Is, DRUM ROLL….
Reba Newman
Congrats Reba. I know you said I could pick the book, so you will be getting a copy of Out of Bounds unless you want to take a look at TA’s other books. Just email me with Birthday Contest winner in the subject line and we’ll get everything figured out. binojo2@yahoo.com
Reba has until Sunday to respond. If I don’t hear anything I’ll draw again!
Thank you everyone for entering my first contest. Have a great day!
You might be wondering just what it is that is done. Well let me tell you. 
I hit the send button on my first story. It now sits in an email on the editor’s computer just waiting to be read. Now the hard part. The wait to see what she thought. 
Well today is my birthday and to celebrate I bought 4 of TA Chase’s books.
No Going Home
Home of His Own
Angel’s Evolution
Stealing Life
If you have not read TA Chase, you should! So for my birthday I’m going to give away a copy of one of TA’s books, winners choice. Go check out his website to see which book you might like. I would suggest Out of Bounds to read first. It’s my favorite.
You have until Sunday, June 29th to post. All you have to do is let me know that you have never read TA or m/m romance and you are in the running. (If you have read m/m, but not TA, you can enter too.) Heck…I’ll make it easy, if you want to read a TA book post!
The winner will be announced on the 30th and you have to check back here to see if you’ve won. If you don’t check back in with in a week then a new winner will be chosen.
This is my first contest so we’ll see how it goes.
I thought it was time to share just where I’m at in my work in process. I had a beta reader take a look and she liked the story. Then I had an author take a look at it and she liked enough that she is giving me suggestions to help make it better, which I LOVE! I want my story to be the best it can be and I love all the help. I’m a VERY lucky girl.
Right now I’m working on editing my story using the wonderful suggestions I was given and I’m about half way through with that. Then I want to go through it one more time to see if I need to add anything. After that I’m hoping I can get the hubby to sit down long enough to give me a content edit before I sub it to Samhain.
The last step before subbing is the synopsis. I’ve never writen one so I’m a little nervous, but I’ve had some wonderful advice given to me so I’m sure it will be fine.
I would love to have everything done by my birthday, but I don’t see that happening because it is this weekend! lol Maybe as a birthday present I can get my hubby to take our son for the day so I can finish up.
First I got a late start which is nothing new if you ask my husband. I started driving and the first thing you should know is I am VERY bad with directions and Map Quest EVERYTHING! After going about 2 hours the wrong way I stop at a gas station and talked to this nice police officer who said I went North when I should have gone South! Silly Me! Stupid Map Quest didn’t have a direction posted so I went the wrong way! I was down, but I put my Batman soundtrack in, the one that is all Prince, and all was good until I realized I had to go to the bathroom. I was too busy driving and looking for 33 East and telling myself it had to be coming up soon. Finally I see a sign and right by the sign is a gas station. Whew! Good thing too! Lol
I finally pull up to the hotel at 11:00 when I had planned on being there at 9:00. I walk into the hotel and have no idea where I’m going or what I should do. I go to the big room and it is chaos. People are everywhere and they are doing some kind of raffle. I look around to see if I can find Joy from Joyfully Reviewed because I’ve seen her picture before, but no luck. I leave the room and go to the Borders area where they are selling books and Lori Foster just happens to be there. She was very nice and took me to the registration area where I got my name tag.
I do a walk around the room and there is Joy! She gives me a big hug and introduces me to a few people at her table. She asked if I want to sit down and I say sure. She tells me she’ll be back because she wants to take pictures.
It is then I realize that it is almost 11:30 and I have NO idea where they are doing the pitch meetings. I feel a little panic because I don’t have an actual appointment and was told to stand by the time keeper so they could squeeze me in, so I leave the table. I go outside the room where they have a schedule set up, but all it says is the meeting rooms have been changed! I go back to the registration table, but they have no idea where the rooms are. It just so happens that I spotted Christina Brashear (the publisher of Samhain) by her name tag so I introduced myself and asked where they were doing the pitches. She was kind enough to direct me so off I went. I found the time keeper and she puts my name down and the waiting begins. One of the editors from Wild Rose stopped by and asked what I was pitching. I think her name was Nan-I didn’t get a good look at her name tag. I told her a little and she said good luck and told me not to be nervous because I had just practiced on her. I thought that was very nice! I really didn’t have long to wait because someone didn’t show up for their appointment.
I enter the room and I feel the nerves coming because I’ve never been good at talking to strangers and this is VERY important. I sit down and introduce myself and Angela James knew who I was! We chit chat a little about the fact that I named Jaci Burton’s Christmas book and how I’m on the Samhain Café ALL the time and then the pitch starts. I fumble what I’m going to say. I was just going to pitch my first book but ended up tell Angela about the series. I think that is why I fumbled so much. I had everything I was going to say so carefully thought out and it just left my head the minute I stated talking! Angela did tell me to submit my full manuscript to her so I would say the pitch went well. Now I have to fix a few things so I can submit it!
While I’m standing there waiting for my pitch meeting and Amy Knupp was walking by and saw my name tag and said hi! I talked to her for a couple minutes and then I had to go into my pitch. After I was done with my pitch I went back to the big room and looked for Amy because I knew Maya Banks and Ali would be with her. I spot them in the crowd and go over. They are all VERY nice and I ate lunch with them and then went book shopping with them. While book shopping Valerie Tibbs showed up so I went book shopping with her and who do I spot, SJ Willing! He is British! I would have never guessed. I talk to him for a little bit while Valerie gets her books and who walks up but Anne Rainey! I’m so excited to put faces with all these names. We talk for a while in line and while checking out who walks by…D. McIntire and then Shiloh Walker walks by and say hi when she hears my name! After chatting for a little bit Valerie and I go back to the table where Maya, Amy and Ali are sitting. We take some pictures and Joy comes over and asked who we want to meet. She takes us around and we find Bianca D’Arc. I even got a picture….with her arm! Lol She doesn’t like her picture taken. We talk for a bit and then go sit back down. Joy comes and sit with us and her bunny molested me. Lol Joy is a hoot!
It is finally time for the book signing so Valerie and I go look for authors to sign our books. Ali had A LOT of work to do because she had a BAG full of books to get signed. Valerie and I didn’t have as many! After getting our books signed we sit back down to talk a little and then it was time to leave.
The drive back was MUCH faster, probably because I went the right way! Now I am tired and ready for bed! It has been a long day and I have some work to do on my story tomorrow!
A while ago I entered a contest on Ann Aguirre site http://www.annaguirre.com/blog/ for a signed copy of Grimspace and ended up winning the grand prize which was a gift cert to a book store. Of course I HAD to buy Grimspace and I’m VERY glad that I did.
Grimspace is written in first person as told by Sirantha Jax. I don’t read much first person, I’m not sure why, I just don’t. If you don’t read much first person you really should give Grimspace a try. It will be worth the read. Grimspace is Ann’s first book and the sequel is on the way. I can’t wait for it.
Here is the blurb from Barnes and Noble:
As the carrier of a rare gene, Sirantha Jax has the ability to jump ships through grimspace-a talent which makes her a highly prized navigator for the Corp. Then a crash landing kills everyone on board, leaving Jax in a jail cell with no memory of the crash. But her fun’s not over. A group of rogue fighters frees her…for a price: her help in overthrowing the established order.
The things Ann puts Jax through are unbelievable and the strength that Jax using to pull through it all is great. It is nice to read about a strong female lead and her flawed, but strong male counter part. The world Ann creates is very vivid and you can feel yourself become a part of that world. I think some of that comes from the 1st person perspective.
The secondary characters are just as wonderful as the leads. I won’t even talk about Baby Z…giving Ann a glare. One of my favorite secondary characters is Dina. She is great and I hope Ann gives her her own book, but I don’t know how that will work because the series is in Jax’s voice. I just know that I want more of Jax and her world.
Right now Ann has a free read on her site in March’s voice and it is very good. It might give some things away if you haven’t read Grimspace, but it is very good and I enjoyed reading about some of March’s past and hearing his voice. You get a certain feel of March through Jax, but it is nice to hear just him unfiltered by Jax.
If you haven’t picked up Grimspace you should go get your copy today because you aren’t going to want to fall behind in this series.
