*EEP!* I just re-read the directions, and I thought this was supposed to go live at noon, not last midnight. Sorry!
Anyway. Fellow Entangled Publishing Author Marianne Harden has a cover to show off.
How awesome is that? Look at that cute little skull and crossbones on the fountain!
I can't wait to read this! Here's some more info--and a contest!
Malicious Mischief
Career
chameleon, Rylie Keyes, must keep her current job. If not, the tax assessor
will evict her ailing grandfather and auction off their ancestral home. When a
senior she shuttles for a Bellevue, Washington retirement home winds up dead in
her minibus, sticky with a half-eaten s'more, head clad in a cellophane bag,
and a pocketed complaint letter accusing her of driving by Braille, her goal to
keep her job hits a road bump.
The
deceased was thought to be a penniless Nazi concentration camp survivor with a
silly grudge against Rylie. However, the victim has enemies who will stop at
nothing to keep their part in the murder a secret.
Forced to
dust off the PI training she's kept hidden from her ex-detective grandfather,
Rylie must align with a circus-bike-wheeling Samoan to solve the murder, all
while juggling the attentions of two very hot police officers.
About Marianne Harden
Marianne Harden loves a good laugh. So much so, she cannot stop humor from spilling into her books. Over the years she has backpacked through the wilds of Australia, explored the exotics of Asia, soaked up the sun in the Caribbean, and delighted in the historic riches of Europe. Her goals in life are simple: do more good than harm and someday master the do-not-mess-with-me look. She divides her time between Switzerland and Washington State where she lives with her husband and two children.
Marianne
is giving away a $25 gift card to the book retailer of the winner’s choice:
Thanks, everyone, for the awesome name suggestions for the Novel Formerly Known as Safe Harbor. I'm still undecided, and working a few more things around--we decided I need a good series title and then we can settle on the individual book titles...feel free to toss more suggestions out there. When I make a decision, I'll let ya know.
And another thing. My friend and fellow Dangerous Diva Entangled NaNo Smackdown winner, Cathy Perkins, Entangled Release For Love or Money came out today. I bought it this morning, and I'm having trouble getting my family to leave me alone so I can read it...it's really good! And I say that in the "It's Really Good And I'm Not Just Saying This Because She's My Friend" sense of "good."
So you should go buy it. But while you're reading it, if you think up a name for my novel and/or the series, please let me know!
I need help! I realize that when I told people about my heart attack and you said, "If you need any help, just ask," you probably weren't thinking that I would ask you to come up with a title for a book, but...hey. I have a heart attack card. I'm playing it.
Okay, so here's the deal. I wrote this book. It's set at a marina, and there's some romance, some scary bad guys, and, well, here's a very brief synopsis:
Olivia Walker got more than she
bargained for when she inherited the run-down Salty Bone Marina and its cast of
misfits, including one incredibly gorgeous Army veteran handyman--who just
might be seeing the ghost of his ex-best friend. When bad guys, Olivia's bipolar mother, and some
overzealous party planners show up, things go from OMG to worse!
I need to give this book a name.
There are a couple more stories in the works, all set at the Salty Bone Marina, in Napier's Bend, Kentucky, so I'd love to find a group of names that go together. But really--I'll be thrilled to have one name.
Something river-y, stream, harbor, dock, shore... would be great. But with sexy and thrillery/mystery-y, included...I love titles that are a spin on song titles or movie names...I just keep drawing a blank when I try to come up with something for this book.
HELP!
What, you need a reason other than the heart attack card to help me? How's about some incentive...a $10 gift card to Amazon to the person who saves my desperate butt!!! I have to choose a name by Monday, or my agent will send me back to the slush pile (she won't really do that. I don't think). But I want to pick a name so she can maybe sell this puppy and make us both rich and famous.
Post your ideas in the comments, or email me (teriannestanley at gmail dot com), okay?
So, I guess I haven't been getting enough attention lately, what with all the signing of contracts and going to the Romantic Times convention and all. So this past Sunday, I decided to have a little heart attack.
Let me back up.
I came home from RT with bronchitis. I think everyone did. I got my Z-pack, a steroid shot, stayed home a few days from work, and started to feel better.
I'm a generally healthy person. I'm a good fifty pounds overweight, and I don't get enough exercise because I have arthritis in my feet, but otherwise, I'm healthy. I suppose there is maybe a little stress in there, but... I've got a full-time job, three kids of my own plus a couple of extras living in my basement, two dogs, a travelling husband, a budding writing career...but nothing CRAZY. I'm not diabetic, I don't have a family history of heart disease, I don't smoke, blah blah blah. Okay, there's a minor caffeine habit, but hey! I'm a writer. It's kind of a job requirement. But I don't even DRINK ALCOHOL, fer chrissakes!
So this past Sunday--yes, that would be Mother's Day--I spent a few hours at my brother's house on the other side of town. Very fun, I like my family, no drama. I left Mr. Stanley at home to talk to India about his issues with Windows 8.
On the way home, I felt this weird...lump of ick in my chest. Kind of a tightness. Kind of...like how they describe heart attack symptoms. And my left arm hurt. So I thought, "Gee, these are classic heart attack symptoms, but I'm a woman, so it must be indigestion. I could stop here at this hospital...or this next one...or the one after that, but I'd probably better get my kids home, because since it's just indigestion, I would be getting them all stirred up over nothing."
So I came home and told Mr. Stanley about it, and maybe we should go confirm that this is, indeed, indigestion (I ate a LOT of that bagel dip at my brother's house).
So we went to the Emergency Room, and after a grueling fifteen second wait, was ushered into the triage room, where I sat for an interminable thirty seconds describing my symptoms and rolling my eyes at myself for over-reacting.
And then, suddenly, I was in a room, being bled and injected and fed nitroglycerin and covered with stickers that held electrodes, and tweeting #tweetsfromtheER, because, you know, it was kind of funny. Until Dougie Howser's little brother came in and told me I was having a heart attack, and they were just waiting for a bed in the ICU.
WAH!? HUH???? I'm only 49 years old!
I think there was some morphine added to the situation at this point, because it gets a little fuzzy for a while. The brick of undigested bagel dip got a little bigger and started trying to strangle me a little more, so there was some more nitroglycerin and some more morphine (I really liked the morphine part. Totally made the whole experience worthwhile).
So, Blah, blah, blah, Doctor visits, IV's, blood draws, Angiogram, Echocardiogram, blah blah blah, here are a bunch of prescriptions, good luck keeping all of this straight, and by the way, you have to stop taking your arthritis medicine.
Forty Eight hours in the ICU, and I'm home. No blockages, just some narrowing of one artery, some meds, and significantly less caffeine.
So I have a new crusade. Watch that video above, but don't forget the "usual" signs. And don't worry about over-reacting. I got a lot of pats on the back for coming in right away and not ignoring the bagel dip feeling.
Do you think I'll get kicked out of RWA if I can't drink real coffee anymore?
I'm back from the Romantic Times convention in Kansas City, and taking a much needed recovery day. I had an absolute blast--a lot of YAY! with a few moments of Oh, No!
1) Riding to KC in my new car
Me and Jess
YAY: The car goes really fast, and we didn't get any tickets. Jessica Lemmon and I yammered the whole way.
Oh, No!: That is one seriously long-ass ride. I mean LOOOOONG. And coming home was even longer.
2) There were cover models
YAY: There were cover models.
Oh, No!: They can run really fast, and are hard to catch.
3)Stalking Andrew Shaffer and Tiffany Reisz
YAY: Andrew wasn't really hard to find. He tweeted the whole conference, and didn't seem to miss much. We finally cornered him at the book signing. If you look above, he even participated in the cover model procession across the stage.
Oh, No!: Tiffany Reisz wasn't as easy to find. And when I did finally connect with her, she was hiding under the book table, trying to...Well, just look carefully at the picture below.
4) The hotel was haunted.
YAY: okay, there's nothing yay about a haunted hotel, except it was fun to speculate about.
Oh, No!: The hotel room drawers wouldn't stay closed, and the elevator was a little weird about following directions.
My roommates, Maisey Yates and Jessica Lemmon, in the haunted elevator
5) The interesting party favors from Ellora's cave
YAY!: um, they're interesting
Oh, No!: It's just a lava lamp, and it doesn't vibrate.
6) Meeting my internet writer friends:
YAY! Linda Grimes!
YAY! Christine Bell!
Oh, NO!: I didn't get pictures of everyone. I also got to have lunch with Suzanne Johnson, and I ran into ...Oh, hell. I'm not even going to try to list everyone I saw.
7) I met Jude Deveraux
YAY!: She was really nice, which is good, because she was my very first favorite romance author.
YAY!: I love, love, love these women. So smart and funny and wonky.
Oh, No!: I probably over-shared while we were talking about...stuff, thus ensuring my place in their "people to avoid next year" lists. I took out my verbal filters before RT and the replacements are on back-order.
9) There was a secret BDSM starter kit included with the swag we collected. We had to kind of hunt through things, but with a bit of creativity and not much sleep, three romance writers can be very, very inventive.
YAY!: I have never laughed so much. We did a very clever little twitter photo essay.
Oh, No!: We might be the funniest people we know. When we tried to show people later, those who hadn't seen it on twitter, it wasn't quite as funny.
Maisey paddles Jessica with something that other people might use as a fan.
There is a lot of other cool stuff that happened that I didn't get pictures of, so the Yay is the fun stuff, the Oh No! is the lack of pictures.
We went to a party hosted by Megan Mulry and Sasha Hananananannananarananan. I may have engaged in a bit of hyperbole with Sasha's last name. You might also recognize her as @caribbeanaccent. That was fun, and Sasha brought a lot of...interesting...treats from Trinidad. The pickled cherries are still confusing me.
I met a lot of my Entangled Publishing co-workers. I'm not going to try to list everyone, but I'm just going to say that I am so thrilled to be working with these folks. Liz Pelletier is amazing, and the people she has involved are awesome.
I sat in the lobby at the same time as E.L. James. Okay, whatever. Jessica and Maisey got their pictures taken with her.
I got to hang out with my peeps from the Seymour Agency. Our author spotlight gala thing went really well, and meeting my agent, Nicole, in person, was wonderful. She totally rocks, and I am totally motivated to start earning us some money!
I'll probably share a little more about the trip as I recover from the cold that Jessica and I picked up for the ride home. Between the two of us, we went through most of a box of Puffs Plus between KC and Ohio. Grrrr.
