No Free Lunch-- But Free e-books Happen

Dorchester Publishing has teamed up with kobo/Borders Books and made Divine Fire available for free download this week. http://www.kobobooks.com/ebook/Divine-Fire/book-Os1FksHC7EOt4vr8DiAyww/page1.html Thrill as Lord Byron takes on Dr. Frankenstein and an army of ghouls. Happy early Halloween!

Chloe Boston Mysteries

Chloe is ready to ride again in her fourth mystery-- Murder on Parade. Chloe's holiday misadventures continue during the Christmas parade when the Grand Marshall dies in front of thousands of witnesses. Clearly something must be done and Chloe is the logical one to do it, but can she manage to solve a mystery and also get her cousin safely wed to fellow officer, Dale Gordon?

If you haven't met Chloe yet, she is a five foot, ninety-eight pound, dog-loving metermaid with aspirations to be a detective. That dream seems unattainable though since the physical exam requires that she be able to lift a hundred pound bag of sand. Not that this stops her from solving crimes-- much to the mixed chagrine and pleasure of Hope Fall's new chief of police. Chloe's first adventure is Moving Violation. This book was written as a kind of Bible to anchor the world and characters in my mind. Halloween and Thanksgiving are the next holidays for murder. Personally, I'd stay out of Hope Falls of red letter days but Chloe never learns :-).

Redecorating Websites

It happens-- even in cyberspace-- home begin to look tired and faded. And then it is time to shove some furniture around and maybe apply some new wallpaper and generally do a clean-up. It's a bother in the livingroom or kitchen but I thought updating the website would be easy. And less expensive. Ha! Ha! Ha! Well, it was easy for me but the poor dh had a time of it. But here it is! A blog on my website, which also has gorgeous new wallpaper. If you get the chance to visit you can come see all the new trimmings and toys. http://www.melaniejackson.com/

The World's Going E-- be there or be square!

I resisted for the longest time. Every time someone argued the benefit of having thousands of titles at my fingertips, I argued back about the pleasure of smelling paper and ink, the tangible pleasure of holding something flexible and warm and glossy in my hands.... And everything I said is still true, but my flexible, good smelling books are starting to come apart now. And faced with having to replace them-- again-- a lot of my favorite titles are going onto the Nook instead of the bookshelf.

Does this mean our house will be devoid of books? No, there are still thousands of them in every room. But there will be fewer all the time. Because excepting some exquisite, rare and signed tomes-- antiques, often in foreign languages-- the ease of e-reading will probably win enough of the small battles to eventually win the war. Add to that the many on NY's authors are now self-publishing and their books are only in e-format and I think the trend is set.

Still, this is a little like the Christmas tree. We went artificial because I hated killing a tree every December. But pretty and practical as the tree is (woven willow branches with crystals that look like ice) nothing will ever replace all those fond memories of real trees and the wonderful way they smelled and looked and felt.

GERBILDOC4 Jackson/Knave Of Hearts*202*LCNN€[1] €[1]

How many of you remember when there was no Windows and DOS ruled the computer world? I'm talking way back when floppy disks were still floppy and people weren't ashamed of disco. Well, that was when I wrote a trilogy of westerns (Bad Medicine, Medicine Man and Knave of Hearts). At the time the books were deemed not violent enough and far too sexy by the editors that saw them (and wanted to spare the armchair cowboys their blushes if they read about men kissing something besides their horses). So the books went into a trunk and were forgotten-- along with those time- traveling Vikings that would never sell because 'what woman could love a man who didn't know what french fries are?'.

In the years that followed I had three computer upgrades, Windows came along, we discovered the internet, and floppy disks went hard. My current very expensive and very smart computer-- smart because I paid for a memory upgrade-- can't translate my dinosaur DOS into anything better than snippets of pidgen English. Like: ÷„ò„á„ð„ „é„ô„ „á„ì„ì„ „õ„ð„ „é„î„ „á„ „÷„é„î„ä„é„î„ç„ „ó„è„å„å„ô„, Mitchell thought. Á„ „÷„ï„ì„æ„ „í„á„ù„ „ì„ï„ó„å„ „è„é„ó„ „ô„å„å„ô„脬„ „ð„å„ô„é„ô„儬„ „â„õ„ô„ „î„ï„ô„ „è„é„ó„ „î„á„ô„õ„ò„å„®„ „ ‚Ô„è„å„ò„儧„ó„ „î„ï„ô„è„é„„ „ô„ï„ „ä„ï„ „÷„é„ô„è„ „á„ „ò„ï„ç„õ„å„ „ô„è„á„ô„§„ó„ „ä„å„ö„å„ì„ï„ð„å„ä„ „á„ „ô„á„ó„ô„å„ „ âæ„ï„ò„ „á„ „ã„å„ she exclaimed „ô„á„ó„ô„å„ and the dress.

Nevertheless, I see in this sea of a gorp the bones of a good story, and so I am digging it out, one letter and symbol at a time. And someday, maybe even this year, Knave of Hearts will be ready to share with the world that is now prepared for sexy cowboys who use their heads as well as their fists. And other things.