Hard at work on draft number 3

Nuff said.

Feedback , Breaking Dawn and UMFA

I started my Friday on a high - I got some constructive and positive feedback - thanks Linda! and to be honest for the rest of the day nothing could dent it. Even a pretty busy shift in the run up to the Breaking Dawn release. Our pre-solds were gone by 10.30 and after we got everyone out of the store and locked up it was my job to walk down the line checking that the people in the queue really did have their vouchers - some didn't but we sorted that out. Some people had just gotten in the queue because it was there, by the time I got to the back my voice was going and my throat has been a bit sore all weekend. Once we got to midnight the books flew into the hands of eager readers and we were done by 12.30.

Yesterday Chris took me to the Monet to Picasso exhibition at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts. The last time I was in an art gallery was Vienna in the 80's. The paintings at UMFA are all from private collections so rarely seen. They were great but the Rodin sculptures just blew me away. If we ever got a piece of fine art to go in the house and it was my choice it would be a Rodin.

Nothing to do with books!

I'm proud to say that I'm married to a Superhero. Chris witnessed an accident yesterday and when the driver who ran over a cyclist tried to drive off he chased him down - on foot - and sat on him until the police arrived. Bob is threatening to get him a T shirt with a flaming C on the front. I think the Calgary Flames got there first!

The Likeness Tana French

Came out this week - here's the review.


A Trinity college student murdered in a remote spot, someone who looks exactly like you and who was using one of your undercover aliases at the time of her death. You being Detective Cassie Maddox, damaged by the fallout of an Murder case gone wrong and licking your wounds in Domestic Violence. The dead girl is Lexie Madison living a life you created as an undercover operative run by Frank Mackey.

Mackey thinks this is the opportunity of a lifetime. Cassie becomes Lexie, out of a coma with no memory of the night of the attack. She can feed information to the police from the inside. Now Cassie has to fool Lexie’s four strangely protective housemates but Cassie could be getting too close to the case to remain objective and Lexie who shed identities like snakeskin is messing with her head from beyond the grave and all the while in the dark lanes a killer waits.

This is a great follow up to 'In the Woods' can't wait for the next two books - that's if she follows the pattern set up in books one and two.

Mars and Venus

I've got a new title for the Men are From Mars Women Venus etc. Mars and Venus writing about sex. It's really funny that I've never noticed it before but when a man writes about sex the woman's doing most of the work and she's usually on her knees (hmmmn so much for sexual equality!) When a woman writes about making love it's a more equal union eye to eye rather than eye to balls. I'm sure some university bod is drumming up money to fund a study about this totally useless piece of information.

It also takes a heck of a lot of imagination not to use your own bedroom antics as a template for your characters! Think about that next time you read a love scene. I think the reason for that comment is that I've just read a rather touching love story wound into a esoteric treasure hunt.

Rose Labyrinth and The Terminal Spy

Finished 'The Rose Labyrinth' about an hour ago. I'll review it properly in November when it comes out. I've also got an arc for the book about the Alexander Litvinenko case. This was the Russian spy and very pointed critic of Putin who was poisoned - very cold war tactics - very KGB and guess who used to head them up?? yep Vlad!. - and died last year. Haven't written much this week - bit of an anticlimax getting to the end. I've got a lot more work to do but until I get some serious feedback I'm not going to touch it.

arc, loaner and a completed manuscript

It's been a while since I requested and got the arc of my choice in this case "The Rose Labyrinth" by Titania Hardie but from now on I'll put a yellow sticky note on any I want to read 'cos that works a treat. The blurb for this book sounded intriguing and the marketing campaign is I think unique you can read the book purely as a book or you can solve the clues before the characters in the book do - I think. Anyway it doesn't come out until November so plenty of time to read and review it and work out the marketing campaign.

Wendy put a book in my box - perfect she said in her note for a plane flight. I've dipped into it - "The Gilded Seal" by Mark Twining. Art thief turned art recovery expert Tom Kirk is the main character and this is one of those books where the good guys are handsome and the bad guys are ugly and you just know that the gorgeous and therefore good FBI agent is going to be taking down his 'particulars' a bit later on in the plot.

Second draft - complete! 59,954.