Guest Blogger - Alice Duncan

Well, in spite of the heat and our continuing drought (we’ve had about one inch and seventeen drops of water so far this year), August was a pretty magical month.

My fifth Daisy Gumm Majesty book, GENTEEL SPIRITS, came (to rave reviews, I might add), and I got a whole box of advanced reading copies of her sixth adventure, ANCIENT SPIRITS. Have I mentioned that getting the cover art for my books is the most exciting part of the whole process for me? Well, it is. Probably if I ever earned any money from my books, that would be exciting, too, but I don’t. One takes what one can get, don’t you know. Please feel free to read an excerpt from GENTEEL SPIRITS on my website: www.aliceduncan.net  I’m not posting an excerpt from ANCIENT SPIRITS until closer to the book’s publication date. You’ll have to read GENTEEL SPIRITS to find out why. Ask your local library to buy a copy, since it’s too darned expensive for a regular human being to buy!

August also saw the arrival of Bella and Bam Bam, two teeny wiener dogs who have been grievously neglected and/or abused in their short lives. I guess little Bella was used as a breeding bitch and never had given attention at all except during those times. Bam Bam, who is younger than Bella, seems the less emotionally damaged of the two dogs, but they both need a lot of tender loving care. I really, really don’t like people who are mean to dogs. On the other hand, look at all the abused children in the world. If people can treat their kids like that, I guess they wouldn’t shy away from abusing a ten-pound dog. Grrr.

During August, too, I was invited to participate in a mystery blog tour at the end of November-first of December. I’ve never done anything like this before, but it looks like fun. A bunch of mystery authors (I nominally qualify as a mystery author, although my books aren’t heavy on dead bodies and gore) will appear on each other’s blog spaces every day for a couple of weeks. I guess it’s kind of labor-intensive, but the worst part for me was that I had to establish a blog of my own. I’m not at home in the Blogosphere. At all. However, since Pat Browning (ABSINTHE OF MALICE) beat me with a stick until I surrendered, I actually established my own blog. After a few mistakes, I even fixed it so that people can leave comments. I hope. More about this later.

Since I have that entire box full of ANCIENT SPIRITS ARCs, I’m going to be giving away three copies of that book for my September contest. I’m really worried about Daisy, my former winner-picking wiener dog. She’s completely blind now, and she’s having more and more trouble getting around, but I aim to keep her with me for as long as she can still stand and enjoy her kibble. Rosie has been filling in for her, picking wieners from the special contest doggie dish, but I think I’m going to have to train one of the youngsters to do the job. Unfortunately, both of the youngsters are idiots. Well . . . I’m doing Scrappy a disservice. He’s not an idiot; he’s high-spirited. I guess that’s the proper word for it, anyhow. The only problem with Scrappy is . . . I hate to admit this . . . he’s not a wiener dog! Honest to God, somebody called me in a panic about two years ago, begging me to come relieve him of this emaciated dachshund puppy he’d found abandoned at a dairy outside of town (Roswell’s full of dairies). So I capitulated, only to arrive at Scrappy’s destination to see this little scrap of a dog who has about as much dachshund in him as I do. Near as I can figure, Scrappy’s a cross between a miniature pinscher and a Chihuahua. Wish me luck training him.

Anyhow, if you’d like to enter my contest, please send me an email (alice@aliceduncan.net) with your name and home address. I’ll toss your name into my special contest doggie dish and, with luck, Scrappy will pick winners at the end of September. Providing he doesn’t eat them instead.