Cookies, Reviews & the Blog Hop Winner!

Aren't these book-cover cookies beautiful?! They're from Carrie's Cookies and my publisher, Kensington Books, ordered small batches of them for each author participating in their mixer at the RT Booklovers Convention last week. Not only pretty but, in my opinion, delicious, too!!

In other exciting news, there's a brand new book blog out there for fun women's fiction/romance/mystery/etc. novels called Chick Lit Girls and, just a few days ago, they posted a lovely review for A Summer in Europe! I especially loved this segment of the review below:

"A Summer In Europe is an exceptional novel, to say the least… I was completely captivated, and couldn’t put it down. The characters are colorful different, and altogether, likeable. While reading--into all hours of the night--I felt like I was traveling through Europe myself, as I saw the sights, ate the food, and encountered many delights along the way. This fresh story, set in the most breathtaking and beautiful places of Europe, certainly is a page turner, charming, beautifully written, and realistic. A Summer in Europe by Marilyn Brant is a lovely story, and a must read!"

::happy sigh::

And last but certainly not least, many thanks to everyone who left comments for the Authors in Bloom blog hop! The winner of my personal prize -- a pair of Venetian glass-bead earrings and the two A Summer in Europe luggage tags is...JANEL!! Congratulations! I'll be in contact with you through Twitter so I can get your address. Hope you'll enjoy them ;).

Wishing you all a wonderful rest of the week and weekend!

Authors in Bloom Giveaway Hop!!

Follow the AUTHORS IN BLOOM directions and enter to win an eReader (Nook or Kindle, your choice!) + a $25 gift card!! That's the Grand Prize. :) But, also, every one of the 75 participating authors in the hop is offering individual prizes, too...including me! To enter my personal blog giveaway -- open internationally -- for a pair of Murano glass bead earrings made in Venice and two A Summer In Europe luggage tags (see photo), you only need to leave a comment on this post before 11:45pm Central time on Wednesday, April 18th, and to (pick one) follow me on Facebook, follow me on Twitter and/or join my free newsletter list . You can get up to three entires total if you decide to do all three, but only one is required for my giveaway. (And if you're already following me on one or more of these sites, simply say so in the comments and you're entered!!) Please leave an email address along with your comment so I can contact you if you win. I'll announce the winner of the earrings and luggage tags on my blog on April 19th. To enter the grand prize, you need to collect all the phrases for the traveling story (hint: the lines I have are below) by visiting all of the OTHER AUTHORS, and then you submit that completed story with all the lines on the grand prize landing page at A Cozy Reader's Corner by using the form provided there. Only those who collect each phrase to complete the story will be entered into the drawing for the eReader of his/her choice and the $25 gift card. Good luck, everyone! My phrases for the traveling story: Line 9: “Are my petals too plump? Line 10: “Do these leaves make my bottom look wide?” My best gardening tip: The very best advice I can give you in regards to gardening is...PLEASE don't listen to me!! I have two of the blackest thumbs imaginable. My son inherited his green thumb from my father and it, very clearly, skipped a generation. So, for the safety of your plants, I offer NO tips! Recipes, however, I can do ;). In A Summer In Europe , my characters enjoy many decadent foodie delights, particularly in Italy.  Below is one of my favorites! 

 

Recipe for Tiramisu:

Ingredients: 

5 eggs, separated 

6 oz fine granulated sugar 

11 oz mascarpone cheese

9 fl oz cold coffee 

3 Tbsp brandy or sweet Marsala 

36 small sponge fingers 

3 oz dark chocolate, finely grated 

 Directions: 1. Beat the egg yolks with the sugar until the sugar has dissolved and the mixture is light and fluffy. Add the mascarpone and beat until smooth. 2. Whisk egg whites in a bowl until soft peaks form. Fold into the mascarpone mixture. 3. Pour coffee into a dish and add the brandy or Marsala. Dip enough biscuits into the coffee to cover the base of a 10 inch square dish. The biscuits should be well soaked but not broken up. Arrange them in one packed layer at the base of the dish. 4. Spread half of the mascarpone mixture over the biscuits. Add another layer of soaked biscuits and top with the rest of the mascarpone. Smooth the top layer. 5. Dust with the grated chocolate right before serving. (Serves 4) Enjoy, all! What's one of your favorite desserts?

Last Train to London

I love being home...and I love traveling. But days of major transition, like this past Sunday, when we got up at 7am London time (1am Chicago time) and didn't go to bed until 4am London time (10pm Chicago time) are pretty hard on my body. I am -- not surprisingly -- still jetlagged from our somewhat spontaneous spring break trip to England, and I'm still computing the hours of every event this week into both time zones because my mind just can't be sure yet if it should or shouldn't be awake then, LOL.

Also, it's been 15 years since I've taken a transatlantic flight and, in the past 48 hours, I've felt every one of those years. I'd forgotten just how painfully my ears can pop on a rapid descent...my tendency to get hit with a cold virus the minute I step onto an airplane (I had 2 bottles of Airborne with me and kept nibbling on tablets all week -- that still didn't help)...the discomfort and hassle of super-long flights, stopovers in other countries and snake-like customs lines.

But nevermind any of the inconvenience, the leg cramps or the resulting congestion -- I got to go back to Europe for 9 days!!! I got to take my son to Stonehenge, Jane Austen's House, Conwy Castle in Wales, the Tower of London AND a West End theatrical production! I got to have traditional English breakfasts, fish-n-chips and an obscene number of Cadbury bars! I got to BritRail around England and take the Tube ("mind the gap") all through the capital city and to my little heart's content for a week and a half! (I love the European train and subway systems...) For all of these delights, I can deal with some exhaustion and a head cold.

Since it's 3:50pm Chicago time (9:50pm London time), I'm feeling the need for a nap right about now -- and fighting it. I have to walk around rather than stare at my computer or I'll fall asleep on my keyboard. So, I'll write much more about the trip later and how it came to be, and I'll post many more photos in the coming weeks. I took 580 pictures but, don't worry, I won't make you look at ALL of them. *grin*

For now, though, I'll leave you with this shot I took of Tower Bridge at night and links to two blogs I wrote this week. Yesterday, I talked a bit about the Austen-esque part of the trip over at Austen Authors . Today, I was musing a little more about the writing life at the Girlfriends Book Club and shared five gifts I'd give to aspiring writers. Hope you'll join me!

Happy Summer...um, Spring!

The Vernal Equinox came and went two days ago so, yes, it's officially spring. 😊🌷🌺🌸🌹🌼🌿

But usually -- in Northern Illinois -- that doesn't mean a whole lot. We've had snow days during this week in past years. I distinctly remember a very lengthy, no-electricity-in-the-house-for-days ice storm in Southern Wisconsin during one "spring break," so my expectations for warm weather in late March have always been fairly low. Until this year. This week we've had a series of days with temps in the 80s (!!!) -- it's so disconcerting! We're Midwesterners, for goodness sake, and it feels like the dog days of summer out there. I'm finding myself tempted to turn on the sprinkler in the backyard and then jump around in it...and, at odd points during the afternoon, I've caught myself wondering, "Where the hell is that ice-cream truck?" So, this is pretty unusual. Not that I'm complaining. I'll take the July-like heat to January-esque hailstorms any day...but I do love SPRING weather. I'm missing that a bit right now. 

Anyway, no matter what the temps outside, it's spring break for my son next week, so I'll be trying to be an attentive mom and will be offline more often than is typical for me. (Someone is seriously going to have to drag me away from Pinterest...LOL.) What are you all looking forward to doing in the next week or two? Do you plant flowers? Take care of some spring cleaning? Go anywhere special? Regardless, may the days ahead bring you that wonderful springtime sense of renewal!

Eating Our Way Through Europe

So, I promised book club photos, and here they are! I know I've said this before, but the sheer awesomeness of the book-club experience has been one of those surprising delights of being a novelist. I'd never been a member of a book club prior to publishing According to Jane, never so much as attended a meeting -- although I'd heard about them and had friends who were in them. However, after going to my first one and finding out how incredibly fun it was to talk about novels (mine or someone else's) with such bright, charming women, I became a fan for life. And that was even before I realized just how many delicious foods we'd be eating every time! Chris and I above were holding court over the extremely healthy side of the kitchen (gorgeous salad! fruit and cheese plate!), and Marty and Allison, to the right, were getting out the wine and the sangria (!!) while the final touches were being added to some of the other dishes. For the book discussion of A Summer in Europe, it was decided by the president (Allison) and the member who chose the novel (Lisa) that everyone attending should bring/make a dish from somewhere in Europe and, if they had pictures of one of their personal European trips, to bring those along, too. Well, Lisa and her daughter Megan (pictured left), who had both studied abroad in Salzburg, Austria -- a couple of decades apart -- had some beautiful photos of their respective trips and jointly made an amazingly yummy and oh-so-buttery kind of Austrian crepe-like pancake (I should have asked them to write the name down because it was in German and I couldn't pronounce it to save my life, but, boy, was it ever delicious!!) and they served it with warm jam on top. SO GOOD. Meanwhile, the rest of the gang arrived (pictured with their heart-healthy wine and sangria glasses: Marcie, Marty, Allison, Claudia and Dori) and, between them, brought apple strudel, spinach quiche, spaghetti squash with Italian sauce, pesto pasta, hazelnut-chocolate pie, marzipan/almond cookies...and more! No doubt about it, we had a fabulous feast. 

As for me? Well, you won't be shocked to learn that I brought six flavors of gelato :). The limoncello, the chocolate and the salted caramel were declared the favorites... Today, I'm blogging on Magical Musings about that feeling of luck (with or without any actual good fortune) and wishing everyone reading this -- whether or not you're Irish, whether or not you'll willingly eat corned beef and cabbage (I'll stick with soda bread and Shamrock Shakes, thank you!) -- a very Happy St. Patrick's Day tomorrow!! Is anyone doing anything special to celebrate?

Book Clubs, Book Festivals & the Blackhawks

I'm not entirely sure where the first 12 days of March have gone... All I know is that I've been racing through them in a clearly less-than-successful attempt to get done everything I need to do before spring break hits. However, amidst all of the work, there have been some bright spots, and I wanted to pop in and share a few of those.

First of all, I'm blogging in 3 places this week. Today, I'm at Austen Authors giving a retrospective on my long journey to writing According to Jane and the undeniable timelessness of Miss Austen. Tomorrow, I'll be talking about my love of romance during Maggie Marr's "Spring Into Romance" Celebration. And Friday, in preparation for St. Patrick's Day, I'll be talking about "feeling lucky" at Magical Musings. Hope you'll be able to join me for some of these!

As for the picture above, this one is courtesy of the wonderful Pamela Cayne, who was visiting the Tucson Festival of Books this past weekend and saw my "Jane" book at the JASNA booth! I'm still so excited by that!! Thanks so much, Pam ;).

This weekend, I didn't get to fly to Tucson, but I did get to see my first professional hockey game. The Chicago Blackhawks vs. the L.A. Kings were at the United Center last night and, wow, was it an exciting game! Tied at 2 - 2 after the 3rd period, we had five minutes of overtime and then a shootout (!!) before the Kings scored a goal and, thus, won. My son, whose primary ambition in life has been to get to run down the stairs at a live game and bang on the glass, got to do just that yesterday, and I got to see my favorite player (Patrick Sharp, #10, isn't he cute?!) check someone right in front of us. My husband found both of our reactions to be rather amusing.

And last -- but far from least -- I enjoyed a fantabulous visit with a book club I love on Friday night. We talked about A Summer in Europe, and everyone there brought some food to share from one of the places on the European tour. Later this week, I'll post some pictures!

Hope everything is going well with all of you. What have you been doing in March so far??

Leap of Faith

Today, it's that awesome, comes-only-once-every-4-years, special day that -- to me -- always feels like a gift from the gods. As usual, I have too much to do. Too much to try to accomplish before the end of the month. So I'm grateful for an extra 24 hours. And, sure, I'm excited about a few things that will be happening in March (we have some big family/friend birthdays and anniversaries ahead) but, ohhhh, I am nowhere close to being ready for the projects I have due in the next few weeks either...not to mention my own personal deadlines... 

One of those personal deadlines involves finishing a draft of a new manuscript this spring -- a novel that I started writing "for fun" (because authors are insane and desperately in need of normal hobbies) about a year and a half ago, and it's a book that is not quite like anything else I've ever worked on. This scares me to no end. I wouldn't say the subject matter is so wildly different from my prior projects (although there are a few elements that are brand new to me) but, rather, that the writing process for this book has been unusual from the beginning. Typically, I'm a loose but dedicated plotter. I outline. I adore Blake Snyder's beat sheet -- you all already knew that. Well, this particular book doesn't seem to want to be outlined. I've tried to do the beats for it FOUR separate times, and every time the last 5 or 6 beats have changed on me... And, while there is certainly a character-study side to the narration, this happens to be a story with A LOT of plot!! I, quite literally, need to know what's going to happen in the later chapters so I can, you know, write the middle! The fact that I'm having to fly into the mist so much with this manuscript is, for me, like some crazy leap into the unknown...every single time I work on it. 

So, rather fittingly, I am spending today -- Leap Day -- mostly offline and primarily writing. I need to close my eyes and take a few jumps into the story's future. I'm not at all sure where I'll land by the day's end, just that I hope (!!) I'll be a little further along on my characters' journey by tomorrow. What about you? How are you spending this extra gift of a day?!