I’m sorry, but this cannot be Earth-, animal-, or eyeball-friendly. :Cukoo

A FRIDAY FUNNY

FREE BOOK FRIDAY

This week’s Free Book Friday giveaway is definitely Earth Friendly—& can help you be more Earth Friendly, too!  Squeaky Green by Eric Ryan & Adam Lowry.

To enter the giveaway for this book, simply leave a comment to today’s post that includes the code FBF—for “Free Book Friday,” of course—to let me know you’re interested in the drawing. (U.S. residents only for the prize, please, but everyone is welcome to chat.)

Winner will be announced during our Happy Sunday post on…well, you know, Sunday.

Winner is responsible for contacting me with her mailing information—i.e. I will not be contacting you—so be sure to check back in or you might not even know you won! :happysad

(If prize isn’t claimed within 14 days, another name may be drawn or item may be tossed back into the goody bag to be re-used for a future giveaway.)

“No, there is too much.  Let me sum up.”
~Inigo Montoya, The Princess Bride

As I mentioned last week, the Harlequin Desire I just turned in—currently known as A BABY IN THE BILLIONAIRE’S BOARDROOM—is now scheduled for November 2012.  But since that’s about three months earlier than expected, there’s a lot to do in a short amount of time in order to get it into production.

The Art Fact Sheet, for one.  The Art Department is working on November covers now, so in order to get mine in the line-up, I was given only two days to complete a process they normally give authors 4-6 weeks to deal with. :slamdesk

This isn’t a complaint, simply a statement of fact.  And the great thing is that A.) since I’d just read through the book before turning it in, everything was really fresh in my mind, & B.) since I was being asked to fill out the form in such a short amount of time, Editor C was hugely generous in telling me just to hit the main points—hair color, eye color, clothing, & scene suggestions—& not worry too much about the tinier details.  Yay!

The one thing that did stump me was the need for a short synopsis/blurb for the story.  Normally, I pluck the main plot points from my original outline.  It’s never easy to boil a 12-page synopsis down to only 3-5 short paragraphs, but I can usually muddle through.  This time, however, I’d gone completely off the reservation with the story.  Only the most basic portion of the story’s set-up was the same as I’d originally pitched.  In my defense, the book turned out way better than it sounded in the original outline, but that did not make this part of the AFS very easy to complete.  I pretty much had to start from scratch.

It took me all afternoon, but this is what I finally came up with:

When Jessica Taylor spots Alexander Bajoran, the CEO of Bajoran Designs, at the hotel/resort where she’s working as a chambermaid, she and her cousin plot the perfect plan for revenge. After all, Alexander is the man who singlehandedly ruined her family and drove their company–Taylor Fine Jewels–out of business. But plans backfire when Jessica allows herself to be seduced by the wealthy businessman…or maybe she’s the one doing the seducing.

A year later, Jessica is out of work, out of money, and desperate to care for her three-month-old son. She has no other choice but to go to the baby’s father. But Alexander knows her only from that one-night stand, and as a hotel maid, to boot. He has no idea that she’s a former socialite, the daughter of his one-time business partner, or that he even has a child.

When Alexander enters his conference room and finds an infant on his boardroom table, he doesn’t know whether to be shocked or furious…especially when the note attached to the child’s carrier asserts that the child is his. Until he can get to the bottom of things, he takes the baby home with him. But he knows nothing about children, and even less about squalling infants.

Jessica may have abandoned her son to his father, but she didn’t go far. Witnessing Alexander’s failed attempts to quiet the baby, she makes her presence known and immediately calms the crying child. But being face-to-face with Alex again puts not only her own future, but her child’s future at risk. Can Alexander trust that Jessica’s child is really his? And what happens when he discovers her true identity?

Does that make sense to anybody else?  Does it sound good?  At this point, I think I’m a little too close—& a little too mentally cross-eyed—to judge accurately.

When I sent it to Editor C, he declared it “Perfect!” but he may have just been relieved to have anything to work with, since this was around 4:48pm the day the AFS was due.  (I did mention we were working on a tight schedule & cutting it close, right?)

But that really is the general storyline.  And it only gets better from there…in my not-so-humble opinion. :cool

So what do you think?