Well this made my day…

On www.SavvyReaders.com, Wild Blue Under was the Most Popular book this week.

Thanks to Liz Pelletier for letting me know, and for everyone who made it the most popular! Wow.

Also in my email today, Joey W. Hill gave me a lovely review of In Over Her Head.

Okay, next up, In Over Her Head by Judi Fennell. This book was such fun. We have a heroine who is water-phobic, who, through a series of mishaps, ends up having to spend time under the sea with a really hot merman. The opening to this book is one of the best hooks I’ve read. I don’t know who could set it down after the first few pages. Since I’m not really a humor reader (I prefer to live on angsty, high stakes emotional conflict, etc in my reading, as well as my writing), that’s high praise.

I’d had the pleasure of sharing a forum with Judi at the Authors After Dark conference, and I wanted to try one of her books. Her undersea world building is incomparable – ten times richer than my own, and far more well integrated with the story, I have no problem admitting. Plus, her sense of humor is terrific – I laughed out loud quite a few times. As she progressed, I was pleased to see her transition from slapstick into a more fully fleshed emotional motivation for the hero, which helped me identify with him and start rooting for his success. This also deepened the impact of his relationship with our heroine. This is the first in a series of these books, so if you enjoy humorous, extremely well written paranormal mermaid romance, this is an excellent choice.

Yep, definitely a nice thing (times 2!) to wake up to. And coming on the heels of In Over Her Head being #2 on Publishers Weekly Beyond Her Book Readers Choice for Best Book 2009, well… Santa has come early this year.

Authors After Dark, and in the morning and during the day…

This past weekend I was in Suffern, NY at the Authors After Dark Readers Conference, and I had a blast! My books, both In Over Her Head, and Wild Blue Under, sold out at the booksigning, I did a workshop with the incomparable Joey W. Hill, participated on other panels, got to wear my fun blue ball gown (the one I wore when Fabio hugged me at RT 2 years ago), and got to meet so many fun people! And learned that I have fans! Always a nice thing to find out.

Here are the pictures from the event and I’m really looking forward to next year’s, scheduled for sometime in September, 2010 in Secaucus, NJ. Hope you can join me!

Me, Woo Woo, and Joey W. Hill

 

Judi & Stephanie Julian at costume partyJudi & Steph at book signing

Take a look at Carol Brown's gorgeous costume - she MADE it! and the dragon con wings are just gorgeous!

Girls with wings

Steph and Dirty Froggy

Stephanie Julian and I at book signing