Updates and a New Cover

My debut novel, A Taste of Honey has been selling better than I had expected and now I am pleased to announce that my second novel, Reluctantly in Love will be out at the end of this month!  I will be releasing more about it in the weeks to come so please stay tuned.  For now you can enjoy this wonderful updated cover art by the talented people at Deeply Dapper!

Me My Mom and Harry Potter Part 2

I loved this poster!

It is time for part 2 of the story that I started almost a year ago.  If you haven't read part 1, or need a reminder click here.

When I first heard about the Harry Potter books I was a bit snobbish.  It wasn't until a woman that I highly admire told me how excited she was for the next book to come out that I finally decided to give it a try.  To say that I was hooked instantly would be an understatement.  I wasn't only interested in the story but also in the idea of it all.  I've always loved fantasy and mythical ideas.

As I mentioned last time my mom and I didn't share many interests while I was growing up.  Back then she wasn't much of a reader, mostly because I think that she was wound a bit tight worrying about all of her kids that she was raising.  The idea of recommending her a book then would have been downright bizarre.  She also wasn't a big fan of strange movies where something abnormal happened.  But somehow she ended up watching one of the Harry Potter movies, much to my surprise.  I can't remember when she saw it for the first time or why she even tried it.  It really wasn't her kind of thing to get into.  She loved watching them and talking about the movies with me.  She knew that she'd missed a lot of the story by not reading the books but at that time she wasn't very interest in the large tomes that sat on my shelves.

By the time that the fifth movie was coming out my mom had seen every one, making a point of going to the new Harry Potter movies in theater and dragging my dad along with her when I lived too far away to go with her.

Of course fans of the series will know that by the sixth movie you hadn't read the books then it was pretty easy to end up lost.  There was just too much to then try and fit into the movies.  I finally called my mom and told her that she shouldn't go see the new movie, she wouldn't understand most of it.  Always the trusting woman she took my advice, I'd had to explain so much of the last one to her that she agreed with me and didn't go, even though it seemed a bit sad to be missing out. 

By this time I was urging her to read the books.  Her life had calmed down a bit with all of the kids moved out and hearing that she'd finished a book in less than a month was no longer a shock to me.  She'd never read anything with fantasy, mythology, or magical undertones but her interest in the movies led me to believe that she'd like the books if she just gave them a chance.  My urgings never worked and the books that I left at her house remained untouched for a couple of years.

Fall of 2010 I decided to re-read the entire series, getting ready for the final movie to be released in two parts.  I'm not really sure how I did it but I convinced my mom to read them with me.  I tried to keep my pace slow so that during our weekly phone conversations I'd remember what she had just read and explain to her things that she might not have understood the first time that she read it.  Before I quite knew what was happening she was calling me up and asking me questions or telling me her newest theories about how the story would end.  Somehow despite all of the hype over the books and movies my mom didn't hear almost any of the big spoilers at the end and she got to read and find out about them for herself even though it was years after the rest of the world knew.

It took months for her to get through the books but by the time that the final half of the last movie was coming out she had finished them all.  There was even a month or two between when she finished the books and when the final movie came out.  My mom was extremely impatient for the movie and wondered at how all of us fans had such patience to wait so long for the films.  I told her that we didn't really have a choice.  She considered taking a plane trip to Maine just to watch the movie with me but finally hauled my dad to the movie with her in Idaho and proudly let him know that he should now read the books.

I was an odd child for my rather practical parents who to this day still don't know what I mean when I debate how Gandolf would fair against Merlin in a battle to the death.  So for me and my mom Harry Potter was something of a middle ground that we could share and find a new connection that we never thought we had.

Since then I've recommended a few other books and have been surprised at how much she reads with her new ipad.  She has read her first light romance novel and loved it.  This summer I'm having her dive back into the world of fantasy, this time with Tolkien's The Hobbit.  This time my dad, who read the story once a long time ago, is willing to join the two of us in our over the phone book club.

Happy Reading to all!  I hope you enjoyed a great Mother's Day!

Home Again, Home Again

Downtown Pocatello

It was odd how the timing ended up but a little over a week since we got back from our trip to Salem my husband and I are off again.  This time we take to the air and fly from northern Maine into the heart of Utah where a quick drive brings us back to Idaho.  For the first time since moving out east we are going back to visit Pocatello.

Except for a few years in college and a recent move two years ago to Maine, the small city of Pocatello Idaho has been my home.  The hospital where I was born, the house that I grew up in, my parent's small business where I toiled for most of my youth and even my favorite date spot where my husband and I used to go when we first started dating is all within a ten block area.

Our visit will only be a week long.  Enough time to visit our old haunts, see some friends, spend time with all of our family that live nearby, and go through the things that we've been storing out west since our hasty move out east.  I try not to get superficial about my belongings that had to stay.  It is just 'stuff', right?  Still I can't wait to see some of the treasures filled with memories that have spent the last two years sealed in bubble wrap.  Unfortunately they will then be packed up again although the pile will be much smaller.

The main thing that I'm looking forward to is Mexican food!  My friends and family know how much we've missed having dozens of authentic Mexican restaurants in town.  Maine is known for their lobster, not their Mexican food.  There is a very good reason for this.

Then it will be back to Maine and back to normal or at least as normal as my life gets!

Romance Writers Conference

This past weekend, thanks in huge part to my dear friend Penny Watson, I was able to attend the New England Chapter of Romance Writers of America's annual writer's conference.  Now can you see why people like to use anagrams for these things!  You can see the event's motto and logo above.

I'm actually not a member of RWA.  At this point in my life I don't really have the money to join nor can I take the time off from work to enjoy the benefits, mostly monthly meetings at least a few hours away from where I live.  All of that meant that I walked into the event without a core group of people that I met with on a regular basis.  In fact I went in knowing only one attendee, one very busy attendee!  Luckily I'm pretty good at branching out and finding new people.

Highlights included a lecture by Penny Watson on how to promote with 'peeving' everyone off, Marie Force's inspiring e-publishing story and advice, and my first face to face pitch with an agent. I've been a big fan of Emmanuelle Morgen for a few years and it was nice to finally see her.  She gave me some great ideas on how to improve my book and also seemed very interested in a new project that I've been working on.

This was my first real experience with an RWA event and I was impressed with how helpful much of the information was.  Also swaying my opinion was the desserts that they had hiding around every corner of the hotel!  I met lots of wonderful women in various levels of success and hopefully sometime soon I'll be able to go back and get even more out of the event now that I know the ropes a bit better.  Very inspiring!