I’m over at Booking Mama today talking about themes. And pirates, naturally. Visit me here.
End games
I’m finishing my trio of posts over at the Well Read Donkey today, on endings.
While also working ten hour days refining the final draft.
I wonder if my post over there makes the least bit of sense?
Donkeys and meteors
I’m over at the blog for Kepler’s bookstore this week, The Well Read Donkey, talking about beginnings, middles, and ends. While you’re there, maybe you could even click onto the Kepler’s link and buy a book? Hooray for indies!
And I would be remiss if I did not point out that the Perseid meteors are doing their thing right now, although you probably will need to wait until dark to see them. There’s a map, even, with the SF Chronicle article. Although the article doesn’t mention what happened during this time in 1924—for that you’ll have to read The Language of Bees.
And in case you were wondering, yes, the title contest is now closed. Please stop sending names. Please. Stop.
Tome travelling
As has become our habit during the Fifteen Weeks, Thursday is guest post day. This time I’m visiting the Tome Traveller, who herself is just back from the UK. Her post yesterday is a review of The Language of Bees, although if you don’t want spoilers, you might want to keep your eyes averted from that one…
A bitchin’ post
When I was young and rude, as opposed to middle aged and rude, the word “bitchin” was a term of praise. It is in that sense of the word that I invite you to join me over at Bookbitch, a bitchin’ blog about books.
And don’t forget to give me your love letter to a library, which could bring you untold riches, or a book, which is the same thing. You can just post it as a comment here, if you like. I’ll read it, and enjoy it, and maybe give it a prize.
Paranormal, Sex & Culture
I’m still over at Bitten by Books this morning, if there’s something you just always wanted to ask LRK and didn’t have the chance. And they’re giving away a bunch of books–great contests there.
And, a reminder that on Saturday I’m with Pam Houston, Stacie Boschma, Sean Stewart, Regina Lynn, and Minal Hajratwala in San Francisco’s Make Out Room, raising money for the Center for Sex and Culture. A side of LRK you perhaps haven’t seen…
Tomorrow I’ll tell you all about the seder I went to last night, and singing “Matzo, Matzo Man.” Them Moroccan Sephardis really know how to party down at a seder.
(LRK: your full service writer. Where else can you find Vampires, Sex & Culture, and an ancient Jewish ritual in one brief post?)
Vampires and…Mary Russell?
Some days I am normal. Others I am a tad paranormal. Today is one of the latter. I’m taking questions and comments over at the ever-thrilling Bitten By Books today, and it will probably spill over onto tomorrow morning, in case your thinking process is delayed. Please join us, read the BbB/LRK interview, and throw some questions at me.
Why a site with a slant towards the paranormal and vampires and ghoulies and ghosties? Let’s see: Holmes and Russell are clearly very active on into their second century (see yesterday’s post,) they never seem to sleep or eat, and Russell has odd scars that prevent her from wearing low-cut clothing. Can you think of an explanation?
They’re also giving away LOTS of copies of The Language of Bees, so here’s your chance.
And while you’re thinking of barbed (sorry) questions to ask, I neglected to draw your attention to what our very own webmeister/ess, Vicki, has to say about the creating of a community around books and specifically around the books of LRK.
Week ten: posts and giveaways
We’re racing now into week ten of the Fifteen Weeks—two thirds of the way through the celebration, and only 22 days until The Language of Bees goes on sale and LRK hits the road!
And it being a Monday, that means Miss Russell is posting over on her Myspace blog, where she and Holmes are arriving in Oxford.
Last week’s hardback was won by Merrily for her deft treatment of the Russell and Holmes crossword puzzle, and this week finds two giveaways—Goodreads, where Right Minded Readers hang out and chat, and Bitten By Books, where I’ll be blogging about things normal and paranormal, later this week.
I’m hoping to finish The Green Man this week, although if I get any more tangled up in the plot, someone’s going to have to send an expedition with chain saws to rescue me…
Laurie Loves Libraries
As I may have happened to mention a few hundred times, I adore libraries. I grew up in libraries, libraries snatched up most of the first printing of A Grave Talent, and I revel in my local university’s research library. The Game was dedicated: To the librarians everywhere, who spend their lives in battle against the forces of darkness.
National Library Week is coming up, April 13-19, which is also week 11 of Fifteen Weeks of Bees. To celebrate libraries, we’re going to turn hives of bees loose—no, of course not. We’re going to give books. Lots of books.
Love a library? Tell us about your favorite library—the people, the building, what you have found there, what it’s done for you. We’ll read all your stories, and pick one. The winner will get a signed hardback of The Language of Bees. And the winner’s library? They will get a complete set of all nine Russell and Holmes novels, from The Beekeeper’s Apprentice to The Language of Bees.
Plus, we’re going to draw one library from the Laurie Loves Libraries list and send them a copy of The Language of Bees, too, just to show our appreciation. So if you haven’t submitted your library’s name to our list, do so now, and maybe you could be the first on the list to borrow it!
***
By delightful coincidence, as I was blearily sitting down to the keyboard this morning to post this, an email from my editor arrived with the following review from…Library Journal.
Back in Sussex after nearly a year of globe-trotting adventures (The Game), Mary Russell and husband Sherlock Holmes are immediately catapulted into two different mysteries: the disappearance of Yolanda Adler and her young daughter, and the sudden extinction of one of Holmes’s beehives. Sherlock takes on the Adler case, while Mary, never one to mope at home, delves into the intricacies of the apiary …. King wastes no time dropping bombshells that shake up the canon she’s so carefully created. She’s a consistently good writer who continues to delight her many fans. A required purchase for all public libraries and fiction collections
Stepped out to post
Twenty-seven days until The Language of Bees buzzes across the land.
Laurie is not really here (Jedi hand wave across the screen.) This is not the LRK you’re looking for. It’s a blog tour day, so she’s over at the blog Jungle Red, talking to fellow writer Roberta Isleib about Russell and Holmes and…well, lots of things.
Come over and join us.