But the more, the merrier, so here’s another link. The auction proceeds will go toward medical bills for author Jo Leigh, who recently lost her husband to cancer. A bid will make a wonderful gift this holiday.

Go ahead. Download it. You can read it on the way to wherever you’ll be eating turkey on Thursday.

Will you be holding your breath on March 25?

The entry deadline for the Golden Heart has passed, so I hope you finalist hopefuls got your forms and fees in and are now working to get those babies in the mail. Good luck to all of you (and your RITA sisters), with a special shout-out to any 007s and Pixie Chicks in the running!

Me, I’m stuck in that hard place between being too published for the GH and not published enough for the RITA, and it was with much bittersweet-ness (is that a word?, asks the writer) that I watched the GH deadline pass without entering. Actually, I had entered but had to pull out due to my contract. Alas, there is now a big, fat “cancelled” next to the two titles I so wanted to enter. I dearly love those two mss, and they’ve never been entered before. But I know the odds of finalling three years in a row would have been slim, especially since I tend to enter the mega-huge categories and still haven’t figured out how I made it the first two times. I know I need the hundred bucks I’m saving, and I know having stories in front of an audience is going to be worth my contest ineligibility a million times over.

Still, it’s tough. The GH has been my security blanket for the past couple of years, my proof that I can write, that I’m good enough, smart enough, and people like me. LOL The ‘07 and ‘08 finalists are kind, fun, talented ladies, groups I am honored to be part of. Being pimped as a finalist and splashed on the big screen is a thrill I’m sure won’t be matched until I see my book on the shelf. It’s fun stuff, and now I feel like an all-grown-up kid who just got kicked out of the house. Gotta prove my worth without the pink ribbon hanging from my badge. Scary.

I went to a Borders store yesterday and spotted a Samhain book, and for a minute I thought, “What GH?” But I can’t deny there will be a small empty spot in my writer’s heart in March when the calls go out. I am hoping, though, that the many familiar names I’ll see on the lists will fill it–and also the new name of someone, or several someones, who hoped and prayed and wanted it just as much as I did each year.

Got an iPhone? Want to read a book on it?

Now you can.

I’m assuming the “entire Samhain romantic fiction catalog of ebooks” includes moi, come May. This just keeps getting better. Do I need to kiss my editor’s…uh, feet, right about now for making this happen?