Here it is. August 26th. The day this book comes out. Of all the books I’ve written, this one feels like it has taken ages to reach this point. I wrote it nearly two years ago, just after His Mistress by Morning came out. So to me, the process has been a whole lot of waiting to share this very fun story. At least I think it is fun. It was fun to write, if that means anything.

But today, I would like to talk about the Dedication in this book.

To my good friend, Anne Ricci.

Whose support over the last few years has been unfailing.

You dare to live your dreams and thus inspire me.
My heartfelt appreciation and thanks.

Anne and I met about eight years ago–our kids are sandwiched in ages from 9 to 4, hitting each respective year in between. They were all babies or as yet to be born back in those days. And like most stay-at-home-Mom-friends, we got acquainted at a baby gym class. And as luck would have it, discovered we lived about a block from each other. And we loved books, cooking, raising our kids, travel and found a wonderful friendship as our children played and squabbled and laughed around us.

A couple of years ago, my mom and I were planning a trip to London and my mom couldn’t go. So in stepped Anne, leaving family on nearly no notice and we had a great time running around London and Bath. Here is one of my favorite shots from the trip–Anne standing before the ancient roman baths. She has this vastly curious intellect and was the perfect travel partner for a writer interested in poking around a lot of old corners and into some strange places. I truly owe her several hours at the British Museum which we cut short to see Sir John Soanes House.

In Anne, I also found a fellow tea lover. Not just the pot you are drinking, but going to tea. The elegant sit down, eaten in courses, savory to sweets sort of affair. We’ve gone to teas here in Seattle and hunted down a tea in London, just because, well we were in London!

Anne is also loves to read, and does a huge favor for me each book–she reads my copy edits over for me as a sort of a double check for errors. Yes, folks. She gets to read all my books before they ever come out. Funny story with that as well–when the kids were little and before they could read, she’d use the blank back of the pages for their coloring paper. That is until her daughter colored pictures on the backs of several pages from one of my books, took them to preschool and proceeded to gift all her friends. And you want to guess what scene was on the other side of those sweet, innocent drawings? Ya, you guessed it. A not so innocent one. Sort of caused a bit of a stir at preschool, and the phone calls were interesting.

But I want to get to the reason of my dedication. Anne and her husband always talked about opening a restaurant. Cook the sort of food they loved and treat other people to great meals. And three years ago, when a space in our town of Burien came open, they took a leap of faith and turned an old scrapbook shop into the coolest place on earth. 909. Pronounced just like it reads, Nine-O-Nine. Which makes it easy to find, because it is also the address. 909 152nd SW, Burien, WA.

Frank and Anne worked tremendously hard to make this place a reality. They stretched themselves beyond their dreams and I say to anyone who has a dream like this–follow their example and go for it. They have a place to be proud of and an accomplishment that just boggles my mind.

Now if you are in the Seattle area, 909 is about 10 minutes from the airport, in Olde Town Burien and has some great shops around it. Order the Beef and Blue Salad which is one of my favorites, and anything they do with a pork tenderloin is going to be exceptional. My kids love 909 because Anne knows how to make cookies and treats for kids and those who wish they could still eat like kids, and always want to go after school for a cookie, or as Anne calls them, “Scooby Snacks.” My advice: skip the cookies and go straight for the Chocolate Terrine. It should be called Chocolate Heaven. It should be for breakfast.  It should be calorie free.  A girl can dream, can’t she?

But most of all, thank you, Anne for the friendship, the help and always being there to listen and offer advice. For standing by your friends always and showing all of us (because believe me, she has legions of friends) what determination, dreams and hard work can accomplish.

Crystal A, who posted a comment on August 11th.  And thank you very much to the 172 of you who posted comments and kept my blog hopping for the past month.  I’ve enjoyed all the chatter, kind remarks and made some great new friends.  Thanks to one and all.

Elizabeth

I’m blogging all over these next few days. I suppose I’m the girl who can’t say no when someone asks me to blog. So stop by:

• Tote Bags ‘n’ Blogs for my take on When a Cover Works
• Romantic Inks for the next three days blogging on Writing Contests (Today), Developing Characters (Monday), and a Meet and Greet on Tuesday.

And don’t forget to get your last minute comments in here. I’ll be picking a winner tomorrow at noon, PDT.

I am no fan of spoilers. If I am looking forward to something (a book, a TV show, a movie) I make it a studious practice of avoiding anything that might hint at the plot, the twists or even if there is a surprise. I’ll read a review for about two lines to get the sense of whether the reviewer liked it or didn’t and then stop, for fear the reviewer has forgotten his job and gone and spoiled the premise for his readers.

Because, ladies and gentleman, IMHO the job of a reviewer is NOT to give away the plot. They can give a broad overview of the story, but when they lay out each and every surprise, twist or character Ta-Da the author, playwright or screenwriter has carefully and meticulously labored over to layer into the story just so, then they might as well have just slammed the oven door on the souffle. I say this for two reasons:

1) I’ve been getting in the early reviews for Tempted by the Night. They usually come to me via the reviewer, my agent, my publisher and appear in my inbox. And when I see that someone has reviewed my book, especially this one, I am at first thankful for the time they’ve spent to give my book a review, but there is also that momentary cringe. Dear God, don’t let them give away the farm, I mutter as I click the mail open. Most of the reviews have been good at realizing that the reader is going to have more fun with this story if they don’t know every detail of the plot. They understand that the reading experience is about being surprised about who the characters are after you’ve peeled through the requisite chapters like layers of a onion. There is, I’ve discovered, a subtle hand that has to go into reviewing that sadly not every reviewer out there possesses. I marvel at the ones who get it right–they really do have a difficult task, a balancing act that they must do in a very short amount of space. So if you hate spoilers like I do, don’t go looking for them. You’ll regret it.

2) The second reason I am ranting about spoilers today was the complete and utter lack of spoilers about the movie Hancock. Maybe I just never got around to delving too deep into reading about Will Smith’s new movie before I went to see it. The review in the paper was mixed, but one would have never guessed the secrets the reviewer had held back. And thank you very much to that critic because it made the movie that much better. Even with the mixed review, I wanted to see Hancock because I do like superhero stories, and Will Smith always cracks me up. The man is just too funny. We went to see it last week, on a Wednesday night when the theater was nearly empty and I could literally laugh my ass off without ticking off an entire theater full of people. When I laugh, I laugh loud and by the end of the first scene I was already embarrassing myself. And then the movie shifted, surprised me and I found myself crying. What I thought would be a good, funny, mindless summer popcorn flick became something more. I can’t say anything else for fear I’ll say too much. It is the sort of movie that if you know the premise, you won’t love it as much as you will if you can discover its secrets one scene at a time.

This came home to me Tuesday night when I took my son to see The Clone Wars.  (BTW, I will spoil this one and say–save your money.  For something more fun.  Like a root canal.) We were in line for tickets and the couple behind us were discussing whether or not to go see Hancock.  She’d seen it and I asked her if she’d liked it.  She looked a little panicked and said, “Yes, but I want him to be surprised.”  So did I.

So if you haven’t done so, do go see it. I thoroughly enjoyed it because no one had spoiled the fun.

So last week I talked about how great you all are, and this week I’ll share what authors are usually up to before a book comes out. Really, if you think we are all successful, well-adjusted and basically lofty individuals and you want to hold onto that delusion, please read no further. It only gets ugly from here.

Now most authors I know spend the two weeks before their book comes out fussing. Not just fussing, but pacing around. Waiting. You see we’ve spent months, years even waiting for this book to come out, for this story to get told and the closer the date gets the more anxious we get. All the excitement over the new contract, the thrill of starting a new book, the sense of accomplishment that comes with finishing and mailing it in all sort of take a vacation. Or basically end up in that dead letter bin that I am sure we all have in the back of our heads. No, you’d think we’d be filled with excitement, filled with pride to see our work on the bookshelf. I hate to tell the truth, but mostly we just act up. Or throw up.

Because through all that time, doubts have crept into our confidence, and when the good intentions go on vacation, oh those doubts just have a field day. And of course, instead of telling ourselves that this book is great, special, or even reminding yourself of how much you loved it, even saying, “Heck Elizabeth, you cried when you were writing it,” we instead just resort to feeding those doubts. By surfing.

Now I have a stock rule that I don’t Google myself, I don’t read online reviews and I don’t go looking for trouble. But all bets are off just before a book comes out, because I just can’t help myself. I was over on the Rhapsody site the other day on the pretense of seeing if they had Tempted by the Night up yet (Well, of course they did. And I knew they did. But did that stop me? No.) Because they also have reviews of my other books up there. Before I got into the back handed compliment world of “I don’t really like this author, but this book was good” online chatter, I called my friend Laura Lee Guhrke. The conversation went something like this:

EB: My book is coming out.

LLG: Are you online? (Laura is like that, right to the point and more importantly, on point.)

EB: No . . . Of course not . . . Well, maybe . . . Just Rhapsody.

LLG: Elizbo, step away from the keyboard, take your hands off the mouse.

EB: Just one click. I just want to see one thing wrong with my books and then I’ll be better.

LLG: Don’t make me come to Seattle and slap you upside the head.

And she would. That’s why every writer needs a friend from Idaho. Those Boise girls are tough. The best sort of wing-man a writer can have. But then again, in about 30 days, my sensible, level-headed friend will be out on that ledge of insecurity, fussing over the cover, the title, the font of her next book, Secret Desires of a Gentleman. Yes, we even fuss over the fonts. Well, maybe Laura doesn’t, but I do.

Of course to spread the wealth of doubts and insecurity, I spend the two weeks before my book drops driving my website team crazing asking them to fix every little nitpick I can find or imagine on my website. Because I’ve been surfing and looking at everyone else’s sites. Luckily Wax doesn’t mind that I believe in spreading the love . . . or the angst around.

So please, it isn’t sucking up to tell me how much you want the book to come out, I adore hearing it. But I’ll get back to you after the 26th. In the meantime I’m feeling the urge to visit Google.

How do you act up before something important happens in your life? Who’s your Idaho buddy that talks you off the ledge? And they don’t even have to be from Idaho . . .

Remember to keep commenting. Every comment before August 25th is an entry into my Contest.

P.S.  Sometimes Google does turn up something good–like this review of Tempted by the Night done by Andrea Williamson for Romance Novel TV.  Drop by and leave a comment there–just because it’s good karma.

Is come out of the woodwork and comment like crazy. Wow! Was I overwhelmed at how many of you took the time to enter my contest. Keep those comments coming because they all count. What also overwhelmed me was that so many of you have said that you can’t wait for Tempted by the Night to come out, and believe me I really, really appreciate hearing that. You don’t know how much such bubbly praise makes an author’s day.

Nor should I tell you that I have a copy of the book sitting on my desk–I usually get a few early copies–because I really don’t want to start a housebreaking riot here in my neighborhood. So rather than incite a mob to resort to larceny, I thought I’d share an email I got from Rachel this week. We were chatting about knitting and crocheting and our respective grandmothers and she said (without any prompting from me),

I’m sure I’ll enjoy Tempted!! It’s going to be my way to unwind after a frenzied baking spree, since my husband’s birthday is the 24th, and my other grandmother’s and brother-in-law’s birthday is the 26th. My family recently designated me the Official Birthday Baker, so I’ve promised the DH and Grandma Boston Cream Pies (at their requests), and I need to figure out what will ship well from northern Pennsylvania to the D.C.-area of Maryland for the b-i-l. So my plan is either to grab Tempted the morning of the 26th and take breaks whilst things are in the oven, or stop by the bookstore in the evening and enjoy it with a bath and a cup of tea after the celebrations are over and the kids are asleep. We’ll see how the day goes. But it’ll almost be like an un-birthday present for me, amidst everyone else’s birthdays, lol.

Now I’m no expert on baking Boston Cream Pies, let alone shipping them, but what really got to me was that Rachel, bless her heart, amidst all that mayhem was planning on how she was going to get her copy of Tempted by the Night and wedge in the time to read it. I’m lighting a candle to the patron saint of bakers (Saint Honorius) and postal workers (Gabriel the Archangel) that Rachel’s pies turn out fabulous and ship perfectly.

Keira also mentioned that the 26th was her birthday in my last posting, so we all know she’s celebrating the date as well. And Keira, if you want to think that HarperCollins chose the date just to commemorate your natal anniversary, I won’t argue the point. We should all be free to celebrate any way we choose. Bubble baths, cake (preferably chocolate), bubbly drinks, or just a few quiet moments after the kiddos are down for the night.

So to get the comment party started, tell me how do you celebrate when you get a book you’ve been waiting for? How do carve out that time?

Preview: Today I covered what Readers Do, and On Monday I’ll go into the angst ridden world of writers and tell you, What Authors Shouldn’t Do

(Please note that this contest ended on August 25th.  But please visit my contest page to win other fun prizes!)

When you go to the RWA conference there is a ton of free stuff to pick up. Everywhere. Books, bookmarks, pens, pencils, publisher’s tchotchkes, and more books. This year I exercised due restraint, mostly because I knew the DH would be around when I was packing up and I’d have to hear the complaints of “why are you bringing that stuff home?” Okay, he’d probably call it all junk, but he’s a man and just doesn’t get it.

But quite honestly, I just don’t have the room for more books and goodies, so my over-stuffed, downsized office makes for a good blog contest. So here it is, the Conference Goodie Giveaway, with these very simple rules:

1) Who’s going to win? Some lucky, random commenter on my blog between August 1st and before noon PDT on August 25th. All you have to do is leave a comment. Comment every day if you like (well, at least try to say something relevant, but if you want to start an entire discussion, that’s cool too!). Want an extra entry? Reference my blog in your blog or on your favorite message board and track back to this blog entry and you get a double entry. Basically, tell all your friends.

2) So what’s in the box? Well, a bunch of books that I got at conference, (including an autographed copy of Love Letters from a Duke) some bookmarks I snuck into the suitcase, bookmarks for Tempted by the Night, some Elizabeth Boyle pens, Avon Fortune Cookies, a lipstick USB drive, and since there was a little space in the box, I tossed in

a hand knit clutch that I made a few months back and thought I would take to conference. I forgot to take it, so I thought someone else might like it, and they might like a little purse for all the conference essentials (pens, room key, coffee money.)

So there it is. Easy, cheesy. Comment, be the lucky number and win. And if you don’t win, don’t worry. On August 26th there is a great consolation prize. Tempted by the Night comes out at a bookstore near you. You can weep all over your copy.

I’ve found myself having a hard time coming down from the conference this week. I just didn’t want the fun and energy to stop. To prolong the love, I’ve been reading everyone else’s posts about the SF RWA conference and thought I’d share them, along with extending my own posts about the conference:

My First Time – Oh, get your mind out the gutter, it wasn’t that first time. But it seemed to be a lot of folks first time at conference, including Abi at Waxcreative, Ciara Stewart (who, BTW, for someone who went for the first time and claims to be shy, well, folks that girl rocked the conference with her networking and smarts) as well as Rachael, who I found through RavelryPreview » and her very cool sweater and I swear I met her at conference, or maybe it was at the yarn shop. I remember my first conference (Chicago in the early 90s) and wish I’d had half these women’s savvy and coolness. I was such a nerd back then.

Also in this category is author Joanne Bourne, (The Spymaster’s Lady, My Lord and Spymaster) who was having her very first booksigning at the Literacy signing. She confided in me before the mayhem started that she was nervous that no one would come by to see her. I just laughed because we’ve all heard the buzz about her wonderful books, and people, I’ve done this for a, ahem, few years, and I knew she’d be just fine. Notice the line of people that NEVER went away the entire signing. Watch this lady–her books are great and readers know it.

But beside the blogs out there, I’ve been cleaning up the suitcase, which always comes home a jumbled mess, and sifting through photos and emails and notes from folks and smiling as everyone shares their thanks and hellos and well, the love that comes with being with so many smart, wonderful ladies.

My New Glasses – I’ve gone for years wearing contacts and hating them. They are a pain in the patootie, IMHO. So last year, I ditched them in favor of glasses and finally got around to getting new glasses. I have to say that a lot of people didn’t recognize me. It was sort of hilarious to walk past someone you’ve known for years and say “Hi!” and have them do the double take as if to say “Who the heck was that?!” Also hindering my incognito status was the short do, instead of the big mane of unruly hair. So thanks to Christina Arbini for snapping this photo at the signing.

Hand Knits – You might also notice the sweater I am wearing which I knit in 5 days before conference. It was fun to wear, but more fun was that whenever I was wearing the handknits (this one and a black one I managed as well to get done before conference) I ended up meeting tons and tons of fellow romance writers/knitters. Sort of like big wooly flair, if you know what I mean. I discovered my agent knits as well. Always knew she was good people.

Friends – What is the point of all this if coming to conference isn’t about seeing the friends? I had to laugh when I ran into Melissa McClone in line for the Avon signing. I grabbed her up and made her cut the line, telling her if anyone asks, “You’re my assistant.” She laughed, was a good sport and then promptly ditched me for Susan Elizabeth Phillips. I was feeling the love and didn’t blame her in the least. (Check out Melissa’s conference diary reports–she had as much or more fun than I did!)

I had lunch with Laura Lee Guhrke, caught up with Nicole Burnham, yakked with Abi Bowling from Waxcreative, and then totally muffed my category when I presented the RITA for Best Paranormal. Jinxed myself by earlier in the day saying with all my usual humility, “Oh, presenting is so easy.” Until you have to say Kara Cesera. Three times. And screw it up each time. Sigh. At least I didn’t trip.

But the best part was sitting next to Julia Quinn as she won the RITA for the second year in the row. I will humbly say I am her good luck charm. And like last year, I got the picture of her new RITA riding home in style.

PS – I also came home with a bunch of books and goodies that I have no room for. My overstuffed closet is your gain because between now and August 25th, I’m having a blog contest and someone will win a box of conference goodies. Just leave a comment. More on the loot and contest on Monday.

It is so hard to come back from conference and distill it down into one blog. Okay, sort of impossible. Because I have to admit, I’ve never had so much fun at conference as I did this past week. (Well, with the possible exception of the first NYC conference–remember Diane?) From the Yarn Crawl with Debbie Macomber and company, to the tea with John Charles, to the meetings with Waxcreative–my wonderful web team, to the workshops I gave, to having my DH come down Friday night and spend time with him, to presenting one of the RITAs. It was a blur of excitement and fun.

One of the cool parts of the conference was being right smack in the middle of downtown San Francisco. The cable cars were just a few blocks away, the street cars were right there, and the BART was the best way to get back and forth from the airport–other than having to sort of toss my suitcase over the turnstile, in a very ladylike, dignified manner, I assure you. There was shopping all around us, great places to eat on every corner. Like John’s, where I had dinner and a lunch with Laura Lee Guhrke. The glance of a beautiful rib eye on a plate was all it took to lure the two of us in. When it turned out to be the haunt of Dashiell Hammett’s Maltese Falcon, we knew we’d come home.

Then there was the staff of the Marriott. A huge shout out to Regina at the front desk for being the Queen of the Hotel–she rocked at straightening out my reservation and then when Friday came and I shuffled rooms, she found me a great, quiet, private room for the DH and I. The room was lovely and so is she! (Or as I said to my roommate of the week, Nicole Burnham, “I can’t pack quickly enough and get to my new room.” Even she agreed I’d gotten “the bomb” of a room from Regina. But really, everyone I encountered at the Marriott was kind and helpful and friendly. A great place for a conference.

More on Thursday. If you went, what did you love?  If you just love SF, what is your favorite memory of the city by the bay?

Cub Scout Camping weekend is met with great joy around our house. The boys go camping and get very dirty, and very wet river rafting and come home sunburned and covered in band aids. But the greatest joy is when they back out the driveway and leave me to watch whatever I want. Now I had a sweater I wanted to finish knitting for conference, so I stacked up a pile of rentals and Netflix and got to work.

Robin Hood. I settled in to watch the first DVD in this BBC television series sort of expecting something akin to Pride & Predjudice or Horatio Hornblower. What I got was more Bennie Hill meets Monty Python. I was rather disappointed, because the film sets and costumes and sparks of moments give me hope of something seriously historical and then it goes campy on you. So then it turns from wonderful to watch (aka Cranford) to just sort of that guilty pleasure you get out of watching a reality show.

The Nanny Diaries. Okay, this is a girl’s weekend, and I knew I’d never get the DH to watch. That was sort of the criteria for all the choices this weekend. This being squarely in the “I’d rather watch reruns of The First 48 that that,” I decided to watch it. Laura Linney was wonderful and the final scenes of her with her son were worth the watch, but all in all, it was rather forgettable.

Juno. I came to this movie rather reluctantly because all of the praise and gushing Oscar attention it got and I was clearly skeptical that a movie could be that good. Boy, was I wrong. I haven’t cried this hard in a movie in a long time, and I sobbed. I had to stop the movie and pull myself together before I could watch the end. I thought Jennifer Gardner was completely breathtaking as the wanne-be mother. She just broke my heart. And Juno? She was so wonderfully quirky, so completely in over her head, and just as lost as Vanessa, Gardner’s character. Don’t miss this movie.

27 Dresses. I watched this on the recommendation of my good buddy, Melissa McClone. It was fun and quirky and surprising and again, liked it more than I could help. Of course, I had Matthew home with me, and it is one of his autistic quirks that you cannot watch a movie without subtitles and never in English. So I came out a couple of times to find the movie running along in French with Spanish subtitles, and my little angel grinning up at me. So it took a few takes to get all the way through the movie, but what I did hear in English, I thought quite fun. Would recommend this one.

What’s the best movie you’ve seen lately? And please don’t say The Dark Knight, because I am in the camp that says, “I wish I hadn’t gone and seen that.” It was just too violent for me. Yes, Heath Ledger is mesmerizing even when he is just sitting still in an empty jail cell. He should get an Oscar nod for that performance because it is quite amazing, but the complete anarchy and insanity of the Joker made the film too difficult for me to watch. What did you think?