The early reviews are in!
“It’s great.” – my friend Kris
“I read it in one day.” – my sister Hannah
“This is the worst piece of crap ever written.” – my inner critic
No but for real – if you’re a reviewer, whether you have your own blog (or review journal 😉 or are just really good at remembering to review on Goodreads, hit me up! I’m looking to trade ARCs in exchange for honest reviews.
No I’m not talking about the Barenaked Ladies song (although that is the best). I’m talking about the cover reveal of my first book, Celebrity Spin Doctor, being one week away!!! That’s Friday, August 17th!!
(Head’s up, there will be excessive exclamation marks throughout this post and probably most of what I post throughout the next week. I regret nothing.)
Not only will you be able to see the cover that I’ve been keeping secret for these past few months, you’ll also be able to, if you’re so inclined, pre-order the book!!
Where do you go to pre-order? Well don’t you worry. I’ll be sharing the links for Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Kobo EVERYWHERE.
I’ll also be doing a fun, themed giveaway, open to anyone who pre-orders the book.
(Think I mentioned pre-order enough?)
Yes, it is true – my first novel comes out this September! I keep assuming it’s some fever dream that I’ll wake up from. But now that I have the ebook copy actually in my inbox, it seems like it may be real.
When is this paragon of English literature coming to an online bookseller near you? Well get ready because here are some important dates to remember:
August 17th: Cover reveal & pre-order available through Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
September 3rd: The book will be up on NetGalley. If you are a reviewer/librarian/bookseller and want to get an early copy (also want to help me out by reviewing it ;), head over there and request an ARC.
September 20th: RELEASE DAY!!!
Some things that will be happening on release day:
I’m not saying that you have to get my book… but all the cool kids are doing it…
I will be posting lots of book recommendations. There’s just something about working at the library that compels you to tell everyone about what you’re reading. For this post I happen to have a podcast to share of summer book recommendations that I made with the other Popular Materials librarians. We had fun making it, which hopefully means it’s also fun to listen to!
(I don’t know as I have made it a point to never listen to myself on audio recordings.)
My recommendations:
What are your summer reads?
First, let me say thank you Celia for hosting me on her blog. She’s been truly helpful sharing my latest book on Instagram which I find hard to navigate. So thanks, Celia! 😊
With the new Ocean’s 8 movie out the possibility of female robbers isn’t unbelievable anymore. I’ve loved heist movies like “The Italian Job” and Pink Panther. It’s weird how women have always been painted the cops or the sidekick but never the msterminds.
In THE MILANESE STARS, a group of women plan, execute and make off with a set of five pink diamonds. The police and an insurance investigator, Samuel Keane are on the hunt. But the women pull off the heist successfully without any suspicion.
In the midst of it all, love blossoms and Samuel finds the woman he loves at the center of the crime. But the heist of the decade is not just about stealing diamonds, its about settling the score.
I must admit that I’ve never written a negative heroine before. Since I usually write sweet, contemporary romances, my heroines are always good, positive, world-changing. As the story developed in this book, I wanted to show women when pushed to their limit, can very well be exacting, ruthless and long sighted when it comes to their goals.
Vita isn’t stealing diamonds to get rich, she’s doing it to get even. Very few books have women in this role. So I’m glad to have written this story with a role reversal of sorts. It might seem unusual to my readers but I enjoyed bending the rules while writing this one.
It wasn’t easy. I remember my first edit, the editors and beta readers had comments like, “is this possible?” and “would she have said/ done that?”
I’m so glad that this book broke that glass ceiling for me. I didn’t set any limits on the women. Yes, there are women who can hack into software, plan elaborate schemes, and market diamonds on the sly. There are women who have the audacity to take on the bad guys!
THE MILANESE STARS is on pre-order till the 25th of June.
Trailer
Do you think women can pull off heists? Let us know what you think.
– Pamela Q. Fernandes
I have been playing the catch-up game for a little while now. Catching up with old friends, catching up on my writing, catching up on my blog. If you want to see more of what I’ve been up to while I wasn’t blogging, follow my Instagram: celiamulder.
One of the things I never got around to posting on here was the Nerd Nite talk I gave last winter called “Time Traveling Vikings or the Many Layered Subgenres of Romance Novels” in which I share some of the wildest, craziest books I’ve stumbled on. Lucky for us, there’s a video of my speech. Which is good as I can’t remember half of what I said. Only that in the moment it seemed like the wittiest reparte ever spoken. And I even got a “contains explicit content” warning for my video because, let’s face it, some of these books are not work appropriate. I’m saying that and I work in a library. Because no we don’t carry any Chuck Tingle.
Intrigued? Check it out.
Some drafts I found:
From December 30th 2015
I like the idea of starting the weekend with a book suggestion. I hope you do too!
Now, pay attention. If you read NOTHING else that I recommend, read this book. If you read nothing else this year, read this book. If you don’t read, well, I’m not sure how you found this post but I’m glad you did because I’m going to tell you to read this book.
The book I’m talking about? Come As You Are by Emily Nagoski
This book does something that should have been done a long time ago. It would have saved all of us, but particularly us women, a lot of heartache. It tells us that we are normal. Specifically, our sexuality is normal. Emily says a lot – we have all the same parts, just organized differently. She tells us that unless you are in physical pain, you are normal, your sexual response is normal, your feelings and attractions and desires are guess what? Normal.
For someone who didn’t absorb anything in science classes, Emily made this stuff approachable through some great metaphors. She walks you through the technical parts and shows how important those are to understanding the social, cultural, self expressive parts of sexuality. She gives us hope that no matter how screwed up your childhood was or what cultural messages made you feel inherently wrong or bad, you can heal and recover and are still normal.
Some of my most deeply held ideas were challenged by this book in the best way possible.
From March 9th 2018
Whew, it has been a long time since I’ve written on here. Part of me wants to delete the whole thing and start again so that no one can read the rambling posts from my years ago self. Only that’s how I’ve ended up with so many internet footprints. One time someone told me they found and read a blog of mine that I was certain had been deleted. Yet nothing is ever truly gone from the internet. Not when sites and companies own all of the content you post.
But I digress.
You are seeing me, dear readers, at the end of my graduate school journey. It has been a long two years and the next six weeks are certain to be an uphill battle to graduation. I am full of trepidation about the future and the constant feeling that there’s something I’ve forgotten in the present.
I have some ideas for the future of this blog. Of course I will continue to write about my writing journey and the weird romance novels I find. But I’m also going to put in some longer pieces about library topics I think are important. If you follow my instagram (and you should) you know that I post there about three things: my life (ok, mostly my cats), library stuff, and writing stuff.
RT 2018 starts tomorrow, can you believe it? I know I can’t and I’m going to be there! Heading to Reno for five days of romance reading, writing, and yes, fangirling.
And the thing I’m most excited about is buying my paperback copies of Scarlett Kol’s books!
I am in this great and terrifying space where it’s time to work on a new project. If you’re not in the writing world, you may not have heard the term “plot bunny.” Plot bunnies are those little snippets of inspiration that can hit you anywhere, at anytime. It can be as small as a character name or as big as an entire plot line. Not all of them are winners but some are. The winners are the ones that stick around, that burrow in and multiply into characters, settings, conflicts, romances, and dialogue fragments. And the time plot bunnies are most likely to strike? Right after you’ve decided what you’re going to work on next.
I had my mind and creative energy all set to work on a particular story that’s been brewing for some time. Then two days ago I was hit with a plot bunny. Last night another one hit me. The two merged and became twice as persistent. As I sat down to begin the plotted story, I found myself instead making an inspiration playlist for the mutated plot bunnies. Where do I go from here? Do I follow my plan and write the book whose sheen has dulled a little? Or do I follow this shiny new idea and see where it leads? The shiny idea that is multiplying so quickly it almost a full fledged outline.
Meanwhile there are all the other ideas I’ve been holding onto for years. All of these partial stories hanging out on my computer, waiting for my return. Some of them have a few chapters, some are over a third of the way written. Now that I know the time and investment writing a book entails I am lost on where to go next. What will be the next thing I pour my creative energy into? What story can I stand to work on for the next few months or years?
I don’t expect an answer. There aren’t absolutes and facts in the writing process. It’s all about taking risks, jumping and hoping there’s a parachute. Sometimes there is, sometimes there isn’t. But like the masochists we are, we jump anyway.
It’s been quite the year. I survived a wild, whirlwind of a summer followed by an even more wild fall. In September I started my masters program in Library Science, began a new job, and moved across the state. Now it’s November and I don’t know where 2016 went or how it’s already time to pull out my Christmas movie watch list again!
I have been blogging, just not here (I know. Terrible). For library class we each keep a blog of our class reflections and reading take aways. If you’re dying to read some stuff that makes little sense out of context, check it out.
Meanwhile, I’ve been making a Herculean effort to keep up with my personal reading. Hopefully getting back into my blog updates will help with that.
Last Friday I finished the book Dewey The Library Cat by Vicki Myron absolutely bawling. It’s the true story of a kitten that was abandoned in a library book return in rural Iowa and grew up to become the joy of the small town public library. Dewey was a big, fluffy orange tabby who spent his days snuggling with kids during story hour, sitting in on important meetings, and sleeping on as many laps as he could. Honestly, living in a library has always been a childhood fantasy of mine so I was incredibly jealous as I read about Dewey’s glorious life.
There was also a lot in the book about the changes rural Iowa went through during the 1980’s farming crisis and beyond. It was a part of history I’d never thought about, at all, and having it as part of this heartwarming story of a library cat made the book that much better. I wouldn’t say I loved the writing but I can certainly see why people loved Dewey.
If you don’t have time to read the book (and it’s past time to own up to the fact that most of us don’t), here’s a cute YouTube video from the Iowa Public Access story on Dewey. It’s very 80s and the librarian glasses are a riot.
