The lovely folks at Grand Central Publishing (a special thank you to Anna!) are giving away 15 copies of DEADLY FEAR over at GoodReads. Fifteen copies!  The contest runs until July 27.  So hurry, enter!

And speaking of some good reads…

What’s on your shelf?

We’ve got two fabulous guest authors heading in tomorrow and Friday, so if your shelf is empty, perhaps you’ll get some reading urges.

It’s just one week until the release of DEADLY FEAR!!! Awesome!  I can’t wait for my romantic suspense to be out in the world (and I sure hope folks enjoy it!).

And…also in just a week, I will leave for the annual Romance Writer’s of America National Conference. This year, the conference will be held in Orlando, Florida.  Mickey’s house–here, I come!

If you are in the Orlando area, you should definitely come to the Literacy Autographing. This event is open to the public, and over 500 authors will be signing books–yep, I said over 500! (Proceeds from the signing are donated to charity.) 

Here’s the Where and When info: The signing will be held Wednesday, July 28, from 5:30-7:30 p.m. at the Walt Disney World® Dolphin Resort, Pacific Exhibit Hall, in Orlando, Florida.

So if you’re in the area, come on in! I’ll be autographing copies of I’LL BE SLAYING YOU and DEADLY FEAR.

And, since I’m talking about RWA, I thought I’d offer a few survival tips today for those folks who are registered to attend the conference. This will be my 3rd RWA conference, so while I don’t have what I’d term vast experience, I do have a few tips:

1. Keep business cards on your person (I keep mine tucked in the back of my nametag holder) at all times. You never know when you’ll meet an author, editor, or agent who will need your card.

2. Don’t ever arrive late at the meals. EVER. With almost 2000 authors there, those seats will fill up and you don’t want to desperately search for a spot when the luncheon speaker is already talking.

3. Don’t just stay with the folks you know. Talk to a stranger–or twenty. These events are about networking, so network!

4. Don’t forget band-aids and aspirin.  Yeah, don’t.

5. Bring some energy bars to keep in your purse. You’ll need them.

6. If you wanted to pitch to an editor or agent but were told that person’s appointments were already full, don’t despair yet.  You can check on the day of pitches to see if any folks cancelled (or just didn’t show up).  Their absence can be your gain.

7. Ask questions.  If you’re attending a workshop or a publisher spotlight, don’t be afraid to raise your hand and ask those questions that have been swirling around in your head.

8. Don’t bash.  You never know who is walking behind you (or in the bathroom stall, etc).  If you can’t say something nice…

9. Take advantage of the freebies…because there will be PLENTY of free books.

10. Don’t become so stressed that you forget to have fun. The event is a ton of fun–so enjoy yourself!
Got any tips you want to share?

Update: The winner is…Heidi Shafer-Wilson. Congrats, Heidi!

Okay, so today, I wanted to talk about a curious phenomenon…

I”m a Dexter fan.  I thought the first season was awesome.  I loved the idea of the series (it was similar to a plot in my old Idea File–I’d wanted to write a story about a serial killer who only killed other serial killers–cause it was more fun that way, but, whoops, I’m sliding off topic…).

Dexter is dark.  He kills. He dismembers. He lies. He frames. He does any number of incredibly un-heroic things.  He’s not the hero.

Um, is he?

The character of Dexter is the lead protagonist of the story, and he’s a villain, right–definitely. But I still rooted for him. I found myself hoping he wouldn’t get caught as the series progressed.  He’s a killer. I should want him to get caught, but the writers managed to turn this bad guy into something else. Something different. Not a hero. Less. More?

And the first time I saw Silence of the Lambs, I thought Hannibal was horrible (you know, in a horrible, killer kind of way). He was to be feared. He was to be hunted. He was to be caged for the rest of his life so that he’d never hurt anyone else.

But then…

The movie Hannibal came out, and suddenly, there was more to learn about the Cannibal.  You began to see a different side of him.  People in the theaters were actually cheering for him.

When Hannibal Rising opened at the movies, I was there on opening night.  I was very curious about the evolution of this character and I wanted to see how the script writers handled things.

In this movie, there was no denying it. Hannibal was supposed to be the killer.  This was a young Hannibal, and the viewer saw the horror he endured in order to eventually become the Cannibal.  That horror was supposed to make people understand Hannibal. Supposed to make folks care for him.

Judging by the reaction in that theater, it worked.

Two killers…turned into something more. Dark, disturbing, dangerous.

Do you know any other “killer” characters who have become more or less than you expected them to be? And how do you feel about killers who are the leads in stories or movies?

Leave me a comment–I’ll pick one random commenter to win his/ her choice of any Cynthia Eden book.

And have a good Monday!!

Want to read the first 47 pages of DEADLY FEAR? Well, here’s your chance! (And in just over a week–on July 27–DEADLY FEAR will be released into the wild!)

And today I also wanted to go ahead and share the blurbs for my next two Deadly books.

Here’s the blurb for DEADLY HEAT (available 02/11):

She wants revenge . . .

Six months after her lover died in an arsonist’s blaze, firefighter Lora Spade calls in the FBI’s elite Serial Services Division to track the elusive killer. When Special Agent Kenton Lake is lured into a violent inferno, Lora pulls him to safety and is stunned – not by the fire, but by her own searing attraction to Kent. For the first time in months, she longs for something other than vengeance.

He wants her . . .

Kenton’s interest in Lora should be purely professional. But one fleeting kiss and he can’t get her out of his mind. Her combination of strength and vulnerability makes him want to protect her, and that means solving this case – and fast. For even the passion igniting between them can’t hide a terrifying truth: Lora is the next target in a murderer’s sadistic, fiery game.

A vicious killer wants only . . .

DEADLY HEAT

***

And, in March of 2011, DEADLY LIES will be published:

She wants to hide the past…

FBI Special Agent Samantha Kennedy is haunted by memories of the serial killer who abducted her. To keep the darkness at bay, she pretends to be a different, more confident woman. This Samantha doesn’t fear every unknown face. So she throws caution to the wind and shares a night of unbridled passion with a handsome stranger.

He needs to uncover the truth…

One night isn’t enough for successful entrepreneur Max Ridgeway. He wants more of the sexy, smart, mysterious woman who slipped away before dawn. When they meet again, their attraction is undeniable—until his stepbrother goes missing, and Max realizes that Samantha isn’t who she seems. But they must trust each other to trap a ring of blood-thirsty kidnappers before the nightmares that terrorize Sam become irrevocably real.

As a merciless criminal spins a web of . . .

DEADLY LIES

***

I plan to post an except of DEADLY HEAT very soon, but, if you read to the end of this DEADLY FEAR teaser, you can go ahead and have a sneak peek.

Enjoy your Sunday!

Killer Summer

Okay this is my dirty secret: Summer time is the best time for crafting villains. I get so cranky in the heat, and then there is the yearly home renovation project that doesn’t exactly make me a pleasant person to be around. We live in a nearly two hundred year old farmhouse. Even the simplest project turns into a major nightmare, and that turns me into a two-headed monster.

So I hit the keyboard and create jealous sisters and self-serving soap stars with secrets. I put them in situations where they can’t help but do wrong. Then I place a clueless citizen in their path, and because I’m hot and cranky and have paint all over my shoes I make the villains do awful things. They hire people to push their wives off bridges. They throw protagonists in their trunk, or drug her and transport her across the country. I ask myself “What else could go wrong?” and then I write that too.

I place my heroine in mortal peril so deep I’m not even sure how I’ll get her out of it. And I leave her there, because after all I’m still cranky. And the murderer? It looks like the villain is going to get away scot-free. After all, villains can be clever and why should our protagonist have all the fun?

After putting the screws to my favorite character I feel much better. I wash the sticky sweat off me (no air conditioning here) and go to bed in my right mind. And when I wake up hot and sweaty, already three quarters of the way to cranky I know I’ll be okay – because tonight I’m planning murder in the local hair salon!

Kate George lives and writes in rural Vermont where she is surrounded by dogs, kids and beautiful scenery. None of which she can fully enjoy because she’s a writer for heaven’s sake.

www.kategeorge.com & www.kategeorgewrites.blogspot.com