From the time I was very little I’ve always adored Halloween and Fall.  I don’t know why.  Maybe it’s the chance to dress up and pretend for one day and night that I’m someone else.  In fact now that I think about it, that probably is why.  I am by nature a very shy person.  If we ever met face-to-face you’d find that “chatty-Kathy” is probably standing by herself nursing a drink and trying to get up the courage to talk to people she doesn’t know!

But on Halloween that isn’t the case because no one really knows who’s behind the mask or under the costume.

To some extent I think that is true of writing.  As a writer I look at the books I write and the characters I create as me in a costume.  These characters have a different past from mine and live in a way that I can’t.  I mean I don’t fight bad guys I call the cops.  I don’t travel around the world on a private jet, I fly commercial and usually coach!

But when I’m writing I can be anything.  And to be honest I love that feeling.  I love the fact that even as an adult I can still play make-believe and dress up and pretend for a few hours that I’m someone different.

What about you?  Do you still take the chance to dress up at Halloween?  Or is that something you’ve long moved on from?

Happy Reading!

Katherine

PS I saw IGOR this weekend (a cute animated film staring the voice of the very yummy John Cussak) and it was really good!!!

Anna!

I drew your name from all who participated in my Friday post on heroic qualities. They were great answers, everyone – Thanks for letting us know what appeals to you.

Anna – email me with your snail mail address and I’ll get that ARC out to you. margo@margomaguire.com

Congratulations!

I have a confession to make. I used to be somewhat of a food snob. Not the kind of person who prefers Roquefort, gruyere and manchego over cheddar. Or one who only buys dried Italian pasta rather than Skinner macaroni. But one who would never–and I mean ever–buy store brand items. No, Dr. Perky for me, it was name Dr. Pepper all the way.

The Food Marketing Institute, an industry trade group, found this year that the number of shoppers who say they are buying more store-brand items has been steadily rising, now up to some 60 percent. Candace Corlett, president of the consulting firm WSL Strategic Retail, says her group has found that even upper-income shoppers are more willing to buy store brands, which have traditionally been seen as appealing most to people on limited budgets.

That shift comes as the chains are offering more store-brand products of better quality. Stores have been pushing their own brands in areas such as dairy products, meats and breads where prices have risen especially fast, and are also tapping into increased demand for organics and natural foods.

“Store brands have come a long way,” said Tod Marks, a senior editor at Consumer Reports, which has tested store brands against national brands for quality and customer response. “Over the years, retailers realized that store brands were not just something to be floated out during hard times … ‘This is a signature product of ours. We want to be known for this.’ ”

Stores generally reap better profit margins by selling their own brands — also called corporate brands, private labels or generics — and also use them to build customer loyalty.
“All of us are creatures of habit, and when things are going well, you just buy what you bought last week,” Kroger’s vice chairman, Rodney McMullen, said in an interview. “Customers are much more willing to try a corporate brand when the economy gets tough, and when we can get the customer to try it, they like it. It just makes it so much easier for us to get the customer to try it.”

I understand where the guy is coming from….recently I brought HyVee 1/2 & 1/2 to put in my coffee. Not only was it as good as the name brand I’d been using, it was a LOT cheaper. The same for my store brand toilet paper…LOTS cheaper and just as soft.

P&G, which has repeatedly raised prices to offset higher costs for energy and raw materials, has expressed confidence that product innovations and people’s loyalty to its generations-old brands such as Pampers, Tide detergent and Gillette shavers will keep sales growing.

“It’s all about value,” Clayton Daley Jr., P&G’s chief financial officer, recently told analysts. “It’s not just price, it’s all about product performance. … It’s about the trust that consumers have in your brands.”
I have to agree with Clayton. I love TIDE and I can’t imagine switching….unless, of course, the price is right.

How ’bout you? Are you thinking of joining me on the no-frills bandwagon?

There isn’t any single type of hero that appeals to me every time. Sometimes I like the brooding bad boy. Other times, it’s the guy with a sense of humor and a quick wit. I guess it depends on my mood, and how the author has written the character to pull me into the story. For heroines, I’m more about what she can’t be … too fragile, too dumb, too silly, too needy. I want her to have a mind of her own, but still have some room for growth. Again, it’s all in the way the author presents her.

I have only one ARC (advance reader/review copy) of my January book left, and I’m willing to send it to one of our lovely Jaunty Quill readers. Everyone who lists their most important hero AND heroine qualities will be placed into a drawing for this ARC. I’ll be interested in your opinions on heroic qualities. I’ll draw a name Sunday night and let you know.

My brother’s wife and I were once talking about how we felt when we met the men we’d end up marrying…I said that for me, it was love at first sight. She said that for her, it was love at first kiss. (Way to go, Mike!)

Personally, I wasn’t kissed until I was…eighteen. And a half. It’s embarrassing to admit this in public, but there it is. The cold, unvarnished truth. I was a strange-looking kid with bad clothes and horrifying hair (all pictures from that era have been destroyed, so you’ll have to take my word for it). My nose was usually stuck in a book (a romance), which made me lean more toward the brooding knight, wounded duke or misunderstood vampire…at the very least someone who could rescue me on horseback. I wasn’t interested in an actual human teenaged boy. 

So. My first kiss. I was elderly, we’ve already established that…it was (gah!) my freshman year of college. I was about to transfer, since my freshman year had garnered me one friend (who remains my best friend to this day), straight A’s and the desire to start over. Geeky kid had turned into a not-bad-looking young woman (took long enough!), and finally, I’d attracted the attention of a male who, though he probably couldn’t rescue me on horseback, was in the officer’s training program at my college and looked pretty cute in a uniform. Brian Tolland. He was shy, smart and sweet. He walked me home one April evening after dinner out with the honors English program (told you I was a geek), expressed regret that we’d only just gotten to know each other, only to have me transfer, and then kissed me goodnight.

I’d probably have married him on the spot if he’d asked. Eighteen and a half is late to be kissed for the first time. But Brian knew what he was doing, and it was everything a first kiss should be…sweet, gentle, lovely. He made me feel beautiful with that one kiss. And then, he left. I haven’t seen him since. Google has revealed nothing.

Now, as I write romance novels and fall in love with my heroes, I get to revisit the first kiss again and again. It’s awfully important, isn’t it? It says so much about what’s to come. The first kiss is a scene I just adore writing. The uncertainty, the surprise, the potential…sigh! I love those first kisses!

So how about you? Who was the first boy who kissed you? How did he do? Was it wonderful? Horrible? Embarrassing?

And just in case anyone out there knows Brian Tolland…tell him I said hi. And thanks.

Kristan

www.kristanhiggins.com

Halloween is fast-approaching—at least that’s what my local grocery store wants me to think—and I’ve been thinking more about all those ghouls and goblins and monsters. My interest might also be related, in part, to the fact that I’ve been spending my free time reading a popular YA series in which the heroine discovers that creatures she thought were only mythological are actually very real. I don’t have to say that name of the series, right? You know what it is—the movie will be out next month.

I’m not a very superstitious person, but I do enjoy a good scary story once in a while. I used to teach in Houston’s inner city. Actually, I still teach in the inner city, so maybe I should clarify that I used to teach in the ghetto. I don’t mean that in a derogative way. I taught at a school with a very poor population. The area was rife with drugs and gangs and all the other problems you’d expect.

But this area was not poor in story-telling. My students had a wealth of stories to share, and scary stories were their favorites. I first heard about La Llorona and La Chupacabra at that school. I haven’t seen any romances about La Llorona, but a good friend of mine, Robin T. Popp has written a successful series featuring chupacabras.

Scary, aren’t they?

I know lots of readers adore paranormal romances featuring werewolves, vampires, and all sorts of creatures and legends. What are your favorites? For me, it will always be the vampire.

I started reading Anne Rice’s vampire stories in high school, and she’s a classic to me now.

What about you?

My Dearest Readers,
With Halloween coming upon us (and with me having two children who remind me every day it is coming upon us) I thought I would take this time to talk about the costumes. I have to say, as a writer of very steamy historical romances, I have to say that even I am absolutely positively SHOCKED at the sexuality being displayed throughout the Halloween stores. Has anyone else noticed this too? Or am I the only one?
When I took my children into a local Halloween warehouse, there were rows and rows of…ehm…what women have above the waist. And then even those male things below the waist. Whatever happened to people wanting to be vampires and ghosts and mummies? Everything has to be so…sexy. Only, they aren’t!!! I am by no means a prude but I have to say when my own 9 year old son grabbed a pair of female breasts off the rack and draped it around himself, yelling, “Look Mom! I have boobs!” I never laughed so hard in complete horror before snatching them off and shoving it between the cracks of two displays. Though I suppose if I was horrified, then what the costume industry was attempting to do in the name of Halloween was accomplished..
That being said, I will leave you with a few costumes you can see while walking down the isle of your local friendly warehouse. Mind you, I chose the tame ones… Oh and please do share you thoughts.



Cheers and much love,
Delilah Marvelle

Since lots of people decided to play last week when I had my contest, I decided to do two winners. The winners are:
Fedora and Stacie Mc

Ladies, email me at emilybmckay at gmail.com with a mailing address and I’ll ship of copies of Baby on the Billionaire’s Doorstep.

Thanks for playing!

I bet if I asked all of you to list one thing you’d like to change about yourself, none of you would have a problem. In fact you’d probably have a difficult time sticking to just one thing. I know I would. I could give you a list a mile long, not because I don’t like anything about myself, but because it’s human nature to always look for ways to improve. Or maybe we’re just really good at complaining.

So instead of talking about our physical selfs, today I want to talk about our houses or apartments or wherever we reside. Well, mostly I just want to complain. Now on the whole our little house is really quite nice. We’ve got lovely vaulted ceilings in our overly large living room with exposed beams and it’s a great space. And though we don’t have a ton of rooms, the ones we do have are all nicely sized. Our bedroom, especially is a good size for a master bedroom. And though the closet isn’t laid out perfectly, it does well for our clothes. We have a great kitchen with plenty of cabinets and while I wish I had more drawers, I have sufficient space for all of my kitchen goodies. I even have a separate laundry room that’s big enough for our laundry and our kitties’ food/water/litter area. All in all, it’s a great house and we’re comfortable in it.

That is until I decide I want to take a bath. We have two bathtub/shower units and they’re the drop in variety, the ones that are all-inclusive and made of fiberglass (I think). They’re fine, they look decent, I suppose, and when you’re just doing a shower, they work great. But come time to pour in the frothy bath gels and snuggle in for a nice warm soak and you’re in for a rude awakening. You see I believe our tubs are actually Hobbit tubs. You probably think I’m kidding. I’m so not. I’m not a tall person, I’m not short either, but all of my 5’5″ height is in my torso as I have freakishly short legs. But even me and my short legs when I sit in the tub, I can’t straighten them out. Needless to say the art of the bubble bath is lost, there is no relaxing soak unless I’m content to sit straight up.

So that’s my big complaint. We have Hobbit tubs in our house. How about you, what do you hate about your house?

Last week I was in Atlanta attending the Moonlight and Magnolias conference. I had a great time meeting new friends and catching up with ones I hadn’t seen in awhile. While waiting in the airport on the way home, I stopped at one of the airport Starbucks. You’ve been there. You know all the drinks they have to offer. All the sweet choices.

As I was perusing the menu, I wondered what would be my best option if I wanted to get the most taste for the least amount of calories. Unfortunately I had to try to figure that out on my own. Now if I would have been in NYC, the information would have been right there in front of me.

In 2008, New York City’s Board of Health approved a measure the requires restaurants in the city with 15 or more locations nationally to display calorie count information next to menu items. The measure went into effect on March 31.

So, if I’d been in NYC (instead of Atlanta) I’d have known that the Starbucks Venti Java Chip Frappuccino with whipped cream had 600 calories. And that the Grande white chocolate mocha with whipped cream (and 2% milk) has 470 calories. I also would have known that the Burger King Whopper with Cheese (no I didn’t order one) has 760 calories!!! To that, all I can say is WOW

NYC’s website quotes Dr. Thomas Freeden, NYC Health Commisioner as saying that posting the calorie count will help people make more informed choices. I’ve heard–not sure if it’s true or not–that Starbucks has recently added some more “healthier” choices to their menu.

I wish my community would step up to the plate like NYC has done…because I’d like to know the calorie count of what I’m ordering.

What about you? Would having the calorie count posted sway your decision on what to order?