New Title and Copy Edits!

It's been an exciting week with two more important steps down the road to my next release!

I received my copyedits for my Sept. 09 release and true to my copyeditor's email, they were LIGHT! Mostly they were a 'clean up' of my punctuation, and a few comments asking for clarification. So a big THANX to the two lovely ladies who were my copyeditors for this manuscript! I've finished going through all of them and actually returned them ahead of schedule (a very rare occurance).

The second and even more exciting piece of news, is that I finally have a new title for the book! The manuscript formerly know as Jewels of the Madonna, will henceforth be titled The Treasures of Venice. I'm very happy to have Venice in the title as I think this will be intriguing to readers.

What do you think?

And what do you picture on the cover?

Even More Turkish Delight!

I'm blogging today over at the Casablanca Authors about the hot springs at Pamukkale, Turkey. Just click on the title of this post to see a couple of pictures and here are a couple more...

Yes, those tiny little figures are people. The area is VAST! Actually it looks a lot like the Minerva hot springs in Yellowstone which is also an entire mountain side covered with mineral deposits.

It was so extraordinary to see these ruins and and think about all the thousands of years that people lived in this area. Being the huge history buff that I am, I get really excited by that kind of thing.


Oh what the heck! Here's one more piccie. This one looks like snow. Or maybe cake icing melting off the mountain, as in that old song MacArthur Park and the line, "Someone's left the cake out in the rain..."

As I asked on the Casablanca blog, would YOU read a romance novel set in Turkey?

My First Book Signing

Yesterday I participated in my first book signing and I had so much fun!

Three other local romance authors joined me at a local Barnes & Noble bookstore and we had a great time talking to each other and all the customers. In addition to selling our books, we gave away candy, book marks, post cards, pens, and buttons. Also, one of the other authors arranged to have 10% of sales go to benefit a local agency that provides goods and services to foster children. Talk about a winning situation!

We sold LOTS of books! I only had two copies of The Wild Sight left after two hours. Best of all, the B&N rep who arranged the signing is anxious to have us back!

One of the other authors' lovely DH took this piccie and added the captions. Yes, we romance authors know how to have FUN!
Hope you all had FUN on Valentine's Day too!

The Wild Sight Is A WINNER!

Just a quick note to pass along some WONDERFUL news. The Wild Sight is a winner in the Houston Romance Writers "Judge A Book By Its Cover"contest!

It's no secret that I have loved the cover since the moment I first saw it, and many other people have expressed the same opinion, so I entered the contest.

It is the third place winner in the Romantic Suspense category. To view the five winners in Romantic Suspense just click on the title of this post.

Of course, the REAL credit goes to the Sourcebooks Art Department who created the gorgeous cover, but I am thrilled and will happily take any part of the credit I can get!

More Turkish Delight

A few more pics from my holiday trip to Turkey...

This is a carving from a building in Ephesus of the goddess Nike. No she is not wearing tennis shoes, but the details on her wing feathers is still amazing even after 2,000 years.

This is the main street of Ephesus and the major part of the archeological excavations. We started at the top where the Forum (government buildings) was and as you can see, the street ends with the fabulous Library of Celsius. On either side would have been retail shops, fountains, and a few public monuments. You can still see ruts in the paving stones of the streets left from the passing of all those chariots. The city had a population of 250,000 during the height of the Roman period!

And here is yer Olde Aunty standing in front of some of the Forum buildings. Our guide told us that there are 3 things that destroyed ancient cities: Fire, Foes, and Earthquakes. Ephesus was destroyed at least three times by earthquakes. It wasn't rebuilt the last time because the harbor, which used to be just behind the Celsius Library, had silted up over the many years since the city's founding. Without the seaport, the city could no longer support itself.

A similar fate befell Troy. Here is Aunty standing next to one of the city walls, listening intently to our wonderful guide (behind me in the jeans and red shirt) Salih. Of the nine different cities built one atop the other in this area, scientists and scholars have determined that the sixth city was the Troy of Homer's epic, The Iliad. The ninth city, like so many other places in Western Turkey, was Roman.