As promised, here are the answers (according to the Harlequin Romance Experts) to the Truth About Lies Quiz

1. LIE
Rationale: If you’re not in a relationship, the honesty card doesn’t carry as much value. If you know it’s not going to happen with this person, politely end the situation even if you have to lie a little to make a clean break

2. DON’T LIE
Rationale: A phone call or text message here and there is safe, but lying aobut going out in public–with plenty of witnesses–is bound to turn ugly.

3. LIE
Rationale: There is no good way to get out of this age-old question. But one thing is sure: if you have any doubt–don’t be afraid to fib! A perfectly acceptable (and relationship-saving) substitute is –”Honey, you look great in everything.”

4. LIE
Rationale: While we don’t suggest turning this into an everyday occurence, if you really don’t feel like going out, a little while lie will do. Just be warned, you run the risk of turning into the friend who always cancels if this turns into a habit.

5. DON’T LIE
Rationale: While it’s safe to leave out your one-night stand record, it’s not safe to lie about any past encounters that may impact the health of your significant other.

6. LIE
Rationale: Trashing a friend’s significant other is a sure-fire way to strain a friendship. We prefer to follow our golden rule–keep you opinions polite until your friend starts doing the hating. Even then, chime in with caution.

7. LIE
Rationale: While we advise against turning this into a habit, a personal day here and there never hurt anyone.

8. DON’T LIE
Rationale: If you don’t have what it takes to get the job done, save yourself the embarrassment and do not embellish your professional abilities.

Unfortunately no one got all the answers correct But the good news is that you all have won a copy of The Tycoon’s Son! E-mail me through my website (if you haven’t already) and I’ll put the book in the mail.

Thanks for playing and for all the great comments! And I have to say I agree more with your answers than I do with the Romance Experts.

The 2008 Harlequin Romance Report has an article that talks about truth and honesty. Both sexes (51% of women and 41% of men) agree that “trust/honesty” are the values that matter most to them in a relationship. Still, 63% of both men and women also agree that little white lies are sometimes okay.

I’m going to give you eight situations they discussed in this article and I’d like you to hear your thoughts. By Sunday night, I’ll let you know what the Romance Experts at Harlequin recommend in each of these sitations. The first twenty to comment will win a copy of my book, The Tycoon’s Son. (email me your name and snail mail addy via my website www.cindykirk.com so I’ll know where to send the book) If your answers match the Harlequin Romance Experts on all eight situations, you’ll also be entered into a drawing to win a copy of my book, When She Was Bad. I’ll post their answers Sunday evening so be sure to check back. Remember, to win you have to come out of lurkdom and post!

Here’s the questions…you just need to indicate LIE or DON’T LIE as your answer…and then elaborate on why you answered as you did.

1. You are on a first date that is NOT going well and all you want to do is get out of it.

2. You went out for dinner with your ex last night and failed to mention it to your significant other.
He/She asks what you did last night.

3. Your girlfriend just asked you for the millionth time –”Do I look fat in this?”

4. You made plans to go to the movies with a friend last week, but had a horrible day and just want to stay in.

5. When asked about your sexual history.

6. Your best friend just asked what you think of her new boyfriend.

7. You partied too hard this weekend and just need one day off from work.

8. On a resume or in a job interview.

I’ve always had weird dreams. Bright, realistic technicolor dreams that freak me out more often than not.when I was younger I actually controlled them, prompting a friend to suggest I take part in a sleep study. I never did sign up for that study, and as I’ve gotten older, my dreams don’t need the ‘changing’ they once did. But, they’re still weird.

I once had a series of dreams about a serial killer that I still remember in vivid detail. I’ve dreamed that Freddy Krueger was my father. I’ve dreamed about blood and strawberries — yes, at the same time. And I’ve dreamed that I’ve killed people I love. Sometimes, it’s enough to make you want to stay awake. Of course, being the twisted sort that I am, I look forward to my dreams and all the bizarreness they bring with them. After all, we dream to work out the issues that plague us in the waking world, and sometimes our minds take all kinds of funky side trips to get us there.

These dreams formed the basis for my fascination with the dream realm and led to me writing BEFORE I WAKE, the first of my first contemporary series, The Nightmare Chronicles. In that series the heroine, Dawn is the half-human daughter of the God of Dreams. She’s as real in the dream realm as she is in this world and she can come and go between the two at will. She also sees some really freaky stuff!

Joining Dawn in all of this is Noah, a sexy lucid dreamer who draws the attention of a Night Terror bent on crossing over into the real world. This Terror doesn’t care who it hurts, and if it can destroy Dawn in the process of achieving it’s own goals, it will.

Sound a little dark and creepy? Well, it can be. It’s also got some moments that are funny and I hope a little touching.

So now that I’ve told you about my dreams, crazy as they are, I want to know about YOUR dreams. What’s the best/worst dream you’ve ever had? Have you ever had a dream where the meaning was so clear it was like the dream hit you over the head? Share! You never know, you just might provide me
with fodder for a new plot…

I always thought the Dog Days of Summer was a reference to our poor old dogs suffering the heat during the peak of summer. I picture lazy hound dogs digging cool spots in the ground in the shade, or wedging themselves under porches to keep cool. Wrong.

Turns out that it’s because the dog star, Sirius, is closest to the earth – the northern hemisphere, at least – during the hottest months. The ancient Greeks and Romans called the hot days of summer “Dog Days” because of the dog star.

Here’s another graphic for the dog constellation

How do they get a dog out of that? Oh well, this is not a blog about astronomy. It’s about the Dog Days of Summer, which are here. Well, technically, they were in July, but to my way of thinking, the hottest days are coming. The cicadas are screeching, the grass is turning brown, and the dogs are hanging out on the porch, trying to catch a breeze.

For us, August has always been family vacation time. Swimming competitions are over and so are the baseball and outdoor soccer championships. The kids have four precious weeks of freedom before school starts again, so we’ve always packed in a ton of activities during the month of August. Camping, biking, lolling on a beach somewhere, going on a far-away trip …

What does your family like to do in the waning days of summer?

Hello! It’s me, Jaunty P. Quills, Porcupine Extraordinaire with all the news from San Francisco. Just think of me like one of those embedded reporters going out on a patrol with the troops in Iraq. Except I infiltrated the Romance Writers of America conference. And let me tell you, that’s no day in a desert mine field.

I would have posted something sooner, but there was a situation where I got a little too embedded in a box full of copies of Blackthorne’s Porcupine. It was a tasty read—I chewed my way through several copies in an effort to escape.

And now! Finally, I’m here and can give you the scoop.

And the scoop is…there are big happenings in the world of romance. Deals were made, contracts signed, agents secured.

And the Jaunty Quills have big news of their own—no, Shana did not win the Rita for Blackthorne’s Porcupine. That honor went to Julia Quinn for The Secret Diaries of Miss Miniver Porcupine. A few tears were shed, but there’s always next year. And with so many talented Jaunty Quills, one of them will surely be nominated.

No, the big news is that—wait! I went to a workshop at the conference and the speaker kept talking about this thing called “show not tell.” So that’s exactly what I’m going to let the Jaunties do—show. So keep checking back. In the next few months you’re going to see some exciting changes.

My friend Norma is an ant. Remember the old story about how the grasshopper played all summer while the ant labored to fill his pantry for the coming lean months?

Norma and her husband have followed our church leaders’ advice to have a year’s worth of food and other necessities on hand to be prepared for adversity. You don’t need an earthquake or storm of biblical proportion to see where it would be handy to be self-sufficient – ask anyone who’s been laid off, or tucked at home during a three-day ice storm while “grasshoppers” in panic mode strip store shelves bare.

A few years ago when Norma’s husband was starting a business and all seven of their kids were still living at home, they needed to pinch pennies like crazy. They decided to live off their food storage. For two years all they bought at grocery stores was butter and eggs. They grew a garden, visited U-pick farms, ground their own wheat for bread, worked the wheat gluten into a protein substitute, made their own yogurt and yoga cheese… you get the idea. Norma was pretty savvy to start with in order to pull it off, and shared the additional knowledge and recipes gained from the experience by self-publishing a book titled Store Food!

I hope we never have to be that … dedicated … but I’m trying to learn from Norma. I’ve recently learned there’s nothing like having a baby to make you domestic. Why, just the other night I cooked dinner. Popped the fish sticks in the oven and fluffed the couscous all by myself. I may even cook supper from scratch someday.

We’re trying especially hard to be ants this year. We’re stocking up on essentials. Sometimes in bulk if we find a good deal, sometimes just an extra jar of peanut butter or whatever while it’s on sale. Later this month we’ll can peaches (last year we didn’t have the energy but Daniel has eaten most of the previous year’s stockpile), and this fall we’ll juice the grapes that grow along our back fence, as usual. A lot of people are rediscovering the old-fashioned joys of home canning, for the frugality and so they know for sure what’s in their food.

Why is it especially important now to be frugal and prepared? For one, we have an extra mouth to feed (he’s eating real food now, not just milk). For another, we live in seriously uncertain times. This year is the first in many where the previous year’s wheat crop is completely gone before the next crop is harvested. And remember the panic about rice a few months back? I think we’re also feeling the effects of this spring’s flooding in the Midwest– much of the corn and other crops that weren’t lost to the rains are going into alternative fuels instead of grocery stores. Have you noticed how quickly food prices are rising? Don’t even get me started on skyrocketing fuel prices. According to the Wall Street Journal last week, Exxon and Shell each posted profits in excess of $11.5 billion last quarter. Un-freakin’-believeable.

And for the cherry on top, there are some scary rumblings about the flu strain we might face this winter – a really bad strain, as in 1918 pandemic bad. Some scientists are saying quarantines might be necessary to stem the spread.

All excellent reasons to be prepared. Could you survive a month at home with what’s in your pantry? I’m not panicking but I am preparing.

While you’re slaving over the steaming canner this summer, basking in the sexy, sultry look (i.e., frizzy hair and sticky, sweaty shirt) you can thank Napoleon Bonaparte and a French chef named Nicolas Appert. In 1795, Napoleon’s plans for world domination were hindered by the fact his armies outpaced their supply wagons, and the farms they passed through couldn’t provide adequate supplies of food year-round. The army needed to carry food with them that wouldn’t spoil. A reward of 12,000 francs was offered to whoever could develop a reliable method of food preservation. After 14 years of experimenting, Monsieur Appert hit on the technique of bringing food to a boil in a glass bottle before sealing it. He used a champagne bottle because its wide neck allowed for man-sized bites of meat and potatoes in stew.

So … are you an ant or grasshopper?

Time To Say Goodbye …

I love this song by Andrea Bocelli and Sarah Brightman. It begs the question: when is it time to say goodbye? To a job? To a relationship? … To a series?

TOO DANGEROUS TO DESIRE denotes the third and final book in my current series. In it a lonely and distinguished lord risks all to save a secret royal bride from a wicked prince.

It was never meant to be a series, though. When I wrote TOO GREAT A TEMPTATION (book one), it was supposed to be a stand-alone title. But there were so many characters (read: loose ends), I had to keep writing. Three books later, I was finished … or so I thought.

I decided to start a new project after I’d completed TOO DANGEROUS TO DESIRE … but there was something nagging me: four (single) brothers who kept asking, “What about us?”

After two failed book proposals, I realized things weren’t going so well because it wasn’t time to say goodbye to the old characters from the previous series; there were still loose ends.

And so I’m happy to announce that my new series will feature the Hawkins brothers: the four charming brigands readers first met in TOO GREAT A TEMPTATION and now TOO DANGEROUS TO DESIRE. Now that their sister (the heroine in TGAT) is married to a duke, it’s time for the pirates to retire their wicked ways, polish their manners … and enter high society.

Share your stories about goodbyes (or times not to say goodbye). One random winner will receive an autographed copy of my current release TOO DANGEROUS TO DESIRE.

Cheers!
Alexandra

Today the Jaunty Quills welcomes MARY CONNEALY!!

Mary writes inspirational romance with a western flavor for Barbour Publishing. She is married to Ivan, a farmer, and is the mother of four beautiful daughters, Joslyn, Wendy, Shelly and Katy.

Mary is a GED Instructor by day and an author by night. And there is always a cape involved in her transformation.

You can find Mary online at: http://www.maryconnealy.com/
She encourages you to visit her blog and sign up for her newsletter at: http://mconnealy.blogspot.com/

Mary writes:

Petticoat Ranch (Lassoed in Texas Book #1) is about a man who’d never been around women who was dropped into an all-girl world.

I decided to do the flip side of that story in Calico Canyon (Lassoed in Texas Book #2)

I started with prissy, Miss Calhoun, the school marm, and shoved her, completely against her will, into an all-male world.

A fish-out-of-water story is always fun, and an author needs to make it as extreme as possible and still have the hero be heroic, the heroine be delightful and loveable. Not that easy when she doesn’t understand anything about his wild, ill-mannered boys, less about him and nothing about marriage.

There’s a scene in Calico Canyon that shows a little of how completely useless Daniel is at smoothing the way for Grace.

He’s standing with his five sons, about twelve hours after the forced marriage. He went about his business—he had chores to do after all. Right after the vows, Grace crumpled up on the floor of the wretched cave Daniel calls a house and hides under a blanket for the whole day. Daniel and his boys finally work up the nerve to get her to come out and now they’re watching Grace cry:

He and his boys stood absolutely immobilized. The wind moaned around the house and Daniel wondered if he’d have to dig them out in the morning. They lived on fairly high ground. They got a beauty of a snow storm once in a while, he’d heard. A blizzard might cut them off from civilization for a spell, if you could call Mosqueros, Texas civilized. Then he realized there was no way they were going to get to church in the morning. Daniel liked church. He did. But once he showed up with Miss Calhoun in town, his marriage was a done deal.

And that’s when he realized he was still trying to think of a way out of this. But Daniel Reeves was no fool. He could dream all he wanted. He was tied to this woman.

John whispered again, “Is she supposed to get all sad like that, Pa?”

“Yep, in my experience with wives, they’re supposed to fuss about something all the time. I’ve never had me one that didn’t cry up a storm at the drop of a hat.”

Grace lifted her head and scowled through her tears.

Daniel was surprised at his urge to laugh. She was really a mess. The oh-so-tidy Miss Calhoun kept getting herself slopped up more and more. He wondered when she’d gather her wits together enough to care about that.

“Did it ever occur to you that you might be doing things to your wives that make them cry?” She pushed her hair off her soggy face with shaky hands.

“Nope.” Daniel shrugged. “Never was nothing I did.”

This is just Daniel being absolutely clueless and having no idea what it takes to make a woman happy.

The foundational trouble between Daniel and Grace isn’t the fact that they loathe each other—although that’s huge. It’s the fact that Daniel completely blames himself for his first wife’s death in childbirth, plus how brutally hard it was for him to survive with newborn triplets. She had a hard time with the twins birth and Daniel swore there’d be no more babies. But he was weak and his wife wanted to be ‘close’ to him. And then he lost her.

He is so deeply traumatized by it that he won’t risk having another woman carry his child. But once he calms down and quits thinking like a coyote who might well gnaw his foot off to escape from this marriage trap, he discovers a powerful attraction for his new wife.

So there’s a war inside Daniel and, torn between desire and terror, he handles it like any good romance hero…as badly as possible.

Parrish, Grace’s adoptive father, is the villain in Calico Canyon. She’s hostile to men because of her upbringing with an abusive father. Parrish lived well off the salaries of the young girls he forced to work in a carpet mill.

So Grace has a very dim view of men and she expects only bad things from her new life surrounded by six of them. It takes a lot to convince her she hasn’t fallen into a rat hole and ended up married to the King of Rats.

If you’d like to read the first chapter of Calico Canyon you can find it here: http://mconnealy.blogspot.com/2008/06/calico-canyon-wild-card-tour.html

… The Mistress Diaries Has Hit the Big Screen!

Well, the small screen actually. And that would be YouTube.

If you haven’t watched the trailer for my new book, The Mistress Diaries, I hope you’ll check it out. It’s a live action, quirky romp with a hunky leading man and a gorgeous leading lady. You can get to it from my website at JulianneMacLean. (If you’re at work, however, you might want to keep an eye over your shoulder… it gets super steamy, and we wouldn’t your boss to think you walk too close to the hot edge of the wild side.)

The funny thing about my trailers is that they don’t really tell you anything about the books they’re promoting, and I have a hard time even calling them trailers. They’re simply “shorts films” that advertise my books. This particular one takes place in a stable. There isn’t even a single stable scene in The Mistress Diaries. The characters are not the characters from my book, and I don’t provide a synopsis about the story. My only goal is to entertain you, which is also what I hope to do with my novels. (As an aside, if you want to know about the book, there’s lots of info on my website.)

Why do I do this type of trailer, you ask? Well, if you want anything to be a success on YouTube and the internet in general, it has to have some entertainment value that will inspire people to pass the link on to a friend and say, “OMG, you have to see this…” That’s called “going viral,” which in terms of advertising, is a good thing.

It also doesn’t hurt to create some controversy that might get people talking. When my husband (the writer and producer; yes, I’m a lucky woman) proposed the idea to me, we were driving in the car in a rainstorm, and he was just kidding around. He never thought I’d seriously want do it, because let’s be honest… the subject matter is a bit edgy, to put it mildly. But I knew he and his film crew would have a ball filming it, and I do love humor, even when it’s shamelessly risqué and hand-covering-mouth shocking.

Does it work to sell my books? I wish I knew. I’ve been hearing recently that trailers in general don’t sell books. But if you make a little film that gets a million hits on YouTube, maybe you stand a chance of proving that theory wrong. I’d sure like to try, and hey – my hubby gets to be a film producer in the process, so why not have some fun?

So what do you think? Are trailers worth doing? Or is mine totally over the edge?

Whether you love or detest this one, it is bound to raise a few eyebrows. I don’t mind though, as I have learned to live by the eternal advertising mantra “the only thing worse than bad publicity is no publicity at all.”