Author Nora Roberts in the News

Author Nora Roberts/J.D. Robb was converting an old hotel into an inn with reading themed rooms. Read more about it:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080222/ap_on_re_us/fire_roberts;_ylt=AubYSzkoti5PdYUhxbzDpPhvzwcF

News from Author Cathy Pickens

Southern author Cathy Pickens has lots of interesting news in her latest newsletter. Be sure to watch for her newest title, Hush My Mouth which will be available in February.

If you want the chance to see Cathy, she will be at the South Carolina Book Festival in Columbia, SC February 22-23. She will be closer to Stanly County on April 1 when she will lead the Let's Talk About It discussion of Paretsky's Burn Marks at the Cabarrus County Library. She will also be the Friends of the Library speaker for the Kannapolis Public Library's luncheon and discussion on April 22.

There is a new Southern Writers Blog that Cathy is participating in. "A Good Blog is Hard to Find" is available at http://southernauthors.blogspot.com/ and you will find a large group of Southern writers - names you may be familiar with and new ones.

Visit Cathy's website at www.cathypickens.com for links to interview podcasts and youtube book trailers along with her appearance schedule.

February BAM Challenge

The theme for the February Book A Month Challenge is “Heart”.

For the month of love, you can read a romance, or go with any genre that has a subplot of romance. Try a book about legendary lovers or even something in medicine about the heart. And then there is always a book with “heart” in the title. I’ve got a great list of choices to get you started – or you can come up with your own title that somehow relates to the theme of “Heart”. Leave a comment and let me know what title you pick and leave a short review if you feel like it. My choice is going to be easy this month – a romance novel.

Romance
Agnes and the Hitman by Jennifer Cruise and Bob Mayer
Heart of Honor by Kat Martin
Be Still my Vampire Heart by Kerrelyn Sparks
What a Lady Wants by Victoria Alexander
Mad Dash by Patricia Gaffney
Alphabet Weekends: Love on the Road fro A to Z by Elizabeth Nobel
Natural Born Charmer by Susan Elizabeth Phillips
Love Letters From a Duke by Elizabeth Boyle

Other Genres
Blood Lie by Daniel Kalla
Heart of the World by Linda Barnes
Lover’s Knot by Emilie Richards
Dark Dreamers by Christine Feehan
The Wedding Officer by Anthony Capella
The Guy Not Taken: Stories by Jennifer Weiner

Legendary Lovers
Casanova in Love by Andrew Miller
The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
The Memoirs of Cleopatra: a Novel by Margaret George
Love and Hate in Jamestown: John Smith, Pocahontas, and the Heart of a New Nation by David Price

Medicine
Every Second Counts: The Race to Transplant the first Human Heart by Donald McRae
The Alarming History of Medicine: Amusing Anecdotes from Hippocrates to Heart Transplants by Richard Gordon
Walk on Water: a Pediatric Surgeon’s Journey by Michael Ruhlman
Chicken Soup for the Soul Healthy Living: Heart Disease

Books with “Heart” in the Title
The Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill
The Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Heart Full of Soul: and Inspirational Memoir About Finding Your Voice and Finding Your Way by Taylor Hicks
Where my Heart Belongs by Tracie Peterson
Socrates in Love: Philosophy for a Passionate Heart by Christopher Phillips

Thursday Next: First Among Sequels by Jasper Fforde

I read Thursday Next: First Among Sequels by Jasper Fforde for the Janaury Book A Month Challange. Our challenge was to read a book with the theme of "Time". The book I read is the latest in the Thursday Next series of books. This is a humerous series full of puns and literary allusions. Thursday, the heroine, is able to jump between the real world, Outland, and the book world where she has many adventures. Her son, Friday, is able to jump through time as a future member of the Chrono Guard. Together they have to work together in the present, past and future and in the real world and the book work to save time. The book was a little slow to get started but was worth sticking with. Great characters and a setting the is contemporary Britian but yet it's not the Britain we know. I hope you try this or one of the other titles in the series: The Eyre Affair, Lost in Good Book, The Well of Lost Plots, and Something Rotten.

If you read a book for this challenge, please let us know, by leaving a comment, what book you read and if you liked it.

I'll be sharing the February Read A Month Challenge soon.