For book club members: questions for discussion about The Shadow Queen
If your book club is interested in reading The Shadow Queen, here are some questions for discussion. Enlarge the screen to read or click to print out.
Praise for The Shadow Queen
(Enlarge to view or download.)
In the works …website reno, book launch fever, and the revelations of my 14-year-old self
I’ve so much in the works, right now. For one thing, this website, which is being redesigned (long overdue!). Here’s a sample of how it is going to look:
The main change, however, is that the site will be simplified and weeded, to make it easier for you (all) to navigate. For example, I won’t have two blogs (one on writing and one on research), but one—this one. You will begin to see research topics covered here now and then.
The visual design is thanks to Kris Waldherr and the overall plan is thanks to Nancy MacDonald, who has a great deal of experience with author websites. My thanks to them both for their patience! (I tend to be resistant to change.)
Promotion plans for THE SHADOW QUEEN are coming together. (For those of you in the Vancouver and Toronto areas, see my Events page.) Doubleday has created a powerful book trailer which I won’t reveal until close to publication … so you will just have to wait!
I will soon get an email newsletter out. If you haven’t subscribed, do so here. With each newsletter, someone from the subscriber list wins one of my novels. (It’s such a pleasure to do this—giving is truly as rewarding as it is said to be.)
And, speaking of winners, Angela Guyton just won 20 novels (!!!) from various authors on a Goodreads promotion, including a copy of THE SHADOW QUEEN.
And, of course, I am writing/revising/researching GAME OF HOPE, my Young Adult novel about Josephine’s daughter Hortense. I recently was part of a panel of women writers at the San Miguel de Allende Writers’ Conference. Each of us read from our work for 5 minutes. I read from a diary I kept when I was 14—such an eye-opener! I definitely must revise the novel to include a fairly constant mention of Hortense’s love interest!
This ‘n that …
A Picture Says It All … or Does It? Judging an Author by their Photograph (poor Milton)
4 Easy Steps To An Irresistible Book Blurb (however, it’s never easy!)
Pixar’s 22 Rules to Phenomenal Storytelling (excellent)
The Goodreads list of the most anticipated historical fiction being published in 2014: vote!
This Goodreads list of historical fiction being published next year is illuminating. I’m looking forward to new Sarah Waters and Emma Donoghue novels, as well as a number of others.
What’s interesting about the list is that Goodreads readers have weighed in on which novels they are most looking forward to reading.
I’m hugely pleased that my virtual author friend M.J. Rose’s next novel, THE COLLECTOR OF DYING BREATHS (great title, beautiful cover), is number one on the list!
I’m also quite pleased that THE SHADOW QUEEN is now at #23. Yay!
I would also, of course, be extra pleased if you cast a vote for it. (In fact, in terms of voting, go nuts: you can vote for 100 books.)
Feel free to sprinkle stars all around as well, and add books to your “To Read” shelf. You would be surprised how important this is to publishers.
;—)
Moo + Photofunia = how a deadline-crazed historical novelist can wile/while away a few hours
One of the tasks associated with having a new book coming out is updating the contact cards one gives out to readers. (A book begins and ends with stationery.)
This time I decided to go with Moo cards. What’s special about Moo is that you can have a different image on the back of every card.
Here you see one card and a few of the images on the back, plus the Moo mini-cards (which I adore).
Amazing! It’s very reasonable and the quality is high.
I created the faux images using THE SHADOW QUEEN and other books covers and the free Photofunia app. Below are three of the seventeen images I used. (I posted all of them to Flickr—should you wish to see what Photofunia can do.)
Needless to say, I got carried away. Photofunia is so much … well: fun.
And, on a final note, I had to go to Grammarist.com to see if I should wile away a few hours, or while them away. What’s your guess?
It turns out that “while” is historically correct, but that “wile,” although technically incorrect, is the more common usage now and has been accepted. See the explanation here.
(Don’t you love how you can ask the Net anything?)
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