Blogroll

Today is my blogging day on Unusual Historicals. Our topic for this month is "Families & Children", and this presented me with the perfect opportunity to write about one of my favourite museums, the Museum of Childhood in Edinburgh (as featured in my very first -- and still unpublished -- novel in English: HIGHLAND LOVE). Enjoy!

Last Friday the lovely Laura Vivanco posted an analysis of BEWITCHED on Teach Me Tonight. As always it's terribly exciting to see other people discussing one of my books.

Last but not least, I'd like to pimp the blog of my former crit partners on the Ladies of Lallybroch Lit Forum, where I took my first stumbling steps in writing fiction in English. Without these lovely ladies I would have never made it this far! Not only did they teach me so much, but they also helped me to find my (English) voice. Their blog, Face the Page, is a truly wonderful project: they post weekly writing prompts, thoughts on the writer's life, quotes from famous writers, and much more. Please have a look and say hello. :)

Buy Books and Do Something for Charity

Brenda Novak's 2008 Online Auction to Benefit Diabetes Research is up and running -- and some of the items you can bid for are truly stunning: a safari in Africa anybody? antique Wedgewood jewellery? a handmade quilt made by Anne Stuart? a weekend in Susan Wiggs's guest house? Check out the Once in a Lifetime Experiences or the For Everyone pages!

Apart from these rather spectacular things up for auction, there are also more conservative items: agent and editor evaluations as well as autographed ARCs and books. And among the latter, there's also a set of three books by yours truly. :-)

And if you happen to live in Europe -- think of the current exchange rate!!!

The Lily Brand in Chicago

Thanks to the wonderful Laura I found out yesterday that The Lily Brand will be part of a small exhibition in the library of the University of Chicago (at this point, you may imagine Sandra doing a big "Wheeeeeeeee!"): Elizabeth Litchfield has won this year's T. Kimball Brooker Prize for Undergraduate Book Collecting for her romance collection. As a result of her win, eight of her books will be on display in the Regenstein Library -- and among the books she has chosen is The Lily Brand. How cool is that? (At this point, you may imagine Sandra doing another big "Wheeeeeee!")

Back among the living

After two weeks of polishing (and polishing and polishing and polishing and polishing and ... well, you get the picture) the excerpt from one of my diss chapters, I finally handed it in on Tuesday (or rather I uploaded it so our grad student group can crit it and pick it apart and discuss it on Monday). Which meant I took yesterday and today off and metamorphosed into a couch potato. :) Hooray! Unfortunately it's going to be a rather short-lived couch potato, as I'll have to start polishing the rest of the aforementioned chapter tomorrow.

Finished reading James Patterson's (and Gabrielle Charbonnet's) latest release, SUNDAYS AT TIFFANY'S yesterday -- it's one of the most adorable stories I've read in a very long time! The tag line is: "What if your imaginary friend from childhood was your one true love?" (Yes, the book itself is just as sweet as that!) The novel made me cry and made me smile and at the end it made me cry again because it's such a beautiful ending. *happy sigh* Now I'm reading Patterson's SAM'S LETTERS TO JENNIFER - Fictionwise is so corrupting me!

As to other news: BEWITCHED got a D from AAR,* which I found out this morning (not a good way to start your day - ouch!). But to make up for it, I got five stars from Happy End Bücher, which I found out this afternoon. In other words, 'twas a day of extremes ...

* I could use this as an excuse to justify buying THE GOLDEN HOUR on play.com - hmmm ....