I gave my copy of Un Lun Dun by China Mieville to my bridge-playing friend Tom, who is, like me, a fantasy fan. I loved this book--thought it was very strong, intriguingly written, and a fun twist on the over-done fantasy standby of the chosen hero. His heroine was an everywoman, designated in the prophesies as the unnamed 'funny one' sidekick of the chosen one (the chosen one failed, leaving the sidekick to pick up the pieces). Tom told me he just wasn't getting into it. I'm not sure whether I should even give him THE CITY & THE CITY, also by China Mieville, which I'm reading now. This is a strange story, with no magic at all in it--except for the possibility of Breach, the organization or entity responsible for making sure residents of the two cities sharing the same geographic space continue not-seeing one another. A truly weird but, I think, creative book.

Yesterday, Karen and I got up early to head up to the Dallas Romance Writers meeting. Winnie Griegs, a friend of ours from Louisianna, came to talk about secondary characters (half the workshop) and using settings, etc (second half). While there wasn't really anything new here, I always enjoy hearing talented authors explain their workings--and try to pick up a little something. If you're in the Dallas area, the DARA is a great organization--even if you're writing something other than romance.

After DARA, Karen dropped me off at a bridge tournament. My teammates and I are playing in the District Qualifiers of the Grand National Teams. We qualified at the unit level by being the only ones who showed up. No such luck at the District. We faced 8 other teams. Of the 9, four qualified to go into the second day, which will be a head-to-head knock-out. We were #4. So, this afternoon it's back to the bridge table. We'll play 24 boards against the #1 seeded team. If we survive, we'll advance to the finals this evening. If we don't, well, we won't.

I'm going to make EYE OF THE STORM by Amy Eastlake the www.BooksForABuck.com book of the day. When her friend is killed in a freak "accident" and the police send a cop around to make sure she backs off from their non-investigation, private detective Aila Jallay only grows more determined. But when she's framed for another murder, the danger really starts to mount. Romantic thriller--only $3.99. Learn more, read the free excerpt, or buy the entire eNovel here: http://www.booksforabuck.com/rompages/rom_2006/eye_storm.html (available in HTML, Adobe Acrobat PDF, Microsoft Reader and eReader). Here's the cover (cover design by Jane Graves):

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