Countdown to
8/13/07
1 (one!) day and counting....
to FORCE OF NATURE, in stores (tomorrow!) on August 14, 2007
Remember to click the above link to see today's video clip from Romance Novel TV! There's a new video clip over at Romance Novel TV for every day of the Countdown to FORCE OF NATURE!
Note
from Suz: So, for each new book, I go out on these booksignings tours which -- don't get
me wrong -- are a lot of fun. I love traveling across the country and meeting
readers. I love signing books, too -- especially knowing that my books are
going on readers' keeper shelves. That's a real honor.
But here's the thing: there's never enough time to get a chance to really talk to people at a signing.
So we (my crack team, pictured left, my husband Ed, my best bud Eric, with my son Jason (sitting)) came up with a plan that allows me to get some serious face-time with readers.
We hold reader weekends. (Okay. Sometimes they don't fall on a weekend, but they tend to be weekend-length in time. Three-ish days. So we call them "reader weekends.") It's an opportunity for readers to get together in a small-sized conference hotel, to hang out together and to hang out with me. It's a chance for me to sit down and have actual conversations with readers.
And it's not all just casual chilling. I invite guest authors, and we set up panel discussions and Q&A sessions and games and parties. We have prize baskets filled with backlist books and other goodies.
We have small group meals -- where everyone gets a chance to have lunch or dinner with me and the other authors and guests. We set it up so that the guest authors spend around 20 minutes with each table. (There are usually about three tables per small group meal.)
It's a fun opportunity to make new friends -- many of the readers who attend come back each year. It really is a blast.
Last summer, I held a reader event in Atlanta, and about a hundred readers participated.
My guest authors were reader favorites Cathy Mann, Virginia Kantra, and Alesia Holliday. And, (as I've mentioned earlier in this countdown) Navy SEAL Tom Rancich also attended as my guest.
Cathy brought her talented and charming husband, Rob, who is an officer in the Air Force. He sat in on a panel we held on Life in the Military. (Alesia is married to a Navy officer, so she had much to add, too.) (I found their panel -- Cathy, Rob, Alesia and Tom -- the most entertaining. It was hilarious and heart-wrenching. )
Check out my photo album from Atlanta, July 2006. (Photos courtesy of the amazing Lee Benjamin and Jim Keene! Special thanks to Elizabeth and Beki for letting them come along!)
P.S. When's our next reader event, you ask? I'm not sure yet, but I'm thinking about setting something up for next summer, right before the RWA National Conference in San Francisco. Watch my appearances page for details. (I'll probably be greenlighting the next event in early January, so please be patient until then.)
Countdown
Flashback of the Day:
Robin, Jules & Adam at Big's in LA
From Hot Target:
Robin was at the bar, watching the door, groovin' to
Holy crap, the hot guy was Jules.
He'd spotted Robin, and he was heading for him, weaving his way through
the crowd with Adam -- of course -- in hot pursuit.
Jules was wearing his hair differently.
It was styled and funky, and very non-federal-agent.
Between the two of them, both remarkably handsome men, they were drawing
a lot of attention from Big's regulars. Except
Jules didn't notice it. He wasn't
looking at anyone but Robin.
Adam, however, liked having all those eyes on him.
He slowed down, made eye contact around the room, put a little extra
swagger into his strut.
But then, probably because Robin was grinning at how different he looked,
Jules smiled and Adam disappeared. Poof.
Just instantly gone, like a star in the sky when the sun came up.
"I walked right past you outside," Robin shouted when Jules got
close enough to hear him over the music. He
handed him the chocolate martini he'd ordered when he first came in.
"I didn't recognize you. Where's
your tie, FBI?"
Jules winced then leaned close to say into Robin's ear, "Not too
loud with that in here, please."
As always, he smelled incredibly good.
"Sorry." Robin
motioned for Jules to come closer again and said into his ear, "Is that a
'don't ask, don't tell' thing, or...?"
"It's a testosterone thing," Jules told him.
He took a sip of the drink. "Yikes.
That's got some kick. Thanks,
I think. See, there's always someone
who wants to pick a fight with the federal agent."
"Are you sure they just don't want you to cuff 'em and slap 'em
around a little bit before tucking them into bed?"
Jules laughed. "I never
thought of that. God, I hope
not."
Adam was several feet down the bar, trying to get himself a drink.
He glanced over frequently, clearly annoyed that they were having this
private conversation, standing so close together, mouth to ear and ear to mouth.
So Robin kept it going. "You
know, it's not too late. We've only
filmed a few of the scenes with young Jack -- they'd be easy enough to reshoot.
Just say the word, and we'll give Scowlface over there his walking
papers."
Jules was not amused. He put
his already empty glass down on the bar. Hey
now, he'd finished that rather fast. Much
stress in his life? "If you're
going to start this again..."
"I won't," Robin said. "Relax."
He pushed both of their glasses toward the bartender, signaling for a
refill, then leaned toward Jules again. "You
know what my problem is?"
"Yes, I do, sweetie, but you won't want to hear it."
Robin waved the comment off. They
were talking about Adam here. "I
hate his fucking guts." He
looked up, and sure enough, the little bastard was watching them, so...
Jules cracked up. "Excuse
me, I don't think I know you well enough for you to lick my ear."
"Sorry," Robin grinned back at him.
"Adam's so easy to torment, and I've got a little swerve on,"
he shouted over the music.
"A little's putting it mildly," Jules agreed.
Meanwhile Adam was getting more and more pissed off.
Now it was because they'd gotten a refill from the bartender, and he
hadn't even managed to place his order. Robin
handed Jules his glass, made a show out of toasting, while Adam steamed.
This was fun.
"I had a few with dinner -- I had to take the edge off," Robin
said. Well, okay.
The edge plus a fairly large portion of the center.
"Today was a total suckfest."
He caught himself. "Although,
I guess in a gay bar, that's not necessarily a bad thing."
Jules was laughing again, which was nice.
"I shouldn't have another," he said, taking only a tiny sip of
his drink. "These days I've
been sticking to wine, so my resistance is down and--"
Robin caught his finger in the belt loop of those black pants, pulling
Jules even closer, which -- score! -- annoyed the shit out of Adam.
"If I asked you to dance," Robin said loudly enough for Adam to
hear, especially since the prick had come closer, "would your evil twin
have to come onto the dance floor, too?"
Jules glanced at Adam, looked down at Robin's finger still hooked around
his belt loop, then up into Robin's eyes. "This
is probably a good time for me to tell you that Adam knows," he shouted
over the music. "You know, that
this is just an act. That you're
not... we're not..."
Robin toasted him, clinking their glasses together again.
"Yeah, well, hey, there's a first time for everything, right?"
It was supposed to be a joke -- he'd meant it as a joke, with the double
bonus of making Adam crazy -- but this time Jules didn't laugh.
He didn't pull away, but he did put his drink down on the bar as he
sighed.
He gazed out onto the packed dance floor for a moment, rubbing the back
of his neck as if he were tired. And
when he looked back at Robin, his eyes were serious.
"Just so there's not any miscommunication here, you need to know --
I don't mess around with guys who get drunk so they have an excuse all ready for
the morning after."
Adam, drink in hand, had stepped closer.
"I do," he said.
It may have been another joke gone bad, or it may have been a real
attempt to wound -- a reaction to his hand, which was still holding onto that
belt loop. Robin wasn't sure.
Either way, it was a direct hit. Jules
closed his eyes briefly. "Yes,
I know, Adam," he said. When he
opened them, he forced a smile at Robin, but it didn't manage to hide his hurt.
"And now Robin knows, too."
"Why do you say shit like that?" Robin asked Adam. "All
you're doing is proving that you don't deserve him."
"Deserve him?" Adam
laughed. "Like he's some big
prize? Let me warn you, friend, he's
possessive as hell--"
"Yeah." Jules had obviously reached his limit.
"I tend to get a little riled up when we go on vacation and you have
sex with some stranger in the back room of a dance club, exactly like, oh, say,
this one."
Oh crap. Robin winced.
So that was why Jules hadn't been keen on coming to this particular club.
"And gee, A.," Jules
continued, leaning hard on the nickname, "who was it who paid for the
airline tickets to
"Gee, I guess that would be you, J., and you didn't let me forget it
for a single second, did you?"
"So let me get this straight," Robin interrupted.
He looked at Adam with disbelief. "You
think Jules is possessive because he was upset when he found out you had sex
with someone else?"
"So I got a little carried away," Adam said.
He mocked Robin. "I
guess I had too much of a swerve on. 'Sides,
it was just sex." He nudged
Robin with his elbow. "You know
how that is, don't you, bro?"
"Well, on that lovely note," Jules said.
"I think it's probably time to call it a night.
I'm--"
"Touch me again, douche bag," Robin said with his best Russell
Crowe scowl, "and you'll be sorry."
"You mean like this?" Adam
shoved him hard, and Robin's drink sloshed down Jules' T-shirt.
"Shit!"
Despite the dousing, Jules managed to catch Robin before he went off the
barstool. And he grabbed his arm,
too, keeping him from swinging at Adam.
"Don't do this!" he warned Robin, then turned to the other man.
"You want to fuck up your movie career?
You want to spend the night in jail, in the drunk tank with the worst of
the homophobic psychos from the entire
Something shifted across Adam's face, and Jules made a noise that he
tried to turn into a laugh.
"Oh. Right.
That was a lie, too, wasn't it?" he continued.
"That new day job that you love so much?
Jesus Christ, Adam! And you
wonder why I don't even want to look
at you, let alone talk to you?
Fuck you and your fucking lies."
He turned to Robin. "And
fuck you for using me in this stupid game you're playing."
"Jules--" Robin
tried to grab him, but Jules shook himself free.
"J.!"
Adam started to go after him, but Robin blocked his route.
"Haven't you done enough damage?"
As he watched, Jules took the most direct path to the door -- through the
dance floor instead of around it.
"Haven't you?" Adam
countered. "He's serious, you
know. He's not going to touch you.
He's a Boy Scout." He
stepped closer, too close. "I,
however, will do whatever you want, whenever you want."
Time seemed to hang as Robin stared into Adam's eyes.
The motherfucker was serious. It
was more than a little scary. "In
your dreams."
"Maybe, maybe not," Adam murmured.
"Can't wait to shoot that love scene.
When's that scheduled for? Day
after tomorrow?"
Robin didn't hit him. It
would have taken too much time. "Follow
me and I'm quitting," he warned Adam as he scooped his backpack off the
floor. "If I quit, filming
grinds to a stop, the movie doesn't get made, and you're back to being
nobody."
Plunging into the crowd, he followed Jules out the door.
From the book HOT TARGET
By Suzanne Brockmann
A Ballantine Book
Copyright 2005 by Suzanne Brockmann
That's all for now! Be
sure to come back for tomorrow's final installment in the
Countdown to FORCE
OF NATURE!
See you tomorrow!