キャミー・タング著「戌年」連載小説 プロのドッグトレーナーであるマリ・ムトウは、厄年を迎えている。 犬小屋と訓練所の改築をしながら、いつも不服そうにしている家族と同居することになった。母と姉に言わせれば、犬の毛とよだれかけにまみれる仕事は、家族にとって恥ずべきものだという。彼女は元カレを説得し、数ヶ月間犬を預かってもらうことにした。しかし、彼の兄は、数週間前に彼女が誤って車に追突した、怒り狂ったセキュリティ専門家であることが判明する。 アシュウィン・ケイトウは十分な問題を抱えている。叔母が玄関先に現れ、同居を希望している。彼は彼女にすべてを借りているので、断ることができません。母親が家を出て行った後、ネルおばさんはアシュウィンと弟を引き取り、愛のあるキリスト教の家庭で育てた。しかも、弟のダスティもアパートを追い出され、居場所を求めている。しかし、彼は犬を飼っている。そして、その犬の飼い主は誰だと思いますか? しかし、旧友でオアフ島のノースショアでデイスパを経営する私立探偵のエディサ・ゲレロから依頼を受ける。マリの施設で奇妙な破壊行為があり、3年前に失踪したエディサの妹の財布を発見する。エディサはマリが危険な目に遭っているのではと心配する。警備の専門家であるアシュウィンがすでにマリを知っていることを知ったエディサは、忙しい若い女性を密かに監視することを彼に依頼する。 アシュウィンは、活発でのんびりとしたドッグトレーナーに不本意ながら惹かれていく。彼女は、幸せそうな母親を思い出させる。その母親の裏切りによって、彼は人と距離を置くようになったのだ。マリは、アシュウィンの冷たい外見を見抜き、彼が家族に忠実な男であることを認める。彼は、彼女のキャリア選択を批判するだけの母親や姉とは違う。 マリのバラバラな家庭とアシュウィンのバラバラな家庭の中で、過去を隠そうとする人たちから、彼らの周りに危険が迫ってくるようになる。彼らは、影で動く秘密に光を当てることができるのか? 過去に発表されたパートへのリンクはこちら。 *** 第8章 - 恐ろしくも真っ白な不動産書類 『みんな仲良くできないのかな?』 マリは無用に力を込めて箱に本を投げ入れた。最近、なぜ彼女は人生の中で全員と言い争いをしているのだろう?もしかすると、これは本当に悪いアイデア
Captain’s Log, Supplemental
Blog book giveaway:
My Thursday book giveaway is TANGLED MEMORIES by Marta Perry.
My Monday book giveaway is DIVINE STORIES OF THE YAHWEH SISTERHOOD edited by Michelle Medlock Adams and Gena Maselli.
You can still enter both giveaways. Just post a comment on each of those blog posts. On Thursday, I'll draw the winner for TANGLED MEMORIES and post the title for another book I'm giving away.
ICRS, part 5 (continued from part 4):
ACFW had a breakfast get-together on Monday morning, so I dragged my lazy butt out of bed and sagged against the wall as the elevator dropped me 33 floors in less than 30 seconds (that’s just kind of scary to contemplate). A friendly guy rode the elevator with me.
As I walked out of the hotel, in the entry foyer I saw RiverOak editor Jeff Dunn! He greeted me with a smile and a hug. I was so glad to see him because the last I’d heard, he’d had gall bladder surgery and couldn’t make it to the Mount Hermon Christian Writers Conference this past April.
Jeff introduced me to the guy who had rode down the elevator with me, Tom Beard, the manager of events and publicity at Cook Communications. Small world!
RiverOak has stopped its current fiction line so I’m guessing Jeff was at ICRS for Cook’s nonfiction line. We chatted a short time, but we both had to get to our respective breakfast meetings. He is the nicest guy. He’s known me since I first shopped around my really badly written chick-lit, The Corinthian Rules, at Mount Hermon years ago, and he’s always been so encouraging to me.
Walking in downtown Denver near the Convention Center is a little scary. Some very weird people and some scary looking homeless people. {shudder}
The ACFW breakfast was so fun! I saw next to Brandt Dodson and across from Beth White, whose novel with Zondervan is going to be released with mine next year (I’ll be riding the marketing coattails of Beth and Lori Copeland—lucky me!). I also sat next to Bryan Davis’s daughter Amanda.
Walking the floor at ICRS was amazing. Not as many people as I expected ther to be—and actually, Brandilyn Collins commented on her blog that there were less people than last year.
Tons of booths with all kinds of stuff for Christian retailers to look at, to order for their stores. The trinkets and gifts were neat, but my favorite booths were, natch, the publishing houses. It was fascinating to see the posters and the books on display, to see what titles are coming out, what recent titles the house is highlighting, which authors will be signing.
Oh, and the free books are pretty cool, too. :)
Some market observations:
I zeroed in on the chick-lit, and there were definitely several titles at each booth. I have no clue if the chick-lit genre is doing well, but it seemed every major publishing house had a form of chick-lit in their catalog.
I did notice quite a bit of mom-lit and also several mystery chick-lits. Not as many straight chick-lits. Looks like the publishers are leaning toward those sub-genres.
Thrillers, mysteries, and suspense novels were also highlighted, and for some of them, the publishers were targeting the male readership—I suppose figuring that the women who read thrillers would buy the books anyway, so they concentrated on increasing their male demographic.
There were also lots of historical novels, but these were grittier and a bit different from the Christian historicals I’ve read before. Not always single women in a romance—a couple titles had married couples, some titles looked more like historical fiction or historical women’s fiction, even. Flawed, wounded heroes and heroines.
It’s going to be a great year for fiction!
Next: Meeting with my editor Sue Brower and some marketing tips.
Blog book giveaway:
My Thursday book giveaway is TANGLED MEMORIES by Marta Perry.
My Monday book giveaway is DIVINE STORIES OF THE YAHWEH SISTERHOOD edited by Michelle Medlock Adams and Gena Maselli.
You can still enter both giveaways. Just post a comment on each of those blog posts. On Thursday, I'll draw the winner for TANGLED MEMORIES and post the title for another book I'm giving away.
ICRS, part 5 (continued from part 4):
ACFW had a breakfast get-together on Monday morning, so I dragged my lazy butt out of bed and sagged against the wall as the elevator dropped me 33 floors in less than 30 seconds (that’s just kind of scary to contemplate). A friendly guy rode the elevator with me.
As I walked out of the hotel, in the entry foyer I saw RiverOak editor Jeff Dunn! He greeted me with a smile and a hug. I was so glad to see him because the last I’d heard, he’d had gall bladder surgery and couldn’t make it to the Mount Hermon Christian Writers Conference this past April.
Jeff introduced me to the guy who had rode down the elevator with me, Tom Beard, the manager of events and publicity at Cook Communications. Small world!
RiverOak has stopped its current fiction line so I’m guessing Jeff was at ICRS for Cook’s nonfiction line. We chatted a short time, but we both had to get to our respective breakfast meetings. He is the nicest guy. He’s known me since I first shopped around my really badly written chick-lit, The Corinthian Rules, at Mount Hermon years ago, and he’s always been so encouraging to me.
Walking in downtown Denver near the Convention Center is a little scary. Some very weird people and some scary looking homeless people. {shudder}
The ACFW breakfast was so fun! I saw next to Brandt Dodson and across from Beth White, whose novel with Zondervan is going to be released with mine next year (I’ll be riding the marketing coattails of Beth and Lori Copeland—lucky me!). I also sat next to Bryan Davis’s daughter Amanda.
Walking the floor at ICRS was amazing. Not as many people as I expected ther to be—and actually, Brandilyn Collins commented on her blog that there were less people than last year.
Tons of booths with all kinds of stuff for Christian retailers to look at, to order for their stores. The trinkets and gifts were neat, but my favorite booths were, natch, the publishing houses. It was fascinating to see the posters and the books on display, to see what titles are coming out, what recent titles the house is highlighting, which authors will be signing.
Oh, and the free books are pretty cool, too. :)
Some market observations:
I zeroed in on the chick-lit, and there were definitely several titles at each booth. I have no clue if the chick-lit genre is doing well, but it seemed every major publishing house had a form of chick-lit in their catalog.
I did notice quite a bit of mom-lit and also several mystery chick-lits. Not as many straight chick-lits. Looks like the publishers are leaning toward those sub-genres.
Thrillers, mysteries, and suspense novels were also highlighted, and for some of them, the publishers were targeting the male readership—I suppose figuring that the women who read thrillers would buy the books anyway, so they concentrated on increasing their male demographic.
There were also lots of historical novels, but these were grittier and a bit different from the Christian historicals I’ve read before. Not always single women in a romance—a couple titles had married couples, some titles looked more like historical fiction or historical women’s fiction, even. Flawed, wounded heroes and heroines.
It’s going to be a great year for fiction!
Next: Meeting with my editor Sue Brower and some marketing tips.
Comments
I'm never going to get to see pics, am I??