Parasol Protectorate #3September 2011 On Sale: September 1, 2010 Featuring: Alexia Tarabotti; Lord Maccon; Lord Akeldama 355 pages ISBN: 0316074152 EAN: 9780316074155 Mass Market Paperback $7.99  Add to Wish List Romance Paranormal, Fantasy SteampunkBuy at Amazon.com Horror / Conference week. What we’re reading and enjoying… Blameless by Gail Carriger A novel of Vampires, Werewolves and Templars Quitting her husband’s house and moving back in with her horrible family, Lady Maccon becomes the scandal of the London season. Queen Victoria dismisses her from the Shadow Council, and the only person who can explain anything, Lord Akeldama, unexpectedly leaves town. To top it all off, Alexia is attacked by homicidal mechanical ladybugs, indicating, as only ladybugs can, the fact that all of London’s vampires are now very much interested in seeing Alexia quite thoroughly dead. While Lord Maccon elects to get progressively more inebriated and Professor Lyall desperately tries to hold the Woolsey werewolf pack together, Alexia flees England for Italy in search of the mysterious Templars. Only they know enough about the preternatural to explain her increasingly inconvenient condition, but they may be worse than the vampires — and they’re armed with pesto. A wonderful story for anyone who enjoys British…

I write romantic women’s fiction.  You may be wondering, what exactly is romantic women’s fiction?  Is that anything like romantic fiction? Yes, I believe it is.  Similar to novels with strong romantic elements, romantic women’s fiction is my term for combining the two. For me, romance centers on the hero and heroine and the slew of reasons these two characters whom are otherwise hot for one another cannot be together—and why they should be. It doesn’t give equal weight to best friends or family and it doesn’t focus on a woman’s personal growth and maturity where women’s fiction can. The main reason I consider JENNIFER’S GARDEN to be romantic women’s fiction is because it portrays the journey of Jennifer’s personal growth in regard to false impressions and misplaced judgments, particularly with regard to one Jackson Montgomery. My theme questions how a woman goes about the business of choosing her husband. Is it about social status and job title or a matter of chemistry and friendship? Must the man be equally or more successful? Men have been marrying up and down the social ladder for years. Can women? It’s romantic because there is a budding relationship at the heart of the…