A couple months ago, my husband was scanning the local paper and turned to me, saying, "Hey, isn't this one of your favorite authors?"  Turns out that Kristan Higgins, award-winning and best-selling author of quirky romances such as Catch of the Day and Fools Rush In, was going to do a reading at our local bookstore.  I seldom have time for author readings these days - two months ago, I was over seven months pregnant and had two small kids at home - but I wouldn't have missed this reading for the world.

And I wasn't disappointed.  In person, Ms. Higgins is very personable and has the same type of quirky humor as the characters in her book.  It's very easy to connect with her writing, as her characters are funny and down-to-earth, and they often make as many mistakes as they get things right.  They are the type of men and women who live next door, who you've been friends with since high school - in other words, they feel like real people rather than stock characters.  The newest book that she was promoting, If You Only Knew, verges more into women's lit than romance - but the characters are just as compelling as in her earlier books.  I won't spend a lot of time on reviewing the book here, as I'll post a more detailed review in my "Book Reviews" section later, but it's well worth the read.

Alex McNab from the Fairfield Writer's Blog interviewed Ms. Higgins after the talk and recently posted it: " 'Cut the boring parts.  Fix the crap.' And other advice from author Kristan Higgins."  If you enjoy Ms. Higgins books, it's a great interview to learn more about her writing and research process.  Hope you enjoy reading it.

On the same day that my daughter, Aerin, was born, an anthology was also born - Frozen Fairy Tales, edited by Kate Wolford.  It is a collection of stories set in winter, including my take on the legend of Yuki-onna, a Japanese ghost story.  The anthology is a beautiful and diverse collection of stories from writers around the world, and includes stories by Tina Anton, Amanda Bergloff, Gavin Bradley, L.A. Christensen, Steven Grimm, Christina Ruth Johnson, Rowan Lindstrom, Aimee Ogden, J. Patrick Pazdziora, Lissa Marie Redmond, Anna Salonen, Lissa Sloan, Charity Tahmaseb and David Turnbull.  I hope you enjoy reading it!

We welcomed our new daughter, Aerin, this past Tuesday at 4:44am.  She was a hefty 9 lb 10 oz and 21.5 inches.  A big girl!  Here she is relaxing at home.  As you can see, she has a cute little beauty mark on her cheek - our little Marilyn.  She and I are resting up and recovering right now, so I'll post more later.  Just very thankful to have our happy and healthy new girl join our family.

Hope everyone had a great week!