Trying something new

I happen to love chocolate. I also enjoy wine. But putting the two together? Until a few weeks ago I had never considered such a thing. Then my husband and I were invited to a wine and chocolate pairing party.

Guests were asked to bring chocolate and a wine that paired well it. Say what?

I needed help and information, but none of our friends knew anything about this kind of pairing. So I turned to the internet, where I found tons of information, including a nifty chart about which goes with what.

http://www.thenibble.com/reviews/main/chocolate/pairing-wine2.asp

I printed out the chart and brought it with me to my favorite grocery store. After selecting a small box of gourmet chocolates from the specialty chocolates section, I headed for the wine department. Using my chart and the chocolates, the helpful wine expert found just the right wine.

The other three couples who came to the party brought their own chocolate and wine, and our hosts supplied at least half a dozen types of chocolates and the appropriate wines. They set out small squares of each chocolate on separate little plates. (So many to sample! I was in heaven) Each plate was labeled with the brand of chocolate, the percentage of cacao and the spice content (If any). Our hosts supplied pen and paper for us to jot down any favorites we wanted to remember.

I not only thoroughly enjoyed myself, I also learned quite a bit about pairing chocolate with wine. Did you know that some wines greatly enhance the flavor of the chocolate, and vice versa.?

If you haven’t tried something new lately, maybe you should. After all, this is leap year and leap month! You might have fun and better yet, learn something.

If you have tried something new and different, please share your experience.

Until next month,

Ann

www.annroth.net

JANUARY WINNER!!!

CONGRATULATIONS Tammy Yenalavitch! You’re the January winner. To receive your free autographed books please contact Jacqueline Diamond, Cathy McDavid and Linda Warren through their Web sites.

To enter the contest simply leave a blog comment and your name will go into the drawing. Simple and painless. And FREE BOOKS.

My book cover quest continues

What makes you pick up or click on a book? I mean, apart from the author’s name and the title?

I had no idea how tricky this subject was until I started revising and posting my older books on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. After all, Harlequin does a beautiful job of creating covers for my Safe Harbor Medical miniseries, as you can see for my February release, The Detective’s Accidental Baby. All I do is provide the art department with a few descriptions and the storyline.

Among the books I’m reissuing are half a dozen Regency romances set in Jane Austen’s era. They’re traditional, which means lots of fun complications but no sex. I’ve been using flowers as the background, simply because I like them.

A fellow writer, Anne Glover, who maintains the Regency Reader site (http://anneglover.wordpress.com/) , reviewed one of my books, Lady in Disguise. She loved it—except for the cover. I emailed her to ask why, and we began corresponding. Anne prefers the traditional type of cover, featuring a heroine of that era in an old-fashioned setting.

She recommended graphic designer Kelly at customgraphics.etsy.com. Kelly has now designed a charming new cover for my Regency The Day-Dreaming Lady. It tells the reader right away what genre this is, with an elegant touch. I’m posting it here. I’ll be eagerly watching the sales figures!

Then there are my contemporary romantic comedies. How do you stand out in the crowd? After rewriting and updating Unlikely Partners, the first of two books that form the Runaway Heiress series, I got inspired…by my teddy bears. I created the cover shown here and another for the sequel, Capers and Rainbows.

What do you think? Cute or confusing?

Meanwhile, I’m grateful to Harlequin for the terrific way the art department handles my covers. Thank goodness I don’t have to do those too!

A Sweet Sewing Project

Wouldn't these cute 'n' cosy slippers make a great gift for your Valentine?

I found the pattern here at Craftsy.com and just had to share.

They would be so quick and easy to make for yourself or to give as a gift. I think they'd also be fun to have on hand for overnight guests, who could then take home and have a lovely memento of their visit.

Happy crafting!

Until next time,
Lee
www.leemckenzie.com
The Christmas Secret (November 2011)
The Daddy Project (TBA)
Daddy, Unexpectedly (TBA)

From Supers to Americans--Taking the Leap

After writing about thirty books for Harlequin Superromance , this year I decided to try something exciting and new: writing for Harlequin American. So for the next few years I am going to be all about Cowboys and Montana--and what could be better than that?

 My first American will be released in August as part of a continuity series called Harts of the Rodeo. I was honored to be included with a group of amazing and talented American authors. Do the names Cathy McDavid, Roz Denny Fox, Shelley Galloway, Marin Thomas and Linda Warren mean anything to you? J I thought so!

I’m excited about the new direction  and want to celebrate by offering an autographed set of a trilogy I wrote for Superromance called: Three Good Men.

To enter the draw, please leave me contact me via my website: www.cjcarmichael.com . If you also “Like” my Facebook profile http://www.facebook.com/#!/authorcjcarmichael  you will be entered twice. I will randomly select a winner on February 1^st.

Cheers from CJ!

Taking the Plunge

So many "first" things in life can be scary, in my humble opinion.

The first haircut, when those awful scissors snip close to your ears.

That first plunge into your best friend's three-foot swimming pool, which looks about the size of the Atlantic Ocean.

And don't forget that very first walk into a classroom where everyone stands staring at you. They won't say a word because they're just as frightened as you are—but how can you think clearly enough to realize that when you feel like you're ready to upchuck on their shoes?

Just imagine, all those things can happen even before we graduate from kindergarten! It's a wonder we all make it into first grade. LOL

I'm talking about "plunges" and "firsts" today for a couple of reasons.



Caleb Cantrell, the hero of my February book,
THE RODEO MAN'S DAUGHTER, has literally taken a plunge. Thrown by an angry bull, he lands hard and does serious damage to his body—so serious, it's touch-and-go as to whether or not he'll survive. He barely makes it through and is left with the scars to prove it.

Those current scars are nowhere near as bad as the ones he's carried from the past. To heal those, he's got to take another plunge and go back to where his life began. To his little hometown of Flagman's Folly, where the reception he gets from folks isn't quite what he expected....

I'm taking a plunge today, too. Luckily, it's not a scary one. Then again, for someone who tends to stay at home with her characters and concentrate on telling their stories, it's a bit of a big deal. (smile)

With this post, I'm kicking off a virtual blog tour to celebrate the release of THE RODEO MAN'S DAUGHTER. There will be many stops along the way, and I look forward to seeing you on the Internet trail. (Visit my website to find the full list.)

Also, take a look at the end of this post for two chances to win a copy of A RANCHER'S PRIDE, the first book set in Flagman's Folly.

But first, please share! What's one big plunge you've taken in your life?



For a chance to win an autographed copy of A RANCHER'S PRIDE: answer the question asked above.

For a second chance to win: 1. Like my Facebook page, follow me on Twitter, or sign up for my Yahoo group newsletter (link available at my website)—or do all three. (smile)

2. Then send me an e-mail via the Contact Form on my website letting me know which you've done.

(Drawings will close at midnight tomorrow, January 18. Check my blog www.barbarawhitedaille.com/blog on Thursday to find out if you've won and how to claim your prize.)

Thanks for reading and responding to this blog, and again, I look forward to seeing you on the trail!

All my best to you,

Barbara

~~~~~~

Barbara White Daille
http://www.barbarawhitedaille.com
http://www.facebook.com/barbarawhitedaille
https://twitter.com/BarbaraWDaille

Girls Can't What?

How often during your lifetime have you been told you can't do something because you're a girl? 

The two most recent books for my Rodeo Rebels series (Arizona Cowboy Feb 2012 & A Cowboy's Duty Aug 2012) contain elements of women's bull riding. I did a lot of research for the books just to understand what makes these women tick. Of all the information I came across one thing stood out—these women have worked hard and sacrificed much to earn the respect of their male counterparts.  And as you can imagine they've experienced their fair share of bumps and bruises along the way.

I came across a blog called World CowGirl.  The blogger interviewed Polly Reich, the first female professional bull rider.

According to the interview…..

Polly started bull riding when she was 29 years old, an age that many bull riders have already hung up their chaps and rope. She was working as a dog groomer in Deerfield, Illinois and raising her twelve-year old daughter when friends took her to a rodeo to get her out of the house and her mind off of a break up with boyfriend of six years. Polly had never been to a rodeo before and was not excited by any of the events until the last event of the night – bull riding. Polly was captivated by the sport and left the rodeo thinking, “I could do that” a thought few others leave a rodeo thinking. Without telling her friends or family, including her daughter, Polly sought out a mentor to teach her how to ride bulls.

The interview delves into much more detail but the following paragraph was a real eye-opener and made me cringe when I thought of how much Polly sacrificed to blaze a trail for future female competitors.

Not everyone was excited about Polly competing as an equal with men. Some of her competitors on the IPRA circuit tried to intimidate her in very upsetting ways. While she competed on the IPRA circuit her dog, Sproket, was poisoned and died, the hood of her truck was deliberately unhinged-so it blew off of her truck while she was driving down the highway, and she was physically beaten by a group of unidentified men who ambushed her at night. If Polly was tough enough to ride bulls, she was also determined not to be “bullied” out of bull riding by her competitors. Her new teacher Lyle Sankey convinced her to leave the IPRA and ride in the more prestigious Professional Bull Riding Association (PBR) circuit instead. Fortunately for Polly the bull riders in the PBR behaved like gentlemen toward her and became some of her dearest friends.

I won't go into the gory details of some of Polly's injuries…you can read about them in the blog but suffice it to say she is one incredibly brave and lucky woman.  You would never guess in a million years how her career ended….

Polly’s career ended in an abrupt and unexpected way. She was in Fort Collins, Colorado, riding her bicycle to warm up for a bull riding competition. As she cycled by the football stadium she was hit head on by a motorcycle policeman who was chasing a truck full of college students drinking out of a keg of beer in the truck bed. (There was a football game that day). He was driving the wrong direction in the bike lane with his attention was directed toward the truck and never even saw her coming. Polly’s shoulder was severely dislocated from her body because of the accident. Her career ended so suddenly and silently that there was a rumor circulating on the bull riding circuit that Polly had died.

After all my research I've concluded that women who ride bulls aren't so different from you or me…they just have an insatiable thirst for excitement and challeneges and proving know-it-alls wrong. 

Care to share a time when you were told you couldn't do something because you were a girl?

Marin Thomas

Arizona Cowboy (Feb 2012)

A Cowboy's Duty (Aug 2012)

www.marinthomas.com

BUY!