Exciting TEMPEST release and YOU could be a winner!

Woo hoo, the new Jane True is out! Tracking the Tempest by my pal Nicole Peeler was officially released today, even though it's been shipping and appearing in bookstores all week. Yeah!

As I noted in a previous write-up, this series has taken its place in my pantheon of shiny, sexy, go-to series, right next to Kresley Cole's and Charlaine Harris's. I have a book buy planned this weekend and Tracking is at the top of my list!

In fact, in total OCD fashion, I plan to get Tracking at the same bookstore I got Tempest Rising from. It's a bookstore I rarely go to, but I feel compelled. This is a new form of book OCD. Look at me, biotches! I'm pioneering new forms of OCD! But enough about me. Back to Nicole.

The word on the street: TTT kicks ass:
From Publisher's Weekly: “Peeler’s chick lit tone adds sparkle to the most spine-tingling scenes with a style that never strikes a false note, and the seamless plot weaves together Jane’s paranormal and personal growth while linking both to the swelling suspense.”

From Bibliopunkk: "I just finished a treat - Tracking the Tempest by Nicole Peeler. It's an excellent and fun read from Peeler for the second time in a row, I'm happy to broadcast."

Melissa of My World...in Words and Pages calls it "a fantastic fast paced fun ride with terrific action and love."

I knew it would be good. And here, for your perusal, in case you haven't started the series, from my write-up of yore:

Three things I loved about Tempest Rising, Book #1:

1. Jane True is a vulnerable, fascinating and totally compelling heroine. I enjoyed her careful intelligence, as well as her unabashed love of eating and other sensual pleasures.

2. This book featured my favorite kind of love triangle, where both options are hugely attractive, but you definitely know who the hero is. A very low-angst triangle that lets you stop and smell the roses.

3. Yummy imaginative world building with dashes of smutty goodness all along the way.

The contest! Enter to win A copy of Tracking the Tempest!
Okay, instead of buying ONE copy this weekend at the store where I must buy Jane Trues, I will buy TWO copies, therefore thwarting the OCD mojo and spreading the Tempest goodness all that the same time! How do you enter? Just leave a comment, my friends. But the contest closes Friday morning whenever I get up and turn on my computer. And, this is a US or Canada one.

My question on Goodreads - to friend or follow reviews?

So, I'm on Goodreads, which I'm really enjoying. I love getting those email delivery of reviews by my friends and the people I'm following, just to see what people are reading and what they think about it. And every once in a while Mind Games is on there, and that's still exciting to me, even if I don't always read the reviews (see below for more on that).

Anyway, my question: When I get emails to say people are following my reviews, what is the proper thing to do? Is what an author should do different than what a blogger or reader should do? There are three courses of action that I have identified for when somebody follows my reviews on Goodreads. Please advise:

A: Should I friend that person?
Pro: I do feel friendly toward people who are want to have exchanges of opinion on books, so why not friend them? I kind of don't understand why there are two levels. Also, I once followed Julie James' reviews, thinking it was too forward to ask her to be my friend, but she came back with a friend request. So I thought, if Julie James does it, then maybe that's a good thing for an author to do. Because, I'm all about the peer pressure.

Con: as twitter pal @JackieUhrmacher jokingly suggested, it might be a bit stalkery. Again, she was joking, but is there some truth to that? Is friending a person who is just following your reviews the same as, say, if you're in a bookstore and somebody asks what you think of a certain book, and you're all like, Let's be friends! When we had this minor twitter discussion, twitter pal @LauraSummers said that she friends review followers, too. She, too, began to wonder. Though she is more of a reviewer. Maybe different etiquette applies.

B: Should I follow their reviews back?
Pro: I am interested in people's thoughts on books of all kinds, and what people are reading and how they are reacting. And sure, I'm an author, but I don't think my opinions are more interesting than non-authors. In fact, I think my opinions are way less interesting because I'm careful about criticizing and upsetting my fellow authors, and non-author readers don't have to be like that. They are freer and typically more interesting and honest. What's more, when a person follows my reviews, isn't it just natural to follow them back? And, it's the same level of interaction that they've chosen. Maybe they don't want to be friends!

Con: As an author, is following people's reviews back like saying, Hey, I'm watching you with my EAGLE EYE! I'll be reading your review of my book! If you say something bad I'm going to HUNT YOU DOWN. Which is to say, does it have the chilling effect on honesty? I don't read all my reviews, unless somebody has specifically brought one to my attention. I don't have Google alerts on for my name and all that. I mean, part of me enjoys reading reviews of my book, and I do learn things from them, but I think it's unhealthy to get too focused on what people are saying. So, it's not like I sit there and read them. Still, does following back chill reviews?

C. Do nothing!
Pro: This seems least invasive to the person, least stalkerly and least eagle-eye monitory, and maybe it seems more authorly, too. I mean, is there some level of interaction that's too much? Should authors maintain decorum and distance on Goodreads?

Con: Isn't it snobby that somebody would express interest in my reviews, but I don't care to read theirs? What if I do care to read them? I'm a reader, too. I'm interested in things like, what people think of the new JR Ward book and all that. But I don't want to make people feel weird!

Bonus question: what IS the difference between friending and following reviews? I sort of don't get it, but I don't use Goodreads as intensively as some people.

So, let me know what you think. And, hey, do you want to be my friend or follow my reviews on Goodreads? I'm there! Though, you never know what I'm going to do back!

Heather's big crazy birthday bash giveaway + new releases!

So here's the deal: Heather of Darkly Reading is having a big birthday bash-blowout-extravaganza-giveaway this week (through Friday the 25th) where she's giving away the first books in her fave series.

Go say hi and wish her a happy birthday and enter to WIN! It's fun to see the giant graphic of her fave firsts that are up for grabs. (And Mind Games is in there! In such excellent company! xo Heather, the check is in the mail!)

Heather and I discuss ...

Heather's also interviewing authors and having guest posters and all sorts of other mayhem, and I'm there today!

Heather asked some great questions - we discussed disillusionists, the restaurants we'd want to be trapped in, and I drop a couple hints about Double Cross! Come say hi and wish her a happy birthday! The interview is here. And again, the birthday bash/contest lowdown is here.

Whoa! Paranormal release day!

It's release day for the hotly anticipated Shades of Gray by Jackie Kessler and Caitlin Kittredge. See why C.E. Murphy says: "Jackie Kessler and Caitlin Kittredge have hit it out of the ballpark" with this one.

I also understand that there have been advance spottings of Tracking the Tempest! Gah! Where are my reading glasses!

Another chance to win...

And don't forget - you can also win Mind Games over at Paperback Dolls during Chicago week. Enter to win here. Also, check out the Chloe Neill Chicago post here! She's doing a hunger walk. Way to go, Chloe! Apparently some authors don't just sit around talking about themselves. (* g *)

And Book Addict Patti's having a Blogaversary!

Also, Book Addict Patti is having a big blogaversary blowout where you can win a bunch of fabulous signed books by some of my favorite authors. Go wish her a happy blogaversary and enter here! Happy Blogaversary, Patti!

Chicago week at Paperback Dolls...and I tell ALL!

Hey! Happy Monday everyone. So, I'm super stoked for all the action over at Paperback Dolls today and the rest of this week. I'm there, and later this week, Chloe Neill, Jeaniene Frost, and Maggie Steifvater will be there!

Passport to Chicago week at the Dolls place

The Paperback Dolls gang does these occasional Passport Weeks where they spotlight a certain locale - and the authors who write about that locale. This week it's all about Chicago.

I'm guest posting for the kick-off, and hopefully not upsetting the people of Chicago, which had a somewhat wacky influence on many aspects of Midcity (Midcity is the city feature in Mind Games, Double Cross and the as-yet-unnamed book #3) including Midcity's notorious and powerful highway interchange: The Tangle!! Come say hi, and you can also WIN a signed copy of Mind Games.

The fabulous Mona interview

Back at the RT convention, I sat down with lovely Paperback Doll Mona for a taped interview. She asked a lot of really great questions about books, writing, and my series. It was really a big honor to get to do this, and the Dolls are running that interview today, too! Come check it out!

Image: Under the Dan Ryan by Paul Goyette

My fave slightly diabolical things about Through the Veil

Okay, I'm reading Through the Veil by Shiloh Walker and really loving it! And as my blogging feat on this Sunday, I shall now identify, without spoilers, my three fave slightly diabolical things about it!!

Fave slightly diabolical thing #1: The exquisite torture of waiting for the dual world heroine, Lee, to go super BADASS

Okay, a little background: At the opening of Through the Veil, the heroine Lee is always waking up battered and bruised. Also, she's a digital artist by profession, and really really good at creating these rich scenes of strange worlds, and battles, and a certain gorgeous warrior.

And, somewhere in another strange world, there is this horrible battle going on, and this strange woman just sort of appears at night to help out now and then but never stays. Hmmmm!!

Okay, can I say how much I love the invention of this character, whose dreaming self is mysteriously drawn to this alternate world, and whose dreaming self is also a really excellent fighter? And the characters there so wish she would stay. Especially one Kalen, who looks an awful lot like that guy she can draw really well.

Here, Kalen watching Lee and ruminating on an early page:

Lee came and went. She never risked herself for anything longer than a few hours a night. A few nights a week. Weeks would go by when she wasn't seen at all.

It cost them lives. People depended on her.

She had proved time and again she would only come when she couldn't stay away any longer. Her conscious self didn't even know what was going on.

She hid behind the veil of her memory, safe inside her normal world, where demons didn't exist, where everything was safety, security, and light.

Here, in this darker reality, where things existed whether she liked it or not, she could join them, save lives...but she refused.

Closing the distance between them, he loomed over her, staring down into a face he knew almost as well as his own. "When are you going to open your eyes, Lee?"

But of course, he's talking to her dream self. And she's like, WTF? Because she doesn't realize she's her dreaming self. Not to give anything away, but things get very interesting as she increases her involvement with that darker world. And frankly, much more interesting than the back blurb makes it sound. I found this whole dual nature thing to be such a strange and exciting character challenge.

Fave slightly diabolical thing #2 The balance between harsh battlefield & yummy candy

Here's the two key things about being inside the book reading:

1. Through the Veil has a wonderfully dark and harsh battle zone. There are so many baddass details, like, our bedraggled enclave of heroes can't use their high tech stuff, even to make clothes, because it attracts the evil wyrms that the enemy loosed in their lands. And really, this society is so ruined by the enemy--this ruination stretches far and wide, and also deep through time. The darkness feels real and convincing. This is super balls-to-the-wall stuff with a good battle feeling being created.

2. Walker puts enough candy that you want to go there, stay there, read deep into the night. I feel like a book should always be a place where you want to spend time. If a setting is convincingly dark and hopeless, there should be other things that make it a good place to spend time: comeuppances, characters realizing interesting things, smutty goodness, and, of course, waiting excitedly for mild-mannered heroines to go badass or evil villains repenting and/or being ground to a pulp, ideally while wearing shocked expressions. Candy! Which this book has a lot of. Oh, how I love readerly candy.

I think the candy/darkness balance is not an easy one to achieve. As a reader, I don’t like being put through too much, but I don’t like being treated too kindly, either.

Fave slightly diabolical thing #3: Nuances of the enemy

I’m not going to get into spoilers, but the book is in the POV of the heroine and hero for like, 100 pages, and there’s this horrible enemy, and you always hear about this enemy, and you hate the enemy. And suddenly you're reading along and whack! You’re in the enemy’s head, and the enemy, while remaining frightening, becomes also nuanced.

I was like, whoa! (in a good way). and ah, let me put it this way: certain things pertaining to the enemy could go different ways. And there is a lot of tension building on the chessboard of the book, and hidden sly things she does…gah! * lips zipped *

Proper reviews: Aztec Lady's here.

Next book: Veil of Shadows, coming out September 2010!

Carolyn Crane: lab rat or what?

Uh! Mr. Crane and I were discussing this review of "The Shallows: What The Internet is Doing to Our Brains" by Nicholas Carr this morning, admitting how we get little addictive bumps of happiness from emails. The review appears in the New Republic here.

Here, a paragraph - gah! This is me, checking my email, blog, twitter and more, like, every 30 minutes...

And so we devolve inexorably into “lab rats constantly pressing levers to get tiny pellets of social or intellectual nourishment.” These sweet tidbits are rotting our mental teeth. This is so, Carr maintains, because “the Net delivers precisely the kind of sensory and cognitive stimuli—repetitive, intensive, interactive, addictive—that have been shown to result in strong and rapid alterations in brain circuits and functions...”

This books is sort of about how these constant interruptions promote shallow thought, and endanger deep, more complex thought.

I can totally feel the truth of this - I do a little hard work and it's as if, oh, so difficult! now I want candy. And like an addict I put up fences (No social media for FOUR HOURS). Sometimes it works, but sometimes I just crash through the fence. Or sometimes I have to check my email for client purposes, and it turns into other stuff. And it's all these tiny little hits of goodness that add up to nothing. I know the topic is nothing new. Still, not a ROTFL matter!

Sometimes when I see that I have an unbroken stretch of time to write, I'll say, no being online for this amount of time, which, as I noted above, works sometimes and sometimes not, and I call it 'going dark' but what is that? Maybe I should inspect that terminology.

Part of me hopes it's not all that dire, in the sense that maybe the threat to ourselves as thinking, reflective beings might make us more aware of ourselves as thinking and reflective beings. Isn't that a good thing? I sort of want to make that the good thing for myself.

Sort of like, when at the end of an action adventure movie, the hero or heroine treasure and value a nice quiet dinner in a way they hadn't before. In this analogy, the Internet is Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator 1 and contemplative thought is the quiet dinner.

Of course, I'm offroading from the book now, which suggests our neural pathways are getting re-routed. And, I guess there is no quiet dinner at the end of T1.

Noooo! Oh, look how serious I'm being this morning!!! It's not like I want to quit the Internet and twitter and stuff. Just bad effects of it. Thoughts?

Five Ronco Reasons to get in on the pre-order Shades of Gray contest!

5. DOUBLE GOODNESS - Do you prefer a chocolate chip cookie when you can have double-chip chocolate chip cookie? Of course not. Well, this book has TWO authors. Double the authorly goodness. Double the intrigue. Double the action.

4. COVER KICKS ASS - Look at that badass cover! With that girl in a cape! Think how cool it will look on a TBR pile.

3. SWEET READ - C.E. Murphy says: "Jackie Kessler and Caitlin Kittredge have hit it out of the ballpark with SHADES OF GRAY." And Publisher's Weekly calls Jet and Iridium, the two main characters, "intriguingly flawed," and goes on to say, "Jet and Iridium's multifaceted relationship will appeal to all who have come to want more from their superheroes than good vs. evil and mindless battles." Also, BLACK AND WHITE, book #1, was hugely beloved, this one has gotten great advance reviews, so you can get them both and settle in for a good long reading fiesta.

2. POTENTIAL SCARCITY - From Jackie's blog: "You know how frustrating it is to go into your local bookstore and not see the book you desperately want to read RIGHT NOW? Yeah, we do too. That’s why Caitlin and Jackie are encouraging readers to preorder SHADES OF GRAY."

1. PURE GREED - You can never get enough books. And with this book, when you preorder it and tell Jackie, you're entered in a drawing for three separate prize packs full of other books. It's an avalanche of books. And only 11 people have entered so far. What is that? Like a 30% chance of winning?

1A. WAIT! THERE'S MORE! I just checked Jackie's blog, and I see that you now don't even have to preorder Shades of Gray to be in the contest! It's probably the first pre-order contest where pre-ordering is optional! It's superhero Madness. Check out the big contest here.

In other news:

Winner of LOVESTRUCK: Sweet Vernal Zephyr!!! Congrats chica! I emailed you. But now, announcing it to the world!!

Wait! Even more!

Bells of Hanging with Bells is giving away a copy of Mind Games in this month's Share the Love contest! Thanks, Bells! You rock! ...er ring.

My dubious urge regarding Thomas's 'His at Night'

I so enjoy a good historical. Sometimes, with an especially excellent one like Sherry Thomas’s His at Night, I have this urge to pull out all the pages and throw them up in the air and lay in the grass and sun and let them flutter over me, and just be covered in them, and maybe even roll in them.

But, that would be bizarre, and a terrible waste of a book, so instead, I keep the book intact and reread. Or, in the case of this one, I sent it overseas to my critique partner, because I had an advance copy and she HAD TO READ IT NOW BECAUSE IT IS SO AMAZING!

The hero, one Marquess of Vere, is this sort of Regency James Bond, and he goes around pretending to be an idiot (he has for years - that's his cover! - he's given up everything to play this role in service to the crown. He says dorky annoying things and spills food on himself. Etc.). Needless to say, no women ever wanted to marry him.

The heroine Ellisande is this woman who's been kept in this kind of Gothic isolation along with her aunt by an evil uncle. For years. The uncle, however, also happens to be the very elusive subject of a Team Vere investigation.

At the start of the book, Vere and his Regency spy comrades stage a rat infestation in a neighboring manor as an excuse to impose upon Ellisande and her aunt, as soon as the evil uncle leaves for a trip.

Nobody from the outside ever comes to the manor, and Ellisande recognizes this as a rare chance for freedom for herself and her aunt - if only she could get one of the guys to marry her. Here, Ellisande is contemplating the allowing the visitors to stay—so dangerous if it doesn't work and evil uncle finds out, which of course, he will.

The chance of success: infinitesimal. The cost of failure: unthinkable.

She rose from her seat. The windows of the drawing room gave a clear view of the gates of the estate. It had been years since she last ventured past those gates. It had been at least twice as long since her aunt last left the manor itself.

Her lungs labored against the suddenly thin air. Her stomach wanted very much to eject her lunch. She gripped the edge of the window frame, dizzy and ill, while behind her Lady Kingsley went on and on about her guests’ civility and amiability, about the wonderful time to be had by all. Why, Elissande didn’t even need to worry about securing provisions for them. The kitchen at Woodley Manor, well removed from the house, had been spared from the rats.

Slowly, Elissande turned around. And then she smiled the kind of smile she gave her uncle when he annouced that, no, he wouldn’t go to South Africa after all, when she’d finally come to believe that he truly would, following months of preparations she’d witnessed with her own eyes.

Lady Kingsley fell quiet before this smile.

“We shall be only too glad to help,” said Elissande.

I love how this passage builds up and up, with energy and meaning and momentum, sweeping upward to a high, still point. Thomas is so great at making these little whirlwinds within a book.

The smile is also key here. Ellisande’s smile is a kind of expert camouflage for her true feelings, and it’s a powerful, glorious smile that fools even the brilliant Vere. At first.

She ends up entrapping Vere in a marriage, of course. She was going for his brother, but she'll settle for the idiot, as she just has to get OUT of there.

I love the anticipation for things being revealed, or figured out by the characters - the fun of the eureka moment -and this book so delivered on those moments, over and over as both of these characters’ deceptions unravelled. I love the angry brilliance of Vere, and how upset he is to have been caught by Ellisande. I love Ellisande’s mettle.

Another thing: Lord Fredrick makes a reappearance! Remember him as the spurned suitor from Private Arrangements? Lord Fredrick is an artist, and he is not only the subject of the subplot, but there is a cool little interweaving of art.

I loved this thing to pieces. While I was reading it, I never wanted it to end. Love love love. Pages fluttering. Roll roll roll.

Image: Detail from "A Quiet Pet' by John William Godward, from Wikimedia.

Some links and some chat

There's this great interview over at the Biting Edge with Juliet Blackwell, author of the fun and exciting Lily Ivory Witchcraft Mystery series, about a witch who owns a vintage clothing store. Go say hi, read about how Juliet insulted some Wicca women during her writerly investigations, read her amusing witch interaction Do's and Don'ts list and enter to WIN signed copies of Cast-off Coven and Secondhand Spirits, plus "special witchy schwag."

Mom in town, Carolyn AWOL
I've been a bit AWOL as my mother was in town visiting. We had a very nice time - took a few walks, shopped, ate our weight in bread, cheese and crackers in different forms. On Saturday we saw a play called Circle Mirror Transformation that I really liked. Usually I'm not all that into plays. Too much emoting! But between this and A Klingon Christmas Carol this past winter, plays are batting 100% with me.

Your yard looks fine!! Stop the madness!
The people across the street are bigger perfectionists than I am. Last week, they had these lovely concrete steps made, then a crew came and jack-hammered them up, then new steps were made that looked the same as the old ones. I was glad when they were done, and hoping they wouldn't hate those steps, too.

Then, yesterday this whole crew with land moving equipment came and dug up their lawn, which was perfectly lovely with perfect green grass, and threw all the grass into a truck, and laid down new grass. I was like, WTF? Mystified, and also annoyed, because finally I had time to work on book 3, and I wanted peace and quiet, not more stupid machines. And there was NOTHING WRONG WITH THE OLD GRASS.

Though, perhaps the ever-lovely Penny Watson, who, in addition to having single-handedly sexed up the North Pole in the most delightful of ways, is also an expert in the field of turf science, will have something to say about that. I can only imagine how much they must hate it when we park our duct-taped Intrepid in front of their home.

Hell Fire continues to rock
I finished Ann Aguirre's Hell Fire last night, which continued to be super cool and interesting. (see earlier post here.) I loved how this book had elements of horror and mystery, and the inventiveness of this world (like this one radio - Aguirre is really one of the most inventive writers around). I'm especially enjoying the evolution of Chance (the character, not the concept) and the various aspects of his luck--I love the continually unfolding realities and consequences of his special powers. Highly recommended! (but, read Blue Diablo first!)

Dorky confession and related questions
This is going to sound dorky, but Mr. Crane and I have this weights set in our apartment that we work out with, and we sometimes work out to the soundtrack of Jesus Christ Superstar. Okay, that doesn't just sound dorky, it is dorky. LOL. But Mr. Crane grew up with his parents playing that record constantly, so he has this special fondness for it, even though he didn't set foot in a church until my sister got married, so basically, the soundtrack constitutes the entirety of his Bible education. I don't know much more than him, but I've been getting kind of obsessed with it, because it is so sad and dramatic!

Anyway, we are always wondering how much of it came from the Bible. Any Bible experts out there?
1. Is Judas portrayed in the Bible as conflicted, well-intentioned yet sort of misguided fellow, and worried about the fate of people at the hands of the Romans? Does he hang himself?

2. Does Pilate dream about killing Jesus and it makes him feel sad?

3. Do Caiaphus and the Apostles have extensive deliberations about what to do about Jesus vis a vis their fate as an occupied people?

Edward and Bella in therapy
This is an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal that my father-in-law, player of above soundtrack, forwarded to me this morning. About how students in the mental health disciplines can learn as much about what it means to be human from the study of fictional characters in books and movies as they can from real people, and that, in many courses, they actually study and diagnose fictional characters, and it goes into a bit of the history of that. (Poor Piglet and his generalized anxiety disorder!) I thought that was interesting. And it makes me think of that old saying that there's often more truth in fiction than in non-fiction. That's not actually the saying, but it's something like that.

Reviews and mentions!
I haven't been linking to Mind Games stuff lately. But I'm so grateful for people continuing to read and discuss my book. I don't always click over - sometimes I like to let reviewers have their own space to do their thing and I do mine. But other times, I must go see! LOL. A few recent ones here:

• Mind Games was #1 on 'Buckeye Girl''s totally amusing Books I didn't think I'd love post here. Or, check her official review here.
• Heather of 'Darkly Reading's review "I loved every word of it" !!
• Michelle at 'See Michelle Read's review: "an impressive twisty, turny psychological storyline (complete with some truly nasty villains) which stunned me with each new revelation and left me clamoring for more!
• Upcoming Debut author Jenn Bennet's review: "When an author comes along with a can of lighter fluid and a gleam in her eye, and throws a lit match on the whole genre, I’m starstruck."
• Magdelen of Promantica wrote a super interesting essay on Mind Games and related items, discussing her personal reactions and intersections with the book, the resulting shift in her construction of me as an author, the reader/writer relationship, and more. Okay, I'm explaining it poorly. Go read it!
• Okay, I know I'm missing somebody...

I am hidious!

Back when I was in 7th grade I climbed pretty high up the area spelling bee ladder. I nailed killer hard words, but what did I get tripped up on? RECOMMEND! (I still remember the gasp that went up in the room when I finished spelling it with two C's.)

The spelling bee debacle sure cured me of my problem with recommend. But there are still a lot of words that I can never seem to learn. What is up with my mental block? Come, let us take a tour!

Viscious Huh, that isn't a word, is it? Yes, friends, I am trying to spell vicious here, and I had to go through some dictionary.com iterations to get this baby right. Because I want to spell it Viscious! I want an S in there!

Okay, then here's what always happens next: I take out the "i" and get viscous. Like a fool, I'll often put it in manuscripts, because viscous is a real word, meaning sticky and thick, so spellcheck doesn't pick it up. So I'll be like, "He was a mean and viscous fellow with a black goatee." And inevitably, somebody will laughingly point it out...Are you sure he was viscous, Carolyn?, and I'll be like, damn! Why is vicious spelled like that? It needs an S, and I don't think I have to remind you who agrees with me here, my brothers.

Occassionally Or is it occasionally? Or ocassion? I never know. I want there to be two 's's in it. The s/zh sound has way more presence when you say the word aloud than the C. Let's face it, the "s/zh" sound is the coolest part of the word, and it should have proper fanfare!

Independant This is what I always write for independent. Why do you not end with ANT? You should, you know. I mean, there are already two E's. it doesn't feel right that there would be YET ANOTHER. It seems like there should be an A somewhere. And also, Independent, have you never heard of pendant? A pendant hangs on a chain. Take it off the chain = independant.

Permanant Seriously, does permanent look right to you? Honestly? If you really really stare at it? It doesn't look right to me. Sometimes with a word you can't spell, you're supposed to change its form, and let that instruct you, but permanance seems perfectly viable to me.

Decieve, recieve and all that. Let me ask you, what good is that rhyme? 'I before E except after C, or when..." and then there's a list of exceptions. Yeah, that's really helpful. Because if you don't have the rest memorized, the rhyme might as well be, "I before E except after C, and also except when this rhyme is invalid." And you're back to your own devices. I actually have more problem with receive than deceive. In fact, this is a word I'll write around in client emails. I'll start an email 'I recieved the PDFs...' and then I'll be like, shit... Then I'll go, 'I got the PDFs' even though 'got' is feels unbusinessy to people.

Seperate I'm really fighting to get this one right, and sometimes I do spell it correctly, that is, separate. My trick is to remember that there is a para in there, the Greek root meaning by the side of, and that helps me, and sometimes I think about parallel, which also has para in it, to help guide me to spelling separate correctly. But, it's harder when it's a verb. (Let's seperate these two troublemakers!) because it's pronounced as if there's an E there.

Soldiar This might be my most embarrassing one. Who spells Soldier wrong? OMG. Is this post going too far? Am I divulging too much? I think the other words are acceptable misspellings, but soldiar strays into LOLcats territory.

Okay, dish people. What words can't you spell?

Image: self portrait of Antonio María Esquivel (1806, Sevilla – 1857, Madrid), from wikimedia. Sorry Antonio.

Katiebabs owes me a new ereader + other wassup blogland stuff

Congrats to Katiebabs!

Okay, first off, my bloggy galpal, Katiebabs from Babbling About Books owes me a new ereader!

Because, when I was trying to download her NEW RELEASES - Lovestruck, a standalone novella, and Once Upon a Threesome, an anthology that contains a story she wrote, my ereader's wires caught on fire, and then the ereader itself exploded in a giant freakout fireball of F/F hotness.

Just kidding. Congrats to Katiebabs! Woo-hoo! Break out the champagne and chocolate! KB is a brand new author!! And she has TWO books out this past week, writing as KT Grant!

WIN LOVESTRUCK!

I am so psyched to read these and see what the heck she's been up to! And I'm giving away a copy, too. Just leave a comment saying that you're entering!

Lovestruck back blurb: CEO hotel mogul Barbara Jennings has three months to decide whether to close her Manhattan hotel or cut costs by firing some of her employees. She meets her much-younger employee, Jennifer Caffey and is instantly smitten. Now Barbara has another mission, and that is to seduce the innocent Jenny. Jenny is also attracted to the powerful and beautiful Barbara, but has never really had a steamy love affair with another woman. Unwittingly, she allows herself to be swept away by her passion for this older woman who may ruin her life. Comment that you're entering for a chance to win it. Excerpt here. Order here.

Once Upon a Threesome: anthology. Back blurb: Historical threesomes - who imagined how hot this subject could be?In this delightfully wicked anthology, you'll find threesomes of all types from a range of historical time periods and settings. Hot M/F/M cowboy menage? It's here. Wild M/M/M medieval threesome? Check. From hot vintage Hollywood to a triple lesbian story right out of "Mad Men," Once Upon a Threesome has a story for everyone. Order here!

Where is Carolyn Crane??

I'm over with the fabulous Rachael at Enchanted by Books with my list of my top 6 favorite things about being a series author, and giving away a copy of Mind Games! Come visit!

Wassup Blogland=goodies!

Paranormal Summer Fest is ON! Win a Tsunami of books over at Tynga's Reviews and All Things Urban Fantasy. Giveaways on both sites EVERY DAY!

Shiloh Walker is celebrating her gorgeous new website/blog look with a big giveaway. Okay, there are some really sweet prizes here, and I love this site, especially the header. Whoa!!

Dakota Cassidy's got a new fabulous fan page with ARC GIVEAWAY! Go get in on the fun and maybe even get the jump on her latest book!

Anna of Anna's book Blog is THREE years old! And she's having a blogoversary blowout! and giving away tons of books. Go say hi!

Smexy haz The Forbidden Rose! Yeah, it's only one of my most anticipated books of the summer! What does she say? "The Forbidden Rose is Joanna Bourne's best work yet." *paroxyzmzzz of joy* I forgot how to spell that, so instead of looking it up, I took the LOLcat route. I am ordering it RIGHT NOW.

Don't forget to comment to win KB's new book, Lovestruck! You have to say you're entering in the comments.