Merry Merry and Happy Happy!

May your holiday be bright and your new year be joyous!

See you in '010! (Yes, that was intentional, a la Stephen Colbert :)

~Cathy

*NEW* SFR Holiday Blitz Winner!!!!

Since the first randomly chosen winner never came forward (unfortunate, but it happens) to claim Ann Somerville's On Wings, Rising, I exercised my right and duties as Queen and chose another. And yes, this one stuck!

The new winner is Cybercliper! Congrats and I hope you enjoy the story.

Thanks again to all who came by. I hope to see you here now and again.

Joyous Holidays and Happy New Year!
~Cathy

New SFR Holiday Blitz Winner TBA

Well, the original winner of Ann Somerville's On Wings, Rising never contacted me, so I'll be choosing another winner later today. This time, I will ensure contact before posting who it is, so it may take a bit. Stay tuned!!!

Thanks again to all who entered. Let's see who the Fates choose this time.......

SFR Holiday Blitz: And the Winner is......

....going to be announced in just a second.**** IMPORTANT NOTE BELOW****

First, I want to thank everyone who popped over and commented here and on other blogs. The response to this contest was amazing! It was great to see so many folks who already love SFR as well as those who are current SF or romance readers eager to try new kinds of stories. Finding new authors you can fall in love with is a great joy. I can guarantee that somewhere in the SFR universe there will be a story for just about every taste. And more than a few of you also mentioned how fun it was to discover new blogs. Gotta love that!

Speaking of, a big hand to the participating bloggers and the authors whose work so many people
are going to get to enjoy.

And finally, HUGE thanks to Heather over at the Galaxy Express for running the show. I think we've convinced her to make this an annual event, and some day I hope my own novel(s) will be among the prizes : ) Thanks, Heather! You rock!

So which of the commenters here won their very own copy of Ann Somerville's On Wings, Rising? That would be Stephen!!!! Congrats, Stephen!!!! Send your contact info--email, snail mail, I'm not sure which will be needed so send both, if you would : ) --to me cathy AT cathypegau DOT com (using the correct email do-hickies, of course). I'll pass the info on to Ann and she'll take it from there.

Thanks again to everyone for participating. Keep SFR and all its great authors in mind when you're looking for something fun to read. And remember to take a chance on a new author once in a while ; )

Happy Holidays! And Happy Reading!!!

12/14 7pm AK time
****ATTENTION!!!!**** Stephen has yet to contact me!!! If you know Stephen, please tell him to pop over here and send me his info. If he does not do so by MIDNIGHT Eastern Time on Tuesday, Dec. 15, I will choose another commentor!

SFR Holiday Blitz--Win Free Books!!!

12/11: The contest has ended and comments are now closed! Check back on Saturday, 12/12 to find out who won Ann's book! (In the meantime, feel free to read more posts here, check out my site, or visit other SFR-philic blogs ;)

Welcome to the SFR Holiday Blitz!

The holiday season upon us, and that means 2010 is simmering just below the horizon. Start your New Year off right with a chance to score a FREE read in one of the hottest up and coming genres around--Science Fiction Romance!

Twelve bloggers have teamed up with 17 authors for your chance to win over 30 SFR books. Whether you're new to the genre, or a fan looking to add to her collection, this event is for you.

There are no quizzes to answer, no hoops to jump. Gotta love that.

For your chance to win On Wings, Rising by Ann Somerville, all you have to do is leave a comment for this post. Print book prizes are limited to U.S. residents. The deadline to enter is midnight E.S.T. on Friday, December 11, 2009. The winner will be announced on Saturday, December 12, 2009.

Here's the blurb for On Wings, Rising from the My Bookstore and More site:

Dinun can’t fly—but he could be the answer to an Angel’s prayer.

Barely tolerated by his own kind, Dinun is a self-reliant soul who scratches out a living from the great, empty lands of Quarn. Always looking for unexpected treasure, he never dreams of finding an injured Angel.

Moon belongs to a race of telepathic winged humanoids. Exquisitely beautiful, sexually playful, Angels have always fascinated humans. Dinun’s feelings for Moon take flight as they become lovers, but a planetary invasion could destroy their future together.

Centuries ago, humans on Quarn saved their race from destruction by joining their DNA with that of the Angels. Now full-blood humans are stealing Angel children—including Moon’s son—for barbaric experiments. The full-bloods are prepared to slaughter anyone who gets in their way.

Thrust into a desperate race against time to save the infants, Dinun and Moon must battle against a people with weapons far beyond anything the Angels—or their human friends—can hope to defeat. Dinun brings to the fight his bravery and a determination to be true to himself. Will that be enough to save the children, and win the Angel he’s come to love?

Planetary invasion? Threat to lovers? Endangered races? Exciting stuff!

But don't stop here! Increase your chances of winning even more books! Just click on one of the links to the participating bloggers below. Make sure to leave a comment on the post titled "SFR Holiday Blitz." From there, you can jump to the next blog. Then the next, then the next. There's a wide variety of books to win and a bunch of fun blogs to visit. Check them out:


Alien Romances

Dirty Sexy Books

Ella Drake

Enduring Romance

Flying Whale Productions

Lisa Paitz Spindler

Love Romance Passion

SciFiGuy

Spacefreighters Lounge

Take It To The Stars

The Galaxy Express


And the participating authors? The best of today's SFR:

Ann Aguirre

Katherine Allred

Margaret L. Carter

Rowena Cherry

Ella Drake

Jess Granger

Susan Grant

Nathalie Gray

Leanna Renee Hieber

Claire Delacroix

Barbara Elsborg

Susan Kearney

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Karin Shah

Linnea Sinclair

Susan Sizemore

Ann Somerville

So what are you waiting for? Leave a comment here for Ann Somerville's book then get your bad self over to those other blogs for a chance at even MORE fab SFR. Go on!

Happy Holidays and Good Reading to All!

Name Game: Color Me Baffled

Sometimes it's difficult to come up with titles for my stories. I've hit upon good ones (a fantasy trilogy in the works: "What Price the Crown," "Once a Princess," "Queen Without a Country" (which has been used, but I didn't know that at the time)). Quite by accident, I must admit. Others are, as my daughter would say, "meh". Serviceable, but nothing that pops. I know a good title is important to both convey the contents of the story and be as memorable as possible without being ridiculous (no more than five words; it should be "active," using some verb form, etc.).

But I don't have the difficulty that others do when it comes to naming things. Consider the folks whose job is to name paint colors.

Recently, my husband and I decided to paint our bedroom. Down at the hardware store, we found that handy book with all those rectangular paint sample cards. An amazing number of colors. But looking closer, the names the company labeled their paints were amusing. Or head-scratchers. Examples? I got them.

First of all, there are many colors named for foods and drinks, and a good number of those are roasted, toasted and baked. A few are raw, but mostly they've been subjected to some kind of heating method. Another popular category is nature. Makes sense. We like a little of the outdoors indoors, where it can be controlled and kept clean with the swipe of a sponge.

Weather/atmospheric conditions get more than a few. There were many raindrops this and windy or breezy that, but my faves are a little more, shall we say, tumultuous.

New Monsoon and Tsunami Night--exciting, I'm sure, but do you want your room color to make you think of potential natural disasters?
City Storm--appropriately a darker gray.
March Ice--kind of brownish, which makes sense.
March Breeze--a lighter shade than March Ice, but still brownish. Not healthy.
Warm Fog--quiet the oxymoron, don't you think?
Dusted Gloam--"gloaming" means twilight, but why the decision to take off the "-ing"? Doesn't "Dusted Gloaming" roll off the tongue easily enough? No, no it doesn't.

A few others I found that had me wondering about the state of mind of the poor paint company employee trying to come up with a new way to describe the thousandth shade of some color:

Limish--really? That's the best you could do?
Martian--yes, it is green. Surprised?
Bluish--see Limish
Novella Blue--what?

But my favorites are the colors that send a message.

Lucky You--a perfect choice for the bedroom, don't you think?
Dawn's Reveal--unless you've had a bad morning after experience.
Bleak--also not a good bedroom choice.
Rapture, Bliss and Rollick--now we're talking.
Super Nova--Yes! Though it's a paler color than I think of when I think of a super nova.
Slumber--well, yes, I would like that too, thank you.
Prudence--sounds a little to stiff and formal. Perhaps a few glasses of wine before bed are in order?
Virtue and Naivete--totally painting my daughters' rooms these colors.

There was one color that would make a killer title for a SFR: Helio Prism. Apparently I'm not the only one who thought that sounded way cool, as it's also part of the title of an album by a band called Beautiful Bloody Fiction, with some paint color-worthy song titles: Waiting for the Smoke to Clear, Burst, and Rose-Colored Specticles.

In the end, Husband and I went with a warm, peachy color called "Sonoma." Neither of us have ever been to Sonoma, but should we go we'd expect to see this shade dominating the landscape. Because the paint company said so.