ¿Dónde están
los planes?

—Yo no los tengo…

El bofetón llegó sin previo aviso. Durante un instante,
sintió que estaba a punto de caer inconsciente, pero luego se
recuperó, en la oscuridad, dolorida y con Leblanc.

—Te lo has ganado —Él tocó su mejilla, en el punto
donde la había golpeado y la obligó a mirarlo. Lo hizo con delicadeza.
Tenía mucha práctica en hacer daño a las mujeres—.

Continuemos. Esta vez tendrás más ganas de ayudar.

—Por favor, lo estoy intentando.

—Me dirás dónde has escondido los planes, Annique.

—No son más que un sueño de locos, esos planes
Albión. Una quimera. Nunca los he visto —Incluso mientras lo
decía, podía visualizar claramente los planes Albión en su mente.
Había tenido en sus manos las múltiples páginas, los bordes
manoseados, los mapas cubiertos de manchas y huellas dactila-
res, las listas escritas en letra pequeña y cuidada. «No voy a
pensar en esto. Si lo recuerdo, lo verá en mi rostro».


. . . and the rest of the chapter follows on the link above.

Technical Topics -- Secondary Character POV

I posted this over on Absolute Write in response to a question about when to go into the POV of a secondary character.

Being thrifty, I'll post it here too.

************
Going into the POV of a secondary character --

There are no 'rules'
(--that should be in neon somewhere--)
but you should have a good reason for going into a secondary character's head.

The good reason should be something more than just ...
-- this is an easy way to tell the reader where the cookies are hidden, or
-- neither of my POV characters are in this scene but I want to write it anyhow.

You might consider Omniscient Narrator in those cases. Or write around the problem.

I go into secondary characters' heads three times in two books.
(I think that's all.)

In two cases, this is a single excursion into their heads.
In none of the three cases does this POV choice
-- solve a plot problem or
-- convey information to the reader or
-- put us in a necessary scene we would otherwise find hard to enter.

I go into the secondary heads
to show something important about the secondary character and the way he sees the world.

In two cases, I want to put the reader 'outside' the main protagonists at a particular moment for complex reasons having to do with how the reader is emotionally connecting with the ongoing story.

When I went into the secondary POV, it was because this gave
(a) a refuge from involvement with the two protags,
(b) a new coign of vantage, and
(c) an insight into the minor character.

***************

Talking about two scenes here ...

First Scene:
The scene where Galba plays chess with Annique is an example of using secondary character POV as a refuge from the two protags.

How secondary is Galba?
Galba is sooooo secondary! He is so bloody secondary he could get a medal for it. Galba appears on stage only a half dozen times, all in the last quarter of the book. If you look at him objectively, he doesn't actually do anything.

So, leaving aside Galba's insight into Annique, which is fine and wise and all that, his POV scene is not to talk about any of the characters. It's what you might call constituent. It's there to serve a structural purpose.

Look where I've put his scene.

We got a big scene of Annique betrayed, on every level, by those she loved and trusted.
Ouch. ouchouchouchouchouch.
Grey has to watch her hurt and he can't do anything about it.
Ouch again.

Now we want to get on with action of the story because there's not much more to say about that emotional topic right there and, anyhow, the world hasn't stopped even though Annique is in pain.

But we don't have to skip directly from
Annique- (or Grey-) POV-in-pain to
Annique- (or Grey-) POV-getting-on-with-life

So we put in a Galba-POV to give a buffer and 'tell about' the transition period.
If I were a better writer I'd have put in a riveting scene of Annique's acceptance and recovery instead.
But I'm not. (pooh)

We could do the same buffering with a good long passage of description or something in Omniscient Narrator. But I like Galba and I'm glad to have a chance to crawl into his head.


Ok.
Second Scene:

Look where I gave us a scene of Adrian POV.

He is almost a third protag. Now contrary to what you might think, this does not make me want to fill the story up with his POV. He diverts attention from the H&H, which is not good.

So we keep his little POV scene short and simple.

This is Adrian swimming out to the smugglers' boat.

How is this constituent?
That scene falls at that halfway division in the story where everybody's crossing the Channel.
(I mean, just everybody.)

The Adrian-POV scene is a buffer between Annique's emotional experience on one side of the Channel and the other. It's there for structural reasons.

Anyhow ....
speaking generally,

what we have in those two scenes above is what I consider a good reason for switching into secondary-character POV or Omniscient Narrator POV.

Not so we can reveal information.
Not because it's the only way we can talk about this scene.
But for structure and pacing.

This 'secondary POV-ing' is a technique that lifts you out of the protags' emotional journey and forms a buffer when you're transitioning from one emotional place to another and you, like, don't want to do it too fast.

Spymaster's Lady detail

Wonderful reader Eva writes to ask ..

haven't found anything to help me understand how Grey & Adrian were captured and put in that French prison with Annique. I feel like it was something with Adrian's injury but I'm not sure why I believe that. I think I just get so lost in the story I forget to look for those missing pieces of information. Is it written somewhere?

Ah. Here we have wandered out of Annique's story and into the edges of Adrian's story.

In the weeks before Spymaster's Lady opens, Adrian is on assignment as the key element of a large operation. It's an important op indeed, since Grey is in France, in person, directing, and ready to pull Adrian out if it all goes south.

Spying his merry way through the operation, Adrian has the misfortune to run into an old adversary. Old adversary, old friend, old lover, old rival ... anyhow, she knows him very well.
It's just bad luck she's there. Sometimes, on an operation, you run into bad luck.

Covers are blown. Carefully laid plans go awry. Plots unravel. Adrian gets shot when he's naked in bed with his old lover.
She shoots him. Talk about your wake-up calls.

Our lad is out the window, grabbing his clothes on the way.

Adrian's done this much . . . the op can be salvaged. Grey and Doyle step in to do that. But Adrian's on the streets, running.

When Grey goes to scoop him up, they're both captured.

This all happens outside the bounds of Spymaster's Lady, though. We catch only the merest whiff of it there.

ETA in July 2010:  When I actually sat down to write the JUSTINE story, I decided to do things somewhat differently.  So this is not what happened.
Just forget about all this part . . . okay?

Spanish Spymaster

Spanish . . . Spanish . . . I am in Spanish.

¿Usted habla español? ¿Usted sabe alguien que habla español?
This is your chance.

Cool cover, isn't it?
I really like 'Annique in red silk'.

Babelfish says this title means 'Disarmed by a Dance'.
Ok.

They call Grey ... El jefe de los espías británicos. Isn't that wonderful? I will now think of Grey as El Jefe.

So far, this one wins the limited but fierce competition for 'Least Clothing Per Person on a Joanna Bourne Cover'.

I think Desarmado Por Un Bale goes for sale on June 15th.
I hope to someday hold this in my hands so I can figure out what all that stuff down along the bottom and in the lower right hand corner is. That circle stuff. Some city ...?

Now this cover is not just quite exactly how I think of Grey. It looks a bit like Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic.
But it is just beautifully composed, isn't it?

ETA -- In the comment trail it is pointed out that the cover figure appears on another book. There, it can be discerned that the mysterious circle is part of the dancing costume. Mystery solved. I am so pleased.

Spymaster's Lady in Russian

I seem to be out in Russian.

Here. and Here.

I do want to find out how to get a copy of it.

Has to be some way ...

Interestingly enough, the cover seems related to the scene, and they've got Grey's shirt historically correct.

!

The title in Russian apparently translates to 'Secret Courtesan'.

The God of Romance Titles has not finished toying with me.

This cover is truly in competition for 'Cover of a Joanna Bourne Book Most Related to the Actual Story'.

ETA -- The better translation of the title is 'The Courtesan's Secret'. Very nice. Thanks so much to Russian reader Ksu for help on this.

RITA Finalist -- Twice

I am a RITA finalist for The Spymaster's Lady in the Historical Romance category. I'm a finalist for My Lord and Spymaster in the Regency Historical category.

Two Finals.

I am so happy and excited my stomach hurts. This is Exactly like the birthday party where you get the electronic game you wanted and eat six pieces of cake and then throw up, except that you have to buy a long black dress too.

AAR Readers Poll for Best Book of 2008

Oh look. Lookit! Lookit! Lookit!!

I got nominations or interim results or something. But Lookit!!

The AAR Readers Poll. I'm mentioned. Somebody likes me.

Here.

Even if I don't get anything in the final results, this is so cool.



EDITED TO ADD

Ok.
*jo hyperventillates*

Turns out I didn't have to rush in and post the interim results
so I could brag about the nominations.

I get to brag about WINS !!!!

*happy dance*

This is so wonderful.
Look. It's here.

I'm going to quote some of it because it's so nifty I can't help myself.

Ahem:

This year's break out winner was The Spymaster's Lady by Joanna Bourne. It was the overwhelming winner for Best Romance, earning a stand-alone win. In addition to Best romance, Ms. Bourne won Best Historical Romance Set in the U.K., Best Heroine, and Best Couple, also recieving an Honorable Mention for Best Hero. Ms. Bourne's My Lord and Spymaster also received votes in a number of categories ...


See. That's me. Spymaster's Lady. Me. My book.!!!!
How did this happen?


OK. Just so I can still fit into my favorite fishing hat, let me quote another line:

Every one of the top books in the Best Romance category also had at least a few votes for Worst


Oh. Oh. Let me put in everybody who won, because they are all great books.


Best 2008 Romance Novels

Best Romance.......................The Spymaster's Lady, Joanna Bourne

Best Contemporary Romance..........Blue-Eyed Devil, Lisa Kleypas

Best Romantic Suspense.............Death Angel, Linda Howard

Best Paranormal Romance............Lover Enshrined, J.R. Ward
(Honorable Mentions - tie)................Mine to Possess, Nalini Singh
..........................................Dark Desires after Dusk, Kresley Cole

Best Hist Rom Set in the U.K.......The Spymaster's Lady, Joanna Bourne
(Honorable Mention).......................Private Arrangements, Sherry Thomas

Best Hist Rom Not Set U.K..........Your Scandalous Ways, Loretta Chase

Funniest Romance...................Not Another Bad Date, Rachel Gibson
(Honorable Mentions - tie)................Like No Other Lover, Julie Anne Long
..........................................The Lost Duke of Wyndham, Julia Quinn
..........................................Just One of the Guys, Kristan Higgins

Biggest Tearjerker.................Blue-Eyed Devil, Lisa Kleypas
(Honorable Mention).......................Broken Wing, Judith James

Best Love Scenes (tie)..............To Seduce a Sinner, Elizabeth Hoyt
....................................Your Scandalous Ways, Loretta Chase
(Honorable Mention) .........................To Taste Temptation, Elizabeth Hoyt

Best Debut Author...................Sherry Thomas

Best Series Romance.................A Most Unconventional Match, Julia Justiss

Best Chick Lit/Women's Fiction......Just One of the Guys, Kristan Higgins
(Honorable Mentions - tie)...................Queen of Babble Gets Hitched, Meg Cabot
.............................................Remember Me, Sophie Kinsella

Best Erotica........................Wicked Burn, Beth Kery
(Honorable Mention)..........................Dangerous Secrets, Lisa Marie Rice

Best Romance Short Story..........From This Moment On in It Happened One Night, Candice Hern
(Honorable Mention).......................Spellbound in It Happened One Night, Mary Balogh

Guiltiest Pleasure Romance.........Lover Enshrined, J.R. Ward


Best 2008 Characters


Best Romance Hero................Hardy Cates in Blue-Eyed Devil, Lisa Kleypas
(Honorable Mention).....................Robert Grey in The Spymaster's Lady, Joanna Bourne

Best Romance Heroine..............Annique in The Spymaster's Lady by Joanna Bourne

Best Romance Couple...............Annique and Grey in The Spymaster's Lady, Joanna Bourne

Recognition -- All About Romance

I have been greatly honored by All About Romance. Oh wow.

AAR has chosen Spymaster's Lady as winner of the 2008 Reviewer's Choice for Historical Romance.

Their kind comments here.

Oh wow. Oh wow. AAR. Wow.

An American Library Association recognition

I have some just unbelievable recognition here.

I have been named by the American Library Association's Reference and User Services as a Reading List winner.

The Reading List is one book chosen in each of eight genres (sci fi, thriller, mystery, woman's lit, horror, fantasy, romance, historical fiction,) as both good and of interest to the general adult reader.

I got the one for Romance.
here.

The shortlist for Romance here. was

"The Spymaster's Lady" by Joanna Bourne;
"My Lord and Spymaster" by Joanna Bourne;
"Private Arrangements" by Sherry Thomas;
"The Seduction of the Crimson Rose" by Lauren Willig; and
"Your Scandalous Ways" by Loretta Chase,

which is a hell of a short list, isn't it?

Last year, Natural Born Charmer won.
SEP, of course.

Oh my bobalinks and bananas, what am I doing anywhere near that company?

Spymaster's Lady at Bookshare

Spymaster's Lady and My Lord and Spymaster are available at Bookshare -- the site that makes digital books available to those with visual impairments or dyslexia.

Here.

I am so happy to see them there.

Fresh Fiction and Romance Novel TV bragging

Me: But nobody will KNOW if I don't tell them.
Myself: It's bragging.
Me: If I ignore it, it's almost insulting. Like nobody told me. Like nobody noticed.
Myself: It's bragging. One does not flaunt oneself.
Me: It's an item of interest. It's informational.
Myself: It's bra--
I: Will you two stop it already and just SAY it.

Me (taking deep breath):

Fresh Fiction published
The Best Gift Books for 2008 according to Fresh Fiction Staff Members.

And the books are ...


Woman's Fiction -- Searching for Paradise in Parker, PA by Kris Radish

Paranormal Romance -- Nightkeepers by Jessica Andersen

Contemporary Romance -- Natural Born Charmer by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Chick Lit -- This is How It Happened by Jo Barrett

Historical Romance -- Spymaster's Lady by Joanna Bourne
(See. See. See. That's me!! Lookit!)

Erotic Romance -- Art of Desire by Cherie Feather

Romantic Suspense -- Take Me If You Can by Karen Kendall


Myself: You had to go and do it, didn't you?
Me: It's my blog. I get to put stuff like that on my own blog. I'm just saying it.
Myself: You are so bragging.
Me: I put in all seven names. All Seven. That makes it informational. And I'm in the middle so it's modest.
Myself: You put yourself in bold type. Why not just hire a flossing billboard?
I: Will you two just shut up? Jeesh. I can't take you anywhere.


Edited to reiterate:

I have been deeply honored by Michelle Buonfiglio at mylifetime here. She listed Spymaster's Lady as best book of the year.
I truly do not know what to say.

So I perform a modest and restrained ...
*Snoopy Dance*


Edited again to add:
The Wonderful people at Romance Novel TV here have nominated Spymaster's Lady among the Best of 2008. They've said such cool things.

And edited yet again:

RNTV didn't pick me for any titles. *pooh*
But I'm still pleased to have been nominated.

I got a nod from Romantic Times too.
*Yeah*

Kindly praise

I have been deeply honored by Michelle Buonfiglio at mylifetime here.

Oh my. What does one say? What does one say?

Buenas noticias

Spymaster's Lady will be out in Spanish in about eighteen months.

Cool.
That is, fresca.