The Dog Days of Summer

Much of the world is staggering under an oppressive heat wave these days, which made me wonder if this is what’s known as the Dog Days of Summer or is there worse to come. Such an odd saying isn’t it, and one day I may even do the requisite Google search to discover the origins of the expression. But it did get me thinking of the really interesting books we’ve published featuring Man’s Best Friend, and I thought I’d highlight some of them in this blog post, well because I can and I’m actually too hot to do anything else or…move.

One book that I particularly remember is also one of my favorites and is an older Superromance title by Debra Salonen, called Love, By George starring a furry matchmaking Great Dane named George You see, George has an agenda–possibly recognizing two of his favorite humans, Brad and Kara, are so busy protecting their wounds from past hurts they can’t see what’s plainly under his nose. If you see this dog, please do not report him immediately. He’s got matchmaking to do. As a dog-lover I really enjoyed this walk on the wild side and can recommend it now that it’s available in eboo!

Although technically not a dog story I have to mention Ghost Stalker in this list. I fell in love with Jenna Kernan’s Trackers series with book one, Dream Stalker and was eagerly anticipating the next in the series, Ghost Stalker which features a shape-shifting wolf hero who is injured, delivered into the healer heroine’s care and mistaken for a large dog. It seems Thunderbirds, the mythical creatures from native lore, have dropped him on her doorstep and have a sense of humor in addition to a sense of destiny. I particularly enjoy learning about the legends of native north America that Jenna weaves into her gripping stories.

Of course no list of stories featuring doggie side kicks would be complete without a mention of Kristan Higgins. She’s had a dog on the cover and in the story of every single one of her HQN books starting with Fools Rush In and leading up to this Fall’s release of Until There Was You, with only one exception. That was Fat Mikey the cat on the cover of The Next Best Thing. We actually found the cover model dog, Mumford in a Facebook search and this beautiful Harlequin Great Dane practically steals the cover from the couple on Until There Was You. What do you think? Doesn’t he look as though he feels like he’s the star of the show?

In book one of the Creature Comforts series, A Convenient Proposal by Lynnette Kent, Arden, a world renowned violinist is forced to abandon her career and moves to the Florida Keys with her canine companion Igor to reevaluate her life. A chance encounter with a sexy stranger one New Year’s Eve leads to a possible solution to his need for a fake fiancee and her desire for a child..but what starts out as a temporary solution could turn into a real future, one that includes Arden, her dog and their soon-to-be-baby!

And here’s yet another puppy tale, this time by fan favorite author Lyn Cote. Her recent Love Inspired title, Daddy in the Making feaures a basset hound who has fallen in love with a single mom, her adorable twins and the orphaned kittens they rescued. Dr. Jake McClure’s best friend suddenly won’t budge from Jeannie Broussard’s home and it doesn’t Jake long to wonder whether he just might be the perfect fit in this fatherless family!

So, do you have any favorite stories featuring Man’s Best Friend, do you like stories featuring pets?

Happy Reading,

Jayne

She’s got wings…and she knows how to use them…

Exciting news! This Saturday, Harlie successfully fledged and took her first flight.

Baby Harlequin takes off.

Mom transfers food to Harlequin.

As if the drama of egg vs ledge wasn’t significant enough, nothing quite compares to the heart pounding terror of watching baby Harlequin lift off and fly for the very first time, which officially changes her status from hatchling to fledgling.  We’re becoming SO proficient in bird talk here at the Romance Mothership!

By nightfall, the newly air born Harlie rested on the upper ledge of the adjacent building quite obviously exhausted after having made seven short flights from building to building in the corridors of air space around the Harlequin offices, with only a few mainly minor mishaps.  She first took flight on Saturday July 9^th and has been increasing in speed and skill since.

Wrong way, Harlie!

Mama and Papa Quest and Kendal were like falcon training wheels, guiding her progress as she soared, albeit wobbly at first from ledge to ledge and eventually to the roof of her nesting site.  They flew alongside in almost military precision, directly above and below her!  What is particularly remarkable is the parenting skill displayed by these newbie parents, as in at least one instance their quick intervention deterred a potentially lethal outcome from Harley’s inadvertent topple from the 6^th floor ledge.  Which more than a few startled birders witnessed live and via our webcam feed!

As Mark Nash of the Canadian Peregrine Foundation says, “She is doing very well indeed, and obviously benefiting from not having any siblings to compete with for her parent’s attention. Quest and Kendal are outstanding parents and are staying tight to Baby Harlequin.”

And I have to get used to the lack of bird dives and swooping in my peripheral vision when at my desk as Harlie, Quest and Kendal move on.  Can’t WAIT until next spring when we hope this happens all over again!

A Big Day for Harlequin (the baby Peregrine Falcon)

It was a big day for the little bird at 225 Don Mills Road, as staff, invited guests and honored dignitaries arrived for a special ceremony yesterday in her honor. Wildlife biologists from the Ministry of Natural Resources secreted the feisty fledgling from her perch on the drafty ledge across from Harlequin’s headquarters in Don Mills under the watchful eye of Mama Quest. It took some subterfuge and a few anxious moments but the baby was escorted successfully across the street and then presented in person to employees in Toronto and in New York via internet and webcam. It was confirmed by a weighing in that she was indeed a female and officially christened Harlequin, and then banded with dual citizenship in honor of her parent’s cross-border romance.

Little Harley (as she’s known affectionately) has been stopping traffic and hearts since before she was hatched some 21days ago. This amazing story began when CEO Donna Hayes, herself an avid birder, noted the courting behavior of two Peregrine Falcons eventually identified as Quest from Rochester New York, and Kendal a local lad from Toronto. The romance blossomed and soon the pair was busy preparing for the imminent arrival of their much anticipated offspring. Initially somewhat overwhelmed by motherhood, Quest quite literally dashed hopes for a successful hatch by inadvertently pushing two previous eggs off the nest site leaving just the one viable egg. But, since the hatch (and WHAT a day that was) Harley has provided endless conversation in our offices about her size, condition, status and was she just a LITTLE too close to
the edge of the ledge when she fell out of the box today and OMIGOD did you see that?

Harlequin looks none too impressed as she is weighed.

And of course proud Papa Kendal, who has been stockpiling special cache spots with mountains of fresh food for Mama and Baby, deserves a special mention for eventually figuring out that he too must help out with the domestic duties and has been ably assisting Quest by swapping time out on the nest – this is after all a 21^st Century Romance!

Today’s event was attended by special guests, the Honourable Linda Jeffrey, Minister of Natural Resources who presided over the banding ceremony, representatives from the Canadian Peregrine Foundation and members of the media in addition to a Peregrine Falcon back up team and ararely seen and endangered Barn Owl. Each of us in fact had the opportunity to band our selves with special Harlequin hearts Peregrines bracelets in honor of the occasion.

The Honourable Linda Jeffrey, Minister of Natural Resources, Harlequin CEO Donna Hayes and Harlequin PR Manager, Melanie Dulos.

Donna shows off her own Harlequin Hearts Peregrines band.

And now we wait for…..Harlequin’s first flight!

Jayne

Confession of an Adventurous Reader!

I honestly had no idea how adventurous a reader I was until I joined the Carina Press team.

Harlequin’s editorial offerings are satisfying and rewarding, but unbeknownst to me I was in a reading rut. The crux of the problem is that here at Harlequin I’m never short of reading material and the creativity and innovation of our series authors delivers a wide and wonderful variety of plot and storyline. I have my favorite genres and authors and I’m very much within my happy place reading the series and single title books from our publishing program. My tastes run towards romantic suspense, historical and the occasional paranormal but as they, say ignorance is bliss. When I started overhearing conversations from the Carina Press acquisition team about Space Opera, Dystopian, Male/Male and Steampunk Fiction, I started thinking….what on earth? And then I started thinking…how can I get to read some of this?

I asked for some recommendations and started with a few titles, loved them and eventually was asked to join the acquisition team. And although for the most part I still read to my taste, the manuscripts I read these days are often set in alternate universes, featuring hot heroes and heroines battling demons or steam powered automatons in a world threatened by extinction. My three favorite genres in one….Winning!

Some of my more adventurous reads this year include:

Blood of the Maple by Dana Marie Bell

Photographs and Phantoms by Cindy Spencer Pape

Tempting the Enemy by Dee Tenorio

Tangled Past by Leah Braemel

The First Victim by JB Lynn

Have you been adventurous in your reading lately?

To celebrate Carina’s one year anniversary of publishing books, we’re giving away some prizes. Today, on the Carina Press blog, we’re giving away a grand prize of a Kobo ereader and 12 Carina Press books of the winner’s choice. Visit the Carina Press blog to enter to win, and to see links to all 19 of today’s blog posts.

And a sincere thank you from all of us, to our readers and authors, for making Carina Press’s first year a success!

Harlequin Files Patent Application for the Essential Romantic Kiss

New York, February 3, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — Harlequin, the global leader in series romance and one of the world’s leading publishers of reading entertainment for women, announced today it has submitted a patent application (61438360) for the “Essential Romantic Kiss” to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (Patent Pending).

“If love makes the world go ’round, then a kiss is what fuels it,” said Michelle Renaud, Chief Kissing Officer of the Harlequin Office for the Preservation of the Kiss (HOPK), a division of Harlequin that exists to celebrate all things related to kissing.

“The kiss is the cornerstone of romance, the turning point of every good story. It can change lives, start a rumor or break hearts. And with more than 60 years of publishing women’s fiction, no one knows the kiss like Harlequin,” said Renaud. “It’s time to stop thinking of the kiss as a mundane, everyday form of affection. This patent application celebrates the kiss and brings romance back to kissing.”

The patent applied for by the HOPK outlines a basic method by which two people can reciprocate their romantic feelings toward one another in a manner that deepens attachment, provides pleasure and promotes physical and emotional well-being – The Essential Romantic Kiss.

In its efforts to promote and celebrate kissing, the HOPK is interested in expanding the standard kissing repertoire beyond simple pecks, the dated French kiss or even the lovable butterfly kiss. In this spirit, the HOPK has created an interactive kiss creation tool to allow members of the public to create and share their own kissing styles. Submitted kisses will be added to the HOPK’s online kissing vault, which is freely accessible to anyone. Recognizing the tight economic times, the HOPK is encouraging everyone to spread the love for free and create a unique, romantic kiss for their partner this Valentine’s Day.

“Nothing truly exciting has happened in kissing since the French kiss took the world by storm in the 1920s,” said Renaud. “Almost one hundred years later, we need to find the next great kiss. We’re encouraging everyone to pucker up and get excited about kissing again.”

Visitors are encouraged to submit their own kissing style and vote on their favorites. During February and March, a contest will be held to judge eligible kisses submitted to the HOPK’s vault. One lucky kiss creator will win a trip to Paris Las Vegas Hotel and Casino to re-enact their kiss!

Happy Kissing, and don’t forget to visit us on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/patentyourkiss or follow us on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/patentyourkiss

Jayne

Great new winter romance from Harlequin Books

The New Year is here filled with new beginnings, resolutions and fresh books to read. This coming year in 2011, we have a couple of really great milestones to celebrate and I thought I’d take the time to outline a couple of them and point out our new Harlequin corporate logo. You’ll see that we’re using it across our website, community, in print, online and in retail locations with the tag line, entertain, enrich, inspire. That’s something we hope to do each and every day in our Community and do hope that you find the time you spend with us to be ALL of those things.

This year Harlequin Blaze is celebrating their 10th year of red-hot reads and we want you to be in on all the excitement with a highlight in August when we’re bringing back the Original Sexy Six, the authors who created the launch books for what would become such a popular series. Look for books from Vicki Lewis Thompson, Jo Leigh, Julie Leto, Tori Carrington, Kimberly Raye and Debbie Rawlins. Along with it’s sexier editorial the line is also known for being home for a number of firsts. Stephanie Bond wrote the first first-person Blaze, My Favorite Mistake. Susan Kearney wrote the first (and we think only) futuristic, Beyond the Edge. Hope Tarr wrote the first historical, Bound To Please and Chris Green introduced vampires to Blaze with her book, The Ultimate Bite! As Julie Leto says, “Blaze has always “blazed” trails, so this is the go-to line for something new.”

Beginning in January, Love Inspired Historical will be bringing us more of the engaging stories rich with romance, adventure and faith with a total of 4 NEW titles available every month and a new look.

Don’t forget to look for a sizzling new miniseries from USA Today bestselling author Katherine Garbera that kicks off with Taming the VIP Playboy. Katherine confesses “I’m addicted to the reality TV show Dancing with the Stars. I don’t know what it is I love about it, but I can’t resist watching it every week while it is on and using everyone’s phone to text in votes! That show is where the seeds of this story started” She says she was thinking about the couples on the show and what if a romance developed between them and a story was born. So if you’re a DWTS fan, this series is for YOU!

Historical Romance author Bronwyn Scott is known for writing stories with scandal, passion and wit. She’s also one of my auto-buys and lucky for me has a new title out in January with A Thoroughly Compromised Lady. Jack and Dulci made their first appearance in Pickpocket Countess, and they just seemed to beg for their own story and that wasn’t the ONLY begging going on, LOL. Bronwyn said she’d received many letters from fans asking when it would happen. She gives us a sneak peek into their story, “Jack and Dulci are wild ones, and a grand adventure in the New World seemed like the right venue for them. When I discovered the beginnings of the Venezuela–British Guiana controversy over a shared but undefined border, I knew Jack and Dulci had found their adventure and I inserted them into history.”

And just in time for Valentine’s Day I can whole-heartedly recommend the following great new Valentine themed stories. In His Valentine Surprise by Tanya Michaels, a single dad is pleasantly surprised when his daughter enlists the entire PTA to find him a Valentine in a February American Romance. Silhouette Special Edition author Patricia Kay says that Meet Mr. Prince “is a Cinderella story and I loved that Georgie’s so stubborn and adamant about not wanting to get married or have children. Nothing is more fun than knowing a character is going to have to eat her words.” And if you’re a thrill seeker, why not dive into Deadly Valentine , from Justine Davis and Cindy Dees in two stories of whirlwind romance and danger.

Want to try a new series? Don’t forget you can try on any of our great series at www.TryHarlequin.com to choose from over 15 FREE books to read and download.

Happy Reading,

Jayne

We’re celebrating 10 red-hot years of Harlequin Blaze!

Harlequin Blaze is celebrating it’s 10th year of red-hot reads and we want you to be in on all the excitement!

You won’t want to miss the sizzling lineup of authors and miniseries in 2011 that you will NOT want to miss…

Starting with Rhonda Nelson’s The Rebel in December, Blaze is welcoming back the military heroes you love in fan-favorite minisieres Uniformly Hot, fueling your desire with one title per month, all year long!

New York Times bestselling author Vicki Lewis Thompson feeds your cowboy fix with a follow-up to the Sons of Chance trilogy in June, July and August. We tracked her down for a video interview recently and here’s what she had to say about the miniseries and why cowboys are HER favorite kind of hero.

And don’t forget the exclusive lineup of authors in August who have written for Harlequin Blaze for 10 years, so do stay tuned as we celebrate throughout 2011 and keep an eye out for exclusive content, and many other surprises from Harlequin Blaze.

Check out the fantastic lineup this month…

Kate Hoffmann gets the month off to a super sexy start with her Forbidden Fantasies story, Into the Night.Kate’s heroine avoids an unwanted marriage proposal by running away toa tropical island with a sexy stranger. Don’t you wish all of our problems could be taken care of so easily?

Then Rhonda Nelson re-launches the Uniformly Hot! miniseries this month with The Rebel,the first of three books featuring soldiers in the US Army. This one has it all – a fantastic hero, a heartwarming romance and a bulldog named Atticus who steals the show!

Wendy Etherington is up next with another one of her South Carolina specialties – Irresistible Fortune. The hero, Gavin Fortune, might be a treasure hunter…but it’s the heroine, Brenna, who wins the ultimate prize.

Kira Sinclair follows with Caught Off Guard, her long awaited sequel to her first book, Whispers in the Dark. The heroine, Anne, has a family she’s avoiding, a stalker she’s running from and a bodyguard she can’t keep her hands off of. What’s a girl to do?

And for those who haven’t satisfied their appetite for men in the military yet, check out Jill Monroe’s SEALed with a Kiss,the sequel to her SEALed and Delivered. And, as you can guess, the hero is a Navy SEAL. Do you really need any other reason to pick this
up?

And finally, Lisa Renee Jones introduces her Texas Hotzone miniseries this month with Jump Start.
This series features three ex-military buddies who launch their own skydiving business. And, as you can guess, these guys are so hot women don’t seem to mind jumping out of a plane now and then…

Happy Reading!

Jayne

Sign up for Debbie Macomber Day to chat with Debbie and her editor!

Fall always spells homecomings and not just the sports kind.  There are so many wonderful holiday opportunities for families and loved ones to get together in the Fall.   Now we have a Fall homecoming opportunity for friends and fans of Debbie Macomber to get together and chat with her about her brand new book, Call Me Mrs. Miracle.

Debbie has a lot going on right now!  First, there’s the publication of her newest book, Call Me Mrs. Miracle.  Then in November, that very book will become a Hallmark Channel movie.  It’s a sequel to her first Hallmark Channel movie, Mrs. Miracle, starring Doris Roberts as Emily Merkle and James Van Der Beek (from Dawson’s Creek fame!) This year Emily (played again by Roberts) is busy working her Mrs. Miracle magic in New York City, at Finley’s the last family-owned department store in the city. And, if that were not enough, October 22nd is Debbie’s birthday!

Debbie has agreed to spend some time, on her birthday, with her favorite people—her fans.  We’re so excited to invite you to join us for this rare on-line book launch event for Call Me Mrs. Miracle, a story that is destined to become a Christmas classic.  And, we’re pleased to say that her long time editor and friend, Paula Eykelhof, will join us for an intimate, interactive chat about everything going on in Debbie’s life this fall.

So that she can get to as many fan questions as possible, you can post your questions early on her Facebook page.

This web chat event is live on October 22nd at 3:00pm Eastern time.  You need access to a computer with speakers, and you’ll need to register in advance.  So click here and register now to save your spot and join us for Debbie Macomber Day!

Jayne

Harlequin Teen

Are you ready for Your Best Body Now?

Bestselling author Tosca Reno went from being a flabby, 200+ pound woman to a slim and sexy fitness expert-all past the age of 40! Now, for the first time ever, in her new book for Harlequin, Your Best Body Now, she reveals her secrets to looking better and feeling stronger and sexier than ever before.

And here’s the really exciting news, Tosca is challenging eHarlequin.com Community members and Eat Clean fans to join her in a ONE-MONTH Your Best Body Now Challenge using exercises, recipes and tips from the book.

Tosca will check in once each week during the month of October to inspire, encourage and provide the motivation we need during our Your Best Body Now Challenge. And just to add some extra incentive I have 5 Your Best Body Now waterbottles, a coupon code for 30% off the book in our online bookstore AND 5 FREE copies of Your Best Body Now to give out at random to participants you sign up by September 30th. The participant, who sees the best results at the end of the month, will win a gift pack including workout gear and a signed book from Tosca! Are you going to join us so you can face the holidays looking fit and fabulous in Your Best Body Now?

Are you going to join us so you can face the holidays looking fit and fabulous in Your Best Body Now? Send me an email with Your Best Body Now in the subject line to sign up!

Jayne