October 31, 2007

Courtesy of Random Number Generator, the winner of Jana DeLeon's Unlucky is:

Teresa W.

Congrats! Email me at author at colleengleason dot com and I'll get your prize out to you.

Remember, tonight I draw the winner(s) of my Immortalize Your Friend in a Book Contest. Squeee! I can't wait!

October 31, 2007

Bookfool just tagged me with this great meme, and I'm going to jump right in and answer it…and then it'll be your turn. Savvy?

“Ten Literary Characters I Would Totally Make Out With If I Were Single and They Were Real But I’m Not, Single I Mean; I Am Real–But I’m Also Happily Married and Want to Stay That Way, So Maybe We Should Forget This…”

No way! This sounds like too much fun! So…here goes:

1. Roarke from the JD Robb books (but only if Eve Dallas wasn't around; I don't want to get stunned)

2. Ian di Vipont from Roberta Gellis's Roselynde Chronicles. Ooooh…and Adam LeMagne too. Yum.

3. The Weasley brother who studies dragons. (Can't remember his name. Is he the one who married Fleur?)

4. Radcliffe Emerson from Elizabeth Peters' Amelia Peabody books.

5. Jack Sheridan from Robyn Carr's Virgin River books.

6. Joe Morelli Ranger from the Stephanie Plum books. (See, I'd marry Joe, but I'd make the hell out with Ranger.)

7.  Jim Frayne from the Trixie Belden books. (ahhh….my first literary crush)

8. Mr. Darcy.

9./10.  Max Pesaro/Sebastian Vioget

(Yeah, it's probably a little cheesy to want to make out with my own characters…but, ya'll, I created them. I know they'd be good.)

Anyone else want to jump in? You don't have to name ten….just as many as you want.

Oh, and I'm officially tagging Jenny Armintrout, MaryKate, and Katie.

October 30, 2007

Doh! I forgot to mention in my post below about Jana's book that I'm giving away a free, signed copy of  Unlucky! So if you want to be entered, make a comment herewith and answer this question: who's your favorite comedian?

I'll draw a winner tomorrow morning. So speak up today! 

Second, my Immortalize Your Friend in a Book Contest ends tomorrow at midnight. Did you enter a friend yet? Go! Do it! It's the neatest prize you'll ever win. (The winners of the first contest make an appearance in The Bleeding Dusk…I'll be telling you all about that later.)

October 30, 2007

My good friend Jana DeLeon (author of Rumble on the Bayou), who writes the funniest, most off-the-wall romantic mysteries, has a new book out….today! Yay! Just in time for Halloween.

Check out this cover. Isn't it great? 

Look and see how many "unlucky" things you can find in the picture. I think it's the cutest thing, and it really gives you a good feel for the book. Fun, fun, fun.

Here's the back cover blurb:

Everyone in Royal Flush (heh), Louisiana, knows Mallory Devereaux is a walking disaster. At least now she's found a way to take advantage of her chronic bad luck: by "cooling" cards on her uncle's casino boat. As long as the crooks invited to his special poker tournament don't win their money back, she'll get a cut of the profit.

But Mal isn't the only one working some major mojo. There's a dark-eyed dealer sending her looks steamier than the bayou in August. Turns out he's an undercover agent named Jake Randoll, and for a Yank, he's pretty darn smart. Smart enough to enlist her help to catch a money launderer. As they race to untangle a web of decades-old lies and secrets amid a gathering of criminals, Mallory can't help hoping her luck's about to change…

Heh heh. I've read the book and it's so much fun–with a great mystery, funny characters, and a wonderful hero.

Have I mentioned, too, that Jana, like her character Mallory, is really unlucky? Particularly when she travels. Never has she taken a flight that goes smoothly–it's either delayed (and I'm not talking ten, fifteen minutes–I'm talking hours), or cancelled, or you sit on the tarmac during the delay, or any and/or all of the above….you name it. Always, always a problem. Sometimes more than one.

And the unluckiness doesn't just apply to Jana. If you fly with her, you also get the bad karma. And, as I found out recently when I flew to NY, even if you talk to her from 2000 miles away, you get the bad karma.

(I am not answering the phone on days that I travel from now on.) 

Trust me. She knows wherein she writes, on the topic of unluckiness.

In fact, she can shut down a table of blackjack by walking up to it. Her husband can vouch for it and won't allow her anywhere near him when they're in Vegas. (Which is where she eventually wants to live. I don't think she'd be very popular.)

So Jana took this idea of a "cooler"–a bad-luck-bringer–in a casino and built a story around it. It's great fun. I mean, what else do you expect from a story set in a town called Royal Flush?

Not only were [the guys at the bar] not Yankees, they were port-a-john salesmen, which was almost worse. Ever since Walter Royal had figured out the need for portable potties and built his manufacturing plant, the town of Royal Flush had never been the same. Hell, it hadn't even been called Royal Flush at the time, but one of the city council members decided to get cute over a bucket of beer at Lucy's Catfish Kitchen and the rest was history.

Heehee. Okay, so have I sold you yet? If not, go check out the full excerpt at Jana's Web site and get thee to a bookstore.

This is the second hottest lavender-colored book that's going to be released in the next year, *wink* so you'd better grab it now! Trust me. How often do I pimp books on my site? Huh?

October 29, 2007

What would you do with these?