Category Archives: Uncategorized

1. The goal is to read 100 or more books. Anyone can join. You don’t need a blog to participate. Posting on GoodReads or wherever you post your reviews is good enough.

2. Audio, Re-reads, eBooks, YA, Manga, Graphic Novels, Library books, Novellas, Young Reader, Nonfiction – as long as the book has an ISBN or equivalent or can be purchased as such, the book counts.

What doesn’t count: Individual short stories or individual books in the Bible.

3. No need to list your books in advance. You may select books as you go. Even if you list them now, you can change the list if needed.

4. Crossovers from other reading challenges count.

5. Challenge begins January 1st thru December, 2011. Books started before the 1st do not count. You can join at anytime.

6. When you sign up under Mr. Linky, put the direct link to your post where your books will be listed. Include the URL to this post so that other viewers can find this fun challenge. If you’d prefer to put your list in the sidebar of your blog, please leave your viewers the link to the sign up page. Again, so viewers can join the challenge too.

 248 entries so far… you’re next!

Since Linky Tools is now charging for their service, I have switched to a different link form. If you have already signed up, your name should still be listed above. If you are new and would like to join the challenge, please use the linky below this paragraph! THANKS!

Here is the trailer for the next book in the series by Bree Despain.  Go ahead and watch it over and over again, because I have!!!

I want to thank everyone for joining in the 12 Days of Christmas Contests! A very special thank you to the publishers and authors who helped make these contests a huge success!

Below is the list of winners.  I will slowly be emailing you all today, but if you want to contact me before I do, please email me your mailing address to djsfoxylady@gmail.com. Also please include in the subject line the Contest Day that you won for to help with the sorting and processing of your prize so  I can get it to you as quickly as possible.  This is very important!!

You have 48 hours to respond. After that, if I don’t hear from you, the prize is forfeited and passed to another person.

If you need a refresher on what you won for the day you are listed, I have left the links on the right sidebar for you to look at again. 

1. Welcome to my blog! Can you give the readers a little background about yourself?
Thanks for inviting me.  I’m a Cajun from the swamps of Louisiana now living in the Midwest.  I have a MBA and run an economic development consulting business.  I’m married to the most wonderful woman in the world, and we have three grown sons, one in the US Army, one a college graduate, and another still in college.
       I have always had stories in my head, but I did not start writing in earnest until I discovered Jane Austen fan fiction about ten years ago.  I have written several novels.  Pemberley Ranch is the first one published.

2. What was your inspiration for Pemberley Ranch?
I’m a history buff, and in considering the themes of preconceived notions and intentional misunderstands that drive the plot of Pride and Prejudice, I considered a time and place where true understanding would be far harder to achieve.  That time period was the Reconstruction Era in the southern United States after the Civil War.
      
What people in this country and elsewhere don’t fully appreciate is that America has overcome the hate and divisiveness that existed in 1865.  If we did not, there is no way a Cajun from Louisiana would have married a woman whose parents were from Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  
      
In the US, this is so common we don’t think about it.  Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for many other places in the world.
  
3. Is Pemberley Ranch going to be a series or is it considered a “stand alone” novel?
 I don’t foresee returning to Rosings, Texas, but you never know what the muse will demand.  She is a harsh mistress, after all.  But for now, I’m looking forward to my Regency novel, The Three Colonels, scheduled to be published by Sourcebooks in Spring 2012.
  
4. What does a day in the life of Jack Caldwell look like?
Boring.  Both my career and my avocation involve writing, so I spend a great deal of time in front of a keyboard.  That is, when I’m not walking one of our three dogs—two Pugs and a Doberman Pincer.  That’s a job in winter-time Minnesota.  As I’m a Cajun, I do all the cooking.  Yes, you can cook Louisiana in the frozen North—it’s all a matter of being flexible.
  
5. If you could travel back in time, what era would you travel to?
Let’s make the Crucifixion a given.  Besides that, if I had to pick one time and place, it would be America at the Turn of the Century (1895-1905).  So much change in so little time—automobiles, airplanes, electric light, medical advances.  Public libraries, indoor plumbing.  Plentiful food.  Telephones.  How did the people react to that?  What were they thinking?  Amazing stuff.
      

6. Any favorite authors or reads that you turn to over and over again?
Fiction-wise, I will re-read Jane Austen, J.R.R. Tolkien, Abigail Reynolds, Patrick O’Brian, Tom Clancy, Larry Niven, and the Shaaras (Michael and Jeff).  Every couple of years, I will re-read A Canticle for Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller, Jr.  For non-fiction, I pick up Stephen Ambrose, William Manchester, and Sir Winston Churchill.