Posts Tagged ‘One-Night Mistress…Convenient Wife’

Tote Bags today

Saturday, November 21st, 2009


I’m writing the blog at Tote Bags ‘n’ Blogs on Sunday. So stop by and say hi. Share a memory about your high school days.

Or if you don’t want quite such a big audience, share it here!

Facebook has brought high school back into my life. It’s a strange experience. And it’s reminding me of all kinds of things I didn’t realize I even remembered.

Christo’s book, One-Night Mistress . . . Convenient Wife, benefited from those emotions because it is all about unrequited first love and what happens when you meet the right person at the wrong time.

George’s book seems to have something of a similar theme, though the stories are quite different. Do you suppose my subconscious is trying to tell me something? Or is it just one of the main thematic mountain ranges in what my former editor Patricia Smith calls “my emotional landscape?”

What do you think? Do you see themes in your own writing or your own life that you address in different ways over and over? If you do, do you know where it comes from?

Inquiring minds are curious — even though they should be thinking about George.

Where I’ve Been . . .

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009


Nowhere interesting, believe me.

I’ve been holed up in my office writing George. And writing an article. And creating a Power Point presentation on immigration trails.

George has been the most fun part of my life, which ought to tell you something.

At least I’m not battling him to a standstill the way I did Demetrios. He’s actually turning out to be entertaining — right now — before revisions and deep in the middle of the first draft.

How often does that happen?

Not very, to be honest. But sometimes it does, and so I’m just enjoying it. Nice to go to work every morning for a change.

I’ve done a little Christmas shopping, too. And I’m struck, when I do it, how much of it I do online these days. What about you?

I started doing it online when I was looking for things for the older grandsons when they were little — and I got tired of dragging from store to store to find that what I wanted wasn’t there. Or it was there at a price I couldn’t bring myself to pay.

So I started looking on the internet and, wow, what a time saver. Money saver, too.

Have your shopping habits changed like mine have?

I’ll be back tomorrow when, I hope, George will make it into chapter six, and I will have something new to write about — a reprint or two (well, that’s not new, but it’s exciting). I’m just trying to get the information sorted.

In the meantime, if you see Christo hanging around a bookshelf anywhere, do me a favor and put him up at eye level. He was gone at my Target when I looked last week. I was happy about that.

Also happy about the review on the Pink Heart Society where Julie Bonello said, “Anne McAllister never fails to come up with the goods and One Night Mistress…Convenient Wife is one of her best books yet! Funny but poignant, tender but sensuous and moving and utterly engrossing, One Night Mistress… Convenient Wife is a spellbinding Harlequin Presents novel readers will just devour.

“With a spunky heroine, a gorgeous hero and oodles of love, passion and laughter, One-Night Mistress… Convenient Wife is the perfect book to cuddle up with on a cold autumn’s night!”

How nice is that? If you want, you can read her whole review here. Thank you, Julie.

Once upon a crush . . .

Wednesday, November 4th, 2009


Once upon a time when I was young and emotional, I was in love.

Or thought I was.

I don’t know what the object of my affection thought — if indeed he thought about it at all. I doubt that he did because I never actually saw him run screaming in the other direction. So chances are he remained oblivious.

But I was sure (not fairly sure, not reasonably sure, but absolutely positively sure) that if the stars aligned properly or fate so decreed that he would notice, we would live happily ever after.

We didn’t.

But it doesn’t stop me thinking about it and remembering it — all the angst, all the emotion, all the deep unrequited desire — now and then.

And when Christo Savas popped into my head carrying a surfboard and talking on a cell phone, I was reminded of those days. He’s exactly the sort of guy I would have looked twice (or maybe several million times at).

So did Natalie, my heroine.

But Natalie was far more, er, pro-active than I was at her age. She made things happen — or tried to.

It was a disaster, of course. Sometimes the time and the place aren’t right, even if the people might have been. That’s what happened to Natalie and Christo the first time. The second time is what I wrote about in One-Night Mistress…Convenient Wife.

And crushes are what I’m blogging about Thursday on the I Heart Presents blog. So stop over and check it out. Leave me the tale of your own crush there — or here.

Whoever makes me laugh, cry, cringe or sympathetically shake my head will win a copy of Christo and Natalie’s book

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