Morning came fast and furious for the Digital Team and our set up for an all day clinic to do social media training with our Harlequin authors at 8am on Wednesday.  Now for some backstory: I’ve been hounding and threatening extinction to asking people in the shipping and receiving department here at the Disney Dolphin for the past TWO days to locate the Kobo Readers we were going to use for the door prizes for this particular session.  We also needed entry forms for the draw and a banner. 

But without eReaders OR ballot forms etc, we were forced to make do.  Without turning a hair,  Malle improvised with a plastic envelope and some handy slips of paper repurposed as entry ballots and we soldiered on.  I’m not kidding when I say that I have three Front Desk Managers on speed dial on my phone by now, and I have to say that Todd of the Disney staff was outstanding in his assistance.  He even provided substitute prizes courtesy of the resort in lieu of the Kobo Readers until they arrived.  Which of course they did, just about ½ an hour before our session ended and all was well….phew!

Angela James leading the session on eReader Devices

Jenny Bullough and a happy Kobo Reader prize winner

The group of us then took a much needed break, and decompressed (which is a fancy word for putting our feet up and letting our hair down)  We had a great time helping many of our authors get a handle on how to manage their online presence and share tips on best practices on Twitter, Facebook and elsewhere.

And then before we knew it, it was time to attend the “Readers for Life” Literacy Signing at 5:30pm.  This is something that you really can’t quite describe and has to be experienced to be believed.  I took my teenage daughter with me to finally show her the reason WHY mummy comes home from conference every year without a speaking voice. 

Jayne’s daughter meeting her idol Maria V. Snyder, author of the Study series for MIRA and more recently of Inside Out for Harlequin TEEN.

Now all of the authors are sitting alphabetically at tables in this ENORMOUS ballroom, so it’s simply a matter of picking who you want to sign your book, and navigating to the correct spot in the room.  I’m really bad at this, since it seems I can’t navigate more than three steps before being hugged by an author whom I’ve come to know through participation in our Online Community here at eHarlequin.  After all we do have over 200 authors blogging in our network of blogs, forums and events!

Here’s a picture of me and Robyn Carr who sold out ALL her books early, but as a courtesy to her readers, was staying until the bitter end, just in case there were readers bringing their own personal books for her to sign.  So you know, she’s not the only one of our authors that shows this kind of appreciation for her readers, and THAT is the reason why Harlequin authors are unlike ANY others!

Until tomorrow and a surprise update…

Jayne

Join White Heat author Brenda Novak and Harlequin Books for a Twitter party Wednesday, August 4, between 8:00 and 10:00 p.m. EST! Never been to a Twitter party? Not sure what a Twitter party is? Check out the Twittorial below and you’ll be a pro in no time!

• If you’re not on Twitter yet, head over and set up an account – it’s free, easy and fun! Pick a username that’s short and fits who you are, and upload a photo so other partygoers can see your lovely smile!

• Take a few minutes to play around with your new account: click @YourName to see public tweets directed to you, click Direct Messages to see private messages. Click Find People at the top of the page to search for some of your friends or favorite celebs to follow.

• Be sure to follow @Brenda_Novak and @HarlequinBooks before the party! You can follow by clicking the links or searching for their names.

To join the party on August 4, you can search #BNParty on Twitter or use our official party tweetgrid. Parties move fast, and you want to refresh often if you’re using Twitter. TweetGrid refreshes automatically. Check out Tweetgrid below – there are columns for you to see ALL party tweets, tweets just from Brenda or Harlequin and tweets directed at you!

• Ask Brenda questions or chat with other partygoers—just be sure to type #BNParty at the end all of your party tweets! (This is added automatically in TweetGrid.) This feature (called a hashtag) allows everyone to know your tweet is part of the party.

• Join the fun! No one expects you or your tweets to be perfect; we’re just happy you made it to the party! And don’t get discouraged. If your tweet is overlooked at first, ask again! The more you tweet, the more fun you have.

• Watch for questions from @HarlequinBooks to win awesome prizes including iPads, books, and gift cards!

• Please don’t post any spoilers and pay attention to the time zones, the party starts at 8:30pm EST.

• Please feel free to spread the word. We look forward to chatting with you!

Author Sharon Sala used to drag race, Heather Graham knows some GREAT ghost stories, Courtney Milan looks like the model on the cover of Proof by Seduction and Vicki Lewis Thompson named characters in her Sons of Chance miniseries after beloved family members.  And this was just day one of my author interviews.  Is my job cool, or what?

We had quite the day at the Disney Dolphin as conference attendees started to fill up the halls and outdoor spaces getting acclimatized to the layout and temperature of the facility.  They keep the hotel ice box fresh, so much so that we all feel rather like chilled produce. The conference really kicks off tomorrow with a marquee event known as the “Readers for Life” Literacy Autographing.  The “Readers for Life” Literacy Autographing has become one of the most popular events at RWA’s annual conference. More than 500 romance authors participate in this two-hour autographing event, and each year thousands of dollars are raised and donated to ProLiteracy Worldwide. Since 1990, RWA has donated more than $600,000 to literacy charities.  It’s not uncommon to see readers with bags, boxes and even wagons piled high with books signed by their favorite romance writers.  Yes, I PROMISE to take pictures!

But, back to my day today.  We started off this morning with Courtney Milan who dropped by to talk about what devious plans she has for everyone’s favorite 18^th Century Hero, Ned.  Now Ned was a secondary character from her debut novel and is the hero of the upcoming MIRA Books title, Trial by Desire.  We chatted about how difficult it was to take such a likable character and put him into some not-very-nice situations, how Courtney approaches research and why lessons learned from this century help inform our current one.  Oh, and we also found out how she really feels about housework.

Setting up for another author interview. Can you guess who by the book cover?

Unfortunately we had to stop taping…a LOT!  It seems that the Disney Dolphin is undergoing renovation and at times we couldn’t hear over the drilling, sawing, sanding and crashing from the suite above us.  Several calls to the front desk produced enough quiet for us to finish up with Courtney (who was incredibly gracious), but we then had to move our other interviews to a quieter location in the hotel.  That meant moving lights, cameras, sound equipment, décor, etc. to not one, but eventually three different locations until we found a decent enough set up and the quiet we needed.  And of course this also meant last minute phone calls to authors to let them know about the switch.  And then the alarms went off and the evacuation began….

Did I mention the cold?  That I was actually wearing a sweater?  And that when the alarms went off I had to stand outside on the grounds of the hotel with other guests in 31º Celsius Florida heat and humidity…in. A. Sweater.  Thank goodness it was just a false alarm.

Jayne wishing it were just a little cooler outside.

15 minutes later, the unflappable Vicki Lewis Thompson showed up to our new location and talked about the appeal of cowboy heroes, the wonderful world she’s created in Jackson Hole, the setting for the Sons of Chance miniseries and about how the original name for the series was actually the Second Chance Ranch and why it was changed.  She also told us what it takes to nab a Chance man, but you’ll have to watch the video to find out!

Sharon Sala made me cry today when she talked about how much reader letters mean to her, and then blew me away with stories about her drag racing days…REALLY!  After crashing two vehicles she told me that her survival seemed to indicate to her that she was being saved for bigger things.  Lucky for us, those things involve close to 100 books and the sexy and powerful heroes of her current Storm Front series set in Louisiana.  She told us a couple of tips of the trade, about those things that make for a strong and sexy hero and what’s next in the Storm Front series.

Heather Graham knows ghosts!  Ok, maybe not personally, but she tells a pretty mean ghost story and according to her, Key West is one of THE ghostiest cities in the USA which is why she chose it as the setting for her Bone Island trilogy.   She also had some secrets to share about how she wove fact and fiction in writing about the history of Key West and about some of the real characters who caught her imagination while working on the books.

I’m not sure when I’ll be back at my computer tomorrow with my update from Day TWO, since I’m giving an all day digital workshop with Malle and Jenny and Angela James, but I promise to check in and tell you more about my adventures from the 2010 National Romance Writers Conference in Orlando and who I have scheduled for round two of author interviews on Thursday.

Cheers!

Jayne

by Brenda Novak, author of the upcoming Department 6 trilogy, starting with White Heat, available now!

Not really. I’d invite you to my house if I could, but that might involve quite a bit of traveling, at least for most of you. And it could get crowded. So…I’m doing the next best thing and throwing a Twitter party!

What will we be celebrating? The release of the first book in my new Department 6 trilogy—White Heat, a story about two private security contractors who must pretend to be married in order to infiltrate a dangerous cult that’s taken over a ghost town (appropriately called Paradise) in the middle of the Arizona desert.

Some of the early reviews are in. Here’s what people are saying about White Heat:

“A fast-paced romantic thriller guaranteed to keep you entranced to the climactic end.” —Fresh Fiction

“White Heat is full of passion, adventure, mystery, and red hot action.” —Coffee Time Romance & More

“…the best high action thriller of 2010…” —Midwest Book Review

“White Heat is flawless and easily a Best of 2010 contender.” —Shannon Raab, Suspense Magazine

“A chilling tale that readers won’t want to put down.” —Romance Reviews Today

Body Heat, the second book in the Department 6 trilogy, will be out August 31st and Killer Heat, the third book, will be out September 23rd. So we have a lot to look forward to.

But I digress. Back to the party. Please join me on Wednesday, August 4, 2010, 8 – 10 p.m. eastern time on Twitter.

If you’re not already on Twitter, be sure to create an account.

Then go to www.BrendaNovak.com and register for the party. Why? Because everyone who registers will receive a snail mail party pack that includes:

• Raffle tickets for all the fabulous giveaways (like one of THREE iPads, jewelry, gift cards, autographed books and more)
• $1.00 off coupon for WHITE HEAT
• A pair of 3D glasses so you can view the cool 3D book trailer on my web site (just click on the link below the 2D version and/or, while you’re there, download one of two free 3D screensavers)
• A 30% off coupon for White Heat lip gloss (created by Three Custom Color Specialists, a high-end make-up company in NYC who developed this shade just for me)
• A reminder card (okay, so maybe this last item is more practical than exciting…)

If you’re not familiar with Twitter, don’t worry! We’ll be emailing all participants a quick and easy tutorial. We’ll soon have you tweeting like a pro as you eagerly watch the announcements to see if you’re one of our lucky winners (so be sure to hang on to your raffle tickets!).

Note: Must be present to win….

Any questions? Email me at Brenda@brendanovak.com.

See you at the party!

One of my favorite things about attending the RWA National conference is walking around the hotel and author spotting.  You NEVER know who you’ll run into!

Why, just this morning I ran into author Robyn Carr with her editor as they were heading to breakfast and a chat.   We talked about her Virgin River books and her video, and how she’s busy working on the next installment of everyone’s favorite town in California and of course, as she said, everyone’s favorite MEN.

I then ran downstairs to see if I could grab my registration kit, but sadly they weren’t open yet, however I did manage to grab a couple of snaps of some posters and banners featuring Debbie Macomber. 

Debbie is this year’s recipient of the Lifetime Achievement award, otherwise known as the Nora Roberts award.  And imagine our delight in seeing Carina Press displayed so prominently on the water bottles included in the registrants swag bags!

As Amy likes to say, “Oooh, shiny!”

I’m spending today shooting author videos with Courtney Milan, Vicki Lewis Thompson, Sharon Sala and Heather Graham and I’ll be sure to update later on today with pics and anecdotes.  The hotel is FREEZING cold and outside is incredibly hot, so much so that my camera completely fogged when I nipped out to try to grab some snaps of the architecture here at the Disney Dolphin, so you’ll have to make do with inside pics.

See you later!

Jayne

by Sheila Hodgson, Mills & Boon editor

Are you an aspiring romance writer who also:

♥ Loves medical heroes – can’t get enough of Hugh Laurie’s brilliant but guarded hearted doctor, Gregory House; the irresistible charm of Grey’s Anatomy McDreamy (also known as Dr Derek Shepherd), or George Clooney’s warm-hearted but maverick paediatrician Dr Doug Ross in ER?

♥ Has longed for an opportunity to write contemporary romances set amidst the excitement, warmth and passion of today’s medical world?

♥ Is a fan of the Medical Romance series and would love to be published in this unique, globally distributed series?

If your answer to any of the above is YES, then here is a great opportunity to get your fabulous work in front of a Medical Romance editor – fast!

Harlequin®/Mills & Boon® Medical Romance™ is looking for new authors – and if you send us a first chapter, three chapters, or even a full manuscript of a romance in a medical setting,  then we will give it a fast-track read…and get you a fast-tracked response this summer!

Here’s what to do to get fast-tracked:

• Send us a covering letter with a synopsis of your story and characters (no more than two pages) along with anything from the first chapter of the story to the complete manuscript.

• In order to be eligible for fast-tracking, submissions must be received between 1^st and 24^th August (12.00 Midnight BST, British Summer Time) 2010. Don’t miss out!

• You must email your submission (as a Word document attachment)  to  medicalfasttrack@hmb.co.uk and make sure you include your current email address in you covering letter as you will receive your response by email.

• Otherwise our normal submissions and format criteria apply (visit ‘Submit manuscript’ section at www.millsandboon.co.uk

Of course, we are open to unsolicited submissions at any time, but if you send us your Medical Romance submission in August then we’ll send you a response in August from one of our London-based editors.

Want to learn more about this unique series?  Then see our writing guidelines or buy Medical Romance titles in print or ebook format – available at www.eHarlequin.com (where you’ll also find a Medical Romance podcast with Harlequin/Mills & Boon editors) and www.millsandboon.co.uk

Happy writing! And remember, this is your chance to get your Medical heroes in front of a Harlequin/Mills & Boon editor’s eyes – so make them so gorgeous we can’t possibly resist!!

Eleanor announced two weeks ago we’d be redesigning eHarlequin.com.

Now we’re ready for you to see it! To celebrate the launch of our fabulous new look we’ve put together a Makeover Sale and a little how-to video on navigating all of the new sections, so be sure to check out the video here. Stop by today!

And, of course, we wouldn’t be Harlequin if we didn’t want to hear from our readers, so please let us know what you think of the redesign (and tell us if you spot any errors…we’re not perfect, but we tried really hard!) on the eHarlequin Community.

by Wendy Warren, author of The Cowboy’s Convenient Bride and the FREE online read, Daniel’s Gift.

I have a friend who gets hives at the thought of living in a small town. Not I. Even though I’ve lived in cities most of my life, in my mind I live in an endless episode of The Andy Griffith Show. LOL!

For a very sweet while, I did live in a kind of latter-day Mayberry. A small town in Oregon still so innocent that the mayor’s giant squash was the lead story on the local news one night.

Twice a day in the summer, horses clopped down our block pulling a carriage, and in December the locals, dressed in elaborate Victorian costumes, handed out hot cider and chestnuts on the street corner.

I could look out the window of our “downtown” cottage and see a dozen deer strolling through the front yard. Heaven.

Marrying my true love dictated a return to larger towns and cities, a trade-off I happily accept, but I’ll never forget the gift of that town.

Home Sweet Honeyford is the series I’ve wanted to write for a long time.

I based it, of course, on that great little town, as it was when I lived there eighteen years ago—tons of character, a bit quirky, rich with caring. I’ve populated Honeyford with locals and transplants from the city, people who have lots of differences, but one thing in common: They’re looking for someone to witness their lives. To say, “You count, and, by the way, I love you.”

It doesn’t matter where we live, most of us want that. But getting there…whew. Not always easy, is it? Which is why I love writing about the journey. And why I’m glad that my next three romances are set in Honeyford, because in that kind of community, there’s always somewhere soft to land. Someone to whom you can turn when the path toward true love becomes too hard to walk alone.

Do you live in a sweet, supportive community? What I’m discovering is that we can create that comfort wherever we are. Today I’ve found my Mayberry in the middle of a busy city. I’d love to hear about where you live and how you create community in your life.

My husband, daughter and I recently visited the little town that left such a big impression on me. It’s different now. Upscale shops have moved in. New homes abound. The old building where we ate popcorn and watched live melodrama is long gone, replaced by a gorgeous retirement home. Hmm…maybe someday….

In the meantime, I love going to work in Honeyford when I sit down at the computer.  I hope you’ll like “living” there awhile, too, getting to know Claire and Fletcher, Rosemary and Dean, and Gabby and Cal as they find each other and a place to call home. And here’s a sneak peek of Daniel’s Gift, Elliana and Daniel’s story, available now on eHarlequin.com:

Elliana Goldman has always longed for a big family of her own. Though a man to love was always part of the dream, at the age of thirty five, with no prospects of romance looming, Elliana is ready to create life, not wait for it to happen. She’s not against using an anonymous donor, but she’d rather hand-pick her baby’s father. And something tells her former classmate—and one time crush–Daniel Bowman is the right man for the job.

Daniel has a reputation in Honeyford for being unwilling to commit to anything more than breakfast, but the truth is a little more complicated than that. He’s not a man who takes family lightly, so he’s floored when Elliana asks him to father a child, no strings attached. And he’s even more surprised when his growing attraction to her has him tempted to agree to make a baby—the old fashioned way!

Welcome to Home Sweet Honeyford!

Congratulations to all of our authors who are on this week’s New York Times bestseller list.

Paperback:

#3 Mckettricks of Texas: Austin by Linda Lael Miller (HQN, week 2)
#13 The Darkest Lie by Gena Showalter (HQN, week 2)
#16 A Summer in Sonoma by Robyn Carr (MIRA, week 2)
#17 Almost Perfect by Susan Mallery (HQN, week 2)
#22 Sweet Rains by Nora Roberts (Silhouette, week 2)
#31 Ghost Shadow by Heather Graham (MIRA, week 2)

Enjoy a sample of some of our bestsellers with the Browse the Book widget!

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by Rick Mofina, author of The Panic Zone, a brand new release in the Jack Gannon series

Some years ago, I found myself in Kingston, Jamaica sitting in the back of a pick-up truck next to a police sergeant.

He was wearing dark glasses, khaki pants and a T-shirt as he slid a clip of bullets into his 9 mm semi-automatic pistol. Beside him, another Jamaican cop in blue fatigues did the same with his M-16 rifle.

The sound of locking and loading echoed across the downtown police compound as some twenty members of the Jamaican Constabulary Force’s elite task force on violent crime prepared for drug raids in Kingston’s toughest slums. As an observer on the patrol, I was permitted to ride in the rear of a small truck, positioned as the sixth vehicle in a seven-car squad.

While waiting for the convoy to roll, the squad’s supervisor approached me to advise that the drug dealers usually shoot at the lead cars.

“If you hear gunfire, get down.”

It seems like a lifetime ago but the memory takes me back to the mid 1990s. I was on assignment for my newspaper to research the life of a disgraced ex-Jamaican cop who came to Canada and murdered a Canadian police officer during a routine traffic stop.

Here I was, dispatched to the Caribbean and one of the most beautiful countries on earth, to dig into a killer’s criminal past. My assignment took me into Jamaica’s netherworld where some of the things I saw haunt me to this day. Like so many experiences I had as a reporter, they became part of the fabric of my crime fiction.

During my time in Jamaica, I often did not know who the good cops were and who were corrupt. I did not know which officers were friends of my subject nor in whose hands I had placed myself.

I was on edge, even with the heavily-armed task force.

As we weaved through the ghettos with their pungent rubbish fires and throbbing reggae music, the menace I felt increased.

A hush fell over the convoy as we crawled into Grants Pen, one of the capital’s worst slums. The task force had killed 22 suspects across Jamaica in the previous 18 months and gunfights were common here.

We were being watched. The officers caressed their triggers as we inched by columns of smoke. Children laughed by a water pipe.

We stopped and detectives did some door-to-door work before other officers took down a marijuana garden while the owner shouted her protests and music hammered the air.

That’s when two stone-faced white men with dark glasses materialized from the lead cars, came over to me and asked me who I was.

I told them I was a reporter, asked who they were and for an interview.

“Put your notebook away,” one of them snapped. “We’re not here.”

No one would divulge to me who they were until later one Jamaican detective told me the two white men were from the CIA and they were working on something.

That incident stayed with me.

This was no movie. No TV show. This was real and it got me thinking about the ghost work that is actually carried out in some corners of the world.

Creatively, a seed had been planted.

Over the years, I would come back to the incident and several others I had experienced as a journalist, drawing on them for Jack Gannon, the hero of my newest series.

Readers met Gannon when the first book in the series, Vengeance Road, was released in 2009. The International Thriller Writers named Vengeance Road a finalist for a 2010 Thriller Award in the category of Best Paperback Original.

Gannon, who had a blue-collar upbringing in Buffalo, N.Y., was striving to escape his troubled newspaper, The Buffalo Sentinel, to work for the World Press Alliance, a global wire service based in Manhattan.

For the next book, The Panic Zone, he needed a new assignment.

I wanted him to go global.

I reached into my travels as a journalist and employed my imagination until a story emerged for the next book.

Picture this: A windswept reach of Wyoming and a young mother, Emma Lane, thrown clear of a devastating car crash that killed her husband. Dazed, she sees a figure pull her infant son from the flames. Or does she? Police believe it’s a case of trauma playing cruel tricks on her mind, until the night Emma, in her anguish, hears a voice through the phone, “Your baby is alive.”

A world away a bomb explodes in a Rio de Janeiro café, killing ten people including two journalists with the World Press Alliance. Jack Gannon’s first international assignment is to find out whether his colleagues were innocent victims or targets who got too close to a story.

The story leads Gannon around the world, including one exotic location where he encounters a shadowy U.S. intelligence agent who points him to the truth about the resurrection of long-buried secret scientific research; research that is now about to be used as a deadly weapon.

With millions of lives at stake, Gannon and others work frantically against time. And as Emma searches for her child and Gannon hunts for the truth, an unstoppable force hurls them all into The Panic Zone.