And the Winner is . . .

I thought I'd take time out from going over Night Reigns proofs to say:

Congratulations, Jennifer B.,

winner of a signed copy of Darkness Dawns in

Reading Between the Wines Book Club's

Writing Romance event!

There's still a chance to win a signed copy of Darkness Dawns at Paranormal Haven's Bookish Haven Summer Vacation event.  The contest ends tomorrow.

Have a great weekend!

Dianne

Catching Up

Hi, Everyone!

I hope you all enjoyed the holiday weekend!  Hope you enjoyed a safe holiday weekend.  We're experiencing the worst drought we've had in 50 years here, so I admit I was a bit worried someone in the neighborhood might ignore the fireworks ban and end up starting a fire, but no one did.  Not here at least.  Some teenagers started a grass fire across town.  It was actually . . . not eerie, but weird . . . not hearing fireworks for the first time ever on the 4th.  Fireworks, I believe, have always been banned here in the city, but people often manage to sneak them in anyway and put on shows in backyards.  This year?  Nothing.  Residents must really have taken the fire hazard seriously.

So how did you spend the 4th?  At the beach?  Barbecuing?  A family gathering?  Attending parades?  Curling up with a good book?

I spent it with family.  My facebook and twitter friends may have noticed I tend to disappear entirely from the internet on most weekends because I deem weekends family time . . . which is one of the reasons I can never seem to catch up on email, facebook, etc. *sigh*

ON THE WRITING FRONT

I have BIG NEWS!  Tantor Audio is publishing my Immortal Guardians series!  Woohoo!  Darkness Dawns is scheduled for release on July 25th.  (You can Pre-Order it from Amazon.)  It will be read by Kirsten Potter:

Kirsten Potter has won AudioFile Earphones Awards
for her reading of The Snowball by Alice Schroeder and
her performance as Barbara in George Bernard Shaw’s
Major Barbara. Her reading of Madapple by Christina
Meldrum was a Booklist Editors’ Choice for Best
Audiobook 2008.

I'm also currently participating in TWO big blogging events: 

I'm blogging about the importance of choosing the right names for one's characters in romance novels over at Reading Between the Wines Book Club for Writing Romance week.  I'm also giving away a signed copy of Darkness Dawns.  The contest lasts through July 8th, so I hope you'll join me!

I'm also blogging about paranormal brotherhoods (love them!) over at Paranormal Haven for Bookish Haven Summer Vacation.  I'm giving away a signed copy of Darkness Dawns for this one, too.  The contest lasts through July 15th.

BACK ON THE HOME FRONT

Other than that, I'm watering my veggie plants like crazy to help them survive the drought and hoping to get some reading time in soon.

What's happening in your corner of the world?

Dianne

Summer Fun

Hi all!

To those who commented on the Night Reigns deleted scene I posted:  Thanks so much!  I've been working on Night Reigns copyedits and didn't have a chance to respond until yesterday.  I'm so glad you liked it!  The larger scene from which I cut it is one of my favorite scenes in the whole novel.  Hopefully it will be one of your favorites, too.

And to those who participated in Brenda Novak's Annual Auction for the Cure of Diabetes:  Thank you!  I'll be mailing off an autographed copy of Darkness Dawns with a signed cover flat and mini-bookmark to a winning bidder this week.  :-)

I have various and assorted bits of news to share with you today.

I received some wonderful foreign rights news from my editor.  Kensington sold the first 3 books in the Immortal Guardians series to Germany!  Ausgezeichnet!  I'm very excited!

 

I'm also participating in the big Sizzling Summer Reads Party that's going on right now at The Romance Reviews.  The Romance party lasts through the end of June.  Then the Erotic & GLBT party begins and continues through the end of July.  They're giving away LOTS of prizes, including not one, but two autographed copies of Darkness Dawns.  I also will be chatting in The Lounge tomorrow, June 7th, so I hope you'll drop by.

Another great event currently enticing romance readers everywhere is the Bookish Haven Summer Vacation going on over at Paranormal Haven and Larissa's Bookish Life.  I'll be Guest Posting on June 14th at Paranormal Haven and hope to see you there.  The subject:  Those Brave, Beautiful Paranormal Brotherhoods.  I'll also be giving away a signed copy of Darkness Dawns to one commenter.  Yay!

When not engaged in the above, I plan to write furiously on Book 3 in the Immortal Guardians series, update my webpage, and pamper my struggling veggie plants (this heat is horrible!).  I've already picked a few habanero peppers and boy are they hot!  Seriously, if you ever try cooking with these, wear gloves.  I cut one up and handled the pieces with my bare hands once and my skin felt like I had dipped it in boiling water for hours afterward.

I do so love spicy food, though, so it was worth it.  ;-)

Have a great week everyone!

Dianne

This, That, and The Other

It’s been quite a while since I last blogged, which is not good considering one of my New Year’s Resolutions was to blog more regularly.  A lot has been happening of late.  Darkness Dawns has been on the shelves for just over two months now.  I’m thrilled by the reviews it’s been getting, both by book reviewers (magazines and blogs) and by online bookstore customers.  It’s been given 60 5-star reviews so far on Amazon alone!  I’m very excited because whenever I find a new book I’m interested in buying, the first place I visit is Amazon to see what the general consensus is among those who’ve read it.

My Blog Tour has ended.  I’m steadily receiving winner notifications and mailing signed copies of Darkness Dawns to the winners.  Thank you again, everyone who joined me on the tour!  I also just participated in the big Paranormal Spring Break over at Parajunkee’s View, where I posted a mini-handbook for the Immortal Guardians, describing characters, listing favorite quotes and more.  I’m thinking of adding a similar handbook to my website. 

I’m going to be interviewed on Ann Lory’s Blog Bites on April 25th.  I also will  be interviewed by Bookloons.com sometime in the next couple of weeks.  I’ll post the date as soon as I know it.  I’ve been invited to participate in the Bookish Haven Summer Vacation in June and am looking forward to it.  I’ve also been invited to participate in Brenda Novak’s Annual Diabetes Auction.  What an honor!  I’ll be putting a signed copy of Darkness Dawns with a signed cover flat and mini-bookmark up for bid.

I’ve received the most wonderful emails from Darkness Dawns readers.  I’m way behind on responding to them because of the Blog Tour and a few family crises that yanked me away from the computer (everything’s fine now), but intend to reply to all of them.  I’m behind on facebook, too, and hope to catch up soon. 

And did I mention that Kensington sold Thai rights to  Darkness Dawns?  Woohoo!  I can’t wait to see a copy!

That’s about it for now.  What’s been going on with you?  Are you whittling away at your TBR pile?  Writing up a storm?  Looking forward to summer vacation?     

Dianne