ha! where did they come up with this? I laughed so hard when I saw it under my search for "sexy construction worker" I couldn't NOT use it. Rock on, Fotolia.com!

I have a couple of awesome quotes from even awesomer authors for The Iron Duke, and so of course I’m completely changing my front page layout so that I can highlight them with big glittery font and sparkles. I’m also making minor cosmetic changes to my site this week, so please bear with me if formatting or pages suddenly get down and funky. If you are at the site and it does go crazy (or worse, disappear) just know that somewhere in Oregon, a redheaded author is tearing at her hair and shouting OMG! OMG! Undo! Undo!

That image always makes ME feel better, anyway.

Tuesday is the mass-market release of Must Love Hellhounds! This includes my Guardian companion novella, Blind Spot, which stars everyone’s favorite hellhound, Sir Pup. The anthology also features novellas from the amazing Charlaine Harris, Nalini Singh (with a Guild Hunter story), and Ilona Andrews (set in the Kate Daniels world).

About Blind Spot:

The job was simple: find her boss’s niece, bring her home safely, and hand out a whole lot of pain to whoever had abducted her. But Maggie hadn’t counted on her boss’s nephew, the hellhound who loved to make her life difficult, or her own past rearing its complicated and ugly head. Read an excerpt here.

Amazon | Borders | BN.com | Powells

Jill Myles and I have switched our days at Odd Shots — so from now on, I’ll be posting on Thursdays instead of Fridays. This Thursday, I’m giving away Seasons 1-3 of The Guild.

P.S. It only took us a year, but Odd Shots is now mobile! If you bookmark us to your home screen, we even have a cute little button.

Thanks to the awesome, He-Man-like power of random.org, we have twenty winners! If your name is listed below, please contact me with your mailing address, using the subject line DEMON BLOOD WINNER or HELLHOUNDS WINNER, and I’ll send them out to you ASAP.

Demon Blood winners:

#8 – Christine
#91 – Anne Marsh
#22 – Throuthehaze
#87 – Triciab
#78 – Ang from Oz
#36 – Donna S
#28 – JennyME
#53 – Sherry Lyn Roginski
#49 – Tori [Book Faery]
#51 – Ella D.

Must Love Hellhounds winners:

#23 – nikkibee
#41 – Barbara Elness
#74 – Amy Jacobs
#26 – Darrell
#25 – Kate N (YzhaBella)
#14 – Marlene Breakfield
#92 – Aileen
#6 – Julie
#3 – Alex D
#68 – Louisa

If your name isn’t here, all is not lost! Berkley is having a HUGE giveaway over at Dear Author, including copies of The Iron Duke.

I think my notification e-mails are going into your spam folder! Please check the next post to see if you are the Dawn Maness*, Bonnie, and Sarah who won The Iron Duke ARC. Because time is a factor in this contest, if I don’t have your postal mailing address by Friday, September 3rd, I will have to re-draw new winners for the ARC**.

If you got an e-mail from a Melissa K — that’s me! You can reply to that e-mail address, too. Or you can contact me with your mailing address using this form.

—

*I’ve already heard from the other Dawn. So other Dawn, don’t panic! Yours is in the mail.
**If this happens and you contact me after the 3rd, I will send a final copy to you. So you will still have won a copy of THE IRON DUKE — just not the ARC.

I cannot believe the amazing turnout for the giveaway — almost 200 entries. I’m staggered, and I wish I had a ton more ARCs to give. I don’t, but I have 10 copies of Must Love Hellhounds, and 10 of Demon Blood … more details on that below. But first, thanks to the power of random.org, we have the Iron Duke ARC winners!

#178 – dawn maness
#84 – Dawn
#28 – Lily
#123 – Bonnie
#189 – The Queen B
#14 – Laura K Curtis
#94 – celi.a
#153 – Sarah
#5 – Chelsea / Vampire Book Club
#48 – Pokey
Congratulations! I’ll be e-mailing you all in the morning, or you can contact me with your postal mailing address before that. And the bad news for each of you is … you can’t enter the next contest. It’s only for those people who didn’t win an ARC.

If you didn’t win an ARC, don’t forget that you can receive a reminder of The Iron Duke‘s release by signing up for my postcard mailing list or e-mail newsletter (100% spam free!)

THE NEW CONTEST

As I mentioned in today’s flashing nipple post at Odd Shots, the most useful thing that an author can use to promote her work is … her work. So if you’d like to try the Guardian series, this contest is for you.

I have ten (10) copies of the mass-market edition of Must Love Hellhounds, which is on shelves now in trade format, and will be released in mass-market in September. This includes my Guardian tie-in novella, “Blind Spot.” This novella is Book #5.5 in the series and references events from Demon Moon and Demon Forged, but for the most part, stands alone. You can read more about this novella and an excerpt here. The anthology also includes novellas from the amazing Charlaine Harris, Nalini Singh, and Ilona Andrews.

I also have ten (10) copies of Demon Blood, which is Book #6 in the Guardian series. I honestly can’t tell you if this book stands alone or not — I’ve read reviews from readers new to the Guardian series who have loved it, and I’ve read reviews where the readers have said you should read the earlier books first. I will say that all of the information you need to understand the world is included in the book (seriously, it has the longest prologue ever), and you can always find spoilers from previous books and information about the world in the primer.

For more information about Demon Blood and to read an excerpt, visit this page.

Okay, and the contest: All you have to do is comment before midnight on Thursday Tuesday, August 31st, and tell me which book you’d like if you win. Next Friday Wednesday, September 1st, I’ll use random.org to choose 10 winners for each book and announce the names here. Good luck!

The small print: Comment by 11:59:59 PM Pacific time on 8/31/2010 for your chance to win. Ten commenters who have chosen Must Love Hellhounds as their prize will be selected to win using random.org, followed by ten commenters who have chosen Demon Blood as their prize. The winners’ names will be posted on this blog 9/01/2010. Only one entry per ISP address. The contest is open to international readers. No purchase necessary to enter. Odds of winning depend on number of entries received. Void where prohibited.

Like, for example, me.

I just ran over to the nearest Postal Annex to send a fax. The clerk kept giving me little glances — like she wanted to stare, but was too polite. And I couldn’t figure out why until I remembered that, while I was writing, my hair had felt really hot and annoying, so I’d pulled it back (and I write better with it pulled back, anyway.)

Except this time, my bangs had been annoying me, too. So I’d grabbed a little rubber band, and made a ponytail out of them. So there I was, stubby ponytail in back, and a thin ponytail in front, dangling over my forehead like a flaccid unicorn horn — because I’m just special that way.

*headdesk*

…but probably shouldn’t From a review of Demon Blood, written by Valerie at Love Romances & More:

Now that I’ve popped my Meljean Brooks cherry, I am now a hard-core fan of this awesome author.

Ha! Love it. And considering that you jumped in on the sixth book in the series — holy crap and wow!

So, last night I was browsing through the Mills & Boon site, looking for new Moderns to buy (the equivalent of the Harlequin Presents) and put Katrakis’s Last Mistress by Caitlin Crews in my shopping bag, because 1) I like to give new HP authors a shot, hoping for someone new to feed my addiction, and 2) I love a revenge plot.

And, wheeeee! I hearted it. Yes, Nikos was emotionally stunted all the way through, and the desire for revenge lasted maybe a little too long (though it made for some great tension for me and emotional conflict for him, complete with character arc. Would he go through with his plan? WOULD HE? I couldn’t tell! and it’s so lovely to be uncertain when reading one of these books, even if I’m a little frustrated by the thing causing the uncertainty) — but the heroine! I loved her. She’s that awesome mix of practicality and vulnerability, and she has some great lines (actually, they both have some great exchanges, but it’s Tristanne’s* unwillingness to back down that won me over.) And although I shouldn’t have liked some of the end, the buildup of fairy-tale references throughout the book lent a weight to the sheer belief that the story itself seemed to have in romance and a happy ever after.

Anyway. I’m not sure when this comes out in the U.S. as a Presents (the only Crews book showing up on eHarlequin is her February release, which I am buying as soon as I post this — but, oooh, her site says it will be in March 2011) but I recommend it if you like angst and revenge plots, and non-doormat heroines.

I also kind of hope that the “last mistress” part of a title is a wink, re: the upcoming title changes for M&B. No more mistresses and billionaires? We’ll see.

(As an aside, it occurs to me that low-cost, universal health care would completely derail a bunch of heroines’ motivations. Really, what reason could they possibly have to become someone’s mistress if they didn’t have to worry about their parent’s/kid’s/sibling’s bills? Maybe that could be a new campaign: Free Health Care, and Free the Mistresses!)

–
*Okay, I did have a hard time with the heroine’s name. I can’t count how many times I read it, then had to remind myself it was the woman’s.

right here. Also featuring Kat Richardson, Devon Monk, and editor Anne Sowards.

I haven’t watched it yet. Eek. Here’s my segment: