The Cover for The Taming of Mei Lin

Filed in: Asian fantasy | blog | covers    Tags: Asian fantasy | butterfly swords | harlequin historical undone | historical romance | jade lee | martial arts | the concubine | warrior bride

The cover for THE TAMING OF MEI LIN (excerpt), my September Undone release is here! First of all it’s gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous. The colors are beautiful and the backdrop is sweeping.

Let the cover kibitz begin:

• I think the hero looks a bit like Daniel Dae Kim from Lost, don’t you? I do love a nice strong jawline.

• Time period: the clothing and hair isn’t Tang Dynasty. They had to take some liberties with that. The Undones are digitally published and so they create the covers from the Harlequin art bank, which leads me to the best part of the cover…

• The heroine and hero may look very familiar because they also graced the cover of my favorite Harlequin Blaze, THE CONCUBINE by Jade Lee. Perhaps her lovers had met before in a previous life hundreds of years earlier in the Tang Dynasty? They were simply fated to meet again and fall in love eternally…

Cover models get reused all the time. I’m just tickled pink that Jade’s models reappear on my cover. I’ll always associate them with THE CONCUBINE, which is sitting proudly on my keeper shelf.

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I'm dreaming…I'm dreaming

Filed in: writing    Tags: Asian setting | butterfly swords | first sale | historical romance | jade lee | morwa | tigress series

I’m in one of my moods and when I get there, I always get introspective and there’s usually some blubbering.

Take a look at my flowers! My lovely chaptermates at MORWA gave them to me today to commemorate my first sale, but that’s only the tip of the iceberg. They arranged for something better than the Golden Heart® and the contract put together. (Okay, maybe not better than the contract.)

Remember how I was gushing about meeting Jade Lee at Nationals? She shows up today at the Crestwood Barnes and Noble for the meeting. I guess that’s not too weird. She’s a romance author and the ladies at MORWA seem to know everybody. But when Kimberly Killion announces my sale, who comes up to present me my first flowers? Jade Lee…who also announces that she finished Butterfly Swords last night and is giving me a cover quote!!!

Let me go total fan girl for a moment. (I thought I played it pretty cool by not bawling all over Ms. Lee’s shoulder at the meeting) Four years ago, I found Hungry Tigress at a rest stop in Barstow. I had just started writing “Dragon Court”, just stumbling around trying to learn, and I wasn’t even setting it in Asia. I was going for a fantasy world based on China. But I read the rest of Jade Lee’s Tigress series and was so inspired, I committed to the Tang Dynasty.

Then I sought out more Jade Lee. I read Devil’s Bargain. I read The Concubine and brought it to Nationals to get it signed. You know the Crimson City series? I actually only read Seduced By Crimson and none of the others. What kind of nut only reads the middle book in a series?

I don’t know who in my chapter thought to do this for me, but I am simply overcome. Just to think, a year ago I had nothing to show but hope and now my freakin’ idol has read my book.

At this moment, I don’t care if Butterfly Swords only sells one copy to my mother. This is a dream come true and I’m so very happy.

This is a good moment.

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Jetsetting Lifestyle – NOT

Filed in: Asian fantasy | events | publishing | travel | writing    Tags: golden heart ceremony | jade lee | rwa conference 2009 | unusual historicals

I had to fly from the conference in D.C. directly to Vegas. On the surface it sounds glamorous, but I want nothing more than to be home right now. I feel like I’ll never sleep again and my feet hurt like heck from running around in cute shoes. By the last day of RWA, I decided my conference bunny days were over and it was flip flop time.

Everyone is doing conference wrap-ups. I wish I had enough time to focus enough to get my thoughts together. Not to mention grabbing pictures from everyone! So excuse this mish-mosh of a conference vignette. Please know it’s a good representation of what’s in my head right now. Hey, take a gander at the stage setup for the RITA/GH® awards. It really is like the Academy Awards of romance!

Highlight of my conference? The moment that really made it hit home for me was telling Jade Lee about my sale. Jade is one of my favorite authors and an inspiration to me. I even brought my copy of The Concubine with me to get signed. (I’m wearing a Jade Lee tiger T-shirt now as I type!) A couple of friends got me a picture with her after the awards ceremony.

Aftermath of conference: I can’t catch up with the e-mails. There’s a flood of congratulations, info about loops I need to join, conference gushing. I definitely need to get this under control!

StatCounter: A pox upon you Lisa and Laura! I signed up for StatCounter a couple of weeks ago and it’s like crack, soma and substance-D all rolled into one. This is probably no big deal to anyone who’s been blogging for a while, but as of Saturday, I seem to have gone international! I know exactly why. It’s largely because of fellow Harlequin author Michelle Styles and links on e-harlequin. Apparently, many authors of unusual historicals were cheering for me when I gave my acceptance speech about selling a historical romance set in China.

I need to print out the next chapters of The Dragon and the Pearl so badly. I told my agent it would be done in two weeks. That was before I knew how crazy things would get and that I’d have to go to Vegas to handle some paperwork.

Am I going to gamble in Vegas? Probably not. No girl can be that lucky all at once.

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