There’s plenty to celebrate:

• it’s autumn here, a beautiful season with just a hint of cool in the air;
• Mother’s Day is coming up, and I have a wonderful mother (hi, Mum!);
• Dark Country is written, currently in the copy-edit stage, and the cover is beautiful;
• As Darkness Falls is selling steadily, and I have my first royalty statement with a figure at the bottom in the positive territory;
• I’ve received some wonderful positive feedback, reviews and emails from readers about the book – thank you!;
• I’ve started on book 3;
• I’ll probably have covers for the UK and German editions of ADF soon;
• and As Darkness Falls will be out in the B-format edition and on Australian shop shelves next week!

To celebrate all of that, I’m giving away three As Darkness Falls prize packs – each containing a signed copy of As Darkness Falls; three 5″x7″ Australian wildflower photos taken by DH and I, suitable for framing (frame not included); a handwoven bookmark; and some chocolate. (Because there should always be chocolate, right?)

A perfect gift for yourself, or – if you already have ADF – for a special mother or friend.

The contest will run until April 19th, and I’ll draw the winners on April 20th. Prizes will be posted during that week, so should arrive in good time for Mother’s Day.

To enter, simply fill in the form below, before 19th April. All entries will go into the prize draw. As long as you live on this planet, with an address a postal service delivers to, you’re eligible to enter. But please enter only once!

As an extra ‘thank you’ to my supportive readers,  if you’ve reviewed ADF, or mentioned it on a blog, or added it to your LibraryThing/Shelfari/GoodReads library or wishlist, or otherwise supported the book in a public forum, let me know on the entry form, and I’ll give you an extra entry in the prize draw

As usual, because I respect your privacy, I won’t sell, give away or otherwise do anything nasty with your email address.

Note: This contest is now closed.

Huge congratulations to all the Romance Writers of America RITA and Golden Heart Award finalists, announced yesterday.

A special shout-out and extra WOOO-HOOO to the Down-Under contingent:
In the RITAs: Lilian Darcy, andBarbara Hannay in the Contemporary Series Romance category; Christine Wells in Regency Historical Romance; the amazing Stephanie Laurens finalling three times in different categories; and NZ’s Nalini Singh in the Paranormal Romance section. And in the Golden Heart, the contest for unpublished manuscripts, Vanessa Barneveld has finaled in the Young Adult category.

I think it’s fantastic that, despite our relatively small population, Australian (and NZ!) authors continue to do so well in these awards – the major international awards for the genre.

The RITA and Golden Heart winners will be announced at a gala event at the conclusion of the Romance Writers of America national conference in Washington, DC, in July.

I’ll be cheering on the Aussies in spirit at least, if not in person. I’m not sure just yet whether I’m going to DC or not this year – since my workshop proposal wasn’t accepted, and since As Darkness Falls didn’t make it to the RITA finals, I’ll need to decide whether I want to spend several thousand dollars to go to the conference. Okay, I do want to – no doubt about that – but I’ll have to work out whether that’s best use of the funds at this point, and whether it’s the most important thing to fit into an already busy year. I’m definitely going to the Australian conference in Brisbane in August, though!

I’ve just spent a few hours updating the web site a little – installing the new version of WordPress, revising the website home page, adding a separate page for each book, and (therefore) revising the ‘Books’ page. I’ve still got a little tweaking to do, but hopefully won’t crash the whole lot!

In the meantime, if you see any broken links or there’s something that doesn’t work (or which you think is crap), please let me know.

When I’ve got all this sorted out, there’s going to be a new contest – so stay tuned in the next few days!

One of the problems with being flat-out busy for the last three months or so, is that I haven’t done much reading. And one of the ‘problems’ about spending time on reading blogs and communities is that you hear about so many good books – books that are easy to either buy online, or pick up in the local bookshop. And one of the ‘problems’ of going to conferences is that you get free books.

This is the result – my TBR piles and shelves:

TBR shelf 1

TBR shelf 2

TBR shelf 3

TBR shelf 4

What you can’t see, in those photos, is the pile of books behind the pile on shelf 2. Or the five or so books sent home from ARRC last month that are still in my car. And we won’t talk about the box of old Mills and Boons (acquired for thesis research) that have been in the boot of my car for months, or the stacks of them behind the stacks of read books on the bookshelves.

Now, I know I’m not as bad addicted dedicated to reading and books as some people. However, I did a count last night, and there’s about 105 books (not counting the M&Bs) that are waiting to be read.

I’m definitely going to have to make time to curl up and read some more Oh, and maybe not buy any many books for a while!

This lizard lives around the rocks and timber that have been in the garden awaiting use in the landscaping we plan to do – this year! (We’ve only been in this house for eight years…..)

It’s a great lizard playground, and I see her/him often, but rarely when I have a camera handy. Today s/he posed quite nicely for a minute or so – keeping a wary eye on me – before dashing away. I love it’s colouring, and the way it blends with the rocks and the lichen.

Lizard

(And aren’t those toes just gorgeous?)