I did say I’ll try to recall the missing post so this is it:

It’s been a crazy two weeks at work (and it still is, as we’re minus two team members this week) so when I had the chance to blog  last Thursday (sorry this should be two Thursdays ago now), I did a little blog hopping and here’s what I’ve missed over the last 2 weeks:

Kristie wrote a wonderful open letter to the power execs at Avon, imploring them to come down from their ivory tower and pull up their socks.  Sybil has my thanks for bringing Quinn readers (like myself) up-to-date with her latest venture into eBooks.

[Update: she went even further to link us to JQ’s thoughts on the epilogues.  Oh, and if you haven’t noticed the ‘show/hide’ feature Sybil and Kristie have added to their blogs, you should go have some fun there. While you’re at it, do visit JQ’s site.]

Angie ran a poll on the requirements of a romance novel and many romance readers weighed in with their varied comments.  Jane over at DearAuthor expanded on that and questioned if the face of romance has changed, to which Tara provided this sharp observation:

One of the things I love about the summer is the slew of blockbusters that Hollywood churns out for the season and this year is no exception. If you’ve not decided on the gems to catch, Newsweek’s preview of 15 summer blockbusters on MSNBC gives you the low-down. For me, these are the few gems that I was already eagerly anticipating:

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men’s Chest

Three reasons: Orlando, Keira and Johnny. I love the chemistry amongst them and this high sea adventure is something that is suitable for the kids too. They had a good yo-ho-ho-ing good time laughing at the clumsy Captain Jack Sparrow. Orlando Bloom cuts a pretty dashing figure as a pirate, and Keira fits into all the action with the boys like they were born to be pirates. Together, they made piracy sort of cool, and the word is there’s going to be a 3^rd instalment next summer. 

Miss it? I’d rather walk the plank, or better still, be fed to the sharks. Meanwhile, here’s the official site to feed your curiosity. 

Mark 7 July on your calendar. I’m so going to get the DVD when it comes out!

X-Men: The Last Stand

I’ve been following this comic series ever since its debut. That was my intro to Hugh Jackman, so of course I was hooked. Big time. Went on to watch Kate & Leopold and Van Helsing of course. The other reason for my going ga-ga? Halle Berry as Storm. Take a sneak peek at the trailer over at their super-cool official website, with real flashy effects.

I made a monumentally stupid mistake last Friday. While fiddling around with the codes, I accidentally messed up the index template. 

So, I do what I usually did: retrace my steps and try to undo the damage. But instead of backing up my database first, overanxious me jumped right in to recovery and restored an older version of the database instead. And ended up losing all posts published during the last two weeks.

Luckily, since I’ve started using wordpress, I’ve taken to drafting my posts on Word first before pasting them on to the WP, so I was able to republish most of the missing entries, except for one posted on the 15^th on settling in to my new home and another on some interesting entries from other readers that I came across while bloghopping last Thursday. 

Which is why you’ll notice two previous posts missing. I’ll attempt to remember the latter but have decided to let the former go. 

Moral of the story: always BACK UP. 

I was drawn to this book by the synopsis on the back cover, which goes:

From a crumbling fairy-tale castle on the stormy Sussex coast to a dazzling, dizzying  masquerade ball comes and enchanted tale of a tarnished knight, a daring maiden, and a sweet, searing, storybook love …

Well, the romance sucker in me just lapped that up and bought it expecting some medieval romance.  But it turns out that the story in actually set in Georgian England, and the unconventionally independent and reckless heroine, Phoebe, was holding out for a knight to assuage her guilt over sending an ex-suitor to his death seeking a fortune over the seas.

Her knight errant, the dangerously attractive and strong-willed Earl of Wilde, Gabriel (hmmm … why is it that these strong heroes get to be named after the archangel?) whom she’d grown up romanticizing, turns out to be a disappointment at first. Despite that, she continued to believe in him, even though he’s made it clear that he’s not the hero she thinks he is. The two of them got hitched, but while trying to reconcile themselves to their married state, Phoebe’s life/ safety was threatened and Gabriel has to leant to trust in the his own heart and her love.

Stumbled across this article on Bizweek. It’s really interesting how some blogs find their way into print.

These range from novels to comics to memoirs. Some begin as blogs read by hundreds of thousands of loyal fans, land at well-known publishers, and end up sold through huge retailers from Barnes & Noble ( BKS)
to Amazon.com.

Could you just imagine the revolutionary changes this is going to mean? Just think, any blogger — there are 36 million blogs out there, with 75,000 new online diaries added daily, according to Technorati – who can put out compelling content could potentially be a book author.

Rachel Gibson. A name I’ll be watching ever since I’ve finished reading her ‘Sex, Lies and Online Dating’ more than a week ago.

This talented lady has thrown huge dollops of romance, a decent tale of suspense, a couple of wacky situations, snappy dialogue and steamy moments into her cauldron and came up with this wickedly funny book.

I was captivated by the synopsis at the back of the book when I went on my last booking shopping binge, and simply got to get the book. There were quite a number of favourable reviews on this book before I got started reading it, and true enough, the book didn’t disappoint.