Not sure what to get her for Mothers Day? You can’t go wrong with this posy of bestselling romance authors. Such as…

Laura Kinsale The award-winning and New York Times bestselling author of  such classic historical romances as The Shadow and the Star, The Prince of Midnight and Flowers from the Storm.  E-Reads has reissued. Seize the Fire, Midsummer Moon, The Prince of Midnight and Uncertain Magic, with the best yet to come.

Janet Dailey To launch her career, Dailey set a novel in every state of the Union. She has since gone on to write approximately 90 novels, 21 of which have appeared on the New York Times bestseller list. E-Reads offers 64 titles including all 50 of the original Americanas.

Jennifer Blake, possessor of the Golden Treasure Award for Lifetime Achievement from Romance Writers of America, has been called the Steel Magnolia of women’s fiction. A seventh generation Louisianian, she sold her first book at 27 in 1970 and gained her first New York Times bestseller with Love’s Wild Desire. She has written over 50 books, and E-Reads has 36 of them, many of which evoke the author’s beloved South.

Hannah Howell‘s first book was published in 1988, and she has since published dozens of captivating romance novels. The 15 Highland romances offered by E-Reads are perpetually at the top of our bestseller list.

Want more ideas? Visit our romance catalog and find hundreds of romance titles for every taste.

Last on my list but first in my heart is The Mommy Chronicles, which follows the adventures of Charlie, an urban three-year-old on the fast track, and his slow-track mommy. In this hilarious account, Charlie gets a haircut like Sting’s, runs up a tab at a baseball game, and prefers the garlic press to any of his expensive “educational” toys. His mommy reveals important secrets, like which stroller is “in”, which is the “right” playgroup, and how to throw a fabulous fourth birthday party. Did I mention that the author, Leslie Tonner, is Mrs. Richard Curtis?

Happy Mothers Day to Leslie and every mom.

Richard Curtis

Do you ever feel you’d like to reboot the world?

Do you ever think that the human world is hopelessly out of balance, blighted, off track, and the only hope is some kind of apocalypse, some sort of “Judgment Day with justice” that would allow the human race to start over–without, ah, certain people?

You know you don’t want–and can’t believe in–the usual Judgment Days that are predicted and ballyhooed by hysterical, superstitious people.

But when you look around at the world as it stands you see Darfur, you see Somalia and the Congo, you see the modern slavery of indentured servitude, you see children sold into prostitution, you see millions starving, you see mindless wars, you see people you care about dying of Alzheimer’s and children dying of cancer and millions of others trapped in schizophrenia or living lives of media-hypnotized desperation…

And you know that it’s only going to get worse. This can’t go on; something has to change.

What if you could change it? What if you could design your own Judgment Day? Not a Judgment Day based on childish interpretations of religion, on bias and cultural narrowness…

What if you could design a Judgment Day, for the whole world–one that offers real Justice?

What would it be like?

In John Shirley’s novel, The Other End, a wave of light shatters the world’s assumptions; human behavior takes a sudden unexpected turn. Swift, a newspaper reporter, has to find his missing daughter in a panicking world even as something from Every Where makes millions of people suddenly look inward. And looking inward, strangely, takes them outward again…

And then come the Adjustors. Who are they? Where exactly are they from? They say they’re not angels, or aliens…Then who are they?

The usual End Timers offer one End of the World as We Know It…

John Shirley’s courageous, genuinely risky new novel offers the other end. The other end of the ideological spectrum; the other end of the world.

Does it involve…aliens? No.

Does it involve God? Not really–but then, it depends on your definition.

John Shirley, the award-winning author of Demons, In Darkness Waiting, Cellars, A Splendid Chaols, Eclipse, Black Butterflies, and so much more gives us a totally unexpected Judgment Day. Something is coming, to near-future Earth–to the whole world.

Something is coming that will finally give the human race the chance it never had before…to bring it to The Other End…

E-Reads is relaunching the works of John Shirley in e-book format.  Read Wetbones and watch his author page for news of more releases.

George Alec Effinger was a true master of satirical science fiction. Before his death in 2002, he gained the highest esteem amongst his peers for his pitch-perfect stylistic mimicry and his great insight into the human condition. Despite a life filled with chronic illness and pain, Effinger was a prolific novelist and short story writer, earning multiple Nebula and Hugo Award nominations.

Live! From Planet Earth represents a very special look at the many works of this unique genius. These 22 short pieces have been specifically selected and introduced by his fellow writers and editors including Neil Gaiman, Gardner Dozois, Michael Bishop, Barbara Hambly, Jack Dann and Mike Resnick. Each writes movingly about his or her memories of Effinger and his legacy.

Included are “The Aliens Who Knew, I Mean, Everything” in which Earth is visited by benevolent aliens who happen to have annoying opinions about everything. “Everything but Honor” goes along as a black physicist time-travels to 1860 to murder a Civil War general. Also included here are Effinger’s O. Niemand stories, which perfectly mimic the styles of Steinbeck, Hemingway and Twain. The results are a tour de force sure to please existing fans and make new fans of anyone who reads them.

Long ago humans possessed a tail, but today it is vestigial.  Will the same be said one day about human imagination?

Reading Lawrence Downes’ thoughtful speculations in the New York Times about the impact of interactive books on children, we have to wonder if our descendants will be devoid of one of the key characteristics that separate us from all other species. His concerns are intensified by a study that “found children swimming in a media ocean.” “What,” he wonders, “does interactivity do for the imagination, as reading a book gets closer and closer to watching television?”

Downes’ dark ruminations were inspired by a visit to Apple’s virtual bookstore, “a wonderland of unbound creativity and astonishment. The text is just the beginning, an anchor for pictures that glow and unfold, characters who talk and tumble, words that pronounce themselves and music that enlivens everything…. But does digital interactivity engender mental passivity? As fingers flick and flit, making pixels work harder, what do brain cells do?”

What indeed?  If they don’t do anything, they will atrophy and fade into oblivion, making us little better than cabbages gazing at screens.

Richard Curtis

Every Blogger owes a debt of gratitude to newspapers and magazines. This posting relies on original research and reporting performed by The New York Times.

We don’t know if British authors are angrier about piracy than their American counterparts but they seem to be doing more about it.  Parliament passed a law, The Digital Economy Act, that entitles the national utility serving its citizens’ computers to cut off service to illegal filesharers.

In just one week in April 2011, after receiving 831 reports of piracy, the British Publishers Association issued 2194 takedown notices, according to Nicole Kobie writing in pcpro.com. The Association has even created a website for authors to report online piracy.

Compare that to the non-existent initiatives conducted by the US government. Remind us – just what are we waiting for, exactly?

Richard Curtis

For a full archive of our articles about piracy, visit our Pirate Central Page.

Richard Curtis did not just witness the evolution of the publishing industry from print to digital, he had a significant hand in shaping it.  In a Digital Book World interview conducted by Rich Fahle, the agent and e-book publisher candidly discusses his role. The video may be seen below or on DBW’s website.

From the interview:

“Agents find themselves more and more providing services they never needed to render in the past: cover approval, correcting cover copy, editing, spellchecking authors’ manuscripts, marketing and other tasks that should be the publisher’s, but publishers either can’t or won’t do some of these things. They keep pushing the burden of responsibility back on the author. And if the author can’t do it or is helpless or doesn’t want to, the agent has to do it…

I lost a client last week; no, I lost a treasured friend. And the writing community lost an author who was the very definition of professional.

“BB”, as she always signed her emails to me, was Beverly Barton. Prolific, organized with almost military precision, a Southern belle with an accent to match and a heart of pure gold, Beverly was for me the rarest of breeds: a happy author. I don’t know anyone who loves writing as much as Beverly did, who loves her editor, her publisher, her colleagues and her industry as much as BB.

I can’t imagine a Romance Writers of America conference without her. Beverly was my client for almost two decades and we shared countless social and business occasions, but when it came to the national conference she went into overdrive, a fountainhead of vivacious charm. She was passionately dedicated to her writing community, and her hand was perpetually extended to assist young authors. Among my younger clients, there are those who will never forget her warm and giving nature, her eagerness to help them share the profession she so adored.

Among the many tragic ironies of her shocking and untimely death at the age of 64 is that today is the publication date of her new novel Dead by Morning. Beverly, this one’s for you. We salute you for all you have given to us and mourn all that we have lost.

Richard Curtis

Here are links to her obituary and a lovely tribute by Barbara Vey.

Are you an And? A With? An As Told To?  A Ghost? Wherever you stand on the co-author ladder, there’s a good chance that sooner or later your partner will blame you for his own screwup.

The latest example is author Greg Mortensen’s  explanation for alleged factual lapses in his bestselling memoir Three Cups of Tea, written with David Oliver Relin.

How are co-authors selected? How are their qualifications evaluated? What is the legal relationship between authors and co-authors? The answers can be found in a two part piece we’ve posted, Collaborations,Part 1 and Part 2, but to summarize:

Generally speaking, co-authors are usually recommended to principal authors by their agents or publishers. The writers are seasoned professionals and are considered reliable, responsible and reputable. They are almost invariably skillful and, like members of an elite guild, proud of their craftsmanship.

Because in most instances they are equally liable with the principal author for libel, plagiarism or other claims, they must be diligent researchers who double-check every fact, take scrupulous notes at interviews, and accept no statement at face value made by the author. In fact they must be doubly diligent, covering not just their own ass but the author’s, too, because that author is all too often too busy, distracted or impatient to bother with details. Co-authors know that if they screw up, they may never work in this town again.

In the case of Three Cups of Tea, co-author Relin was recommended to Mortensen, presumably because Relin possessed the above qualifications.  Certainly, when the book rode high on the bestseller lists and minted tons of royalties, the choice of Relin was regarded as brilliant.  When doubts were cast on the book, however, the blame game began, and questions about Relin’s role were raised.  Rather than stand up for his co-author, Mortensen pointed a finger at him.

In an exclusive interview with Alex Heard posted on OutsideOnline.com, Mortensen explained himself thus:

It’s really complicated, but I’m not a journalist. I don’t take a lot of notes. David and I collaborated. He did nearly all the writing, and along with hundreds of interviews of those involved in the story, I helped him piece together the whole timeline, and from that we started creating the narrative arc and everything.

David insisted on writing the book in third person, which is really awkward. The publisher said, Greg, you’re too understated, so this needs to be in the third person. My wife, Tara, also told me that if I wrote a book, it would be a pamphlet.

What happens then is, when you re-create the scenes, you have my recollections, the different memories of those involved, you have his writing, and sometimes things come out different. In order to be convenient, there were some omissions. If we included everything I did from 1993 to 2003 it would take three books to write it. So there were some omissions and compressions, and … I don’t know, what that’s called?

Literary license?

Yeah. So, rather than me going two or three times to one place, he would synthesize it into one trip. I would squawk about it and be told that it would all work out.

What Relin’s role was in errors of fact, we don’t and may never know, but we’re pretty skeptical that it was his fault. Writers take the fall all too often for the foibles, follies and failures of their higher-profile principals. Co-writers don’t complain when someone gets rich riding on their backs. But they have every right to speak out when their riders kick them.  We need to stand up for collaborators.

Richard Curtis

In Mercy Mission, the nerve-wracking sequel to The Warriors of God, Richard Welsh returns, now working as an aide to a U.S. Senator.

Three U.S. Marine security guards are gunned down by unknown assailants at an outdoor café in Guatemala City, far from Afghanistan and the world’s attention. Could it be terrorism, or backlash from the war on drugs?

Welsh is sent down to Guatemala to investigate, for the most mundane of reasons: the father of one of the dead Marines was a major political contributor. No one expects him to find out anything, least of all himself. But, as soon as he arrives in Guatemala City, he falls into a series of discoveries, each one more disturbing than the last.

The attack on the Marines seems to stretch from events as far back as the dirty guerrilla wars of the 80′s to the mountains of drugs making their way along Central American pathways from Colombia to Mexico today. Circumstances force Welsh together with a mysterious American woman whose motives are unclear. She may be his ally, or she may regard him as a sacrificial pawn in pursuit of her own agenda. When the final crucial piece of information comes into Welsh’s hands it will take every last bit of luck and skill for him to make it out of Guatemala alive.

Because, strangely enough, it seems that as many people in Washington as in Guatemala want him dead.

There are many jungles, from the tropical rain forest to Washington back rooms. But in each case the most dangerous predator is always the same.

****************

After serving with distinction in the Marine Corps, William Christie poured everything he’d learned into gritty, fast-paced violent novels of men in war, and E-Reads is happy to deliver them to you.

Don’t forget Christie’s The Blood We Shed, a must-read novel about the making of a marine fighting unit.

After serving with distinction in the Marine Corps, William Christie poured everything he’d learned into gritty, fast-paced violent novels of men in war, and E-Reads is happy to deliver them to you.

Christie’s 1992 thriller The Warriors of God astoundingly anticipated the terrorist scourge of the next decade. Now brought up to date by the author and available again as nuke-hungry Iran defies the world, its plot may just be the stuff of tomorrow’s headlines.

The long-simmering conflict between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran finally turns hot with an act of terrorism against a U.S. naval ship in the Persian Gulf. American military retaliation shuts down Iranian oil production, and it’s war. But not the war we’ve known in the past. Not the war of armies, ships, and planes. No, the war we’ve come to know today. The war of the weak against the strong. War in the shadows. With battles aimed not at the destroying the enemy’s armies, but bent on making headlines.

A handpicked team of elite Iranian commandos are silently making their way to the United States. To Washington D.C. Their target is the President of the United States. In the White House.

Major Ali Khurbasi of the Iranian Army leads the assault team. Tough, experienced, American-educated and ready to die for a mission whose wisdom he secretly doubts. Former Marine officer Richard Welsh is the Pentagon liaison to the FBI investigation that begins once it is clear that some violent force has landed on our shores. It is a headlong race as the Iranians fight to reach their objective and the elite of America’s law enforcement and military struggle to stop them.

Read Mercy Mission, the dramatic sequel to The Warriors of God. And a must-read is The Blood We Shed, Christie’s gripping fictional account of how a raw Marine unit develops into a crack fighting force, the “tip of the spear.”