Elizabeth Loupas

If I thought the book looked real when I got the page proofs (which are finished, yay!) (well, finished but for one last pass which I’ll do this weekend, but still yay!), imagine how I felt when this box arrived:

Advance Reader Copies!

As I was swooning with delight, Boo inspected the box thoroughly and declared “Aroo roo rooooo arooo roo roo.” I think that means, “Whoo-hoo, Mama, you did good, now what’s for dinner?”

Watch this space for information on how to win one for your very own! (The book, not the beagle.)

And they are so beautiful. They look so real. My baby is going to be a real book.

Writing friends (waves to Lisa B.) have taught me that the best way to read page proofs is out of order, back to front, bottom of the page to top of the page, anything that will separate the words on the page from the story. I learned from the painstaking work of my wonderful copyeditor at NAL that there were typos in the manuscript I truly didn’t see simply because I’d read over the story so often.

Making a manuscript into a book is a mysterious and fascinating process!

Huge thanks to C.S. Harris, author of the fantastic Sebastian St. Cyr regency mysteries, for a new pre-release comment on The Second Duchess:

“Rich in historical detail and all the dangerous grandeur of court life in Renaissance Italy. Think The Other Boleyn Girl meets Rebecca.” –C. S. Harris, author of the Sebastian St. Cyr Mystery series.

I love the phrase “dangerous grandeur.”

The paperback of Harris’s wonderful What Remains of Heaven came out yesterday, so run, do not walk, to your nearest bookstore (or favorite book-buying website) and buy it today. I blogged about it back in December, as one of my Christmas gift picks for 2009, and I promise you, if you haven’t read this yet you have a rich and engrossing experience in store. And then of course there are the first four books in this terrific series. And coming up next March, the sixth installment, Where Shadows Dance. Mark your calendar. I know I have.

Deanna Raybourn, she of the excellent Lady Julia Grey novels and the deliciously atmospheric new twist on the Dracula legend, The Dead Travel Fast, has read an advance copy of The Second Duchess. She liked it! (She liked it! She really liked it! Heh.) In fact, she even blogged about it. So hie thyself to Deanna’s blog posthaste, browse through her warm and witty posts, and perhaps even leave a comment or two. Like, here:

In which I have a book for you

I’m still snowed under with copyedits, but next week I’ll post about The Dead Travel Fast. You will like it. You really will.

Two wonderful things happened today.

First, son, daughter-in-law, their two babies (who aren’t babies any more, oh my!) and their two chihuahuas arrived for a nice long visit.

Second, copyedits for The Second Duchess landed in my mailbox. So amazing and awe-inspiring to see it all laid out so officially!

Anyway, lots of work and zero online time for me, for the next couple of weeks at least. You-all play nice, now.

…to describe my delight:

Huge thanks to the fantastic designer (you know who you are) at Penguin who created this beautiful cover, and also to my editor who shepherded the whole process to its conclusion

Another wonderful early endorsement for The Second Duchess, from Karen Harper, author of Mistress Shakespeare and the forthcoming The Irish Princess. Details here.

Click over to my The Second Duchess page to see early quotes on the book from Brenda Rickman Vantrease and Cecelia Holland. These two writers are both long-time favorites of mine, and it’s an honor and a delight to have had them read and comment on Duchess.

To whom do these lovely and mysterious arms belong? (No, not the Venus de Milo, silly.) Who is sitting on our couch playing with Cressie and Boo? Why, it’s Agent Diana, in town for a conference and here to spend some very intense time discussing The Silver Casket.

It was wonderful to meet Agent D. face-to-face for the first time. We devoured incredible prime steaks, exotic chocolates steeped in fruit and liqueurs; saganaki, spanokopita and tzatziki; and lovely cupcakes. Did we do anything but eat? Heh. Well, yes. We spent hours talking about The Silver Casket, books, The Second Duchess, books, the conference, books, promotion and bookstores, and oh yes—books.

Agent D. is now on her way back to New York after waving a sad goodbye to the beagle duo, and I’m on my way back to my hermitage to write up notes on everything we talked about…

Lucky St. Patrick’s Day news! NAL has moved the release date of The Second Duchess up by one month, so it will now make its debut in January 2011. Somehow that seems so much sooner than February 2011!

We readers all get book cards and book gift certificates for Christmas, right? So when you hit the bookstores in January with your Christmas book-buying booty, keep The Second Duchess in mind. And don’t worry—I’ll remind you again. Heh. Probably more than once.

And as for St. Patrick’s Day luck, well, I come from a long line of McConnells on my dear mother’s side. Sláinte!