West of Mars -- the Meet and Greet

Congratulations to Claudia, who won a great package of excerpts! Stay tuned for more full-length reads.

In my never-ending quest to tell you about the books I've read that I simply adore, I'm back with one I knew I'd love even before I picked it up. And it's got a great story behind it, too, as all great books should.

It started at the 2008 Romantic Times Convention in April. I was picking up all the free excerpts I could find (note to authors: free excerpts = new readers!) and reading them before I'd shut off the NHL playoffs in the background and the light beside my bed. I went through a bunch that were okay, a bunch that were good, and a few that were downright horrible.

And then I picked up this little book from Juno Press, featuring Carole Nelson Douglas on one side and Maria Lima on the other. As fate would have it, I started reading the Carole Nelson Douglas book first.

I finished it up the next morning before heading back to the Hilton from Hell to see if I could help the Mystery Chicks set up the breakfast they were sponsoring. I figured they were the same women I'd hung out with the night before -- cool women like Hank Phillippi Ryan, and funny women like Lori Avocato -- wait. I met her at breakfast. Didn't I? And the woman I look to as a steadying presence, Nancy Martin.

Anyway, there was Carole Nelson Douglas in among this group of women. I went as fangirl as Susan can get and gushed about how I'd just read the excerpt and was hooked.

Let me tell you, Carole Nelson Douglas is an amazing woman. She's clever, she's funny, she's smart, and she's figured out how to survive in this business. Not to mention she's got this amazing old-world style that I envy. When my good friend Ann mentioned her Midnight Louie mystery series, I recognized the name immediately. I'd be surprised if you don't.

Luck was totally on my side in this scenario, because as a thanks for helping out, Ann and I were allowed to raid the freebie table. So we did. And there among the freebies was the first in Carole Nelson Douglas' new series, Dancing with Werewolves. (Uhh, that's the name of the book, not the series, which seems to have the boring name of Delilah Street, Paranormal Investigator. Accurate, but not as stylish as I know Carole can get.)

Reading it was quite the treat. After reading the synopsis in the excerpt of Brimstone Kiss, I felt like I knew what was going on. But it still felt fresh and new and had me totally engaged -- so much so that more than once, I woke up early to keep reading.

In a nutshell, Delilah Street sees herself on TV. That's not unusual since Delilah is a TV reporter, but ... this Delilah. She's dead. Maggoty. Nasty and haunting.

A chain of events sets Delilah -- now no longer Delilah Street, TV reporter, but Delilah Street, paranormal investigator -- on the path of this dead doppelganger. Enter a man named Ric, another man named Nightwine (who eats living things), a weirdo named Cocaine, or Snow, or... and enough magic to set David Copperfield on edge.

Yet it works. The magic, the vamps, the werewolves, the Cine-Sims... Douglas manages to weave the familiar with the fresh in such a way that the world makes perfect sense and yet is totally foreign, without the reader feeling lost. In fact, I sort of wish Cine-Sims were real...

I want to share this goodness with you, but there's no way I'm parting with my copy, which Carole so kindly autographed for me. Even if she hadn't, there's still no way.

So... I'll part with my copy of the excerpt, and throw in a second from Juno Books, as well. That means you'll get two volumes with three excerpts in them:

Brimstone Kiss, by Carole Nelson Douglas
Blood Bargain, by Maria Lima
Seaborn, by Chris Howard

The other two are good, but this new Delilah Street series? Tops it all. And then some. (but you may not agree, which is why I'm going to let you find out for yourself!)

And what the heck. I've got lots to give away over here, so I'll throw in other stuff, too. I've got a bunch more excerpts, and I STILL maintain that there isn't a better way to check out a new author than through excerpts. So I'll make you a cute little package; you know you want it!

To enter your name, leave a comment here. Be sure to leave me a way to reach you, or you can't win. I'll pick a winner on . This is open to anyone in the world, even if you've won here before. And all the other usual rules that reign when I run a contest.

I'm out of town (or am I just hiding?), so I'll pick a winner on Saturday, August 9. Like usual, the winner will be picked by my kids, so don't yell at me if you don't win. You guys know me: if there was a way to let you all win, I'd gladly do that.

Labels: books, Carole Nelson Douglas, contest, Susan's Author Spotlight