Brenda Jackson, who is as hardworking, gracious and sweet as they come in this business, has just hit the New York Times Best Seller list for paperback mass-market fiction. Her latest Harlequin/Kimani Press romance, Irresistible Forces, sits at number 34 for the week of May 18, 2008.

I’m going to make a colossal understatement and say that this is well-deserved.

Congratulations, Brenda!

I’ve signed the contract, so I guess it’s really, REALLY official: I’m going to be participating in Lori Foster’s summer, 2009 anthology, Tails of Love, along with the following other authors:

· Kate Angell

· Stella Cameron

· Dianne Castell

· Marcia James

· Donna MacMeans

· Sarah McCarty

· Patricia Sargeant; and

· Sue-Ellen Welfonder.

Turns out my friend Patricia Sargeant, who knows I love cats (we have two rescue cats, Sadie and Savannah), referred me to Lori for this project, which will benefit a local animal shelter, the Animal Adoption Foundation.

I am, obviously, extremely excited and grateful.

Lori has a heart as big as Texas, in case you didn’t know. This summer’s anthology (I’m not a part of this one–*SOB!*), The Power of Love, will benefit the Battered Women’s Shelter of Cincinnati. It’s available for pre-order, so you should get your copies (note the plural!) early.

What a disappointment.

The best thing about this movie is, sadly, the costumes.

I wanted to love it. I really did. I think the casting was wonderful. Scarlett Johansson as Mary, Natalie Portman as Anne, and Eric Bana as Henry were all perfectly cast. David Mossissey as Norfolk was wonderfully wicked. No problems there.

But the movie was strangely … flat. I guess when you compress a six-hundred page book into a two hour movie, some of the characterization and subplots will be lost, but, really, this was ridiculous. I never got to know any of the main characters and, worse, never saw the romance develop between Mary and Henry or Mary and Stafford. The pivotal character of Boleyn brother George was all but lost, as was Mary’s first husband, William Carey, who disappears a few minutes into the movie and is never referenced again. Did he die? Was he abducted? Beheaded? Moviegoers who didn’t read the book will never know.

And this whole dramatic license thing—I understand it. I really do. Timelines speed up with movies, events are rearranged a little and other things are skipped altogether.

Fine.

That’s not what happened here. So many things are changed from the book—for no apparent reason that I can detect—that it just makes you want to scream. And a pivotal scene between Henry and Anne was changed so dramatically and idiotically that I wanted to hurl what was left of my popcorn at the screen.

So if you’re going to see this movie and you’re a big fan of the book, be forewarned. It’s a pretty movie and the costumes are stunning jewels. The movie itself? Not so much.

Today I’d like to post a witty blog about the writer’s life, something thought-provoking and, hopefully, enlightening, but I don’t have time for any of that on account of my tight reading schedule. No, I’m not, ah, reading my stack of books for the RITA contest. I’m re-reading (for the dozenth time, I think) The Other Boleyn Girl in preparation for the movie adaptation, which comes out on February 29^th.

I love this book. LOVE it. I remember the first time I saw that cover and that title in a bookstore and stopped dead in my tracks. A novel about the Boleyns and Henry VIII? He of the six wives, two of them beheaded? My fascination with them is a leftover from my elementary-school-days obsession with all things royal and violent. In one history lesson you get love, hate, betrayal, violent death, and beautiful costumes. What could be better?

So I bought the book and disappeared into the world so brilliantly created by Philippa Gregory. For hours at a time I would immerse myself in the life of the book’s heroine, Mary Boleyn, and the intrigues, hypocrisies and betrayals of court life. The book is so powerful, so interesting, so evocative that I would look up and blink at my living room, or wherever I happened to be reading at the time, surprised that I was not, in fact, at the palace with the court.

Needless to say, I have high hopes for this movie. Natalie Portman is Anne, and since I loved her as another Queen—Padme Amidala in the second Star Wars trilogy, of course—I feel confident she can handle this role. Scarlett Johansson seems plausible as Mary Boleyn, and, as for Eric Bana as Henry VIII, well, let’s just say I think that was a brilliant casting move. I can’t wait to see the visual re-creation of these characters that I’ve spent so much time with. What will the castles look like? The gowns? The block? I’m counting the days…

So the producers of this movie had better not mess it up. That’s all I’m saying.

Anyone else out there anxious to see this movie?

Well, I managed to finish Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows yesterday before I stumbled across any spoilers to ruin it for me. It’s amazing to think that, after all these years and all this time spent with Harry (we listen to the books on CD in the car in a continual loop) I now know Harry’s entire story. Here are my spoiler-free thoughts, in no particular order:

1. The beginning of the book is a little slow, but picks up almost immediately;
2. The death count is high and painful;
3. The book, once it gets going, is a roller coaster ride full of unexpected twists, turns, and developments;
4. It felt a little weird to read about Harry and the gang’s exploits WITHOUT the backdrop of Hogwarts;
5. Most, but not all, questions are answered, and only a few strings dangle at the end;
6. Hermione is the greatest example of a kick-ass heroine I can think of for little girls to read about and emulate;
7. Harry and Ron are true heroes;
8. The book is an amazing, fitting, and emotionally satisfying end to the series.

Anyone else out there finished it yet?

On the music front, I picked up Prince’s latest release, Planet Earth, and it hurts me to say this but, well … it’s kinda disappointing. Pop lite. Sort of a snooze. Not the funky fun of last year’s 3121. *SIGH* I’ll have to listen to it a few more times to be sure, but I’m thinking this may not be one that’ll make it onto the MP-3 player. Ah, well. Doesn’t matter.

Prince will always reign, IMHO. Purple Rain sealed that deal years ago, don’t you think?

How was your week?

Has anyone else read (and enjoyed) Sharon Cullars’ The Object of Love? Check out my review if you have time.

I am, as you probably know, a huge J.R. Ward/Black Dagger Brotherhood fan. So it pains me greatly to tell you the following: I was a little disappointed by the latest installment, Lover Revealed. The love story between Butch, the cop, and Marissa, upper-class vampire, was a little … blah.

There is, however, another love story that blazes bright in LR, and I want to jump on the bandwagon and demand that this story be told—in its entirety—in some future book.

Which love story, you ask?

Why, the one between Butch and Vishous, of course.

For more, go to my What I’m Reading page…

This week I read the latest from erotic and historical romance author, Sylvia Day. The Stranger I Married, Day’s follow-up to last summer’s Ask For It, tells the story of Isabel, Lady Pelham, who receives the shock of her life when her AWOL husband, Gerard Faulkner, Marquess of Grayson, returns and announces he wants to turn their comfortable marriage of convenience into the real thing.

I loved this book for lots of reasons, but mostly because Day knows how to write a hero. Grayson is complex, charming, and, as his wife soon discovers, irresistibly sexy. His unshakable desire to win Isabel makes this book so much fun and sends it straight to my keeper shelf.

If you haven’t picked up one of Day’s historical novels yet, you’re missing a real treat.