Preditors & Editors Readers Poll

Happy New Year everyone! I'm happy to announce that my short story, The Earl's Enchantment, has been nominated in the romance short story category of the Preditors & Editors Readers Poll. This annual poll has a number of categories, and you can vote until January 15th. Click on the image below to be taken to the poll website.

Silver Rose Award for Website Excellence

I recently found out I'm a finalist in a website contest sponsored by the Sacramento Valley Rose chapter of the RWA. As you can imagine, I'm keeping my fingers crossed. The results will be announced on the 15th. Although I don't expect to take any of the top honors, it's a thrill to be nominated, especially since I designed my website without any outside assistance. It was rough going at first, and it took over a year to get it just as I wanted it, but I believe all the effort was worthwhile.

A Seaside Enchantment: New Review

Although it's been a couple of months since my time-travel short story, A Seaside Enchantment, was published, I recently received some wonderful reviews, which I will be showcasing here on my blog over the next few days. One of the best parts of being an author is receiving reviews; it's encouraging to know people are reading our work and responding to it.

The Long and the Short of It Romance Reviews gave my story a lovely review, which you can access here. Daisy, the reviewer, commented that "Snappy dialogue, intriguing characters, and the thrill of a modern man going back in time to champion a nineteenth-century lady really make the short story shine."

Romance Readers & Publishers Weekly

I was pleasantly pleased to see the cover of Publishers Weekly for the week of November 19, 2007, features the romance genre. In an article entitled "Textually Promiscuous," Sarah J. Robbins discusses the genres and features quotations by readers, editors, bookstore owners, and romance scholars. I especially enjoyed the discussion on the blending of historical and paranormal elements in romances and Rose's quotation on writing was spot on: "“The editors acquired these authors on the quality of the writing and weren't concerned about the genre,” says Rose. “Which just goes to show that good writing wins out.”
You can check out the article here.

All About Romance: Top 100 Romances

The popular romance website, All About Romance, recently published their list of Top 100 Romances, which can be found here. Of course, critics will have a field day, and devoted romance readers will notice that popular authors, such as Jo Beverly, are missing from the list, though classics such as Bronte's Jane Eyre and Austen's Pride & Prejudice are represented. Still, it's useful for considering the novels that we have on our keeper's shelf. What makes a novel a keeper? After reading through the list, I plan to inspect my own shelf and consider what would appear on my list. And, I'd be curious to hear what other readers think about the novels/authors that do appear on the list. I've only read 25 of the books that are listed, and at my own estimate I've read about 400-500 romances in my life. To get you started, I've listed the top 10 books on the AAR list:

1	Lord of Scoundrels Loretta Chase European Historical 1995
2	Dreaming of You Lisa Kleypas European Historical 1994
3	Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen Classic Fiction 1813
4	Outlander Diana Gabaldon Time Travel 1991
5	Flowers From The Storm Laura Kinsale European Historical 1992
6	Slightly Dangerous Mary Balogh European Historical 2004
7	Devil In Winter Lisa Kleypas European Historical 2006
8	Bet Me Jennifer Crusie Contemporary 2004
9	Welcome to Temptation Jennifer Crusie Contemporary 2000
10	The Viscount Who Loved Me Julia Quinn European Historical 2000

Victoria Magazine is Back!

When I was a teenager, I eagerly awaited each new issue of Victoria Magazine. Every issue featured beautiful locales, wonderful recipes, and lovely layouts. As you can imagine, I was deeply disappointed when they stopped publishing the magazine, but I recently received the very first issue of the new Victoria Magazine. The magazine features home decor, recipes, collectibles, and more. If you visit the website, you'll find free recipes and tips on decorating your home.

If you're a writer, you may be interested in contributing an article, especially if you have an interest in antiques and history. Writers' guidelines can be found here.

Celtic Woman

For my 30th birthday this year, my sister and I attended the Celtic Woman concert, which was incredible. The music was inspiring and beautiful, and I've found it makes an ideal companion to both reading and writing romances. This was a new group to me, so I just had to share because I was very impressed by the show, the singers, and the music. For more information on Celtic Woman, you can visit their website.

I haven't been as consistent in my online presence this month, but I have a good excuse! When I attended the Moonlight & Magnolias conference, I met with an editor who subsequently requested the full manuscript for my historical paranormal novel. So, I've been busy polishing the full manuscript with my critique team and hope to be finished by the end of October. Once that's done, I look forward to rejoining the communities on MySpace, shelfari, and bebo. I miss everyone!

Now Available: A Seaside Enchantment

My new release, "A Seaside Enchantment," is a time-travel romance featuring the Regency era. It's a short story published by The Wild Rose Press and is rated "sweet,"- i.e. no explicit love scenes.

BLURB:
"Of all the seaside cottages in all the villages in all the world, she had to haunt the one I'm renting."

After being seriously wounded in the line of duty, Justin has retreated from the world by renting an isolated cottage along the English coastline. The next thing he knows, he's plunged into a time-travel adventure as he meets the trapped spirit of a lovely nineteenth century lady, Julia.

As Julia explains, she's been awaiting her champion. All he has to do to free her from her entrapment as a spirit is to perform a spell, travel 200 years into the past, find the villain who first worked the spell, and then vanquish the fellow. Easy, right? Justin suspects not, but he's prepared to take on the world, in whatever time period, to fight for his new love.

New Look: Sara Freeze Website

Now that my new release, "A Seaside Enchantment," is coming out this week with The Wild Rose Press, I decided to play around with some of the design elements of the website. It's incredible how simply altering the colors and playing with the page header can dramatically alter the look of a website.

In particular, I had a lot of fun adding information and photos to "The Earl's Enchantment" page. If you click here, you'll find an excerpt, reviews, and my inspiration for writing the story. I've shared photos of Holworth and Hay-on-Wye, as well as a special section on who in particular inspired my concept of the earl. When I was cruising around the web checking out various author websites, I especially enjoyed Donna Grant's pages devoted to each of her heroes from her Knights of Legend series. Since I'm also a devoted romance reader, I appreciate when authors give a little extra information on their books; in my opinion, it adds to my enjoyment of the story.

Coming next week: Coverage of the Moonlight & Magnolias Conference

Be a Guest Blogger on the Cata Network

Another writing opportunity: The Cata Network is looking for guest bloggers. Between now and October 15, they are especially looking for blogs on locations you've visited and/or places that have inspired a scene in your book or story. The guidelines are as follows:

How do I become a Guest Blogger?
- First, email Ally and let her know you’re interested. We don’t need a firm commitment, in fact you may only want to write one blog piece per year for us. And that’s great. We appreciate any and all guest blog pieces. We just need to know for scheduling purposes what might be coming down the pipeline.
- Second, register here on the site. It’s free and takes all of 30 seconds. You’ll be listed as a contributor and that means you can add your blog pieces yourself by clicking the Write tab in the administrative section of our site. Our site is like most blog software so if you’re familiar with one, you should have no trouble using ours. (If that’s too technical for ya, just email Ally with your guest blog piece and she’ll post it when she has a minute. )

How do I actually blog?
After registering (super easy) it’s a fairly simple and painless process to post a piece here at CataNetwork Readers’ Lounge. The info we need from you is a catchy headline and the actual blog piece you want to post. See, nothing difficult.
We’ve created a neat little page with a screenshot to show you the administrative side where you’ll be posting. It’s supposed to be Top Secret and stuff, be we can trust you, right? *g* Check that out here.