As some of you know, we had to euthanize our black Lab Nick last week. He was just shy of his 11^th birthday, but he had a very aggressive oral cancer that was untreatable unless we wanted to put him through some radical surgery. The vet advised against it, and I was appalled by the idea of it, anyway.

It occurred to me this morning that Nick has been around for most of my writing career. He was born in June 2001, and my first book came out in 1999. He came to us at 6 weeks old as a 17 lb puppy who curled up under my desk by my feet while I wrote. He turned into a typical Lab – a goofy 95-pounder who was obsessed with playing fetch. He was the craziest “fetcher” I’ve ever seen and would run himself to death chasing a ball or a stick if we let him. The kids called him “The Hustler” because he was always on the make – for treats, for attention, for games. 

So now we’re down to one cat and one dog. Bob and Ranger.

Bob has been perfectly happy since we lost our other cat – Kokomo – two years ago. He adjusted right away, becoming the Alpha Cat in the household. I thought it was interesting how he developed a lot more personality and became much more affectionate after his “boss” was gone. He is definitely King Kat around here now, and I doubt that he would take well to another kitty in the household.

I’m not so sure about Ranger, our six year old yellow Lab. He’s been moping since Nick died, although he had a happy moment yesterday when my friend brought her 1 year old pup to play. It makes me wonder whether we ought to jump right in and get another dog. In the past week since Nick’s been gone, I’ve realized how high-maintenance it is to have two big dogs. So, what do I do? Get another dog for Ranger’s benefit? We got Ranger for Nick’s sake when he was grieving over the loss of our old Schnauzer. But I’m not sure that’s the way to go. Don’t get me wrong – I love dogs. But  I’m pretty much on the fence about this.

What do you all think? Should my poor Sad Sack here get a buddy?

Here is the list of winners from my blog about Rock*It Reads on Monday. You will soon be contacted by the Rock*It Reads authors on how to claim your books (if you haven’t heard from them already). If you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to contact me. (Margomaguire@yahoo.com). Congratulations, ladies!

Donna Ann
Julia
Jane
Stella
Jenni
Breanna
Megan
Ebony
Sharon D
Stacie D

You have your e-reader, and now you’re looking for good books to download. How do you choose something you know is going to be well-crafted, well-edited and reliable? You can always download the Jaunty Quills’ (and other favorite authors’) mainstream books. You know they’re going to be formatted correctly. There won’t be a bunch of typos or spelling errors.

But what if you knew of an author collective that was committed to producing only top quality work? An independent group of authors whose goals were to meet or even exceed NY standards? I am part of a group exactly like this, and we call our collective Rock*It Reads. You might already know some of the authors: Mia Marlowe, Vanessa Kelly (VK Sykes), Monica Burns, Joan Swan, Elisabeth Naughton, Pamela Clare, Sharon Page, Lila DiPasqua, Cheryl Holt, Kris Kennedy and me. You can visit our website http://www.rockitreads.com/ and see what books and novellas we have to offer, often at lower prices than your typical NY pricing.

Our website is a portal for readers to find really great romance reads without having to wade through hundreds of pages at the electronic booksellers’ sites. And the Rock*It Reads authors are going to help you find even more great independently published books – books written by authors who are not part of RiR - through our bi-weekly column at Barnes & Noble. The column is called Love Rocks and you can find us here.

We’re pretty new, having launched our brand only this month. Rock*It Reads is not a publisher – all of our books are self-published, and each of us is responsible for our own work. But we’ve got a logo – seen here on the right. And when you see that logo on a book cover, you’ll know the book has met our high standards. It wouldn’t be a part of Rock*It Reads otherwise.

So go on over to our website and bookmark it. Check out what we’ve got to offer. Tell me what you like best about the website, and which of the books look interesting to you, and I’ll draw 10 names to win a free download of a RiR book. Bear in mind that we’ll be adding more books to our brand as we go along. And we plan to add more authors, too.  How does that old song go… We’ve Only Just Begun…

Come on – tell me what you think!

Honestly, you’d think I’d know what drives me to like what I like. Of course I like romance novels. I write them, right? But I also like reading and watching about the post-apocalyptic world. Seems contradictory, doesn’t it? I remember reading 1984 by George Orwell for the first time, and thinking it was one of the best, most amazing books I’d ever read. As bleak as Cormac McCarthy’s The Road was, the book struck a chord with me. I loved all three books of The Hunger Games – and the movie, which was awesome. And now I’m enjoying yet another YA post-apocalyptic book called Angelfall (Penryn and the End of Days Book 1).

My favorite movie to date is Independence Day and I won’t deny that I still watch War of the Worlds (the old one) every time it comes on TV.  (Yes, I guess I have a thing about aliens). I love watching Armageddon and Deep Impact. I record The Walking Dead every week (and usually find time to watch it) and I just discovered  the TNT series Falling Skies, about an alien invasion of earth. I enjoyed Terra Nova while it lasted (well, that was mostly because of Jason O’Mara ).

What do all these things have in common? They strip away our current reality (or there’s the possibility of it). In these books and films, our social norms are gone. Destroyed. They take our infrastructure from us – no more phones, cars, roads. No more police or government. Electricity is gone. No hot water, no food production. And with all the mayhem around them, regular people find themselves becoming heroic. They have to re-invent themselves and their reality. They have to figure out how to survive.

Honestly, the same is true of romance novels. Falling in love is a life-changing event, right? I can think of several heroes and heroines who aren’t particularly heroic until that one moment, that one time when they must come through to save the one person they love. Or they must face and conquer whatever it is that keeps them from the idea of love, from making the ultimate commitment to the one they love.  It’s that overriding will to survive and thrive that I love best about – well, about everything I read or watch.

I guess I should have realized the common thread that runs through the books and movies I like best, but it didn’t really strike me until just now: the destruction  of a character’s world as he or she knows it, and how s/he adapts to it or re-invents it.

So I ask you – If we really were in a post-apocalyptic world, what would you start building first? Or re-building? What would you keep? What would you change? What’s the one thing you just cannot do without?

While I was reading Janette’ s post on insurance a couple of weeks ago, I glanced at my dining room table which happened to be covered with documents – including bank statements, bills, and numerous insurance policies – that relate to my recently deceased aunt’s estate. Just this morning, I had my husband look at an insurance form that she received in the mail, and asked him if he thought it was an actual policy, or just a come-on. It was that tough to tell. I think it’s a come-on. But it means another phone call I have to make.

I never knew how complicated it could be when someone passed away. My aunt Ann was a single lady – a professional who made quite good money for her day. She invested carefully and was able to live off the interest of those investments. Well, she could until there was no interest to be had, but she was fortunate that she had Social Security and a pension to live on. She had no kids, and when she became infirm about four years ago, my cousin Mike (a lawyer) and I stepped in to do what we could for her. We helped Ann find a good assisted living facility, and since my background is in nursing, I handled all her ”care” issues. We also discovered that she had significant assets but no Will, so Mike found a good estate lawyer to create a Trust for her and write her Will. Ann and I were co-trustees of her estate, with Mike as a successor. My aunt’s health began to seriously fail last fall, and I had to step up my assistance – spending more time with her and meeting with her doctor and caregivers. She began a serious decline at the end of November, and Mike and I knew that when she passed away, he would step into her place as her successor trustee and handle the Will.

Ah, the best-laid plans…

Early in December, Mike was admitted to the hospital. Out of the blue, he’d become seriously ill. Within two days, he was diagnosed with acute Myelogenous Leukemia. They started chemotherapy right away, and coincidentally, our aunt died three days afterwards.  Mike’s illness left me in charge of everything. The funeral. Her Will and Trust. Her condo. The old, rundown family farm that my great-grandfather built and has been in our family for over 100 years. (You can see it above). My aunt was the owner, but now I’ll have to sell it.

What to do with everything? And how do I go about it? The questions have fallen entirely to me because Mike passed away a few weeks ago. The only good thing about the past couple of months is that the Trust is quite clear. Mike and I had numerous conversations with Ann about what she wanted done with everything, and it’s all spelled out in the Trust. Most of it was simple and straightforward, but Mike – lawyer that he was – saved EVERYTHING. I picked up from his office six  file boxes full of records on our aunt’s stuff. Bank accounts, annuities, investments… insurance forms and bills. There are little note cards and the backs of napkins where he jotted notes on instructions she gave us when we took her out to lunch or dinner. Somehow, we did manage to miss one major piece of the estate, and that needs to go to probate court. Not a big deal, but it does delay the disbursement of funds and keeps me on the hook with the estate that much longer. 

The beneficiaries of my Ann’s estate are somewhat surprised that they are to receive anything. There are 13 in all, and all but one of them are absolutely flabbergasted by their windfall. The one exception is a cousin who has been demanding to know when he’ll get his money. Yikes. Luckily, I’m handling everything By The Book, so there will be no question that the estate has been handled properly, but this particular cousin really gets my goat. His money? All the rest of us feel like it’s an un-looked-for gift and we’ll accept whatever Ann wanted to give, when the time is right. But this guy… no, he deserves it.

Not to open any giant cans of worms here, but how do I handle this cousin? We’ve always been on ok terms, though we’re not close. I’ve informed everyone of roughly what their share will be (although I low-balled it), and I’m fairly certain he’s already spent his, which is why he’s so anxious to get that check in his hands.

Have any of you had to deal with this kind of situation before? What do I do about this guy? (Besides putting him in my next book as the greedy relation who’s out to do my H&H harm). 

To Another Continent.

Did any of you see this picture in the news yesterday? I don’t know about you, but it sent chills down my spine. That is not snow. It is SPIDER webs. I am not a fan of spiders. Not that I’ve had any horrible encounters with spiders (if you don’t count that giant hairy black one that crawled up my leg years ago when I was staying at a rustic cabin with my family). No, the occasional spider bite in the night is the worst of it. But for some reason, I have quite the phobia of spiders. Not the screech-and-run-away kind of phobia, but the where-is-a-broom-and-let-me-nail-this-thing kind. The get-it-before-it can-lay-eggs kind.

There aren’t a lot of things that give me the willies. I’m sort of like my mom in that respect. I don’t think anything scared her. She was the most indomitable woman I ever knew. She encountered a lot of creepy-crawlies when she spent time on her grandfather’s farm – using an outhouse, playing in the barn. Neither of us were ever bothered by snakes or bats, and of course we encountered many of those when we were out at the old homestead. I don’t care about flies (just keep them out of the house, please). I don’t mind birds or gnats. I’m ok with squirrels and groundhogs.

I’ll admit to having been terrified of a flock of chickens who seemed to swarm all around me one time at a country cousin’s house, and I was never fond of being on foot near a lot of geese (they bite!). And don’t get me started on stinging yellow-jackets. I was attacked by a swarm of them back when I was about 9 or 10, and ended up with hundreds of stings. But still, they don’t bother me the way spiders do. And for no really good reason, other than that they look creepy. And dangerous.

What spooks you? Bugs? Noises? Certain animals?

I just read an article that lists the 50 most romantic movies of all time. I don’t think they were listed in any particular order, such as the most or least romantic first. Anyway, I wonder what you think about these.

Amelie (Audrey Tatou)
The Notebook (Ryan Gosling/Rachel McAdam)
Romeo & Juliet (L.DiCaprio/Claire Danes)
From Here to Eternity
Ghost

Of those five, I would agree with one – Ghost, even though it wasn’t a classic romance. I guess I don’t remember From Here to Eternity well enough to comment on it. Great kiss in the surf, though.

Titanic
The Bridges of Madison County
Love Story
The Graduate
Up

Who knew Clint Eastwood could be such a romantic?

An Affair to Remember
The Artist
Say Anything (John Cusak/Ione Skye)
An Officer and a Gentleman
Chocolat

I haven’t seen The Artist, although I’ve heard it’s fantastic. We’ll probably get to that in the next couple of weeks. I don’t remember Say Anything - I think it might have been a “teen” movie.

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964)
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
Annie Hall
Beauty and the Beast (Disney)
Harold and Maude

I thought Harold and Maude was sort of icky. I agree with the others being romantic, except for The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. I never saw it.

The Philadelphia Story
The Princess Bride
When Harry Met Sally
Wuthering Heights (1939)
West Side Story

Not so sure about Wuthering Heights – any version. The ending just isn’t  happy enough for a romance.

Gone With the Wind
The Way We Were
Casablanca
Legends of the Fall
Sleepless in Seattle

A couple of classics in that group, although I was never a fan of Gone With the Wind. I’ve had enough of Casablanca for awhile, too. Not that I didn’t love it – but sometimes you can overdo it with one movie. I never saw the appeal of Bogart, either.

Shakespeare in Love
Pride and Prejudice (Kiera Knightly)
Pretty Woman
The English Patient
9 ½ Weeks

I saw 9 ½ Weeks but I don’t remember it being all that romantic. Erotic, yes. But romantic? Hmmm. Maybe it ended with a HEA. I don’t remember. The others in that group are definitely classics.

Love and Basketball
Brokeback Mountain
Last Tango in Paris
Lady and the Tramp
Jerry Maguire

Wait – Jerry Maguire was a romance?
And I can’t say I ever thought of Last Tango in Paris  as a romance.

Grease
Notting Hill
The American President
A Very Long Engagement
Dirty Dancing

I’ve only seen two of the films in the previous group. Can you guess which ones?

Love Actually
Little Manhattan (2005)
City of Angels (Nicholas Cage/Meg Ryan)
Edward Scissorhands
Roman Holiday (Gregory Peck/Audrey Hepburn)

I’m not sure where they came up with some of the films in this list. Chocolat, for example. Whimsical, just like Edward Scissorhands. Not all that romantic in my opinion. City of Angels? Not the happy ending I wanted.

What do you think? Did this list miss the mark? What would you add… or subtract?

I’ll admit it – I was a late convert to the electronic reading experience. I started with a plain kindle and I found it really cumbersome to use. What if I wanted to go back 60 or 80 pages? I wasn’t going to ‘click’ back 80 times to turn all those pages. Do a search? Maybe I didn’t know exactly what I was looking for. What if it was a character whose name I couldn’t remember? Or a previous scene that gave a clue to the mystery (or whatever)? I certainly wasn’t going to do a search for a specific word or phrase if I didn’t know what I was looking for, was I? With a good old book in my hands, I could just flip back to where I think I saw what I was wanted – because I always remember right about where I saw the pertinent information (about a quarter of the way through the book, on the left side, halfway down. Right?)

I’d had my kindle for about a year and a half when I went on a trip to Europe with my husband and I wasn’t sure what books I wanted to take with me. Hey – no problemo! My kindle – though not perfect –  was loaded with whatever reading material I might want while I was away! I had at least 100 books on my device, so there wasn’t a chance that I would have a boring moment. Flight delays? Who cares. Insomnia? Got it covered. I read The Hunger Games trilogy during my trip, plus two other books! I became a devotee of electronic reading.

Now I’ve got an iPad, and the reading and searching is even easier with it than on my kindle. Plus, it seems more like reading a book. (Test one out at an apple store some time and you’ll see what I mean).

The Pew Research Center determined that ownership of electronic readers practically doubled over the holidays in 2011 (from 10% to 19% of adult Americans who own one). What if ownership doubles again next year? We’d be talking about nearly half the population owning an e-reader! As the prices of these devices goes down, I think even more people will buy them.

All of the Jaunty Quills have books available electronically. My last ten for Avon (as well as a few of my earliest books) have been digitized for e-readers, and I’ve noticed a huge surge in electronic sales for my last three or four books.

 Do you own an electronic reader or read books on an iPhone? If you do – what do you like/dislike about it? If you don’t – is there a reason why, other than cost?

It occurred to me the other day that I really love to learn things while I’m reading. No, I don’t want a history lesson when I’m reading a historical romance, and I don’t want to feel like I’m reading a police procedure manual when I’ve got a suspense book in my hands. But I love picking up the bits of information that skillful authors filter in throughout their books.  I think this is why I can read just about any kind of book I pick up, and of course I can read romance endlessly. But it’s not only because of the fun of experiencing the hero and heroine navigating the joys and perils of new love and moving on to their HEA. It’s all the details that make each book different and compelling.

Take almost any contemporary novel. The main characters are usually engaged in some kind of work or profession, right? An author who’s done her research can give some insight into what those professions entail. I’ve read scenes that make me feel as though I’m actually sitting at a police detective’s desk in a tiny cubicle, or flying over the mountains in a small plane. Or driving a tractor through a field. I read a novel recently that was about the characters who worked and lived near a hospital in Ethiopia, and I almost felt as though I could find my way around the little town where the book was set.

Sometimes it’s the author’s insight into personalities that hooks me. Maybe it’s not specific details about what anarchitect or an FBI agent does, or how to create the perfect bakery pastry – but an understanding of what makes those characters tick. It’s relatable to real life. An author can make the sorrows and joys of the fictional characters resonate. It makes me stop and think about people I know… or situations I might not have understood before.

I love it when I read something that makes me want to delve deeper into the subject matter. Whether it’s historical detail or something about astronomy. Or cooking. Or race car driving.

I’m guessing most of you are book lovers – is there anything besides the romance that  compels you to sit down with a book?

The winner of the drawing from my blog earlier this week is Leanna Morris. Congratulations, Leanna. I’ll try to contact you by email, but if you don’t hear from me — please shoot me an email. margomaguire@yahoo.com. (And congratulations on your husband’s good news, too!)

Margo