Okay. Contest over. Autumn Kent is the best name ever. AND hilarious. Kate voted for someone else, but I vetoed it. COME ON! Never mind that Tumperkin writes for this blog. AUTUMN. KENT. (”Vernal Equinox Manchester” - Kate) *giggles*

I fretted about this post for a couple of days—okay, couple of minutes over the course of a couple of days. I even wrote about it in my blog, twice.

The consensus from both of my blog readers: write about being multiple personalities, Kate. Or Summer.

Yes, occasionally Kate and Summer get snippy with each other, but I think I’m actually ready to take on another name. I write too many types of stories and people seem to get annoyed when you plunk them all down under one name.

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TOP TEN THINGS THAT MAKE AUTHORS SQUIRM

10. “Were you on Oprah?”

9. “But what’s your *real* job?”

8. A certain librarian on Amazon who gives spoilers in her reviews of our books that she doesn’t seem to read.

7. Getting our titles changed. Yeah, publishers have final say. So it’s distinctly possible that even though you submitted the PERFECT title for your book, what winds up going on the cover is something very, very different. All we can do is pray to the title gods that they will be kind. And then we bribe our editors with chocolate and hope for the best.

6. “I have a great idea for a bestseller! I’ll give you the idea, and you write it, and we’ll split the profits.”

5. Stock art as cover images. On multiple books. By different authors.

4. Fan fic. Oh wow, my hero is in a…five-way?…with Harry Potter, Spike, Captain Kirk, and Elmo? Yikes.

3. “Will you read my brilliant manuscript and let me know what you think? I hope you don’t mind that it’s hand written. In crayon.”

2. Quarterly taxes. EEEEEEEK. As if I weren’t poor enough already…

1. Illegally downloading copies of our ebooks. If you want it for free, please, go to the library. Libraries actually buy the books from the publisher, so the author gets a percentage. If you download something illegally, it doesn’t count against our advance, our publisher gets persnickety, and it doesn’t help us meet our numbers. In other words, if you steal (yes, STEAL) a copy of our book, you’re hurting our chances of getting another book published. Please, I beg you: don’t steal. It’s a sin. And coming from someone who writes about demons, I should know.

Thanks, Jackie! Oh, and hey kids, comment on this post for a chance to win an ARC of Eternal Love. Maybe. When Jackie gets her author copies. In March or something.

Haven’t posted a studmuffin in a while… Thought I’d make it up to you guys with this guy:

[Stolen from Jezebel]

God, I love him. He’s like… a real man or something. Drooling over his picture, I think I just got pregnant. Man, Marc is going to be so pissed…

Let me start on a positive note: although I didn’t like this book, there were things I liked about Ms Tenorio’s writing. There is an energy to her prose that is appealing, and she is funny (always helpful when you write romantic comedies). However, for me, this book just didn’t work: the story was weak and I didn’t believe in the two main characters.

The Plot

Travis and Vetta are research scientists who have known each other since college. They are ‘best enemies’. You know the kind: they bicker and fight all the time but there’s a strong underlying friendship. They share lab space and have neighbouring apartments. Vetta is researching whether men are driven by sex or money and Travis is researching the effect of hormones on ovarian cancer.

Vetta comes from a phenomenally wealthy family. Her father owns a huge pharmaceutical company and her mother is a Swedish actress and all-round sexpot. Vetta lives with her ‘nanny’, Jade, a manipulative mother-hen. Travis, by contrast, comes from an ordinary background and has recently run out of research money.

At the start of the book, we learn that Vetta is gathering questionnaires from potential subjects. To annoy her, Travis submits one with snarky answers and obscene cartoons. We learn that Vetta intends to select a candidate from the questionnaire respondents and offer him a million dollars if he will agree to have no sex for a year. The candidate in question will have to give regular sperm samples and keep a diary.

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An original story from Liquid Silver Books‘ Darragha Foster

Prince Hlini, or Lin, for short, is a man’s man. He enjoys riding, archery and killing animals in days-long hunts with his courtiers. He is also royal pain in the ass—literally. His voyeuristic and sodomite penchants have kept him much too busy to find a suitable wife in which to sprout his noble seed—because it’s safer to make love to page boys and stable-hands than it is to possibly produce a child who will someday poison you to usurp your throne. Prince Lin also suffers from a tad bit of paranoia. There is one woman whose tremendous beauty (and delicious potatoes) has caught his eye…Sigyn of the garden corner. But greeting her from horseback is about as close as he’s ever been.

Sigyn is the daughter of the village witch and the village undertaker. She is of the lowest caste in the kingdom, for she works on her knees in the dirt, mixing in compost created by her father from the burning of the kingdom’s dead. Still…she has the most successful vegetable stall in the realm. People come from far and wide to buy her fruit and veg. With strength, beauty and a height most women will never see, Sigyn could have many suitors—all lower class, uneducated dirt-farmers. She wants more from life. She wants to be king.

Eventide… a gratis lectori salutem (free to the readers) e-tale by Darragha Foster about that magic time between the end of day and the beginning of night. Beware the mist, the call of the geese and horny wood-wives.

Warning: If you’re familiar with Darragha’s work, you know this story will contain sex, violence, and all-around… quirkiness. If you’re not familiar with Darragha’s work…

And now the first chapter of Eventide…

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