Micah and Mitch have picked the winners for the first week of my 25th anniversary Great Book Give-Away. Winners have been notified.

If you didn’t win a book this week, you can submit a new entry with the answer to week two’s question. And your old entry will continue to be active all during February as well (so you have two chances to win a book).

If you did win, I’d be delighted if you want to answer the questions this month, but I’m trying to spread the goodies around, so if you have already won a book in February, you’re eligible to win again in March.

I would appreciate your including your snail mail address with your answer so I can address the packages as soon as M&M pick the winners. Thanks!

I’ve been out of commission this week as my mother has been ill and in and out of the hospital. She is currently ‘in’ which means I have time to address envelopes. I hope she’ll be out and on her way to improvement early next week. Worrisome times.

The books for next week’s contest are:

• Anne McAllister — Savas’ Defiant Mistress
• Loucinda McGary — Treasures of Venice
• Linda Taylor — Falling into Place
• Christie Craig — Weddings Can Be Murder
• Cara Lockwood — I Did (But I Wouldn’t Now)
• Robyn Donald — A Ruthless Passion
• Nora Roberts — A Little Fate

The question you need to answer is:
In what state do most (not all) of her series of Quicksilver books take place?

Send your answers to me via my contest page.

My first book to be published (the second book I wrote), Starstruck, came out in February 1985. That’s 25 years ago. And I had no idea then what an amazing 25 years it would be.

I’ve met so many interesting people, written about lots of other interesting people, gone places and done things I never would have been able to do if I’d continued on my pre-publication life.

I have a lot of people to thank for where I am today. Going way way back, I want to thank my mother who, not a reader particularly and not a writer certainly, still supported my interest in telling stories. She even has — in her safe deposit box, no less — the first ‘real’ story I ever wrote.

And there was my mother-in-law, too. You know how mothers-in-law are supposed to never think you’re good enough for their dear son . . . well, mine might have felt that way, but she never showed it. And she made a point of supporting my fledgling efforts at writing fiction to the extent of buying me an IBM Selectric (in those days before computers, IBM Selectrics were the holy grail of the typing writer) as I was working on my second book.

The first one I didn’t really tell anyone about because I didn’t know if I could actually finish it or not. But when I had, I said I had — and as I started number two, she said, “I have something for you to make your work easier.”

Boy, did it! And I wrote books number 2-6 on it before I invested in a computer that only did word processing (no graphics card even) to write number 7.

There were others, too. My husband, The Prof, who supported my quest for publication and breathed a sigh of relief when I actually had an advance to help pay for groceries and the pediatrician, was a great help. I feel sorry for any writer who has a spouse or significant other who feels the dream of writing is somehow in competition with their relationship. I never had that happen, but I know people who have. It isn’t pretty.

My kids have been wonderful — particularly memorable was the five year old who told my editor he was going to grow up to be a romantic hero. He has, too. More or less!

And my friends — writers and non-writers alike — listen patiently and discuss the motivations and personalities of people who don’t exist. You know who you are, but greater more specific thanks will be coming in future blogs.

And thank you to all my editors, copyeditors, editorial directors, my agent and especially to my readers who have enriched my life with their letters and comments and, incidentally, helping me put my kids through college by buying my books. You are stars — all of you.

The Great-Book-Giveaway will begin this month. Heather (thanks to Heather, too) will be putting up the specifics. Watch my contest page — and this space — when she tells me what I’m doing!

Sorry I’ve been missing in action.

Life has been complicating the things I would normally be doing if I weren’t out living it.

I would be blogging and telling you all that come February I’m starting a year long celebration of 25 years of being published by Harlequin and Silhouette. To do that I thought the best thing would be to invite you all to share the celebration with me by doing what we all do best — read.

So starting in February (check back the first week), I’m going to be giving away a book a day for a year!

Some of them will be my books. Some will be books of my friends. Some will be books I’ve read and enjoyed and want to share with you (and incidentally make room on my bookshelves — which means that some of them will havebeen lightly read — by me).

I’ll be posting what you need to do to be part of these weekly drawings — SEVEN WINNERS per week — every month. You can find the info after February 1st on both my website and here.

But the website will have a more permanent link unless Heather my wonderful webmistress wants to stick a link in the sidebar of the blog, which she might, as she is clever that way.

So . . . stay tuned. I’ll introduce you to my 25 year old “oldies” in case you missed them. And if I can get The Prof to dig deep in the attic, I may be able to share a few of them with you — starting with Starstruck, the first to see the bookshelves that February 25 years ago.

Kate Walker is also celebrating her 25th this year. And you can bet I’ll be giving away some wonderful Kate books as well. Stick around.

It’s going to be a good year.