Marilyn Brant's Blog, page 28

It's an absolute pleasure to host Melissa Senate, GCC pal and fabulous writer, on Brant Flakes today as she celebrates the release of her latest novel, THE SECRET OF JOY (Simon & Schuster, trade paperback)!! Melissa lives on the coast of Maine with her son and their menagerie of pets. She's the author of eight novels (seven women's fiction and one young adult) with two on the way. Of this book, New York Times bestselling author Carly Phillips said, "The Secret of Joy by Melissa Senate opened ...

Good morning!

Just a quick post to share the winning name in the drawing yesterday for one of Maria Geraci's fabulous books. And the novel goes to: Rain Maiden. Congratulations!! Please email me privately (marilynbrant AT gmail DOT com) with your mailing address and the name of the novel you'd like (either Maria's first book--Bunco Babes Tell All--or her newest release--Bunco Babes Gone Wild). I'll get that info to Maria and she'll send a book out to you. :-)

As Thanksgiving plans begin to soli...

This is a busy release month for the Girlfriends Cyber Circuit and several of my GCC sisters have new books coming out--I'm excited about all of them! Today, Jessica Brody is back with LOVE UNDER COVER (St. Martin's Press), the follow up to her wonderful women's fiction debut THE FIDELITY FILES. This series is currently in development with the the executive producer of "Crash" for a possible TV series--wow! But Jessica is no stranger to the film world. She graduated from Smith College in Mass...

As I mentioned briefly on Monday, I had a chance to meet the very gracious Kate Jacobs this past weekend. I was thinking I'd just slip into the library, listen to her presentation and say a quick hello to her as she signed my copy of Comfort Food. (GREAT book, btw, and I loved the story's heroine, Gus, who's such a wonderful, beautiful, well-developed character. :) I was trying not be too much of a geeky fan girl, but Kate and her husband were truly welcoming. And, when one of my favorite lib...

I had a lovely weekend. First, the weather was, like, 65 degrees. In Chicago. In NOVEMBER! (Not as warm as Maria's home state of Florida, but c'mon! Midwesterners everywhere rejoiced and wore shorts.) Plus, there was a long-awaited, Friday-night get-together with friends that included hours of fun conversation, homemade brownies and "beer-itas," a form of margaritas made with beer--surprisingly tasty and deliberately potent. (One that Maria might find to be an excellent Bunco drink, btw...)

T...

Today, I'm over at the 007 Blog, spending the day with my fellow Bond Sisters and writing about "An Author's Intentions." It's a post based on a very interesting phone call I received recently, and one that required hours of post-conversation analysis...

Also, I've begun my Cherry Forums Book Club week, so if any of you would like to join in on the According to Jane book discussion, I'd love to see you there!!

Finally, after months of futile resistance (and MUCH pressure from the very persuasiv...

Fridays are fun--especially when your writing friend Lainey Bancroft has a new release! The Trouble With Tessa (The Wild Rose Press) is the story of Erin Sanders who, at age 35, has resigned herself to a single, childless lifestyle. Then dynamic Tanner walks into her office and proposes that she pretend to date him in order to assess the mental well-being of Tessa, his orphaned niece. Erin falls hard and fast for the man. As an added bonus, she and the delightful Tessa come to adore each othe...

...which means you can't catch the nasty flu virus sweeping through our house.

It was an exhausting weekend of illness and Tylenol here and, unfortunately, I'm not seeing a quick end to it now that it's Monday... However, even though I won't be setting foot out of my real house this week, I get to party around the clock at a number of wonderful blog sites elsewhere:

**Awesome writing friend Caryn Caldwell has an interview up with me today on her site The Book Lady! You can read about what being...

Just a quickie post this morning to wish you all a very happy FRIDAY (yippee!) and to share with you one cool link that my Kensington publicist forwarded to me yesterday. Family Circle magazine has an online edition called "Inner Circle," and Cheryl Grant, one of their editors, read According to Jane and posted a little something about it here. Definitely made my day/week (!!!), despite all the rainy, cold weather we've been having... Hope it's sunnier where you are.

Enjoy the weekend, everyon...

This is the first time in my two-and-a-half years of blogging that I've done a Top 5 (or a Top 10, Top 20, Top Anything for that matter...), but this has been a month of firsts, so I guess it's fitting. Without further ado, he's my Rocktober Top 5:

1. My book came out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And I got to celebrate around Chicagoland *and* around the Blogosphere with THE MOST FABULOUS FRIENDS EVER!! (Thanks to ALL of you!!!!)

2. According to Jane has been on the Amazon Kindle Bestseller List for 4 strai...