The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms: Jami G.
The Demon’s Covenant: Gillian
The Knife of Never Letting Go: Aja

Today’s blog post is about titles that get used more than once. When I was trying to come up with a title for my second book, I knew I wanted something that evoked my first one. That is, I wanted something that had the same structure (Blank by Blank), that was also a subtle play on words, and that had a kind of sexy element to it. Thus I came up with Trial by Desire–a title the book really grew into, in ways that I hadn’t anticipated when I first started writing it, since you can take pretty much any of the definitions of “Trial” in the dictionary, starting with “the determination of … the righteousness of his cause, by a combat between the accuser and accused” through “the fact or condition of being tried by suffering or temptation,” and everything in between.

In other words, it was the perfect title. But when I checked Amazon, there was already a book called Trial by Desire–written by Elisa Curry, published in 1984. What was I  to do? I shrugged, figured that the book was no longer commercially available, and that was that.

The same thing happened with my February, 2011 release, which is titled Unveiled. Unveiled was the perfect title–absolutely perfect. I had sat with friends for hours, rejecting one title after another. I wanted something that suggested mystery, spotlessness, pristine beauty–and the hint of something to come. When a friend of mine suggested Unveiled, I knew it was the right title.

This was more problematic. When I checked Amazon, there were actually a number of books called Unveiled–one about the hidden lives of nuns, one about women in Islam. One of them was even a historical romance, written by Kristina Cook in 2005–an author (and an all-round wonderful person–I hadn’t met her at the time I chose the title, but did shortly afterwards) who is still writing today, under Kristi Astor.

Ultimately, I decided to just go with it. Our names sound different enough–and there was enough of a time-gap–that in mass market, the likelihood of confusion was small.

But sometimes books end up with the same titles even though they are released within months of each other. One example of that is Maggie Robinson’s Mistress by Mistake–a fabulous, funny, extraordinarily sexy book about a woman who goes to visit her fallen sister, only to be mistaken for a courtesan herself. This book happened to be released within months of Susan Gee Heino’s Mistress by Mistake–a fabulous, funny, extraordinarily sexy book about a woman who gets tipsy in celebration, and accidentally ends up in bed with a man who thinks she is a servant. They are both debut books, both quite excellent, and both really awesome.

Still, I know some people wondered: How on earth does this happen? Easy–Maggie Robinson is published by Kensington. Susan Gee Heino is published by Berkley. Neither knows the titles the other is planning on using, until the catalogs come out–at which point it is too late to change the title, because accounts are placing orders and the covers are already finished. Sometimes, lightning strikes. What are you going to do?

First, you can shrug your shoulders and say, “oh, well.”

Or second, I can give away a copy of both books–which is what I’m going to do. So if you want a copy of either Mistress by Mistake–by Maggie Robinson or Susan Gee Heino–let me know in the comments, and I’ll draw a winner early next week.

P.S. Maggie Robinson’s second book is titled Mistress by Midnight, and I am eagerly awaiting its arrival in January of 2011. Of course, I just got wind that Nicola Cornick’s December 2010 title is Mistress by Midnight. What can I say? Mistress titles are all the rage!

• THE THIEF, by Megan Whalen Turner. Absolutely awesome. Starts off a little slow–not slow as in pacing, but slow as in leisurely. Builds. And builds. And builds. To the point where your breath catches and you’re turning pages faster than you can believe, and then BAM. This is an awesome book, and you can read it online for free for a limited time from Harper Collins here. I can’t tell you much about this book, except that the main character is a thief who boasts that he can steal anything, and when he steals from the King, the King decides to make use of his skills. Even that description is horridly unsatisfying. All I can say is, read it! Read it!
• THE LIES OF LOCKE LAMORA, by Scott Lynch. Also absolutely awesome, but in a totally different way. As a method of warning, I should tell you that this is a five-Sherman-Tank book–in other words, it’s a boy’s book. There are fights. There are cons. There are swear words–lots of them. There is a hidden god. There are tricksy little flashbacks that make you laugh and then make you say “mmmph!” later.  But 50 years ago, this sort of book would have had gurls in the background–as bits of fabric to be fought over and cosseted perhaps, with a few evil career-minded sluts making an appearance. But despite the fact that the main characters are male, this is not a book that treats men as superior to women. In fact, it’s a book that embraces strong women. There is an embarrassment of truly intelligent, capable women in both this book and its sequel. They aren’t part of the gang, no, but one doesn’t get the sense that they are there simply to be thrown away. I am eagerly awaiting the appearance of Sabetha.
• HEIST SOCIETY by Ally Carter. I’ve loved Ally’s spy series, but I truly believe that HEIST SOCIETY is the best book she’s written yet. There’s something about it–the pacing, the language, the depth of the emotional and moral dilemma that shades what would otherwise be black and white into a thousand splintering shades of gray. It’s a fantastic book that has already been optioned for a movie (rights were auctioned off for a considerable sum). It features a teenage girl trying to go straight, who discovers that her father, a thief has pissed off the wrong person. Now, to save his life, she has to steal paintings back. And the clock starts ticking, immediately.

1. I’ll be posting excerpts from Victoria Dahl’s Lead Me On and Carrie Lofty’s Scoundrel’s Kiss.

2. I will then ask a few questions about those excerpts (on this blog) and throughout the day on Twitter. One random answer will get a free copy of Proof by Seduction.

3. Carrie and Victoria will have excerpts from Proof by Seduction on their blogs, and they’ll be asking questions about my books on twitter. You can follow Carrie on Twitter here, and Victoria on Twitter here. So go read the excerpts for Proof, and you could win a copy of Lead Me On or Scoundrel’s Kiss from either of them! Carrie’s post is here; Victoria’s is here.

So, from Lead Me On:

The door opened and she expected to look up and see  Mr. Jennings walking in. What she didn’t expect was the man who’d visited her  dreams the night before. But she was cool Jane  now, the impenetrable fraud, so she merely raised an eyebrow. “Good morning, Mr.  Chase.”

“Hello, Miss Jane,” he  countered.

She almost laughed at his joke, and  what a disaster that would have been. If he knew she found him charming, he  might ask her out again. She didn’t
allow her expression to budge. “What can I  help you with?”

He held out the folder he’d  tucked under his arm. “See? Safe and sound. I’m the soul of  responsibility.”

“Mm-hm,” she murmured, trying  to hide the way he was wreaking havoc on her concentration. His sleeve had  inched up, revealing more of the tribal tattoo on his left arm. “Thank  you.”

“So…” he said.

She  jerked her eyes up from his arm.

“Have you  thought any more about it?”

“About  what?”

“Going out to dinner with  me?”

“No,” she answered as if it were the honest  truth. Actually, it was. Dinner hadn’t entered into her thoughts even  once.

“Come on.” He smiled at her, his wide mouth  curving into a very handsome grin. His dark blue eyes sparkled. “Just  dinner.”

“No, thank  you.”

“Why not?”

“You’re  not my type.” The bald-faced lie fell smoothly from her  tongue.

“You sure?” He glanced toward his arm,  and Jane felt her pulse leap. Oh, my God. Had  he looked at his tattoo when he said that? She felt her
face heat despite her  best efforts to suppress the betraying flow of blood. He’d seen her  looking. But those could have been looks of  horror, she told herself. They’d meant
nothing.  Nothing.

Her pulse wouldn’t listen to her. It  gathered speed. Chase smiled and put one hand on her desk to lean closer. His  gaze fell to her mouth, and she
could feel herself breathing too  fast.

Last night as she’d boxed, she’d imagined  her trainer was Chase. She’d imagined him grabbing her, his hands sliding across  her damp skin, his mouth
descending with a  growl…

Oh, God, her masquerade was crumbling around  her. What if she let Chase–

Her cell phone rang,  breaking the man-spell she’d fallen under. Jane looked down to the phone and the  display was a bucket of cold water dumped over her head. “MOM,” it read, the  back-light glowing red in warning. She stared  at it for a moment, skin cooling as each second ticked by. “Yes,” she finally  answered him, “I’m sure.”

“Sure about  what?”

“I’m sure you’re not my type, Mr. Chase, but  thank you very much for the invitation.”

Though his  face fell, Chase didn’t look the least bit angry. In fact he pulled a business  card from his back pocket and handed it over. “All right then. Call me if you  change your mind. That’s my cell.”

“Thank you.” She  meant to drop it in the trash. She really did. But as Chase turned and walked  out, Jane tucked his card into her purse. Then she turned off her cell phone and  stuck that in her purse too.

NICE. And I mean not “nice” as in, “he’s a nice guy,” but NICE, as in, “oh yeah, baby.” This is one of the things I love about Victoria Dahl–she knows how to get a slow burn going. And she also knows how to take a gallon of gas and pour it over that smolder. You can read more about Lead Me On here.

And here’s a sneak snippet from Scoundrel’s Kiss, by Carrie Lofty:

When one step separated his body from hers, Gavriel breathed the scent of lemon and skin warmed by the mineral-rich spring water. The more he breathed, the more lightheaded he became. He felt every heartbeat in triplicate: beneath his ribs, in his skull, at his groin.

Gavriel brushed his mouth along the curve of her shoulder. Ada shuddered but did not pull away. The moist heat of his breath raised goose bumps on her skin and reflected back against his face. He waited, glorying in that intimate caress, knowing he would take her if he tasted her.

“Order me to go,” he rasped.

Ada looked over her shoulder. He let his eyes fall down the line of her brow and her cheeks and her chin. “I won’t do that,” she said.

“Why not?” The need to touch her again burned like hell’s fires. “No respectable woman behaves as you do.”

“We both know I left respectable behind some time ago.”

“Then you do this as a game or as punishment.”

“You’re mistaken if you believe this involves you alone.” She spoke with less deliberation and more speed. “Perhaps I do this simply to see what I’ll do next. I hardly know who I am anymore. It makes me wonder.”

He reached out to trace the line of her shoulder blade but pulled back. “Wonder what?”

“Am I the kind of woman to seduce you outright, or will I wait for you? Either way, you’ve become a most welcome distraction.”

“Ada, don’t–”

“You think you’ve cured me because I no longer shake or cry,” she said. “But in that you’re mistaken. The need is still here. Right here.” She clenched one hand over the other and pressed it to the hollow between her breasts. “It’s like thirst or hunger or lust. A need. Can you understand that?”

He could only nod, a weak one at that. A delicious and wanton angel stood before him, his own parable of temptation. The redness of the hot spring had faded, leaving the smoothest white porcelain skin–a feast for his eyes. But he wanted more. No matter his aims or his vows, he was a man who needed more.

“I can understand,” he said thickly.

“Then help me, Gavriel. Give me something new to crave.”

Oh, Carrie Lofty. I am definitely feeling some cravings right now–a craving for a really awesome book! You can read more about Carrie Lofty’s Scoundrel’s Kiss here.

So, for the first chance to win a copy of Proof by Seduction, answer these two questions (one random commenter will win):

1. What kind of parable does Gavriel think Ada is?

2. Where does Chase have his tattoo?

Naturally, since today is Tuesday, and since the semi-official release date of my actual book is in a few days, my book is probably going to be on the shelves just about everywhere. So am I going to tell you to buy my book?

No! That would be weird. I’m going to tell you to buy Lead Me On by Victoria Dahl. It’s no surprise that I’m a huge Victoria Dahl fangirl; I think there’s something about her heroines that really just speaks to me. They’re never the sort of person to give up and let someone else solve their problems; they always dig deep and figure out how things move forward on their own. They don’t need heroes.

But they do deserve them. And I think, more than any of Victoria’s other books, Jane Morgan deserves her hero. I absolutely ached for her to have her happily ever after, and this book stretched her, forced her to really look into herself and decide that she was worthy of happiness. I just adored this book–so much so that I pushed a copy of it off on my sister who is visiting for the holidays. I don’t want to give away too much, but today is definitely a holiday: Go buy a book written by Victoria Dahl, and don’t wait to read it. Because Lead Me On is really, really fantastic.

(If you are reading this after December 29th, the link won’t work–in that it will no longer be a holiday in which you are supposed to buy a book written by Victoria Dahl. You can find out what I think about the book by clicking here instead.)

In any event, leave a comment and some lucky person will win a copy of this awesome book.

“Courtney, where do you get the books that you give away?”

Good question. Sometimes when you see a book being given away on a blog, the truth is that the source of the book is either the author or the publisher. Authors receive a number of free copies of her book–I get 48, which is enough to fill a box that if dropped at precisely the wrong angle, could break your toe. We could leave these books on our shelves to look pretty, but (a) all our shelves are already full with books written by other people; and (b) they don’t do any good sitting on our own shelves, because an author is not precisely her target market (Although, admission: I bought a shocking number of copies of my own book–which makes no economic sense at all).

Despite this, as a general rule, I buy every book I give away. (The only exception to this was Sherry Thomas’s Not Quite a Husband; of the two copies I gave away, Sherry bought one copy and I bought the other.) I do this for two reasons:

1. I want to support other authors who I think write cool books.

2. If I’m talking about a book, by implication I think it is worth spending money on. It’s a way of keeping me honest: As a romance author, the prevailing community norm is that authors don’t talk critically about other books. So how can you trust that I mean it when I say I like a book? And that’s easy: you can trust me because I’m willing to put my own money–for the book and postage–on the line.

The only books I (probably) haven’t paid for are my own–my publisher gives me free copies–and even then that’s not guaranteed, because as I mentioned earlier, in defiance of all economic rationality, I buy my own book. Often.

Disclaimer to this antidisclaimer: I am writing this post because three separate people e-mailed me and said, “Oh, you’re giving away a copy of my book! Let me give you one of my author copies!” To these very nice offers, I said, “Pfft.”

Apparently, my giving you books could be construed as an act of “sponsorship,” and the FTC thus thinks it can regulate the resulting speech.  The regulations it has promulgated are actually more stringent than those applied to print magazines and newspapers.

Let’s be honest.  We’re talking social media here.  Even if there was no giving of books, reviewers choose to review things because of the social context in which they encounter them.  Jane has posted on Dear Author that she read a book on my recommendation (or on others, e.g., SB Sarah).  She usually posts the context in which a book comes to her attention.  Some bloggers include context; others don’t.

It’s also not a surprise that my acting like an idiot could have an effect on reviews.  If I started writing regular rants on this blog saying, “Jane Litte is a poopy-head! Smart Bitch Sarah makes really lousy baklava!” bloggers would start thinking I was crazy, and would be less likely to read my books and review them.  Especially true if they thought there were reviews were going to be negative, and they didn’t want to have to keep deleting comments from me that said, “Yah!!! You poopy head!”

Blogging is a social world, and the currency of the social world is trust.  Not money.  Not even free books. The truth of the matter is, if I can get people to trust me, they are overwhelmingly more likely to give me a try, free book or no.

This effect is so strong that it completely overwhelms the simple question of, did the blogger pay for the book?  It’s certainly true in my case.  I regularly blog about books I think people should read.  And here’s a secret: I read all those books for free.  But you would have to be dumber than dirt to read my posts and think, somehow, that Tessa Dare “sponsored” me.  Confession: Tessa bought me dinner a couple of times. Other confession: I have bought her dinner, too, even though one time I had to douse her in ice water first to grab the check.  To try to characterize our relationship as one of commercial sponsorship is beyond ludicrous.  I couldn’t even attempt to disclose what Tessa has given me, or for that matter, what I have given her. It’s called “friendship,” not “sponsorship.”

I also read an early copy of Victoria Dahl’s ONE WEEK AS LOVERS.  Vicky is also a friend.  She is a friend in part because I followed her around meeping piteously at her talent for years until she took pity on me.  That’s not commercial either.

I’ve given people copies of my debut anthology for a number of reasons.  Because they’re my friends.  Because they won them in giveaways.  Because I hope they will like it.  Because I think they have fantabulous taste in books and respect that.  To relegate this relationship to one of “commerce” or “sponsorship” is to do violence to the heart of social media. FTC, it’s called “social” for a reason.

So I am not going to add disclaimers to any of my discussions of books, either on my blog or on the website. It would be clearly stupid to do so, and while I am generally not a fan of scoffing at the law, I think that if the FTC conducts its case by case analysis and concludes there is any sort of sponsorship going on in my case, it is insane.

But if anyone was wondering, from here on out, every copy of a book I send out will contain the following disclaimer:

THE FTC MADE ME DO THIS

Under new FTC guidelines, bloggers and authors can be held liable for making statements without disclosing the existence of a “sponsoring” relationship.  The FTC seems to think that under some circumstances, my giving you a free copy of this book could constitute “sponsorship.”

So let’s just make things clear for the FTC: This book is a gift. I do not expect or care whether you do anything with it.

You can give this away to a friend. You can use it to prop up the short leg on your desk. If you would like, you can even do something radical with it, like read it.  If you read it, you can choose to mention it to other people, or not.  You can choose to review it, or not.  You can review it as harshly or as positively as you like.  If you review it harshly, or you review it positively, or you do not review it all and instead use it as a mass-market doorstop, it doesn’t matter to me.

Still, A Lady of Persuasion is a particularly special book.  It’s funny, poignant, and as I’m sure you’re used to by now, the subject of a holiday over at courtneymilan.com, where I urge you to go and purchase a book written by Tessa Dare today.  A Lady of Persuasion is, I think, the sweetest of her three books, without being saccharine.  It brings all her characters together,  but in a way that is not gratuitous.  It shows all her characters firmly cemented in their happy endings, and it makes you believe, ever so strongly, that they will really make it–not just into some fairy-tale happily ever after, but into the real happily ever after, the one where no matter what life throws at you, you know you’ll survive because you have a partner at your back who will cheerfully watch over you and make sure that nothing gets through.

It’s a book that features two of the strongest secondary characters ever–I won’t name names, for fear of spoiling it, but let me just say that Tessa took the strongest-willed characters from both Goddess of the Hunt and Surrender of a Siren, and made me ache for their happiness.  And then, evil woman that she is, she took that happiness away from them–and then slid it back in place, just when I thought I wouldn’t be able to fill the hunger I had, she let them win it again.

This book also made me laugh, out loud, multiple times.  I could list all the times here, but I would spoil all her best lines.

In short, I’m getting just a little nostalgic thinking about this particular ending.  Tessa has had a brilliant debut trilogy… and she’s going to do it again, with another three books, in May, June, and July of 2010.  Whew!

In the meantime, I will of course continue to promote books I adore on courtneymilan.com.  One thing I have noticed is that because I tend to push books on their release dates, and because I will only push books I have read (I am not going to tell you to buy a book that I do not personally want to read), I have mostly picked books from friends, which I managed to read early.

That’s going to change.  I really adore books, and I want to make sure I highlight amazing books even if it isn’t their release date.  The rule, of course, which I have not yet made explicit, is this: I will always give away at least one copy of a book I promote, which I purchased with my own money.  No free copies from the author (unless she wants to add her own to the copy I purchase–but that’s not necessary)–no solicitation.  After all, if I’m not excited enough about a book to buy TWO copies of the book (one for me, one for you), why should you take my word for anything?

In the future, I’ll be featuring books, not only from friends, and not only books where I’ve seen an advance version.

But for the present: four random commenters will win a copy of Tessa Dare’s A Lady of Persuasion.

One Week as Lovers

Today is a very special holiday.  It is “Buy a Book Written by Victoria Dahl” Day!  Now, as you know, most of the time it is “Buy a Book Written by Courtney” day, but that’s difficult to celebrate, as the best you can do is preorder a novella written by Courtney, and that just lacks a certain euphonious ring.

But today, you need to stop whatever you are doing and run to the store (or to the online outlet, whatever) and get yourself a copy of One Week As Lovers.

I’ve been a big fan of Victoria Dahl since her very first book, but her latest historical is probably my favorite.  There are two reasons why this book works so very, very well for me.

1. Cynthia.  Cynthia is a survivor.  I say this in the best possible way, because she’s had a lot to survive.  She is such a survivor, that rather than marry an abusive man, she’s faked her own death, and has plans to disappear and go to America.

2. Lancaster.  Lancaster is also a survivor, and again, in the best possible way.  He has what seems like a pleasant, laidback, sunny, unspoiled disposition–and that is all hiding one of the most tortured heroes I’ve seen in a romance novel.

This is a fantastic novel that mixes playfulness and humor with dark emotional complexity.  There were times when I wanted to reach into the book and take Lancaster out to keep him safe.  And even though Lancaster has survived by adopting a pleasant, sunny disposition, he has no favors done to him in the course of this book, and he is pushed and pushed until you find out every last heroic thing he’s capable of.

As shattered as these two were, the reason I believed in their happiness so strongly was because Victoria Dahl made me believe in their shared joy.  I love this book, and I hope you will, too.

I’m giving a copy of ONE WEEK AS LOVERS away to one lucky person who comments on this entry.  The winner will be drawn at random from all the commenters.

MaggieLRobinson: @TessaDare @courtneymilan Lucy told Michelle to stay in and read GOTH to Barack for inspiration #tessadare

Goddess of the Hunt

Today is a very, very special holiday.

It is “Buy a Book Written by Tessa Dare” day, and today is the first day that you can go into stores all around the country and purchase a book written by Tessa Dare.

Now, Goddess of the Hunt has been getting awesome buzz. Starred reviews from Publisher’s Weekly and Library Journal, Top Picks! from Romantic Times, and “Gerbil of the Year” from the Association of Near-Sighted Folk, who oddly enough, mistook it for a truly excellent gerbil.  (They got the excellent part right.)

This is a book about Lucy, a woman who decides what she wants–her brother’s friend, Toby–and goes after him with everything she has, even though he so clearly is about to marry another girl.  The other girl is everything awful: blond, rich, and accomplished.  And now, if this were any other romance novel, you know what would happen.  Miss stuck-up Blonde would show her true colors, and Toby would discover that Lucy was his One! True! Love!

This is not any other romance novel, and as you’ll find out, Lucy grows up, from the girl who hates that perfect blonde and vows to take her place into someone . . . well, someone entirely better.  And watching her grow is a heart-stopping, breath-taking endeavor.

This is also a romance about Jeremy, a man who stopped living years ago. He can’t stand being around Lucy because she is so full of life, she reminds him of all the things he’s missing.  Watching him grow is also a heart-stopping, breath-taking endeavor.

I’ve watched this book grow from just a little nugget of an idea into a full-fledged masterpiece.  And it gives me enormous satisfaction to announce to all of you that today, you can buy a copy of Tessa Dare’s magnificent, powerful, hilarious, touching, and beautiful Goddess of the Hunt.

Well.  That is a little tepid.  What am I saying?  A mere statement that you can buy a copy.  Generally, just because one can do a thing doesn’t mean one necessarily should do a thing.  In fact, most of the things that one is capable of doing are just plain bad ideas.  But when it comes to buying Tessa Dare’s Goddess of the Hunt, you not only can do it, and should do it . . . but, well, you must do it.

Why?

Here’s the thing.  If you–yes, I mean you, Buster, the one sitting right there staring at this screen in befuddlement–don’t buy Goddess of the Hunt, it would be an act of such stupendous foolishness that science and rationality as we know it will come to a screeching halt.  Gravity will cease to operate.  Angular momentum will not be conserved.  The apocalypse would come slumping forward like some great beast, all because you couldn’t be bothered to spend $6.99 on what is the best Regency-set romance debut this side of Sense and Sensibility (and let’s face it, Tessa’s sex scenes are better than Jane’s).

So go forth and purchase!

————

Fine Print. Books not available everywhere. Any locations not carrying this book should be subjected to breathless queries such as, “When are you going to get Tessa Dare’s novels?” even if the location in question is, e.g., a bait shop, a hardware store, or a fire station. Side effects of reading may include laughter, gasps of surprise, and little exhalations of satisfaction. Offer of free apocalypse upon lack of purchase not valid in Northern Hemisphere.