Nancy Cohen's Social Networking Tips.

Over the years, I’ve met a lot of savvy marketers in this business. Right at the top of the list is Nancy Cohen. She’s also a terrific teacher with a knack for breaking down information into useful chunks. Last Saturday, I listened to her lecture at the Florida Mystery Writers Association meeting, and I wanted to share a few of her ideas about social marketing with you. Most of what you'll see below comes under the heading of, "Who knew?" and the answer of course is "Nancy did!"

• Put up an author page on Amazon for each foreign site (i.e. UK, Australia).
• Consider becoming an Amazon affiliate so that when people purchase your books from your website, you receive a referral fee.
• Create an Amazon book carousel from your Author Central account.
• Remember that people who visit your blog might not visit your website and vice versa.
• Give blog readers a way to contact you via email.
• Consider writing about writing! Information on writing has generated the most blog hits for Nancy.
• Add your book titles to your Facebook page where it directs you to "Add a project."
• Promote a single title on Facebook with this app from BookPulse. http://bookpulse.heroku.com/website/index.html
• Import your blog into your FB pages: http://www.networkedblogs.com/blog
• Post on Pinterest! It's the third most popular social network in the US after Facebook and Twitter.

Nancy J. Cohen writes humorous mysteries and paranormal romance. The tenth and latest title in her Bad Hair Day mystery series is Shear Murder, now available for $3.19 on Kindle: http://amzn.to/YuMlCq

Warrior Rogue, #2 in her paranormal Drift Lords Series, is officially available April 26 in multiple formats at http://bit.ly/ZnvtKJ

Follow Nancy’s Blog Tour : http://nancyjcohen.com/appearances/

Enter her: Rafflecopter Contest April 26-May 2:  http://nancyjcohen.com/fun-stuff/contest/

For more details, visit http://nancyjcohen.com

Downton Abbey Corrections to My Original Post!

After I published my blog post on Downton Abbey, Jessica Fellowes and I corresponded. Seems I made some errors, and I'm happy to correct them! Here goes:

1.  The concept came about when Jessica's uncle Julian read a book called To Marry an English Lord by co-authors Gail McColl and Carol McD. Wallace. In the post-Civil War until the first World War, American heiresses went to England to swap titles for cash.

JF: Actually, the American heiresses carried on coming until about the end of the 1930s. They began coming in the 1890s for 50 years.

2. Julian writes the entire script for each episode. In the beginning, they had a crew of writers, as is usual for such shows, but that didn't work.

JF: No, they have never had a crew of writers. In the first season, on two episodes (somewhere in the middle), Julian shares the writer credit with one other writer.

3. Jessica Brown Findlay, who played Sybil, came to Julian and said she wanted to leave the show. "Do you mean 'leave and come back' or 'leave permanently'", he asked. She said, "Leave permanently." And he said, "Sounds like death in childbirth to me!"

4. Many of the characters are patterned after Fellowes family members/friends of family/or tales told to Julian. For example, a friend came over to Julian's house in London and said, "I've been cleaning out old papers and I just came upon the most extraordinary letters. Seems my aunt was at a house party and a man died in someone's bed. Well, the only way to keep it secret was for all the women--and they were on one floor as custom demands--to help haul his body out of that one woman's bedroom and back down the stairs up to his own bed! Most amazingly, the next day the men were talking about how weak women are!" As Jessica said, "A problem shared is a problem dumped on other people."

JCS: Just so all of you know, this did NOT happen at Highclere.
JF: Two things, however - the story was read in old diaries, not letters. Also, I only conjecture that the men might have talked about the women being shocked at the sudden death (they would almost certainly have all looked rather tired and shaken the next day) but not knowing they had hauled the body down corridors. Somehow, just the idea of that made me laugh.

5. The three Crawley sisters represent the three types of women of that era: Mary wants power and will get it the old fashioned way by marrying it; Sybil wants power and was willing to be involved in the political system; and Edith wants anything she can get! (Poor Edith.)

6. Mary is patterned after Julian's mother, and Cora's remarks to her daughter on her wedding night is the same as Julian's grandmother's to his own mother: (Paraphrasing here) "You realize there are things an English wife must do. But no one tells you...it's the most horrific fun!"

JF: Any wife, not an English wife. And terrific fun not horrific!!!
JCS: Obviously, I misheard this--and I must say that I wondered if "horrific" was a Briticism that I hadn't heard!

7. The dining room scenes can take 10-12 hours to film because they are filmed in Highclere Castle's very small dining room. British heartthrob Dan Stevens (Matthew Crawley) has said that he's learned the hard way not to start a scene with a bit of chicken in his mouth because after ten hours of chewing chicken for continuity's sake it's pretty disgusting.

JF: The dining room is large, it's the table that is surprisingly small.

8. The producers and Julian have purposefully held back from putting any realistic new products in the house and the scenes because even if they were appropriate for the times, because WHEN they are new, they are jarring to the viewers.

JF: The art department - not the producers and Julian.

9. In the UK, Downton Abbey is interrupted by commercials. Julian much prefers that it be viewed the way we see it here in the US.

JF: I don't know that I should say that Julian specifically much prefers it. More that one gets a pure Downton experience on PBS. (Some things are OK said out loud to a crowd, not so much written down).

10. O'Brian will not be coming back. She's a copy of a real ladies maid who ran off an entire family, one by one, so that her mistress died alone and thinking she'd been deserted by her loved ones.

11. Julian's wife helps him with ideas. She's the one who suggested that Bates have a limp and be injured. (Wasn't that brilliant?) Just love the relationship between him and Anna!

JF: She is now the credited Story Editor, in fact. 

Kiki Lowenstein and the Bad Day (Final Installment)

Note: I asked my Facebook peeps to suggest starting sentences for a Kiki Lowenstein short story. There were so many terrific ideas that I have decided to try to incorporate more than one –and write a progressive short story. You'll be reading this as I create it! Wish me luck!

Note: This short story comes before Ready, Scrap, Shoot—and Kiki is six weeks pregnant.

Summary: In last four weeks’ installments—Kiki walked into Time in the Bottle only to discover papers scattered everywhere. Detective Chad Detweiler arrived to pronounce the store “safe,” but Kiki’s still wondering what’s up. Her co-worker Margit has shown up and reminded Kiki that she needs a great idea for May to boost their sales. As she’s pondering what to do, Teresa Alvarez stops in to drop off a gift for Kiki. Teresa is planning to become a US citizen on May 5, but her joy is diminished because her cousin Juanita cannot afford the increased fees for citizenship applications. Seeking to change the subject, Kiki opens her present, which includes white chocolate tamales and several cascarones, the brightly colored eggs used to celebrate the arrival of Spring. When Juanita leaves, Kiki is still stuck with her original problem. She needs to create a special event and use up all the shredded paper found in the backroom. Plus, now she’s pondering how to raise money to help Teresa’s sister Juanita, who wants to apply for citizenship.

By the way, you can read Installments #1, 2, 3 and 4 by going to older posts on this blog.

          Detweiler came by as I was leaving work. His dad had asked him to drive over to the farm because he needed help with his new computer, and of course, he was willing to go with my blessing. I stood there, hugging him, just looking into his eyes and wondering what he sees.*

           My daughter Anya called to ask if she could spend the night at her grandmother’s house because she wanted to watch The Game of Thrones on Sheila’s big screen TV.

          “That leaves you and me, girlfriend,” I told Gracie, my Great Dane.

          Since he’s moved in, Detweiler has done most of the cooking, so I shouldn’t have been surprised to find that all we had in the refrigerator were six uncooked eggs, a potato, a few broccoli florets, and an onion. He’s such a fresh-freak that he buys whatever he’s cooking on his way to the house. I’m a last minute, if-it-slows-down-I’ll-eat-it, sort of girl.

          Studying the eggs, I thought about the cascarones. After washing a craft knife, I opened one end of the shells and dumped the yolks and whites into a bowl. Next I rinsed the eggshells out and set them aside to dry in the Styrofoam egg carton.

          Then I made myself a frittata and went to bed.

          I ate the leftovers the next day for breakfast. I just knew that this day was going to be different; I could feel it in my heart! ** I still hadn’t conjured up a great idea for our store, but I was in a pretty good mood when Gracie and I arrived at Time in a Bottle. All that changed in the blink of an eye when I discovered yet another pile of shredded paper. 

“Woof!” Gracie shot across the backroom floor, jerking her leash out of my hands.

“What on earth?” I ran after her, noting as I did that the entire floor was covered with torn papers.

“Woof! Woof!” She danced and pranced on her hind legs, pawing at the metal shelf units. From the top shelf, a gray head with bright brown eyes peered at us. A squirrel! And he was not happy we’d invaded his territory.

I went over to the desk in Dodie’s office and called Critter Control. Once I explained the problem, they promised to send a man over right away. “Do not engage the rodent, ma’am. Leave him to us.”

“You aren’t going to kill it, are you?” I rubbed my baby bump as tears prickled behind my eyes. Gosh, but hormones make me weepy.

The dispatcher assured me that they had a catch and release program.

After convincing Gracie that a dog yummy was a far, far better treat than raw squirrel on the run, I walked her to the front of the store and turned on my computer. Drat. Now I had more shredded paper to contend with, a bill coming for squirrel removal, and no idea how to entertain my scrapbookers.

So I piddled around on the Internet, deciding to look up the history of cascarones. There I learned that the idea is thought to have been brought from Asia by Marco Polo. The trinkets were filled with perfume and to have one broken over your head is supposed to be “good luck.” Typically these activities are enjoyed at Easter.

But every custom can be revised to fit the times, can’t it? I wondered to myself. By the time I let Barney, the Critter Control guy, into our backroom, I had the inkling of a plan.

#

“Wow! A Cinco de Mayo party! What a brilliant crop idea!” said Bonnie Gossage, my dear pal and sometimes legal counselor.

“Actually, this is the pre-party,” I admitted. “We’re going to fill the empty eggshells with homemade confetti.”

I’d enlisted the help of five of my best customers for this job. They sat next to me at my work table awaiting instructions. Over the past few weeks, I’d begged everyone to empty their eggs gently, rinse out the shells, and drop them off at the store in their egg cartons. Eventually I collected twenty-five dozen eggshells. Detweiler and I colored them at home and let them dry. I gathered a variety of punches and a stack of papers, the same papers that had once been damaged by the squirrel. (For cleanliness sake, I’d simply cut off the yucky parts, sprayed them with Lysol, and ta-da! Clean, fresh paper. Or so I hoped!)

Bonnie, Julie Essler, Angie Folger, Jennifer Moore, and Lisa Brunswick had agreed to help me punch the papers into bits of confetti. Once we had a nice pile of bits, we spooned the confetti into our eggs and passed them along to a card table where Anya and Nicci Moore, Jennifer’s daughter, smoothed and glued bits of tissue paper over the open ends.

Into ten of the eggs, I carefully inserted a lottery ticket. Into another ten, there were coupons for discounts and five received gift certificates.

All in all, the assembly took about three hours, probably because we were having so much fun.

“See you all tomorrow!” I said as I escorted my friends to the front door.

#

What a grand time we had the next night! Twenty-four customers paid $25 a person to come to our special crop. In exchange for their money, they received supplies for a “make and take” scrapbook project, and five cascarones each. They could purchase additional cascarones for a dollar each. I’d priced out the “make and take” projects so that they wouldn’t cost a lot, but there are always expenses and overhead that must be considered, so I thought that giving a portion to Teresa was still fair.

Of course, the $25 fee also included a great meal! I made chocolate tamales for all our guests, Teresa brought two pots of her special Mexican rice, and Clancy made the fixings for tacos. For drinks, I bought margarita flavored Crystal Lite and iced tea. I ate until I thought my tummy would burst.

At the start of the crop, I had announced that half our proceeds would go to pay for Juanita’s citizenship application. An hour into the evening, we’d sold all the cascarones! We had more than enough for Juanita’s application, so I was able to announce that Time in a Bottle was also donating an additional $100 to Juanita to help with her expenses.

“But remember, everyone. You have to promise not to smash your egg until midnight,” I told them. Every hour that went by, the anticipation grew. My customers were eager to see if they’d won a gift certificate or a lottery ticket. I’ll admit it was almost as much fun as Christmas because each woman had a white bowl heaped high with the brightly colored eggshells.

I’d set six alarm clocks to go off at the stroke of midnight. Clang-clang-clang! What a clatter they made.

My customers began to giggle as they slapped their eggshells onto their own foreheads and later onto the heads of their neighbors.

Of course, Clancy and I got into the act, too. I slapped a blue egg against the crown of her head. Brightly colored confetti and a lottery ticket floated down.

“Woohooo!” she yelled. “My turn!”

And with great glee she smashed an egg against my head. To my shock, a cold gooey trickle slid down my forehead and dripped off my face.

“What?” I jumped up from my chair. “Clancy! How could you!”

She stuck her tongue out at me. “Got you back for that April Fool’s joke!”

Two dozen cameras clicked at once. My customers had been in on the prank!

Argh. But I had to laugh. This crop had started with a very, very bad day—and it was ending with a fun night. Egg-sactly what I’d hoped for!

--The End--

Thanks to:

*Dru Ann Love

**Pamela Hargraves

Downton Abbey: The Inside Scoop

I have a confession to make--to help me get in the mood to write The Jane Eyre Chronicles, I watch episodes of Downton Abbey. Yes, the period is different, because Death of a Schoolgirl is set in 1820. Death of a Dowager is set in 1821. Downton is nearly one hundred years later, but the sensibility with its emphasis on class and civility is the same. Last week Jessica Fellowes, bestselling author of The Chronicles of Downton Abbey, visited the Tangerine Theatre on Jupiter Island, so naturally I sat in the front row!

Here's all the inside scoop:

1. The concept came about when Jessica's uncle Julian read a book called To Marry an English Lord by co-authors Gail McColl and Carol McD. Wallace. In the post-Civil War until the first World War, American heiresses went to England to swap titles for cash.

2. Julian writes the entire script for each episode. In the beginning, they had a crew of writers, as is usual for such shows, but that didn't work.

3. Jessica Brown Findlay, who played Sybil, came to Julian and said she wanted to leave the show. "Do you mean 'leave and come back' or 'leave permanently'", he asked. She said, "Leave permanently." And he said, "Sounds like death in childbirth to me!"

4. Many of the characters are patterned after Fellowes family members/friends of family/or tales told to Julian. For example, a friend came over to Julian's house in London and said, "I've been cleaning out old papers and I just came upon the most extraordinary letters. Seems my aunt was at a house party and a man died in someone's bed. Well, the only way to keep it secret was for all the women--and they were on one floor as custom demands--to help haul his body out of that one woman's bedroom and back down the stairs up to his own bed! Most amazingly, the next day the men were talking about how weak women are!" As Jessica said, "A problem shared is a problem dumped on other people."

5. The three Crawley sisters represent the three types of women of that era: Mary wants power and will get it the old fashioned way by marrying it; Sybil wants power and was willing to be involved in the political system; and Edith wants anything she can get! (Poor Edith.)

6. Mary is patterned after Julian's mother, and Cora's remarks to her daughter on her wedding night is the same as Julian's grandmother's to his own mother: (Paraphrasing here) "You realize there are things an English wife must do. But no one tells you...it's the most horrific fun!"

Jessica Fellowes

7. The dining room scenes can take 10-12 hours to film because they are filmed in Highclere Castle's very small dining room.  British heartthrob Dan Stevens (Matthew Crawley) has said that he's learned the hard way not to start a scene with a bit of chicken in his mouth because after ten hours of chewing chicken for continuity's sake it's pretty disgusting.

8. The producers and Julian have purposefully held back from putting any realistic new products in the house and the scenes because even if they were appropriate for the times, because they are new, they are jarring to the viewers.

9. In the UK, Downton Abbey is interrupted by commercials. Julian much prefers that it be viewed the way we see it here in the US.

10. O'Brian will not be coming back. She's a copy of a real ladies maid who ran off an entire family, one by one, so that her mistress died alone and thinking she'd been deserted by her loved ones.

11. Julian's wife helps him with ideas. She's the one who suggested that Bates have a limp and be injured. (Wasn't that brilliant?) Just love the relationship between him and Anna!

Kiki Lowenstein and the Bad Day (Part IV)

Note: I asked my Facebook peeps to suggest starting sentences for a Kiki Lowenstein short story. There were so many terrific ideas that I have decided to try to incorporate more than one –and write a progressive short story. You'll be reading this as I create it! Wish me luck!

Note: This short story comes before Ready, Scrap, Shoot—and Kiki is six weeks pregnant.

In last three weeks’ installments—Kiki walked into Time in the Bottle only to discover papers scattered everywhere. Detective Chad Detweiler arrived to pronounce the store “safe,” but Kiki’s still wondering what’s up. Her co-worker Margit has shown up and reminded Kiki that she needs a great idea for May to boost their sales. As she’s pondering what to do, Teresa Alvarez stops in to drop off a gift for Kiki. Teresa is planning to become a US citizen on May 5, but her joy is diminished because her cousin Juanita cannot afford the increased fees for citizenship applications. Seeking to change the subject, Kiki opens her present.

By the way, you can read Installments #1, 2, and 3 by going to older posts on this blog.

            I was stumped. I’d never heard of cascarones, and as I turned the delicate tissue paper covered egg around and around in my hand, I wasn’t sure what to make of it. Obviously, this gift required a bit of explanation. Pulling up a stool, I sat down. Teresa took another stool to sit beside me.

            She gently took my toy away from me. “Each spring in my little town in Mexico, we start to save eggshells. As we cook, we only open one end, rather than crush them.”

            With a finger, she traced the larger portion of the oval. Now that I was looking more carefully, I could see that it was covered with tissue paper and not solid. It was as if someone had done a repair job to the egg!

            “I see,” I said, taking it from her and marveling at the patch job. “This certainly is pretty. If you put them in a glass bowl on a table, they would make a wonderful centerpiece.”

            “Si, and we do that. But we have another use for them.” Once again, she took the egg from me.

            With a lightning strike, she smashed the egg into my forehead! I was so taken aback that I nearly fell off my stool. More shocking was the glitter and confetti that rained down over my nose! Of course, I’d anticipated a shower of gooey egg yolks and whites. This was dry. Ticklish. And startling.

            “Oh!” I gasped.

            She giggled. “Forgive me, but it’s the best way to explain. They are much fun. Especially so if you are not familiar with them. The children, they love them so much. But the grownups think they are fun, too.”

            As the confetti drifted down over my hands and lap, I started laughing. “Well! Thank you for teaching me something new.”

            After Teresa left, I went back to my work. When I took a bathroom break, I stuck my head in to check on Margit. She didn’t hear me approach; she was muttering darkly as she stared at our sales figures. “Kiki, I do not know what we will do. We need a special event for May. And that paper! It is ruined, I think. With it goes our profits.”

            As I lingered in the doorway, Clancy came in through the backdoor. She tilted her head to stare at me. “You’re covered in glitter.”

            I explained about the cascarones.

            “I wish I could have seen the expression on your face when Teresa smashed one on your head,” said Clancy.

            I bit back a laugh. Clancy was irked with me. For April Fool’s Day, I had tricked her into believing someone had poured ink all over our cash register. She’d thrown a hissy fit in front of two customers—and once she learned it was a gag, she’d been even more angry. Usually, she’s a great sport, but she takes herself a bit too seriously sometimes, and this (IMHO) was one of them.

            Margit shook her head. “Ja, that would have been funny.”

            But she didn’t sound amused.

            “What’s wrong?” Clancy asked.

            That gave Margit permission to complain about the shredded paper, the need for more sales, and the state of the ozone. About halfway through, I walked away. In general, my philosophy is (as Mert says) that one can never have too many friends. * But when your friends are nothing but grumps, well, they can go soak their heads. I started for the refrigerator and then remembered that I could no longer turn to my most necessary scrapbook supply, a six-pack of Diet Dr Pepper. ** Now that I was pregnant, I’d sworn off any artificial sweeteners. I reminded myself that my friends were one of life’s greatest blessings. Why, just last week, it was cold, dark and pouring rain when I suddenly heard a “Pow!” as my worn rear tire exploded. Since the highway was deserted, I’d phoned Clancy and she’d come to my rescue.*** And the week before, I’d had a terrifying dream that the doctor told me I was having twins! **** When I told Margit how scary that was, she’d put an arm around me and given me a hug.

            Soon I would be feeling my baby kick inside my swollen belly. ***** And this child would be born into a wonderful circle of friends.

            But why did they all have to be so grumpy? How come it was always MY responsibility to come up with a way to make money for our store? But then I shook off my bad mood. After all, I had nothing to complain about, especially compared to Teresa’s sister, Juanita. Now being deported, THAT was a problem.

            I sighed and sat down at my work table. There had to be a way I could fix everything. Okay, ALMOST everything. All I needed was to think…

TO BE CONTINUED…

 Special thanks to--

*Christy Egan

**Elizabeth B. Jensen

***Lynn Tondro Bisset

****Ginny Kiernan Dahlberg

*****Ellen McCaffrey

Win a Copy of Death of a Dowager

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Kiki Lowenstein and the Bad Day (Part III)

 Note: I asked my Facebook peeps to suggest starting sentences for a Kiki Lowenstein short story. There were so many terrific ideas that I have decided to try to incorporate more than one –and write a progressive short story. You'll be reading this as I create it! Wish me luck!

Note: This short story comes before Ready, Scrap, Shoot—and Kiki is six weeks pregnant.

In last two weeks’ installments—Kiki walked into Time in the Bottle only to discover papers scattered everywhere. Detective Chad Detweiler arrived to pronounce the store “safe,” but Kiki’s still wondering what’s up. Her co-worker Margit has shown up and reminded Kiki that she needs a great idea for a crop in May. As she’s pondering what to do, Teresa Alvarez stops in to drop off a gift for Kiki. Teresa is planning to become a US citizen on May 5.

“Yes, do open the gift,” said Teresa, but her smile faltered just a little.  Her lovely brown eyes swam with tears. As always, she dressed simply in inexpensive jeans and a colorful knit blouse. But large gold hoops swayed in her ears and a silk flower caught her hair so that it was pinned up over one ear. Her distinctive fragrance was vanilla, so warm and wholesome that I couldn’t help but breath deeply and enjoy it.

            “What’s wrong?” I asked.

            “It is nothing.” She brushed away my question with a tiny gesture of her hand.

            As tempting as it was to open the bag and dive right into the gift, I hesitated. “Come on, Teresa. What’s up? Come on over and sit down. Would you like a Coke?”

            “A Diet Dr Pepper?”

            I laughed, “You know that we stock those, although I’m envious because I’m drinking water these days. Have a seat at my work table.”

            After we’d had a sip of our drinks, I tried to steer us back to the topic at hand. “So what’s bothering you, Teresa? I know it’s been a long road to citizenship. You’re almost there, and we’re all very happy for you.”

            “Si, but my sister Juanita planned to apply with me, and she can’t. The cost of the application has gone up. So much! It is now $680! And if it is denied, she cannot get it back. Instead, she thinks she will only renew her green card. That will cost her $450 and those are almost never turned down. She says she cannot afford to gamble so much. I say, but you could be sent back to Mexico! Yes, she says but if she goes, at least she will go take a little money with her to her family. Her husband has diabetes and has not worked in two years.”

            I had no idea it cost even to apply for citizenship, so I sat there feeling stunned and sad. My own sister Amanda had recently re-entered my life. I counted her a great blessing. She and I had both grown up in the years we’d been semi-estranged. We realized that we’d harbored mistaken impressions of each other’s life. Of course, my mother had been particularly unhelpful in reuniting us.

I blinked and my mind flashed on a vision of my cute cop-of-a-boyfriend, Chad Detweiler.* I remembered something he’d said just two mornings ago, “I only have five socks here.** But knowing you, you’ll take that odd one and make something wonderful with it. That’s what I love about you, Kiki. You always make lemons into lemonade.”

“That’s me. Trouble follows me everywhere, so I’ve gotten a lot of practice at turning frowns into smile,” I’d said as I stood on tiptoe to kiss him. *** As I looked into his eyes, I could feel that he was just as in love with me as I was with him. ****

“Good old Mom. Even if it was a dark and stormy night, she’d find a way to be happy about it.***** These days, she’s a regular Suzy Sunshine,” my daughter Anya had chimed in and we all laughed.

“Yes, I do think I’m all that!” I’d yelled as I slammed the door and started my shower. ****** I could hear Chad and Anya giggling on the other side, and it pleased me to no end.

            But a soft hiccup from Teresa brought me back to the here and now as she shed a few more tears. I patted her hand, a totally useless gesture, but what else could I do?

            “And my sister? She is expecting. It makes me so sad because my children will not grow up with hers if she is sent back.”

            Call me hormonal, because I am, but I burst into tears at that.

            “You better open the bag,” she said as she wiped her face. “Because you need to cheer up. I did not mean to upset you, Kiki.  Your little baby will suffer if you worry too much, my friend.”

            “Okay.” I never needed much coaxing to tear open a present. This time I lifted one crumpled sheet of tissue paper after another out and set them carefully on my work table. They formed a happy rainbow at my elbow. Near the bottom of the bag, I found a small tinfoil packet that I unwrapped carefully. Inside were a dozen white chocolate tamales.” I squealed with delight. “Love these!”

            “I know you do! There is more.” She clapped her hands together in shared delight.

            I lifted out more crumpled pieces until I found a Styrofoam egg carton taped shut.

            “Open it!” Teresa laughed.

            I did. Inside where a dozen brightly colored eggs.

            “Hard-boiled?” I asked.

            “No! Cascarones!”

MORE TO COME and thanks to my co-authors--

*Elizabeth B. Jensen

**Bette Jaker Barr

***Stephanie Craig

****Sue Payne

*****Mary Schlumpf

******Vera Lynn

Winners from the DEATH OF A DOWAGER Book Launch Party

Here's what I did...I assigned each commenter a number. Then I went to the random number generator and here are my winners:

* GreenMonsta00 and Barbara T both get signed, personalized copies of both DEATH OF A SCHOOLGIRL and DEATH OF A DOWAGER.

* Kimberly and Diane's Diary each get a signed, personalize of DEATH OF A DOWAGER.

* Jackie Largen and Vicki Hamilton get "Lowood Institution Lacrosse" tees.

Please email me at JCSlan@JoannaSlan.com with your postal addresses (and sizes if appropriate)

Book Launch Party for 'DEATH OF A DOWAGER'

After many months of labor pains (and I mean that more literally than you can imagine), I'm celebrating the birth of the second book in The Jane Eyre Chronicles--Death of a Dowager.

Yep, my editor actually was working on the manuscript when she went into labor! How's that for dedication?

And so..ta-da! Here's the scoop...

In Death of a Dowager, Charlotte Bronte’s classic continues when a married Jane Eyre finds herself in possession of a love letter written by King George IV—and a mysterious murder with connections to that note threatens not only the lives of Jane’s loved ones but also the peace and stability of the realm!

CONTEST

Be a lucky commenter (you can use the questions below as a jump-start) and you might win one of three wonderful prizes! (Winners chosen by random number generator.)

* Signed copies of both Death of a Schoolgirl and Death of a Dowager

* Signed copy of Death of a Dowager

* A "Lowood Institution Lacrosse" tee-shirt

QUESTIONS 

Have you ever written a letter that you would have paid money to get back?

What do you think about love letters? Are they dangerous? Delightful? A thing of the past?

Has anyone ever written you a love letter? Did you keep it?