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[Love Is Murder Conference]

What are you reading? Writing? LIM is less than two months away!

Yep, it's definitely been a while since I last blogged. My family went to Disney World for a great vacation the week after all those deadlines with the many books, and then various family illnesses and events came up. A colleague did try to add some posts but ran into technical difficulties.

Whenever I have finished a lot of reviewing as I did in November, I go through a phase where I can read whatever I want and often it is titles I have been waiting a while to get to. This time I hit on some real gems. The first is The Diva's Fool by Sylvia Foti - yes, the Sylvia who is a driving force for Love is Murder! It combines the fascinating worlds of tarot cards and opera. Mystical and fast paced this one was a lot of fun.

I'm definitely trying to get caught up on my Love is Murder authors before the conference. I wrote a review of Julie Hyzy's new one, The State of the Onion. It's the first of a new series about a White House chef, and was filled with flavorful suspense. If you are looking for books to buy at the conference and have signed I can definitely recommend these. I have more LIM authors on my nightstand and their recent well reviewed titles, including Tom Keevers' latest. I bought a copy at Tom's November signing for my Dad for Christmas and he read it already and loved it! Are there others I'm missing or haven't listed yet that you loved by LIM authors? Comment here!

My writing goal of 100 pages in November was pretty close, even with that week off in Florida with no computer. Now let's just see if I can get that to 175 - a YA mystery guideline - by LIM. Did you complete your 2007 writing goals?

One goal I achieved, of having some fiction published this year, came out in a surprising way. My first published fiction, a short story in the anthology The Heat of the Moment, benefiting victims of the California wildfires, is written for adult audiences. I could not resist throwing in a very tech savvy teen, though. More on that to come this week, as I interview Echelon Press President Karen Syed about where she got the idea for this worthwhile project. The theme was fire, and it took me 9 drafts (with help from my savvy agent Terry Burns) to finish my story of a fire at an antique mall and some hidden treasures that were uncovered.

-Amy Alessio