Who Is America's Royal Couple? Contest and Book Giveaway

Are you a fanatic for royals? Did you follow Will and Kate's wedding, and still follow their exploits? Do you like contemporary stories of the filthy rich, especially titled ones? Who is America's royal couple?

In honor of the release of Wendy Holden’s Marrying Up this month, Sourcebooks is holding a contest to find out who is America's own royal couple! Who do you think they are? Leave a comment including your email address with your choice for a chance to win a copy of Marrying Up (US and Canada addresses only).

And the winner is Deb Hockenberry! Congratulations, Deb, and thanks to all who came over.

And what is Marrying Up about?

Marrying Up has all of the crazy love, eye-opening snobbery, and naked ambition to create a juicy cocktail worthy of any royal. After all, what’s a relationship without a title and a tiara?

As women around the world watched Will and Kate walk down the aisle, many of them were plotting how they could find their own prince charming.

Razor-sharp in its wit and as fresh as newlywed royals, Marrying Up (ISBN 9781402270673, Sourcebooks Landmark, Fiction, Trade Paperback, $14.99 U.S., Aug 2012) by Wendy Holden reveals how sometimes a rags-to-riches story can rip a girl to shreds—and how sometimes the crown on your head can nearly crush you.

Only a title, a mansion, and a family tiara will do for a scheming social climber like Alexa, and she will go to great lengths to get it.  Starting by befriending clueless aristocrat Florrie, who fills her life with parties, texting, and, above all, champagne, means that the grandest doors swing open and the prince of her dreams is within reach. But has Florrie’s mother, the formidable Lady Annabel, figured out Alexa’s intentions already?

Meanwhile, beautiful but penniless archaeology student Polly has found herself in love after a chance meeting with a dark-eyed stranger named Max. However, Max is hiding a big secret, a secret that could ultimately ruin any chance of him and Polly living happily ever after.


Praise for Marrying Up“Holden, a former writer for the Mail on Sunday, certainly knows her way around snarky royal gossip and delivers here a very guilty pleasure.”
            ―Kirkus Reviews                                                                      

“Anglophiles who stayed up all night to watch William and Kate walk down the aisle will have a lot of fun here, as will readers of Sophie Kinsella’s frothy Shopaholic series.”
            ―Booklist

“Readers will rush through this dishy chick lit tale to find the answer. A Cinderella story for the beach bag.”
            ―Publishers Weekly

“Gold-digging tale while providing a brimming bucket of laughs along the way.”
            ― Shelf Awareness for Readers

“Entertaining with a witty and dry sense of humor”
            ― RT Book Reviews

About the Author

Wendy Holden (UK) was a journalist for the Sunday Times, Tatler, and The Mail on Sunday before becoming a full-time author. She has now published nine novels, all top 10 bestsellers in the UK. Her novels include Beautiful People, Farm Fatale, and Filthy Rich and feature sassy humor with a great cast of characters. For more information, please visit: www.officialwendyholden.com.

Now, where are those comments?

Thank you all,
Linda

Review: A LIGHT ON THE VERANDA by Ciji Ware

Full of breathtaking romance, loaded with historical and contemporary detail, sometimes light-hearted and at other times heart-wrenching, Ciji Ware’s A Light on the Veranda is a winner.

New Orleans-born professional harpist Daphne’s life took a turn for the better when she walked out on her wedding to the rat of the century. But now she’s in Natchez to play her harp at her beloved brother’s wedding. There she meets Simon, a man vastly different from the rodents she usually encounters. The attraction is immediate, mutual, and startling. For Daphne’s music conjures visions from the past involving another Simon and her ancestor, another harp-playing Daphne. The historical Daphne’s sad, tragic life can’t be changed. Does the modern Daphne have the courage to change hers? Especially since the rat, vicious as ever, is back and has her in his sights.

Ms. Ware interweaves the similar and yet different stories of two women across two centuries who share problems still all too common. Male betrayal, greed and cruelty can wreak havoc in a woman’s life, then and now. The historical Daphne, born into a frightful situation, had no control over her lot. The modern Daphne does, but only when she sheds her female indoctrination in submissiveness and fights back.

But even within the past and present world of male privilege, decent men exist. The historic Simon was one, and so is the contemporary Simon. Those of you who read my reviews know I like honorable heroes, and the modern Simon is one of the best. Utterly masculine, strong and yet vulnerable, protective but not patronizing, Simon is a spectacular hero. He’s also gorgeous, which doesn’t hurt. *g* Lucky Daphne.

Since most girls today are still trained to be subservient, the modern Daphne starts out as a bit of a doormat. But in the face of the rat’s spiteful cruelty and with some help from Simon, she blossoms into a strong, determined woman able and willing to chart her own course. Good for her.

With charm, poignant characterizations, heady romance and lots of scrumptious detail that bring past and present vividly to life, Ms. Ware’s A Light on the Veranda is a fantastic book.

Note, A Light on the Veranda is the sequel to Ms. Ware’s Midnight on Julia Street. If you’re like me and hate coming in on the middle of a series, read Midnight on Julia Street first. A Light on the Veranda contains spoilers for Midnight on Julia Street.

Thank you all,
Linda
ARC provided by Sourcebooks

Review: MIDNIGHT ON JULIA STREET by Ciji Ware

My primary requirement in a book is a good story. Midnight on Julia Street by Ciji Ware is a great one.

Corlis has been fired from her job--again.

A crusading TV reporter, Corlis doesn't care whose toes she steps on when she's pursuing a story, and she pays the price. This latest job in New Orleans is the fourth one she's lost. Not helping matters is her encounter with Kingston, her college nemesis, at the scene of her latest debacle. Twelve years ago at UCLA, feminist school paper reporter Corlis and sexist frat boy King fought a no-holds barred ideological battle that resulted in King's expulsion from the college. Now's he's a professor of architectural history with the mission to save an historic city block from a greedy real estate developer.

Both Corlis and King have mellowed in the intervening years. Corlis is no longer strident, and a stint in the marines obeying women officers has divested King of his chauvinist tendencies. Softer feelings now come to the fore. King even helps Corlis get another job. But flashbacks to antebellum New Orleans trouble Corlis. These visions send her back to when the buildings now under dispute were constructed. Her ancestor, another Corlis, lived in New Orleans then, and the other characters in the visions are also ancestors of people living today. Feelings run high over the preservation battle and find their mirror in Corlis and King's emotions, which make an about-face from their college days.

Midnight on Julia Street is an exciting, face-paced story loaded with historic and contemporary detail about New Orleans. Ms. Ware does a masterful job of interweaving the past when the buildings were constructed and the present when they may be demolished. She brings two very different eras to vivid life, leaving you wondering how the historical story will play out even though we already know the end.

As for the characters, I love Corlis. She's my kind of woman. Smart, educated, strong, an outspoken professional who stands up for what she believes in and always remains true to herself. I also like King, who has learned the error of his sexist ways to become an honorable man and the perfect match for Corlis. Watching them as they seek to deny their attraction while the preservation battle throws them together is another layer of drama in this riveting novel.

The third character is hot, humid, New Orleans. The issues facing the slave-owning French past of Corlis's visions are an eerie premonition of the problems of the modern city.

Ciji Ware's books are fantastic. Midnight on Julia Street proves that again.

Thank you all,
Linda
ARC provided by Sourcebooks

Review: WHISPERS IN THE SAND by Barbara Erskine

Whispers in the Sand by Barbara Erskine is a masterful interweaving of three connected stories of ancient evil surviving through the ages to surface again in the present.

After divorcing her rat of a husband after fourteen years of patronizing, faithless marriage, Anna travels to Egypt for a trip down the Nile to follow in the footsteps of her great-great-grandmother, Victorian artist Louisa, as described in Louisa's sketchbook. Anna also brings along Louisa's old Egyptian scent bottle, which experts have claimed to be a fake, but which excites the interest of not one, but two men on Anna's cruise ship while awakening a long-dormant evil.

Vivid descriptions draw you right into the exotic sights, sounds, scents and searing heat of the colorful Egyptian desert of past and present, even showing the man-made changes between the Victorian period and now. The suspense never lets up as more and more of the malevolence surrounding the scent bottle reveals itself in parallel to Louisa and Anna, as their journeys mirror each other's.

I love the intrepid Louisa, who fights back against the human villain, malicious magic and the restrictive Victorian mores in her search for happiness. Anna is another matter. She's my least favorite type of heroine, the doormat. Given her history, I can understand her letting the villain bully her at the beginning, but she never develops. At the end, she is as much of a doormat as at the beginning.

Whispers in the Sand will keep you reading right to the last page to find out all the surprises, and Louisa is breathtaking. But the story would have been much better if Anna had developed some backbone by the end of the story.

Thank you all,
Linda
ARC provided by Sourcebooks

Guest: Barri Bryan: The Importance of Setting

Today's guest is fellow Classic Romance Revival author Barri Bryan. Barri's latest novel is a contemporary romance, A Second Splendor. Barri will give away three ARC's of A Second Splendor on the tour. Leave a comment for a chance to win.

Welcome, Barri!

A fictional setting is a framework. All details related to time, place and action fit within this framework. Properly understood and applied a setting becomes the under girding for a fictional narrative.

Setting is created by the use of sensory images and phrases that appeal to the five senses. These images do two important things. One, they help the reader to picture the place, the period in history, the year and even the time of day that action and events are occurring, and two, they help to create the feeling or mood of the story. (Pictured is the Brush Country of Central Texas - Setting for A Second Splendor.)

A major function of setting is to lend realism to the story's action. The more in depth the description of the setting, the more believable the events of the story become. Without a detailed setting, stories lose much of their credibility.

Setting can reveal character. The traits that make a character unique are dependent on environment as well as circumstance. Even in rare cases when the characters are far more important than the setting, that setting will still have an impact on the characters and their actions.

The tension between a character and the environment can play an important part in shaping action and tracing controversy. It can also reflect a character's inner tensions and strife.

Setting can reflect and sustain social surroundings by revealing etiquette, mores, customs and codes of conduct. It can emphasis the harmful results of squalor and poverty, or stress the incapacitating consequences of riches.

Atmosphere is closely connected to setting. It generates feelings and impressions that cannot be attached to any concrete cause. It is developed through the use of expressive language that has sensory appeal. Atmosphere should be set early in the story.

A plot is always connected to a specific time and place. A setting that is animated and visualized intertwines with events and actions to become a part of the plot.

The point of view that a writer employs is determined to a great extent by time and place. The point of view for a modern, fast paced murder mystery that takes place in a large city will not be the same as the point of view for a sweet, slow-moving love story set in the eighteenth century in a small town in Middle America.

Time is a part of setting. The fictional overview of time in a story is threefold. The first view is concerned with the period in history in which the story occurs. The second asks the question, how long does it take for the action in the story to occur? The third inquires into the passage of time as it is perceived in the story.

Whether you choose to write about the magnificent, the isolated, the ordinary or the mystical; if you describe fairy woods, brooding forests, city slums, or lovely landscapes, be aware of this all pervasive fact - your setting is an integral and important component of your story.

Blurb:
Julie Anderson is not happy that her ex-husband is coming home to attend their daughter’s wedding. Max has broken her heart in the past – not once, but twice. Thank goodness she’s too wise to fall under his spell again, or is she?

Max Anderson has some reservations about his daughter’s coming marriage to the son of his ex wife’s business partner. He shows up early and walks into a situation that begs him to intervene. When he does all hell breaks loose.

A Second Splendor is available HERE.