Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Thanksgiving is so much more than a day to eat turkey and other fabulous home cooked foods for me. It is truly a day that I and my family take time to thank God for our blessings. So, I thought we could do that a little here.

I'd like to know 5 things you are thankful for. Not necessarily, your biggest blessings or the stuff that is most important to you, but five things that right this minute are making you happy. I'll start. :)

1. My sister's latest cancer diagnosis came back uber positive. It looks like they *were* able to get all the cancerous tissue after all and are not recommending further treatment, but a new MRI a year from now to make sure nothing further has developed. (She's still got one last surgery on her spine to look forward to, but things are so looking up for her!)

2. Pregnancy of Passion is #1 on the Borders Group Bestseller's List (includes all Waldenbooks & Borders) and I'm so grateful for that.

3. My kids are all healthy and pretty happy at the moment.

4. My husband just got a new job within his company, helping Intel stay environmentally friendly and up to worldwide environmental codes. Cool, huh?

5. I wrote 2000 words this morning and hope to write more later.

Okay, now, it's your turn! :)

This, That and the Other Thing...

The latest blog winner (for books from my prize shelves - NOT Dianne Castell's special blog post winner) is: Estella! Hon, please email me with your mailing address to confirm your win. :)

Want to read an advanced review for my first ever werewolf novella "Come Moonrise" in the UNLEASHED anthology? You can read it on Marilyn's Romance Reviews. I think you get a really good taste for the world you'll find in my Children of the Moon books. Though the first single title in this series is set in Medeivaal Scotland and is out in Feb of next year. :)

So far, though...advance response to "Come Moonrise" has been fantastic. And I'm so pleased because it is one of those stories I wrote not knowing if I would sell it, or not...and I did and I love it and I hope readers are going to too. LOL

I edited 15 pages yesterday and got a few new ones written, which is happy news for me. Did a little Christmas shopping today and ordered some new Hercule Poirot A&E DVDs tonight. I do so love my Agatha Christie.

Oh, and Pregnancy of Passion is sold out already on eHarlequin. My hope of course is that they'll get more copies in, but it's always good news when books have a strong start. (Thanks for letting me know, Marilyn!)

And want to hear something VERY cool? I'm having my website redesigned by, um...a professional. Sigh...yes, I'm finally giving up control...at least some of it. LOL I'm SO excited about this. I had emailed several designers about the project and went with Code 718. Prelim design ideas are knocking my socks off! The new site is scheduled to go live January 22...just before the release of Moon Awakening. Uber neat, huh?

That's it...for now. :)

Oh...discussion question: Are you all Christmas shopping already, half-done or not started?

Guest Author and Really Cool Prize :)

Hi everyone on Lucy's Blog!

I'm thrilled to be here. Lucy and I have known each other for years and first hooked up when we did Star Quality (BRAVA 5/05) with Lori Foster. We had so much fun with the stories happening in the same town and our characters running into each other when a blue moon caused havoc and romance. Funny how those two always run together! We're trying to cook up another anthology but Lucy is one busy lady. We'll get there one of these days.

I love Lucy's heroes. Her alpha guys are the best. I thought about them when I wrote my O'Fallon series. I wanted my men to be hunky guys and no one does hunky better than Lucy.

With Ryan, Keefe and Quaid's story there's a lot of humor and lot of heart. Setting it in fictional O'Fallon's Landing on the Mississippi makes the focus on the family and how all the sons come together to help their dad find the woman who left a baby on his doorstep. And it is his baby, not one of his sons.

The heroines in the series are a good match for the guys. They give as good as they get in solving the mystery and in the bedroom. A visit now and then by General Grant kicks things up a notch.

The paranormal side is something new fore me and I love the ghostly appearances when they are least expected. Do you all have a favorite paranormal element you love to read? Vampires, voodoo, shape-shifters? Are there some you won’t read at all?

Let me know. I'm starting a new series and open to all suggestions, especially from the readers.

If you want to know more about the O'Fallon series visit my website at http://www.diannecastell.com/

Thanks, Lucy, for letting me gab with your wonderful readers. I'll give away an I'll Be Seeing U tote bag from the responses.

Hugs to you all
Dianne

Five Things You Might Not Know About Me

I've been tagged by fellow author and total sweetheart Cheryl St. John to tell you all Five Things You Might Not Know About Me. In turn, I tag Kate Davies and Nicola Marsh.

The goods:

Hmm...this probably shouldn't be so hard, but I have to wonder...what might you *not* know about me? I'm a pretty open book. Think obscure, Lucy...think trivial...irrelevant...okay, and try to make it fun.

. . .

I'm still thinking.

Still thinking...what about...? Nah...that's boring. Oh, it's okay if it's boring? Better than reading elipses? All right then...

1. I've jumped out of an airplane twice. Both when I was a rather innocent 17 and quite sure nothing bad could really happen to me, so let's not go drawing any conclusions based on that about me now, yeah?

2. I read Sean Michael. If you don't know who he is, you won't know why that's surprising. If you do, well...then yes, I really do read him, but you probably do too. LOL

3. My favorite book ever is "Good Wives" the follow on to "Little Women" by Louisa May Alcott and not a single steamy scene in the whole book, but I've read it so many times I should be able to quote passages. :)

4. My favorite color is yellow because hot pink was already taken by my grandmother and younger sister. Don't ask me how my *younger* sister got there first...she apparently wasn't so afraid of stepping on Grandma's hot pink shod toes. But I do love yellow because it's the color of sunshine...or was in my very young brain when I chose it as my talisman color.

5. I only became a chocoholic *after* I started writing. Prior to that, my sugar of choice came in the form of a donut...pretty much any donut. LOL

Okay, now it's your turn. But I'll settle for you telling me ONE thing not too many people know about you.

The good, the bad and the ugly...

I can hardly believe it's been two whole weeks since I posted. And, man...what a two weeks. On the good side, my youngest sister's birthday just passed and we went to a hockey game with her (my first every professional one). There were some small fights and then one big one - apparently de rigger for such things. LOL Can't wait to go back. ::wink::

My second-oldest sister is having major health issues though. She had two surgeries in one day last week and some pretty ugly complications after one of them. Turns out, she doesn't have one kind of cancer (good news), but she does have another. I would so appreciate prayers for her and the rest of our family. My mom (who many of you know has been living with a terminal illness for several years) has been strong, but is *really* having a hard time with this.

Another bit of good news is that I signed with a new agent and I'm really pleased about that. Not so good news is that I can't seem to write. I'm hiding in *reading*, but that won't get my books done and somehow I've got to. Because I need them to keep me sane. I really do.

I'll try to post more frequently, but when there are longish bouts between just think...five teenagers in the house, sick sister, sick mom and a writer who gets lost reading every once in a while. :)

I'm hoping to have Dianne Castell on here soon as a guest blogger. She's an amazing writer and one of the nicest people I know. :)

Discussion question: What is your favorite part of late fall, heading towards winter? I love blustery weather when I don't have to be out in it, but I admit as asthetically enthralling as I find it...my heart breaks for the homeless this time of year.