The past couple of weeks have been blah. I guess I’ve reached the uncomfortable phase of pregnancy. I totally bypassed the energy burst I was expecting to experience in the second trimester, or perhaps I had it but didn’t notice because I was so preoccupied with finishing my book. I’m now in the third trimester with all that that implies: backache, insomnia, sore ribs, and a sense time is dragging. On the one hand, I have so much to do before the baby comes, particularly on the writing front. On the other, I just want this kid out.

Writing:

I’m pleased with my pre-writing progress, but not so thrilled with the few thousand words I’ve written for my new WIP. Admittedly, I am a perfectionist, and rarely impressed by my first effort at any given scene.

Author Blog:

I spent more time than I care to admit updating my author website and tinkering with its appearance. I’ve started a blog on it which will focus on writing-related topics. The first two posts are up and are concerned with the dreaded (for me) First Draftitis. They are First Drafts: The Curse of the Blinking Cursor and First Drafts: The Pre-Writing Stage. I hope to publish the third post on Wednesday.

Reading:

I’m currently listening to the unabridged audiobook of Rhys Bowen’s Her Royal Spyness. It’s the first in a series. It’s an amusing cozy mystery and the narrator, Katherine Kellgren, does an excellent job. Unfortunately for me, the rest of the audiobooks in the series are geographically restricted. Why on earth do publishers do that? As my enjoyment of the book has at least as much to do with the excellent narration as with the story, that’s several lost sales.

TV:

Sherlock. What can I say, except this series rocks. I resisted watching the first series when it aired in 2010. As a fan of the books, I couldn’t imagine a modern version being anything other than a monumental mess. My husband persuaded me to watch the first three episodes with him over the Christmas holidays as he was keen to see the second series when it started on New Year’s Day. We were hooked from the first episode. We both agreed that Sherlock alone made our digital TV subscription worth it for the month of January. While I’m sorry we have to wait another year for series 3, I’d rather they made fewer episodes and maintained the high quality rather than churning them out and dumbing them down like Downton Abbey.

Have you written, read, or watched anything interesting lately? Have you seen Sherlock?

I might be one of about five people in the world who love January. The New Year always brings hope, and the chance to start afresh. It’s also an opportunity to set goals for the coming months. As I love making lists, this appeals to me. The timing is also fortuitous: Yesterday, I submitted ‘Luck of the Irish’ to the editor and agents who requested it, so it’s time to get cracking on a new story.

2011 was my year to focus on writing craft. I participated in several workshops during the first half of the year, as well as reading books on craft. Attending the RWA conference in New York City was a fantastic experience, both personally and professionally. Concentrating on writing theory, and applying the tools I acquired to my WIP, did mean it took me longer to complete ‘Luck of the Irish’ than I’d hoped, but I feel I learned a lot. ‘Luck of the Irish’ might not be perfect, but I know it’s much stronger than its predecessor.

I was fortunate enough to participate in the Romance Divas’ Mentor Program between March and June. My mentor was extremely helpful, and gave me some invaluable advice. She suggested I focus on improving one craft element per story. For ‘Luck of the Irish’, I chose plot structure with a particular concentration on constructing strong scenes. For my next story, I want to work on my use of dialogue and nonverbal communication.

I’m keeping my 2012 goals focused on writing. I want to complete one novella and one novel of by the end of the year. The novella idea might turn into a longer book, but I want to start off with a bare-bones story of around 30K. The novella/potential novel will be a historical romance set in Ireland in the early Twentieth Century. A hard sell, perhaps, but I figure I have nothing to lose by trying. It’s not like I’m a contracted author with deadlines. Besides which, it’s the sort of story I’d love to read, and I think readers can tell when an author feels passionate about the tale they’re telling.

I hope to have the novella/first draft of novel done by the end of March, then take a couple of months off (I’m expecting another baby), and begin writing again in June. I’ll probably start back with Inkygirl’s 250 or 500 Words a Day Challenge to draft another contemporary romance. A page or two a day should be manageable, even with a newborn.

2011 was the year of slow reading. I read 47 novels last year, down from 152 last year. Only 19 were romance, and the vast majority of those were published by Harlequin. I read 5 romances published by the so-called Big Six New York publishers. One reason I read so few books is down to a lack of time. 2011 was crazy busy, and I invested most of my spare time on my writing, or writing-related reading. Another reason is my lack of satisfaction with the variety of settings and tropes on offer from the traditional publishers. Either I’m bang out of luck in that what’s popular at the moment doesn’t appeal to me, or publishers are playing it safe and not publishing the sort of envelope-pushing romances I miss from the Nineties and early 2000s. For more on this topic, Sandy at All About Romance has a great blog post entitled Romance Rant (Volume XXXVI).

How was 2011 for you reading wise? Did you discover any great new-to-you authors? If you write, did you achieve your goals? 

Today is Day Seven of NaNoWriMo and my self-prescribed NaNoEdMo. In other words, this blog post is an oh-so-subtle attempt at creative avoidance. What I’m supposed to be doing is wrestling a particularly stubborn scene into submission, but try as I might, it still sounds stiff. Gah! It’s probably best to leave it and move on to another.

With the exception of today’s frustration, I’m at the fun stage of my WIP. To paraphrase a line from Debra Dixon’s excellent GMC: Goal, Motivation and Conflict, I fall under the category of writers who dislike writing, but love having written. First drafts are a slog. Second drafts are frustrating, but with moments of intense satisfaction. Third (and subsequent) drafts are where it’s at for me. I love seeing my story take shape, and I get a buzz from marking off chapters as polished on my progress spreadsheet. There are still a few minor plotholes and a couple of redundant subplots floating around my WIP, but they can be fixed relatively quickly when I do my final polish.

I keep meaning to do a blog post about the books on the craft of writing I find the most useful. I haven’t finished compiling it, but here are three I refer to regularly.

The one I quoted above, Debra Dixon’s GMC: Goal, Motivation and Conflict, was worth every cent of the ridiculous price I paid for it. It can only be ordered directly from the publisher, Gryphon Books for Writers. The book costs $19.95 plus postage (which is where it got pricey for me). Despite being the most expensive craft book I own, GMC is the most useful. The concepts it lays forth are simple: every story and every character needs to have a strong goal or desire (something they’re striving to attain), plausible motivation for wanting to attain that goal, and sufficient sustainable conflict to prevent the characters from achieving their goals by the end of Chapter One. Basically, if you took the majority of the writing craft books on the market and distilled their advice into one, you’d have GMC.

James Scott Bell’s Plot and Structure. He doesn’t introduce any ground-breaking information in this book, but like GMC, he presents his ideas in a more instantly accessible language than do other books on the same topic. Dwight Swain’s Techniques of the Selling Writer, for example, is well worth reading if you have the time, but he often takes pages to make a point which could be summarized in a single sentence. Robert McKee’s Story is even more long-winded.

For revisions, I particularly recommend Elizabeth Lyon’s Manuscript Makeover. She introduces so-called “inside-out” and “outside-in” revision techniques which suit different writers. A brief intro at the start of each chapter indicates who might benefit from these various techniques. Further chapters focus on revising plot, structure, and characterization. Each section ends with a handy checklist which I now use as a reference when I start my revisions.

Having spent far too much time typing words which are of absolutely no benefit to my WIP, I shall return to my revisions cave.

If anyone has read any of the books I mentioned above, I’d love to know what you thought of them. Which are your favourite craft books?

I’m in a reading slump. It might be the weather. Maybe it’s because I’m busy revising my book. Or perhaps it’s simply due to my mad anticipation of two books which will be released next Tuesday: Meljean Brook’s Heart of Steel (the second novel in her steampunk series), and Joanna Bourne’s Black Hawk (crap title but I love Adrian).

In lieu of my usual bedtime reading fix, I’ve been listening to the BBC Radio adaptations of M.C. Beaton’s Agatha Raisin mysteries. I read the first one, The Quiche of Death, several years ago, but I didn’t find it all that wonderful. A friend recommended the radio plays solely on the basis of Penelope Keith’s performance. She was right. Keith is excellent as Agatha, and more than makes up for the weak plots.

For anyone unfamiliar with the series, Agatha Raisin is a middle-aged PR executive who takes early retirement and leaves London to settle down in a small village in the Cotswolds. She’s rude, abrasive, and a militant smoker. She soon sets the locals’ backs up by cheating in competitions, but finds an unlikely ally in the local police constable, especially after her amateur sleuthing helps him solve a murder. Agatha loves to pester her handsome neighbour, James Lacey, a retired military gentleman who wants to be left in peace to write his book on military history.

I hadn’t intended to sign up for this year’s NaNoWriMo as I won’t have time to write 50K of a new book in November. My revisions for my WIP have reached the frustrating stage of being nearly done, but not nearly enough to say I’ll be finished within days rather than weeks. So I decided to use NaNoWriMo as my own personal NaNoEdMo and keep track of my editing progress. For anyone participating, here’s a link to my user profile if you want to be my NaNo buddy.

Has anyone read the Agatha Raisin books past The Quiche of Death? Are they worth getting? Are you doing NaNoWriMo this year?

Like many viewers, I loved the first series (season if you’re in the US) of ‘Downton Abbey’. The Edwardian period has always interested me, and the First World War even more so. I was thrilled when the a second series was confirmed, although I did watch the opening episode with a certain amount of trepidation. My expectations were high. Would it be as good as the previous series? While the first episode was thoroughly engaging and set several interesting storylines in motion, the rest of the series hasn’t been as strong. Still watchable, but not the tight, unpretentious programme I remember fondly. I know a lot of people outside Europe won’t have the opportunity to see the episodes until 2012, so here’s a spoiler-free list of what’s working and not working (for me) five episodes in.

The Pros:

Mary and Edith’s character development. Mary has come a long way from the bored, spoiled brat she was in 1912. Her interaction with a new female character is wonderful. Edith, too, finds a sense of purpose in this series, and this tones down her bitchiness and rivalry with Mary.

The War. The trenches feature in every episode, but only briefly. The majority of the action is still firmly centered on ‘Downton Abbey’ and its inhabitants. The men who’ve gone to war (e.g.: Matthew Crawley) have most of their scenes at Downton while on leave/work for war office/injured. By making Downton Abbey a convalescent home for wounded officers, the war is brought to Downton.

The Dowager Duchess of Grantham. Maggie Smith gets the BEST lines. My favourite was during a conversation with Edith when Edith wants to volunteer her services as a driver for the war effort: “Edith, you are a lady, not Toad of Toad Hall”. Priceless.

Thomas and O’Brien continue their scheming, only now one of them has considerably more power over the servants than they did in the last series.

The new female character I mentioned above. Not sure if she’s in the promo trailer, so I won’t say who she is. As a person, she’s not particularly interesting, but the effect she has on almost all the main characters above stairs is significant. She also generates some great lines from the Dowager Duchess.

The Cons:

‘Downton Abbey’ is getting a bit soapy. Whether or not you view this as a negative, it’s a criticism many viewers have of the current series.

The Earl. He needs to stop moaning about being too old to go to war. It was already becoming tedious by the end of the first episode.

The new maid. Gwen, the maid Sybil helped find a job as a secretary, isn’t in this series. Her replacement is a surly girl named Ethel. My take: if the writers want to build a character up to their inevitable downfall, they have to give them at least some redeeming features to make viewers care. Hell, even O’Brien and Thomas show their vulnerable sides on occasion.

The Bates-Anna-Person from Bates’s Past storyline. Can Bates really be that stupid? Yes, apparently he can. His determination to fall on his own sword is getting old. It’s unfortunate as the actor playing the person from his past is fantastic, but so far underused.

My Verdict: I’d give the first series 9.5 out of 10. Based on the first five episodes of the second, it’s more like a 7 out of 10. I’m still watching and liking it, but it’s not quite living up to the high standard it set for itself.

♦♦♦♦♦

My reading progress has been super slow of late. I’m in a phase where I stop reading a book if it’s not instantly engaging. In other words, the few books I finished are ones I enjoyed.

Among them are three mysteries by British crime fiction author, Elly Griffiths. Her protagonist, Ruth Galloway, is a forensic archaelogist. I ended up reading all three Ruth Galloway books over a single weekend. Ruth is an excellent lead character because…I like her. Main characters in mystery series tend to be either downtrodden (depressed, alcoholics, and so on), or super heroes. Ruth is neither. Here’s the cover blurb for the first book in the series, The Crossing Places:

When she’s not digging up bones or other ancient objects, quirky, tart-tongued archaeologist Ruth Galloway lives happily alone in a remote area called Saltmarsh near Norfolk, land that was sacred to its Iron Age inhabitants – not quite earth, not quite sea. 

When a child’s bones are found on a desolate beach nearby, Detective Chief Inspector Harry Nelson calls Galloway for help. Nelson thinks he has found the remains of Lucy Downey, a little girl who went missing ten years ago. Since her disappearance he has been receiving bizarre letters about her, letters with references to ritual and sacrifice.

The bones actually turn out to be two thousand years old, but Ruth is soon drawn into the Lucy Downey case and into the mind of the letter writer, who seems to have both archaeological knowledge and eerie psychic powers. Then another child goes missing and the hunt is on to find her. As the letter writer moves closer and the windswept Norfolk landscape exerts its power, Ruth finds herself in completely new territory – and in serious danger.

♦♦♦♦♦

I’m up to my neck in revisions for my WIP. I want to submit it by the end of November. One of my characters is not responding well to my editing efforts. I need to do some serious word wrestling over the weekend. Fingers crossed!

Are you, or will you be, watching ‘Downton Abbey’? Have you read any good books lately? I’m in the mood for a good mystery.

It’s been over a month since my last blog post. Yikes! Lots of things have been happening, and most of them are good. We finally found a house we like and we’re moving in July. This is exciting, but it’ll mean returning from the RWA conference to Packing Hell. In writing news, I placed first in the series romance category of the Fire and Ice contest. The editor who was the final judge for my category requested the full manuscript. I’m thrilled. However, I want to submit a polished book in a timely fashion, and this will mean an even busier summer than I’d anticipated. I suspect my blogging will remain sporadic over the next few months.

♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦

A friend sent me an interesting link a few months ago. Samantha and Nicola Chapman are sisters and trained make-up artists. They have a blog called Pixiwoo and a connected YouTube channel with video tutorials showing how to apply make-up correctly, or achieve a certain look. The tutorials are fun and easy to follow. Some take magazine covers, or celeb photos, and show you how to achieve a similar effect. Others focus on the basics, such as this one on achieving smoky eye make-up:

♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦

The Richard and Judy Summer Reads 2011 were announced a few weeks ago. Here’s the list of titles:

The Poison Tree by Erin Kelly (Thriller)

When God was a Rabbit by Sarah Winman (General Fiction)

The Confession of Katherine Howard (Historical Fiction)

The Death Instinct by Jed Rubenfeld (Historical Mystery)

The Novel of the Viola by Natasha Solomons (Historical Fiction)

The Return of Captain John Emmett by Elizabeth Speller (Historical Mystery)

Every Last One Anna Quindlen (General Fiction)

The Summer of the Bear by Bella Pollen (General Fiction)

I read excerpts from all of them. The one which caught my attention was The Return of Captain John Emmett, and I bought a copy.

Here’s the blurb:

1920. The Great War has been over for two years, and it has left a very different world from the Edwardian certainties of 1914. Following the death of his wife and baby and his experiences on the Western Front, Laurence Bartram has become something of a recluse. Yet death and the aftermath of the conflict continue to cast a pall over peacetime England, and when a young woman he once knew persuades him to look into events that apparently led her brother, John Emmett, to kill himself, Laurence is forced to revisit the darkest parts of the war. As Laurence unravels the connections between Captain Emmett’s suicide, a group of war poets, a bitter regimental feud and a hidden love affair, more disquieting deaths are exposed. Even at the moment Laurence begins to live again, it dawns on him that nothing is as it seems, and that even those closest to him have their secrets …

What books are you planning to read this summer?

I saw Star Wars for the first time last night – the first of the original trilogy. It was so bad it was amusing. The first shock came with the discovery that Harrison Ford didn’t play Luke Skywalker. I was convinced Harrison played Luke. Instead, it was some acting-challenged dude called Mark Hamill. Carrie Fisher’s Princess Leia hair was…interesting. Apart from the ‘do, her most memorable contribution to the film was her permanently stoned expression. I have a feeling there’s going to be a love story between Luke and Princess Leia. Honestly, they deserve each other. Harrison Ford was good in the role of Han Solo, but I thought his hairy sidekick was the best actor of the bunch. I shocked poor Christian this morning when I told him the Chihuahua was the saving grace of the film.

His jaw dropped in horror. Hey, I wasn’t awake, and I was in desperate need of my first coffee of the day. I meant, of course, this creature:

Chewbacca’s deep and meaningful performance was definitely the highlight for me. As you can tell from the clip above, his dialogue provided vital insight into the philosophy of the Star Wars universe. If you missed the profundity the first time, click on the clip again.

Apart from seeing Chihuahuas in Star Wars, I’ve been MayNoWriMoing my way through my WIP. I’ve managed 6,000 words so far this week. Not bad, but not what I was hoping for. Hopefully, next week will prove more productive.

On the reading front, things are slow but steady. I finished Rachel Gibson’s Any Man of Mine. The hero is a total ass, and the heroine is a wimp. Despite my ambivalence towards the main characters, I read the book cover to cover. I enjoyed Pamela Clare’s latest addition to her I-Team series, Breaking Point. Naked Edge is still my favourite in the series, but I loved the premise of Breaking Point. I’m not usually a fan of man titty covers, but this one is rather fine. I keep trying to read Michael Connelly’s The Fifth Witness, but I can’t get past the first couple of chapters. I’m not sure if it’s my mood, or if the book simply isn’t his best. I’ve set it aside for the moment and I’ll come back to it at a later date.

Have you seen Star Wars? If so, should I watch the rest of the trilogy? Have you read any good books lately?

The annual ant invasion has commenced. The little fuckers are everywhere. I used to scream and spray whenever I saw one, but I’ve had to display some maturity of late in an effort to counter my son’s fear of insects. We’ve managed to persuade him to play with the ants and put them outside if he finds any. I have to bite my lip to keep from screaming every time he hands one to me. Eek! Do you get ants in summer? How do you deal with them? Any tips for persuading them to stay outside?

♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦

On the writing front, things are…going. I’m hard at work on my current WIP. It made the finals in two RWA chapter contests, which was a nice confidence boost. My previous manuscript, on the other hand, was rejected by Harlequin. Sob! The silver lining is that the editor gave me some fantastic feedback on what worked and what didn’t, and I hope I’ve incorporated this into the book I’m working on at the moment.

The one thing that gives me pause about my current WIP is that I deviated from my original plan. Someone dies. That was unexpected, but I’m rolling with it. I don’t believe in muses, divine inspiration, or any of that nonsense. The simple answer as to why I added a suspense element to my book is I got bored. If it doesn’t work out, I can always delete it and work in an alternative subplot. Either way, I intend to finish my first draft by the end of May. Yep, self-imposed deadline, here I come.

♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦

I’m delighted to report my reading pace is picking up again. I’m juggling two fiction reads at the moment, and one non-fiction. I’m re-reading George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones, and I just started an ARC of Brenda Novak’s upcoming romantic suspense, Inside. So far, I’m liking it a lot. Here’s the blurb:

Virgil Skinner served fourteen years for a murder he didn’t commit. He’s finally been exonerated, but he can’t escape the gang he joined in order to survive. They’ll do anything to keep him from telling what he knows. And if they can’t get to Virgil they’ll go after his sister and her kids.

The California Department of Corrections needs someone to infiltrate another gang, one that’s taking control of the state’s most notorious supermax. Virgil’s the perfect candidate — and he’ll do it in exchange for his sister’s protection.

Assistant deputy warden Peyton Adams is opposed to having Virgil in her prison. How will she protect him if things go bad? Besides, she’s attracted to him; she might even be falling in love with him. That makes her all the more desperate to keep him safe — and it gives him someone else to lose.

The non-fiction book I’m reading is Story Engineering by Larry Brooks. Apart from a long-winded introductory chapter, it’s pretty good. Some chapters are more relevant to me than others, but his sections on story structure and scene execution are excellent. I also recommend his blog for writers.

♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦

In addition to reading and writing, I’m on a Hitchcock kick at the moment. I saw North by Northwest for the first time this week and enjoyed it. I re-watched Suspicion last night. While it’s not my favourite of his films, both Joan Fontaine and Cary Grant give great performances.

Have you read anything good lately? What’s your favourite Hitchcock film?

One of my goals for 2011 was to blog at least twice a week. Yeah…Perhaps I should have waited until next month to make that resolution. Real life is busy at the moment, and leaves me with neither the time nor the energy to come up with interesting material for the blog. The following post is one I’ve been trying to finish for over a week. I have no idea why it’s not coming together. However, I’m getting fed up with the number of half-written posts in my drafts folder, so here it is in all its incoherent glory.

My favourite fictional characters are complex and complicated. They’re the sort of people I might not necessarily want to be friends with in real life, but they make for fascinating reading. In the case of a romance novel, they start out deeply flawed and evolve slowly over the course of the book. If their story arc is well told, I’m rooting for them to live Happily Ever After by the end, flaws and all. The problem with this sort of character is that while they might be interesting, they’re not instantly likeable, which makes them a tough sell to contest judges/editors/agents.

The modern trend is for hooky beginnings and insta-sympathetic heroes and heroines. Perusing various sample scoresheets for RWA chapter contests (i.e.: writing contests which usually call for the first 25 pages of a manuscript), it seems unlikely that my current WIP will stand much of a chance to score well. It begins with a hook – or at least I hope it does –  and both the hero and the heroine are introduced within the first few pages.

Where I break “The Rules” is in my depiction of the hero as a bad father. A couple of workshop instructors have already told me this sort of hero will never sell. Maybe that’s true, but I can’t envision him any other way. While he starts off being a distracted and emotionally detached parent, he does learn to connect with his son over the course of the book. In the initial chapters, however, there’s not much about him that’s typically heroic.

Am I alone in not needing to like a hero/heroine at the beginning of a book? When I pick up a book, what keeps me turning the pages is the promise of a story featuring complex individuals who don’t fit neatly into standard character archetypes. If they amuse me, or otherwise catch my interest, I don’t have to find them ultra sympathetic at the very start of their story. Hooky beginnings and clever first lines definitely catch my interest. However, some of my favourite romance writers’ style veers more towards slow, lyrical opening chapters (e.g.: Jo Goodman and Meredith Duran).

What do you look for in a hero/heroine in the initial chapters of a romance novel? What makes you want to keep reading about these people? Do you need to like them from the very start, or is finding them amusing/interesting sufficient?

…otherwise known as my weekly round-up post. I haven’t written one in months but I’d like to resurrect the tradition.

WHAT I READ:

I finished three novels this week, and started and set aside another (Kieran Kramer’s When Harry Met Molly – simply not my kind of historical romance). I’m also reading quite a bit of non-fiction at the moment, including a couple of writing reference books.

Blurb: Admiral Philip Guthrie is in an unprecedented position: on the wrong end of the law, leading a rag-tag band of rebels against the oppressive Imperial forces. Or would be, if he can reach his command ship—the intriguingly named Hope’s Folly—alive. Not much can rattle Philip’s legendary cool—but the woman who helps him foil an assassination attempt on Kirro Station will. She’s the daughter of his best friend and first commander—a man who died while under Philip’s command, and whose death is on Philip’s conscience.

Rya Bennton has been in love with Philip Guthrie since she was a girl. But can her childhood fantasies survive an encounter with the hardened man, and newly-minted rebel leader, who it seems has just become her new commanding officer? And will she still be willing follow him through the jaw of hell once she learns the truth about her father’s death?

My Thoughts: This is my favourite book in the Dock Five series. I’ve been looking forward to Philip’s story since he first appeared in Gabriel’s Ghost, and Hope’s Folly didn’t disappoint. I can’t say too much about the plot for fear of series spoilers, but suffice it to say the rebellion develops in an interesting fashion, as does Philip’s character. I liked Rya and thought she was a good fit for Philip. Yet again, Linnea Sinclair has written a strong heroine who is well able to take care of herself and who doesn’t resort to TSTL tactics in order to be rescued by the hero. B+

I went on a mini shopping spree when I discovered that Harlequin have reissued several of Janice Kay Johnson’s older Superromances as part of their digital backlist program. I bought three titles, including Whose Baby?

Blurb: Lynn Chanak is living the nightmare every mother fears. There was a mix-up at the hospital. Her baby isn’t hers. And the only way she can have the baby she gave birth to and keep the child she loves is to marry Adam Landry—a man she doesn’t even know.

Adam was devastated when his Jenny died. And his only consolation was their daughter. But as much as he loves Rose, he can’t stand to think that the child Jenny carried for nine months will grow up without him. If marrying a stranger is what it takes to have both his daughters, then that’s what he’ll do. Even though he still loves Jenny…For the sake of their daughters can they make this marriage work?

My Thoughts: Whose Baby? has an interesting premise and the author does a good job of showing the angst and conflicting emotions of both the parents and the grandparents. What didn’t work so well for me was the hero’s personality. Adam seems passive for much of the story and obsessed with his dead wife. His decision to move on with his life and to learn to love Lynn came rather abruptly and wasn’t wholly convincing. C+

Finally, I read Michele Albert’s All Night Long. It’s now out-of-print, but the author sells it as an ebook on her website for $1.50. She has five of her backlist titles available for $1.50 each, and Absolute Trouble is available for free download. I’ve read three of Michele Albert’s books so far, and enjoyed all of them.

Blurb: A forever kind of guy tangles with a rolling stone kind of woman… On a hot July night in 1832, a young infantry officer disappeared. Almost 170 years later, the search for what happened to him — and why — draws Annie Beckett and Rik Magnusson together in a passionate affair. She tells herself she can’t stay. He decides he won’t let her go. Annie and Rik are determined to overcome the painful obstacles of their pasts to find happiness, but history is about to repeat itself as timeless constants of human behavior — love and honor, friendship and rivalry — threaten their fragile bonds of love and trust.

My Thoughts: This is a wonderful, nuanced romance with memorable characters. Rik is a deliciously tortured hero, and Annie is a lost soul with a heart. The historical mystery subplot is well done and has a few interesting twists and turns before its resolution. B+

WHAT I WROTE:

I’m taking a few writing workshops this month. My goal for the first quarter of the year is to work on my craft, as well as finishing the first draft of my current WIP. I’m also working my way through the exercises in a couple of writing reference books, namely Alicia Rasley’s The Power of Point of View and Self-Editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Browne and Dave King.

WHAT I WATCHED:

The second season of Cracker (UK version starring Robbie Coltrane). I loved this series when it was first shown back in the 90s and I’m enjoying re-watching it on DVD.

I’m also on the first season of the English historical drama, Lark Rise to Candleford. It’s a gentle, feel-good programme with a few glaring historical inaccuracies which I’m choosing to ignore (e.g.: someone being sent to debtor’s prison in 1895).

Have you read/written/watched anything interesting this week?