So I’ve been wearing the exact same eye make-up since 2003.  That’s not too bad I could have said 1987 and you’d have groaned and had this mental picture of another Kathy.   But no, I do this tasteful kind of natural looking thing that involves different shades of brown.  And it’s fine.  I doubt anyone would notice that I haven’t changed my eye make-up routine in ten years, but I was getting bored with it.

One day while I was procrastinating, I mean researching I came across a new to me website called The Small Things blog.  I then spent the rest of the afternoon watching hair tutorials (my characters might need to know how to do these styles) and then trying them out on my crazy curly hair a bit unsuccessfully.  But then I saw she had make-up tutorials and found a link to something called a Birch Box.

Its fabulous!  I mean it.  Each month you get small trail sized make-up products.  I love it.  This way I can try out new looks at home and not have to pay a fortune for stuff that I might not ever use again.  I mean I love gel eyeliner but I do not think I would have had the nerve to try it if it hadn’t come in my box.

Now when I leave the house I look like this:

Not really.  :) But in my mind I do.

Have you ever tried anything totally new?  And you should totally try the Birch Box if you like make-up.  Its only $10 or £10 a month.  They have it in the US and the UK.  And last month I got to try some lotion used by Posh Spice a.k.a. Victoria Beckham which I love and have now purchased.

Kathy

from Mia Marlowe...

Today, I’m turning the Jaunty Quills over to romance reader and blogger extraordinaire, Kim Lowe. I first met Kim online when she hosted me on one of my many blog tours. Then when I visited Hawaii with my family last year, our online friendship blossomed in real life! Kim met us the day before we boarded our cruise ship and took us on a wonderful, behind-the-scenes tour of Pearl Harbor and Hickham AFB. Then after our cruise, she met us at the dock with a rental van and drove us into the fragrant hills overlooking Honolulu for a tour of Queen Emma’s Summer Home. Kim was so knowledgeable and such fun, she was the highlight of our vacation!

And true to her giving spirit, Kim is here today to share a great read with us all. Ok, Kim. The Jaunty blog is now yours.

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Mahalo, Mia, for hosting me today at the Sisterhood of the Jaunty Quills.   I love the name of this blog – the sisterhood.  Blogs like Jaunty Quills offer me entrée into a cyber sisterhood of romance readers.  Perhaps this is why I enjoy continuing series – I grow comfortable with the extended cast of characters.   Yet all good things come to an end, including series.

Today I chat about the bittersweet anticipation of Cathy Maxwell’s THE DEVIL’S HEART, the finale of the Chattan Curse.    The series began with a 17^th century curse,

When a Chattan male falls in love, strike his heart with fire from above…

Charles Chattan abandoned his Scottish sweetheart, Rose MacNachtan, for an English heiress, prompting Rose’s mother to cast a devastating curse on the Chattan family.   Fast forward to the 19^th Century where the Chattan family is socially connected in Regency England.  Yet Neal Chattan, Lord Lyon, desires a family in Book 1, LYON’S BRIDE.   He hires society matchmaker, Thea Martin, to find him a bride he cannot love … only to fall in love with Thea.

Neal’s willing to risk his life for love prompts his brother, Harry, to wake up from his drunken stupor to find a witch to reverse the curse in Book 2, THE SCOTTISH WITCH.  He encounters a desperate Portia Maclean posing as a witch, only to fall under her spell.

With both brothers in peril, their sister Margaret, a London lady, ventures into the heart of the Highlands in Book 3, THE DEVIL’S HEART.   She confronts the witch’s descendent, Heath Macnachtan, a sensible laird who cannot understand Margaret’s fear of the curse – a fear that his clansmen also share.   Despite that fear, Margaret is welcomed into the sisterhood of his household, where she sees love abound despite their financial difficulties.   Margaret draws from her brothers’ courage and Heath’s compassion to track down the long dead witch.

As much as I wanted Margaret to find a resolution, that meant the story (and series) would be over.   As hard at it was for Margaret to let go of her brothers so they could find love, it is hard for me as a reader to let go of this series set in Scotland.  In the end, Margaret proved that she, too, deserves her own HEA along with Neal and Harry.  But how did she secure the HEA for all three siblings?  Let me just say that Cathy Maxwell surprised me and satisfied me with the climax.   THE DEVIL’S HEART should be labeled, “Read with a box of tissue”, as Margaret also learns that love is worth the risk.

I would like to offer a print copy of THE DEVIL’S HEART to one commenter here at the Sisterhood of the Jaunty Quills.  Three seems to be the magic number in a series – how many books do you think is “just right” for a series?

About Kim: Kim Lowe is a military spouse and romance enthusiast.  After four years in Hawaii, she is moving back to Baltimore this summer, ready for in person sisterhood with other romance readers.   Check out her travel blog, ALOHA ON MY MIND, at alohaonmymind.blogspot.com.

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Mia here again. Thanks, Kim! The Devil’s Heart sounds great.

Ok, now it’s your turn. What’s the right number of books for a series? (I’d also be interested to know your favorite series!)

Thank you to ll the readers who commented. The online random number generator picked Aislynn. Congrats, Aislynn!

Thanks so much for the fabulous input, everyone! We’ve read your comments and will put your suggestions to good use. I put the names of all who posted into a box and drew five names.

Here are the winners of an advance copy of CELEBRATION’S BRIDE:

Rhonda

Sue P

Mary Anne Landers

Kathleen OD

Connie Fischer

Please email me through my website NancyRobardsThompson.com and let me know where to send your book.

When you start writing you get all sorts of advice…one of the most common is “write what you know.”

Okay, so that means I should write about life in Nebraska?   Or perhaps my day job for many years in…insurance?  Wow, I’d really like to read those books. lol

I believe the advice should be: “Know What You Write.”

In the book I’m currently writing, “A Sweetheart for Jude Fortune,” (out next February) here are some of the things I’ve had to brush up my knowledge on:

1. This book has a Latina heroine so I had to find common endearments her father would use when speaking with her.

2. She’s had a heart transplant so I’ve had to look up causes (and decide on a cause) of why she needed the transplant, then figure out how many meds she’s still be on etc.

3. I have the hero teaching the heroine to Texas Two-Step while she teaches him to Salsa.  So, I had to brush up my knowledge on those dances.

4. The book takes place not far from Lubbock Tx in February…so I had to become familiar with the average temperatures in the region for that time of year.

5. The heroine’s father is in a plane crash.  I had to decide why the plane crashed and since the crash is being investigated for possible sabotage, I have to know what agency investigates that kind of thing and how long it takes to get a determination.

The list goes on and on.  Most of the time the research is only shown in the book by a sentence or two.  I, like most readers, don’t like an “information dump” which is the author putting a bunch of unnecessary stuff in a book just to show she’s done her research.

But there’s nothing more I like than to read a book and not only enjoy the story, but learn something new.

How about you?  Have you learned anything new in a book?  I’d love to hear what it was….

C’mon, spill and let’s all learn something new today!!!

The wonderfully talented Deeanne Gist joins us today to talk about the making of her latest cover for It Happened at the Fair.

I got a call from my editor. “Do you remember back in the 90s when Christina Dodd’s cover had a heroine with three arms?”

“Very much.”

“Well, look at It Happened at the Fair. Do you see anything unusual?”

I quickly grabbed the book. The cover model had the right number of appendages. Then, I looked closer …

“Get out!” I half-choked. Then I giggled. Then I laughed out loud. “This is awesome!”

My editor gave a sigh of relief followed by light laughter. “I thought it was pretty funny, too.”

Can you see our little surprise—“little” being the operative word?

Yep. A bug. The heroine has a bug on her shoulder. That is not supposed to be there. I’ve already received fan mail about it.

A gal from Australia sent: “Why is there a bug on Della’s shoulder on the cover of the book? Once I knew about Cullen’s allergies, I spent the rest of the book dreading him being stung by a bee and going into full anaphylaxis or something!” LOL.

Am I upset? Quite the contrary. I’m delighted. I think it adds a wonderful bit of flavor to the cover. My only regret is that the publisher has already Photoshopped it out of all electronic images on the web and has corrected the color plates so that any subsequent printings will be bug-free. (So if you want the collectible edition, you’d better get it before they run out!)

I interviewed Jeff Miller, the graphic designer, and after learning how many steps are involved in making a cover, it’s easy to see how a little bug there or an extra arm here could be overlooked. Here’s the shortened version of his process:

Step One: Jeff offers three design directions for It Happened at the Fair.

I think it’s so interesting how each design reflects different moods, perspectives and character emphasis. My publisher chose the first option—the cover in which we see the heroine through the eyes of the man who will fall in love with her. This was also my favorite of the three. (Btw, no one—not me, not the photographer, not the designer, not the publisher, not my editor, no one—noticed our “friend” on Della’s shoulder, yet it was on there from the very beginning. LOL.)

Step Two: Since the cover model’s hair style was too contemporary and the color didn’t match the heroine’s, we needed to make some adjustments:

Step Three: The hair color on the right is now correct, but a woman in 1893 would never go out with her hair down. Quite scandalous! So she needs an updo.

Step Four: As you can see to the left, the updo looks great on the model, but once it’s tucked up under the hat, the texture becomes too coarse. It Happened at the Fair’s hero, Cullen McNamara, says, “Her light brown hair was silky and in a soft twist.” So … new hair, please.

Step Five: Much better.

Jeff is now ready to do the final tweaking. He meshed together several coloring and texture techniques to give the book an antiqued look which serves as an indicator to the reader that the story is an historical.

“The below image,” he says, “shows the final cover with all the pieces in the process that it took to construct one cohesive design that effectively and accurately depicted a window into the story.”

Pretty crazy, huh? You can see how there’s so much going on that it’s easy to miss some puny little ol’ thing like a cricket bug. But bug or no, that dress is yummy, the heroine’s curvy, her hair is perfect, and the backdrop is provocative. Everything you’d want in a cover.

So, have you ever thought much about how covers were made? What surprised you most about the process? Leave a comment here for your chance to win an autographed hardback, limited *bug* edition of It Happened at the Fair.

Contest ends midnight, Central Time, May 18, 2013. Must have continental USA mailing address to be eligible to win.

About the Author:

Speaking of great hair…Deeanne Gist—known to her family, friends, and fans as Dee—has rocketed up bestseller lists and captured readers everywhere with her very fun, very original historicals. She has received four RITA nominations, two consecutive Christy Awards, and rave reviews. Deeanne has a background in education and journalism and a degree from Texas A&M. She has written for People, Parents, and

Parenting. She lives in Houston, Texas, with her husband and has four grown children. She has a very active online community on her website IWantHerBook.com and at Facebook.com/DeesFriends. Read more about It Happened at the Fair here.

Deeanne is celebrating the release of It Happened at the Fair with an iPad Mini Giveaway and a Live Author Chat Webcast event on May 22! Details here.

Don’t forget to leave a comment on Jaunty Quills for your chance to win an autographed copy of It Happened at the Fair!

Actually, you have the power. The world of publishing has been all but turned upside down in the last year or so. The ease of indie publishing and the bestsellerdom of books that don’t fit the mold the editors in New York have set for romance and other genres means that we’re entering a new time in the publishing industry.

It’s easy to worry about what this might mean for authors and books and readers. I worry about it a lot, as I assure you, do all of the authors I know. But we’re also excited.

We’re excited because now we have options. If our books don’t perform as expected and our publisher drops us, we have options other than obscurity. Book promotions and sales are everywhere. Readers can download books in a matter of seconds. We’re also excited because even those of us still writing for traditional publishers, like most of us here at the Jaunty Quills, now have more freedom.

Editors and publishers are listening to you, readers. How do I know? Because you did what I couldn’t.

When I was discussing Lord and Lady Spy with my editor in preparation for going to contract, I told her I wanted to make it a series. She was against a series. She said the book was a stand-alone, and the contract I received was for one book.

But guess what happened? The book sold well, and readers asked for more. Readers asked for more of Adrian and Sophia, more of the world I created in the book, and more of the other characters. In this new day and age, editors and publishers are listening to you, readers. The proof is the novella I have coming out in August, featuring Blue, a secondary character in Lord and Lady Spy that I never thought of as a hero. But readers asked over and over for his book. Who am I to argue? So here’s Blue’s book: The Spy Wore Blue.

In September the second of what has become a three-book series will be out. True Spies revisits Adrian and Sophia and also introduces a new couple, Winn and Elinor.

Currently, I’m working on Love and Let Spy, slotted for release in August 2014.

These are books I was desperate to write. These are books you made it possible for me to write. So I’m excited about the new publishing landscape. What about you? Have you noted any changes? Do you think they’re good or bad? I just received ARCs for True Spies. I’ll randomly pick a reader who posts to receive one!

Thanks to everyone who left a comment on my most recent Jaunty post. My winner is (cue drumroll, please!) …Tanja Haack! She’ll win a copy of Stroke of Genius! Tanja, please contact me through my website so I can send your ebook to you! (For the rest of you, don’t despair. I have a little surprise coming next week. Be sure to check my blog on May 21st & 22nd for a free read!)

Yesterday Kathy posted about things that make her happy. Our Jaunty Quills community is very, very high on my happy list. I particularly love the way we all interact. Sometimes the blog is more like a chat room with back and forth banter and sharing.  It’s so much fun to talk to you, to hear your thoughts on our posts and the stories you share.

Recently, my sister Jaunties and I have been wondering what makes YOU happy?  What do you like to read about here on the blog? Do you like glimpses into our writing processes? How we come up with ideas; how those ideas eventually make it to the page? Kristan’s post about making out with her hand springs to mind.  (Haha! Waving at Kristan) Do you like glimpses into our personal lives and hobbies… a la Kathy’s ode to her son or the time Robyn gave you a tour of her crafting/scrapbooking room? Do you like us to post recipes or previews of coming releases? How about character interviews? Or guest bloggers? What would you think about us doing occasional JQ blog reader spotlights where we interview you? Maybe we could do a ‘Reader of the Month’ feature?

Today, it’s all about you, dear readers. What would YOU like to see here on the JQ blog? And the possibilities are not limited to what I stated above.  Those were simply suggestions to get you thinking.  So tell us…what would you like to read about?

I just received several advance copies of my new book CELEBRATION’S BRIDE, which will be released in July. I will give away copies to several of you who comment. Can’t wait to hear your thoughts!

I have a naturally sunny disposition so if I’m honest I’d have to admit a lot of things make me happy. But there a few things that really make everything seem okay in my world and they range from the silly.  My daughter is coming home in less than 10 days and that makes me almost ridiculously giddy.  So here are my top ten favorite things:

10. Godiva sitting on my lap

9. A large glass of wine (they have those in the UK!)

8. Working in my art journal

7. Riding with the top down on my convertible

6. Cooking an old family recipe and remembering all the times I’ve made it before

5. A new book that consumes me so that when I’m finished with the characters are still in my head (Silver Linings Playbook was the last one I read that did this)

4. Talking all night with friends or family and laughing so hard that we cry

3. Having a new idea for story and getting it down on paper

2. Talking on the phone with my mom and dad (its even better when I can see them!)

1.Spending time with my honey and kiddos

What’s makes you happy?  I’ll pick two random winners to receive an autographed copy of one of my backlist titles–winner’s choice!

Kathy