The Sunday Salon~ Merry Christmas!!

(*Newsletter subscribers get this in their mailbox every Saturday (an early version sometimes un-edited), with access to exclusive newsletter only giveaways. This is the only mail that you will receive from me if you sign up for my newsletter; it winds up in your spam folder. Sign up for my newsletter by looking below my Follower gadget in the left sidebar.)

Christmas Christmas Christmas...It's almost here already!! I hope you are all done with your shopping.. I am not looking forward to the grocery shopping in preparation for the big day. It was utter madness for Thanksgiving.

Some of the books that are waiting under the tree are The Sisters Who Would Be Queen: Mary, Katherine, and Lady Jane Grey: A Tudor Tragedy  by Leanda de Lisle, Marrying Mozart by Stephanie Cowell, Eden's Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father by John Matteson, March by Geraldine Brooks and American Bloomsbury: Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau: Their Lives, Their Loves by Susan Cheever.

I finished reading Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy: The Last Man in the World by Abigail Reynolds, and I will have that up for you right after the New Year, and a guest post probably with a giveaway as well courtesy of Sourcebooks.

This week, I also read Kate Emerson's second novel in her Secrets of The Tudor Court Series: Between Two Queens. Some people tend to pull their hair out when there is a new Tudor novel, but I really enjoyed her last novel "Pleasure Palace". With this one, Nan Bassett is the main protagonist who is known to Tudor fans as a mistress to Henry VIII. This review will be posted Monday.

I think I will begin another Tudor novel, Brandy Purdy's The Boleyn Wife aka Vengeance is Mine aka The Tudor Wife.

Every now and then I come across an eye-opening article on the world wide web. With a hop skip and jump, I was at M.'s blog, and she mentioned certain fees for aspiring writers, and directed her readers to L'esprit D'escalier's article regarding Harlequin H-something (I already forgot). Apparently, they offer(ed) this awesome program for those writers who are rich and want to be published. Go check it out. It was indeed interesting. Yes I know the post is a month old. But it is still worthwhile.. think of $0.042 cents/word.. marketing packages.. And I wish I could be a publicist. With Harlequin's rates.

For newsletter subscribers, the book giveaway for Norah Loft's The Lute Player (for my ARC) is still ongoing, so if you didn't get a chance to enter for it last Sunday, there is still time. Instructions are in your newsletter, and you will need to dig it out of your Spam folders.

My blogoversary is in 10 days!! One whole year being blessed with books and online friendships with fellow book fiends!! It's been a fabulous year as far as books go. You can see all the books I reviewed here.

Till next time, my friends, but let me offer you my sincerest Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays & Season's Greetings!! May your holidays be happy, stress-free, and bountiful.