Bob Mayer Presents…. Originally uploaded by freshfiction. Thursday, May 4, 2006, after 32 days on the road, the traveling show of Jenny and Bob (romance novelist Jennifer Crusie and techno-thriller writer Bob Mayer) arrived at Rainy Day Books in Fairway, Kansas, to a full house. Jenny and Bob have been on a nationwide tour promoting their first collaborative effort, DON’T LOOK DOWN (St. Martin’s hardcover, 4/06). By now, both of them were exhausted and anxious to return home for a respite. However, their bantering and interaction with the attendees at the booksigning kept everyone laughing. When the final question was a request for them to read from DON’T LOOK DOWN, they were shocked. In all their appearances, they said no one had asked them to read an excerpt. After much reluctance, especially on Bob’s part, Jenny selected a section and they shared the recitation. A fun booksigning followed with Bob applying the appropriate ending – an alligator stamp at the bottom of the signature page. In July 2007, the Jenny and Bob duo will have another collaboration released — AGNES AND THE HITMAN — who knows what will happen after that. Reporters Tanzey Cutter and Suan Wilson Visit FreshFiction.com to…

Since my VPN isn’t working tonight, I won’t be checking my email at work. What better thing to do than to update ya’ll on my current reading. As I sit here in the foothills of the Rockies outside of Denver there is a sign in the grass on the other side of the parking lot that says “Beware of Snakes. Enter at your own risk.” So, that means I won’t be going on a walk to get rid of some of the Cuban food we had for dinner. Instead I will be finishing off The Barbed Rose by Gail Dayton. I picked up Gail’s first book The Compass Rose at last year’s DARA “Dreamin’ in Dallas” event. I loved the book and I have been looking forward to the sequel. I picked up the second book at this year’s event, and I have finally found time to get started on it. Nothing better than a business trip to catch up on my reading. I don’t understand those folks who sit in the airport on their laptops when you can have a book in your hands. At any rate, I am enjoying the second story of Kallista and her Godmarked family…

Hmm, you just finish a good, or adequate, or wonderful or some other descriptive adjective for a book and you turn the last page of an epilogue but wait…there are another 20 or so pages, and it’s not the usual advertisements for other books by the same author or from the same publisher, instead it’s the tease of this author’s NEXT work, usually either an intriguing prologue, or worse the first chapter of a book. NOT YET RELEASED. The writing tugs at you and implores you to keep reading, but no, they cut it off right at a hook, leaving you dangling, wanting more so desperately you’re willing to go to eBay to search out an illicit ARC just to get some relief. I’m not sure if it’s worse when you’ve just finished a good book or when you’ve finished a mediocre one, but either way it’s a mean ass tease. But wait, the ubiquitous THEY have done something WORSE — NO RELEASE DATE specified. What’s up with that? Coming soon, or spring 2007, or just in 2007. I mean, honestly, what’s the point? It’s April 2006, do they really think I’m going to remember to get this book a…

Wow! What a great night last night was. A roomfull of authors signing a ton of great books, photos, dinner before with my tea/book group(and authors) and did I mention the BOOKS! Here’s Judy and Tracey with Linda Lael Miller (check out that pink bag!) Just in case you don’t know already… DARA’s annual “Dreamin’ In Dallas” booksigning event was held in Richardson, TX last night. Proceeds from the book sale went to a women’s shelter. And, all the local and regional author members of DARA were there to sign their books, pose for a few pictures and offer kind words to aspiring authors and avid readers alike. Here’s Lori Wilde signing a copy of her latest release. It has a comic book/graphic novel hook–I can’t wait to start that one!) I managed(just barely) to keep myself from going too far over my book budget, while in the back of my mind was that “charitable proceeds” refrain to help ease the guilt. Am I ever glad Sara chose that night to unveil the new Fresh Fiction tote bags. Not only is is a lovely shade of pink, nice logo, good size, etc. but it really came in handy for all…

Hey, sorry for the delays in getting up my latest reading…but I’m at the annual conference in Austin learning all kinds of good stuff to make FreshFiction better and best (quoting one of my kiddos). So….the latest booksigning blog entry didn’t get entered BUT and I do say that with great emphasis, the photos from that awesome event in Lewisville were added to Flickr. So, long story short, you can check out the author’s lovely photos and look forward to a great blog entry when I get back from SXSW (yes, I’m at the South By South West Interactive conference with Mindy and yes, we met lots of famous, or at least famous to somebody, actors, writers, musicicans, directors, producers, designers and whatnot). Check out the DFW Texas writers who signed at the Lewisville Barnes and Noble on March 4th, in no particular order other than my faulty memory… Jodi Thomas, New York Times bestselling author of over 22 romance and historical western novels. Jodi is a two-time RITA award-winner, and a National Readers Choice recipient for the romantic suspense,“Finding Mary Blaine.” Jennifer Archer, multi-published and USA Today bestselling author of romance and women’s fiction, whose “The Me I Used…

Saturday afternoons are always busy in the Metroplex — this past one was no exception, but I, along with (K and S) managed to attend the booksigning for Shelley Bradley’s latest Berkley Sensation, Bound and Determined. It was a little different from most signings–there was CHOCOLATE CAKE!! The author, not sharing her age, is not just launching a new title but celebrating her birthday at the same time. Shelley says she likes writing contemporaries a little more than her past medievals and regencies because she can write the way she thinks instead of spending extra time trying to express, for instance, how someone would say “Bite me!” in historical time periods. When you think of it that way, it would have to be more comfortable to write in the current day. She also shared that Bound and Determined is the first book of a four part series. The next title, Strip Search (the story of Kerry’s brother), is due out in July. She also has a title coming out later this year in the Blaze line, but I apologize because I cannot remember what it will be called. Like most authors, she isn’t in control of the cover art of…

Life has a way of compressing time and making resolutions hard to accomplish, well, at least I’m back to working out with a trainer, and so, I feel I’m getting one thing done right. But my reading has become mostly things I need to read, not always what I want to read. Doesn’t make sense, does it? When I spend time in the hospital with my husband — in for surgery, successful — I always read a vampire book. Isn’t that ridiculous? But hey, it got me through a few strokes and one heart attack, so I think of it as my “good-luck, all will be well” genre to read while waiting for results. Unfortunately, the one I picked this time, was okay, but didn’t capture my attention to the degree it needed. Or as my daughter is so fond of saying, lots of boring bits in the middle. I tried for two days to get past more than chapter five, but finally gave up after doing the skip, read, skim, skip, read, check out the last paragraph, go back and read some more. The sad part is the book is the beginning of a series, and yeah, I know,…

I read 117 books in 2005. That was down a few from what I read in 2004, but as I read quite a few e-books in ’04 and not nearly as many in’05 I think it was pretty equal. The one thing I’ve noticed is that I used to read a few historicals. Now I’m reading all contemporary. I still have a bunch of historicals to read, and have gone through my pile thinking should I dejunk these or not? I just can’t bring myself to do that as they’re by authors whose historicals I have read in past years, and enjoyed. It’s a good thing that books don’t require refrigeration, or spoil. They might age, but hopefully I’ll look at when they were written and be able to remember what was happening in that era and think yes this book is true to it’s birth year. Someone asked me to name my best read of ’05. That was hard. It’s much easier to tell what I truly didn’t enjoy. As I do a quick skim of my list I realize that there was nothing there that I would really have kept if I were a true book keeper. At…

I had to go back through my review binder to get the total but here it is. And no I did not break it down by ratings or anything yet. I’ll do that later this week when I write my column for Fresh Fiction. I read a total of 76 books this year and that’s just ones I actually read. I also listened to a total of 41 books, since May 2005, which was when I first started keeping track. I seem to average 1 audio a week at least so I can tack on 16 more audio books, as a guesstimate. Not nearly as many books read as I would have thought my count would be, but it still is more than one book a week so that’s not too shabby! LOL How did everyone else do? Did you read as many as you expected, or less? For people who track every year, how does that compare to 2004? Any goals to meet or beat your 2005 totals? Kelley Visit FreshFiction.com to learn more about books and authors.

So did everyone have a wonderful holiday? Mine was great… Got lots of time in with my niece and nephews. 🙂 I finished four books on vacation. (I went home to PA for the holidays and have been here a week. Back to TX tomorrow.) Granted two of those I started before I left for vacation but… I finished In Stone’s Clasp by Christie Golden this week, on the plane trip here. This was the second in her Final Dance series for Luna. Last night I finished Battle for Barnstable by Alan M Brooker, a horror novel from Amber Quill Press. I also started and completed reading both the first and second books in Elizabeth White‘s Texas Gatekeepers series for Love Inspired Suspense. These were Under Cover of Darkness and Sounds of Silence. These were the first books from this line I’ve read and I enjoyed them quite a bit. Now I’m reading Cupid Inc by Michele Bardsley, due out in February. It’s a one author anthology and is quite steamy! And very funny too. I’m about 20 pages from finishing the second story. I also picked the 9th book in Angela Verdenius‘ Heart and Soul series last night, Heart…