Winners for Day Two!!

I thought we'd have a little Spartacus action to keep the temperature sizzling! Yum, yum... and yum!

And we have more lucky winners!!!

The winner of Sara Hantz's The Second Virginity of Suzy Green is Kandy Shepherd! Kandy please contact Sara at sara @ sarahantz dot com (no spaces) with your details.

And the winner of the Little Gems Anthology, cover designed by Eleni Konstantine, is strange candy reviews! Please contact Eleni at eleni @ elenikonstantine dot com (no spaces) with your details!

And finally for today's winners, Michelle Styles's Roman set of books has been won by Morton S Gray! Please contact Michelle at michelle @ michellestyles dot co dot uk with your details!

Don't forget to leave comments for Amanda, Robyn, Cari, Erica, Cathryn and Mel to be in with a chance of winning more fantastic books!!!

Winners for Day Two!!

Day Two ~ Sara Hantz

Welcome back to the start of Day Two of the Forbidden Launch Party! Although I can see some of you have already been enjoying yourselves with my gorgeous Henrys!!



My first lovely guest today is YA Flux author, Sara Hantz who is also one of my awesomesauce CPs. Sara's wonderful debut, The Second Virginity of Suzy Green, was listed by the New York Public Library's Stuff for the Teen Age - yay Sara!!! And although it's possible we might spend way too long chatting on IM it is, naturally, all work related *cough*



And now for Sara's post on a love forbidden...

IF YOU CAN’T WING IT, SING IT!!

First of all I want to offer Christina the HUGEST congratulations ever on the release of her debut book FOBIDDEN. As one of Christina’s critique partners, I’m one of the lucky few who have already read her book and it’s absolutely fabulous. And watch this space because Christina’s on her way to super-stardom. Anyway, that’s enough praise for Christina or people will start to think she’s paying me!!!













In keeping with the theme of forbidden love I thought I’d talk about one of my favorite movies of all time. It’s probably not one you’d think of when considering forbidden love, but it fits. The movie is The Sound of Music (I’ll put money on the fact that at this precise moment our other crit partner is rolling her eyes, as she hates musicals as much as I love them). The Sound of Music is a movie that will never date. The songs are awesome, the acting fabulous and the story guaranteed to wring every last drop of emotion from you. And it features forbidden love. Maria falls in love with the Captain yet she’s promised herself to God. But, as the Mother Superior tells her so beautifully in Climb Every Mountain, it’s all gonna be okay (obviously using those very words!!). And just writing about the movie makes me want to watch it again. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen it but I’m guessing it’s in 3 figures and I know every word of dialogue and every song lyric……. In fact if you were sitting with me now you’d hear my rendition of I Have Confidence.









So, if you want the chance to win a copy of my book The Second Virginity of Suzy Green, let me know, in the comments section, your favorite song from The Sound of Music and why. Oh yes, and if you’re wondering what my blog post title has to do with my post…. nothing…. I just like it!!



Hahah, thank you Sara and your cheque is in the post!!! And by the way, if you think Sara's exaggerating when she says she knows all the words to this musical AND that she has no hesitation in bursting into song at any given moment... then you would be wrong!!



So in order to win a copy of Sara's fab book, and to be in the running for the four book bundle, what's your fave song from The Sound of Music? Or if you haven't seen that movie (but please don't let Sara know that!!!) what other musical/song do you love? and for additional bonus points, would you sing it in public?

Day Two ~ Sara Hantz

RWA Cocktail Party

I came home from conference to revisions for Captive, so that's been exciting, and I'm very relieved I had them this week and not next week, since I have something very special happening here next week!!! I'm holding a cyber launch party for Forbidden, and lots of wonderful author friends have agreed to come over and have some fun! And there will be prizes!!! I'll post more details over the weekend, once I've finished polishing my party trailer.

As promised here are some photos from the RWA's Harlequin Cocktail Party that was held last Friday (a week ago already!!) The fancy dress is just amazing. I'm going to have to seriously re-think my wardrobe for Melbourne!!

  

Here I am with my agent sister, the immensely talented Allison Withers, who won the Historical category in the Emerald award (the Aussie Golden Heart) Go, Alli! Guess what period of history Alli writes?










More fab fancy dress! And Johnny Depp!!!










Amanda Ashby and Sara Hantz with awesome Presents author, Trish Morey, who was The Princess Bride!



















Here I am with the lovely TWRP and Eternal Press author Suzanne Brandyn!









And Eleni Konstantine, in her amazing Batgirl outfit!!














I'm sorry I don't know who these fearless warrior maidens are, but underneath Darth Vader is Silhouette Desire author, Paula Roe!!!









And here with Sara is Emily Gee, who writes fantastic dark fantasy and also, as Emily May, wonderful historical romances for Harlequin.


I was so taken with my beautiful dessert on the Saturday night awards dinner, I took a photo of it!!

RWA Cocktail Party

RWA Conference at Coogee Beach, Sydney

As promised, photos of the conference!






Here I am with the gorgeous Erica Hayes (who writes the darkly erotic Shadowfae series). Erica brought me back a copy of the Romantic Times BOOK Reviews magazine from Orlando so I could see the write-up for Forbidden myself!!!













The lovely Tracey O'Hara won the R*BY Award for her awesome debut novel, Night's Cold Kiss. Here we are at the Friday night cocktail party. She also gave me a promo pep-talk which I will do my best to follow :-)








On Saturday night before we went down to the Awards dinner, we had drinks in our room. Here I am with the completely amazing Silhouette Desire author, Rachel Bailey. It was so nice to meet up again after three years!













I was so excited to meet up with Samhain and Carina Press author Cathryn Brunet! It was only brief, unfortunately, but we'll make up for it next year in Melbourne!!!













Here's the wonderful Robyn Grady, Silhouette Desire and Modern Heat author extraordinaire! We've known each other for sooo long, but this was the first time we'd ever met face-to face, so that was pretty special!




I'm not sure what happened to the camera here (I blame the photographer who'd indulged in a few too many wines!!!) (nothing to do with me, of course!!!) But here is the lovely Anna Campbell, who writes dark Regency noir for Avon! It must be six years since we'd last met back in the UK at their Romantic Novelists Association conference. How time flies!!!














Late Sunday afternoon we wandered down to the fabulous beach. And here, as you can see, are my two sedate CPs, Puffin author Amanda Ashby and Flux author Sara Hantz.









If the weekend wasn't exciting enough, this afternoon I had my very first FedEx delivery of an early copy of my new baby!!! OMG. It's so shiny and pretty, and the font has been changed for my name and looks completely awesome!!! And my husband is actaully reading the book!!!

I'll post some photos of the cocktail party in another post. Seriously, the fancy dress was amazing!!!

RWA Conference at Coogee Beach, Sydney

Lots of Congratulations!!!

I'm a bit late with this, but that's because the last two weeks have somehow bypassed me completely! Anyway, I am beyond thrilled and proud to announce my fabulous CP, Amanda Ashby, has made the New York Public Library's Stuff for the Teen Age 2010 with her brilliant YA, Zombie Queen of Newbury High! This honour was also awarded to my other CP, Sara Hantz, for her amazing debut, The Second Virginity of Suzy Green a couple of years ago. I have a lot to live up to!!!

In other fantastic news, talented Aussie Kylie Griffin has been having a truly breathtaking week! First of all she finalled in the paranormal section of RWA Golden Heart contest, and then today found out her entry in the Emily had been judged Best of the Best of the entire contest! Woot! Way to go, Kylie!

Lots of Congratulations!!!

Kreativ Blogger Award

Thank you to the lovely Cari Quinn, for this fun award! I need to share seven fun facts about myself and pass the award on to seven other bloggers. Of course my mind is a blank! I blame the weather. It's been so hot over the last few days it's like sitting in an oven in my office... even now, 11 at night, it's like a sauna!

OK here we go.

1. I'm allergic to perfume, scented body cream and prawns. I'm especially peeved about the prawns, since I was perfectly ok with them up until last Christmas when for some reason I started to swell up like a balloon!!

2. The best finale of a fave series was Battlestar Galactica. I know some people hated it but they are wrong, wrong wrong! It totally rocked. I loved it soooo much. Does this count as a fact about myself? I'm not sure, but since I'm still obsessed by the series I'm sticking with it.

3. While going through security at Singapore airport, my shoes set off the alarms. We didn't figure out the culprit was my shoes straight away *sigh*

4. I am still slightly obsessed with Bat Out of Hell by Meat Loaf. I bet that one's a big surprise!!

5. My first crush was on Les Mckeown from the Bay City Rollers. Bye, Bye, Baby!!!

6. The very first thing I noticed about my husband-to-be (from across the crowded room - ok it wasn't that crowded but it definitely was a room!) were his fabulous blue eyes. Even now I have to fight the urge to give every single one of my heroes amazing blue eyes.

7. I can no longer drink alcohol. I discovered two years ago even a couple of sips made me grumpy and sent me off to sleep, which is pretty annoying as I really love the taste of bacardi and coke. So now I'm a Chardonnay girl through and through! (yeah I'm fussy on the wine front too!!)

I pass this beautiful award on to:

Amanda Ashby

Sara Hantz

Eleni Konstantine

Mel Teshco

Suzanne Brandyn

Nell Dixon

April Vine

Kreativ Blogger Award

Djinn-tastic News!

Woot! I'm so excited! My very good friend and crit partner, Amanda Ashby, has just signed a three book deal with Puffin for her mid-grade series! Here's the scoop from Publisher's Marketplace:

Amanda Ashby's untitled middle-grade series about a girl who accidentally gets turned into a djinn (genie) the day before starting sixth grade and has to learn to deal with her new powers without her mom finding out, to Karen Chaplin at Puffin, in a three-book deal, by Jenny Bent at The Bent Agency (world English).

And all I can say is what fantastic timing since I only meet up with Amanda and Sara Hantz once a year at the New Zealand conference, so in just three more days we'll be able to party for real! Hooray!!

Djinn-tastic News!

It's Friday! It's Halloween! It's time for the WITCHES!!!

As some of you may know I'm in a crit group called The Witches (not sure why we call ourselves that. It's not as if we cackle whenever we get together!) We've known each other for several years, before any of us were published (except for Pat, who was already a multi-pubbed children's author when I first met her), so we've shared all the ups and downs and highs and lows along the way.

Anyway, to celebrate the release of Foretaste of Forever the darling witches are having parties over at their blogs, where they are revealing all sorts of things (and some of them ain't pretty). And so because it's Halloween, and it's Friday, and my heroine is a witch, we're holding a contest for the chance to win a download of my very first erotic romance novella.

All you have to do is pop over and leave a comment - for three chances comment at all three blogs!!! And Pat is hosting a Q&A session, so if there's anything you'd like to ask me hop over and leave your questions in her comment trail!

Amanda's Blog
Pat's Blog
Sara's Blog

MySpace Glitters

It's Friday! It's Halloween! It's time for the WITCHES!!!