This morning was taken over by distraction with shiny things. How shiny? Well, let’s try this on for shininess!

First, it’s foreign covers for various anthologies that will have “This Wicked Gift” in them, all coming out in the next week or so:

From left to right: UK, Japan, Germany, Australia!

I’m not sure which cover I like best, although it is seriously cool to see my name in Japanese: コートニー・ミラン

The Japanese title is “Christmas of Love” (according to Google Translate), and the German title means “Christmas Magic” (according to me). The UK/Australian versions look like slightly altered versions of the North American version, but with higher contrast. I’ve already seen one of the UK versions up close and personal, and it’s very pretty in person. My favorite title is definitely the German one–”Christmas Magic”–because I like the little tingle that you get when you think about that.

And then there are other editions of Proof by Seduction, many of which will look at least somewhat familiar:

From left to right: Estonian, Thorndike large print, Italian, German, Australian!

The Estonian title translates directly as “Proof by Seduction.” Le Ragioni del Cuore is “The Reasons of the Heart,” and Eine hinreißende Schwindlerin means something like “A Beautiful Liar.” Or maybe “A Gorgeous Con-Artist.”Aren’t they pretty? I don’t even have the slightest clue how to pronounce Tõestus Võrgutamise Abil. And it’s totally, utterly bizarre to look at these covers and to think, “Huh. I wrote that. And I have no idea what it says.” The Thorndike Press version is actually domestic–it’s a large print edition, for libraries, and as I am sure you can all see, they toned down the cover just a tad for the demographic that tends to read large print books.

Soon, we should be seeing versions in Dutch and Polish, and eventually French and who knows what else–and hey, in a few months, we’ll see Trial‘s first overseas appearance (Australia–they’re fast at getting books out!).

Shiny! Pretty! Ooooh.

One of the reasons I’m excited about the release of Trial by Desire is probably not obvious on the face of it.

You see, the publication order of my books has not been the same as the order in which I wrote them. I wrote Proof by Seduction first, found an agent and an editor and sold the book, and had started work on Trial by Desire when my editor asked me if I’d like to write a novella. So I wrote “This Wicked Gift” a full year after I’d written Proof by Seduction, and well after I’d conceived the idea for Trial.

For a young writer (and I am young as a writer!), a year is a really long time. There are skills you learn by doing, things that you learn from writing books that you can’t learn any other way. I can definitely tell that I’ve grown as a writer. I can point to some things in Proof and know that I would handle them differently now. This is not to say that I think it’s a bad book. But I do think I’m a better writer since I wrote my first book, and I think you can tell by looking at the novella that came out before my first book.

In any event, I’ve finally caught up to myself. After Trial, my books are finally going to be coming out in the order in which I wrote them. I hope that in the years to come I continue to grow as a writer. And what I hope that means for you is that the best is yet to come.

But speaking of future books: I’ve posted the first scene from my January 25, 2011 release, Unveiled. No relation to Trial by Desire or Proof by Seduction.

This week, I have a second prequel–this one touching on Gareth’s time in Brazil. I present to you Dark Horizon, a short (1500 words) story.

Six days from now, you’ll get… but that would be telling, wouldn’t it?

I forgot to mention this last time, but both stories are released under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 license. Feel free to share with your friends.

Plus, the first of my local versions of courtneymilan.com is now live. Check out my tiny website, just for Australians and New Zealanders! There will be more of these–for people who live in places other than Australia and New Zealand.

What do you think of the modified cover? What do you think of the Australia site? And how should I start placing the “local” sites within courtneymilan.com? It’s a daunting task–there will need to be several languages, and I’m trying to place flags without it looking terribly busy….

Hello again. I’m Mr. Milan, Courtney’s husband. She’s asked me to read and review her debut novel, Proof by Seduction, even though my review of her novella was less than stellar.

Maybe Courtney thinks this time I’ll succumb to the temptation to speak well of her novel for the sake of domestic peace. Maybe she hopes my tastes have changed, that a story without any swordplay, without any characters attempting to vanquish their enemies by force, without an ending that pays the price of the hero and heroine’s triumph in gallons of spilled blood, will magically earn a good review from me.

Though I love her dearly, Courtney thinks wrong. I read Proof by Seduction from cover to cover, and I thought it sucked.

Courtney’s biggest failing is that she consistently fails to focus on the most interesting parts of her own story. Before I get into my review, I want to present this tendency of hers in pictorial form. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, I thought I would provide an illustration, or in this case, two.

This is how Courtney wrapped her Christmas present to me:

Are you seeing the problem? Bows. Ribbons. Curls. Flowers. The present inside was great, sure, but what was with all that stuff on the outside? I showed her how to really wrap presents with my gift to her:

I’m sure you can all see my point here: Courtney focuses on the uninteresting parts. But let’s get back to Proof by Seduction. Courtney gives us a hero, Gareth Carhart, the Marquess of Blakely, who she tells us has lived in the jungles of Brazil. Great. She has my attention. That’s cool!

But does Courtney give us any scenes to flesh out that adventure? No. Lord Blakely must have had to defend himself from jungle predators in Brazil, right? How did he do it? Did he shoot them? What kind of gun did he use? Who manufactured it? What did the after kick feel like? How many guns did he have? I want to read about that one time when Lord Blakely and his party were surprised one night as they sat around a campfire, listening to monkeys howling in the jungle blackness, by an an enormous jaguar who managed to drag away two of Blakely’s companions (to be eaten later) before coming back for Blakely, who had just managed to load his rifle and…

But instead, all we learn about the Brazil trip is… that it taught Lord Blakely how to make his own breakfast.

Memo to Courtney: Breakfast? If you want to write a really good book, write about the exciting stuff!

Courtney’s story telling ability when it comes to her heroine is no less frustrating. Jenny Keeble is the only character smart and resourceful enough to challenge Lord Blakely (who presumably doesn’t carry rifles in London, for some odd reason), and I have to admit that their (metaphorical) dueling reminded me (metaphorically) of the light saber battles between Obi Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader, or Luke Skywalker and the Emperor, or Yoda and the Emperor. Two skilled combatants, evenly matched, kicking each other’s butt.

So how did Jenny get to be such a bad ass? We’re told she was sent to a school when she was four and abandoned by her parents, and that she was a troublemaker. She pissed off the old schoolmarm so much that years later, the old crone wants to see her get what she deserves.

Wow! Jenny must have been a real cool dude in school. Courtney, show us scenes of her being bad ass! But alas. Does Courtney give us any examples of Jenny being a rolling terror in her school girl days? How about a scene where she’s throwing spit wads at the teacher when her back was turned? Or how about the time when Jenny learned to do a karate chop and she broke this other girl’s arm, and then she whirled around and did a groin-kick to this other prissy girl, while ducking under the teacher’s arms? Where are those scenes, huh? What a missed opportunity!

Courtney could have earned a whole extra Sherman Tank from me had she written about just one of Jenny Keeble’s schoolyard fights, preferably with blood and/or breaking bones.

To sum up: Proof by Seduction has a great hero and heroine, but Courtney doesn’t write enough about why they’re great.

Bottom Line: One and a half out of five Sherman Tanks.

You see, I have had very mixed reactions to the cover for Proof by Seduction. People either love it, or they are completely embarrassed by it. On the one hand, I’ve had a lot of people tell me that it is gorgeous, elegant, beautiful, sexy, and classy. And it is! See? Love that corset. On the other hand, I’ve had a handful of people e-mail me to say, “Wow, Courtney, I am interested in reading your book… but that cover! It is far too sexy for my bus ride. All the other people on my commute are going to look at that cover and then they will leer at me. Also, I can’t read it at lunch, because my mostly male colleagues will rib me over it.”

Hmph. Personally, I fail to see how a mostly-unclothed woman, lying on a divan in a provocative pose, could indicate anything except the highest of high-minded high-mindedness, and I think all those people who judge books by covers should be frowned upon. But, to be slightly serious for the only time in this entire blog post, back when I first started reading romance, I would take my books up to the cash register very carefully–sometimes even buying High Minded Looking books with sepia-toned factories belching smoke on the front to hide the clinch romance books I actually wanted to read as I walked up to the cash register. Even now, I won’t whip out truly scandalous clinch covers in front of some of my older, male colleagues–their hearts just can’t take the rise in blood pressure. So I totally understand how someone could look at this cover, imagine herself taking it out at lunch in front of a bunch of unsympathetic co-workers, and wincing.

Plus, one reader said that she teaches small children, and if she took a book like this out, they might start to get the Wrong Idea, and parents somewhere would complain. How could she possibly read my book? This was an excellent point, and it got to me to thinking about something I could do to help out with that problem, especially since there are children involved. (If you have not noticed, one of the things we take seriously here at courtneymilan.com is this: lying to small children.)

Here, for the first time, for your covering-up pleasure, is a downloadable book cover. Like all High Minded books, this is a cover done in sepia (although if your printer is black and white, it will print just fine in grayscale, and it will look appropriately bleak!). This is the book you have always wanted to carry on the subway: It declares that you are so smart that you’re reading not for pleasure or enjoyment, but for the sheer thrill of scraping your fingernails across the chalkboard of literature. It can be read without hesitation in accounting firms or in kindergartens. Feel free to whip it out during dull moments at the New York Stock Exchange.

Here’s what it looks like:

And here’s how you use it:

What you need:

One printer; one internet connection; one piece of paper; four pieces of tape (optional); and one copy of Proof by Seduction (available here: B & N | Amazon | Indiebound | Borders | Powell’s) (other books can be substituted, but really, why would you want to do that?)

1. Download the full graphic (warning: it’s huge at around 4 MB) here. Print it out.
2. Fold on the white lines along the top side and the bottom side; then fold along the white lines on the right and left sides. This should form little pockets on the right and left side of the cover.
3. Jimmy the right pocket over the front cover of Proof by Seduction; wrap the cover around the book, and then jimmy the left cover over the back cover of Proof by Seduction.
4. For those who are extra-conscious of security, four pieces of tape can be used to make sure that the book cover does not come off.

The result:

One of these books is read by smart people! The other is only read by people who are intelligent. Can you guess which one is which?

So, what do you think? Let me know–one random commenter will win a copy of A Completely Serious Compendium of Utterly Dire Events, as created using above method.

When HQN acquired the book, my editor had some ideas for how to tighten up the manuscript, and ultimately, that first scene disappeared. But since the book has apparently been showing up on shelves, both real and virtual, for about a week now, and as its official release date approaches, I thought it might be nice for everyone to see how it originally began…

Here you are: the original first scene of the book. Think of it this way: Gareth meets man-eating elephants, and lo, they are herbivores.

Tessa Dare and a bunch of other people have teamed up to create the 12 days of Proof by Seduction. This was done entirely without my knowledge; I was holed up in an undisclosed location attempting to write while they plotted the whole thing. Apparently this will involve a song, with 12 verses (are you scared? I am scared!), and autographed giveaways from a ton of historical authors (Eloisa James, Julia Quinn, Anna Campbell, Sherry Thomas, Elizabeth Hoyt, Sara Lindsey, Julie Anne Long, Carolyn Jewel, Victoria Dahl, Jennifer Haymore, and of course Tessa Dare herself).

So, frequent Tessa’s blog. And watch Twitter. Or something. I wish I knew what was going to happen, but right now, you know as much as I do.

Also, I have some other things that will be going up on my site in the next few days, so keep an eye out for them!

Also available: Victoria Dahl’s awesome Lead Me On.

I will, of course, let you all know when I find it in stock other places. Also, thanks for the timing, Amazon! The slimy-baby post was supposed to be weeks away from official release. Now everyone will know about it when they can actually buy it.

Edited: Barnes & Noble shows that Proof is shipping as well; and Powell‘s has it shipping in 1-3 days.

1. Enter Tessa Dare’s website contest. Tessa is giving away a copy of:

• Proof by Seduction (B & N | Amazon | Borders | Powell’s | Indiebound)
• Wild Heart by Lori Brighton (Indiebound | Powell’s | Borders | Amazon | B & N)
• Sinful Surrender by Beverly Kendall (Amazon | Powell’s | Indiebound | Borders | B & N).

All three books are debuts, and all three books are purple! Go, little purple books by debut authors, go!

2. Enter Sara Lindsey’s website contest. Sara is giving away a copy of Proof and Bev’s Sinful Surrender as well. Continue on going, little purple books! (Also note that Sara’s own debut, Promise Me Tonight, will be out in February–but alas, it is pink. It’s still full of awesome, though.

3. Enter my website contest. This December, I’m giving away a copy of Proof by Seduction, my anthology, The Heart of Christmas, and a $25 gift card to Borders, so you can go by yourself and purchase all kinds of purple debut novels (or novels of any other color, even though we all secretly know that purple is the best).

This list, however, is not exhaustive. In the upcoming weeks, I’ll be giving away copies on twitter and on my blog. I also have a huge number of books piled on my dressing room table (some signed!) to give away to celebrate a year of incredible debuts (not all of these debuts are purple, but they are all delightful!) from authors like Jennifer Haymore, Kris Kennedy, Kelly Gay, Susan Gee Heino, Lori Brighton, Sarah Rees Brennan, and Tessa Dare–so watch this blog, and wait for December 10th.