It's nearly conference time!!

Lots of exciting things happened over the last week. First up, Three Over Par earned a good review from Whipped Cream, The Long and The Short of It's erotic romance review site.

This quote from Rosemary, the reviewer, gave me a smile.

If you are a fan of ménages, then pick up your copy of Three Over Par today. You won’t be disappointed. And if you think golf is boring? You will change your mind after reading Three Over Par. I know I certainly did!

Sunday morning brought some truly wonderful news. After scooping almost every romance writing award in Australia and New Zealand, Kylie Short, aka Kylie Griffin, took on the US and won the biggest prize there is - a Romance Writers of America Golden Heart. I'm so thrilled for her and have my fingers very tightly crossed that a book deal is just around the corner. If anyone deserves success, it's Kylie.

I was also delighted to win a book from the LoveCats DownUnder blog - The King's Bastard: Book One of the Chronicles of King Rolen's Kin by Rowena Cory Daniells. I look forward to reading this as it sounds fantastic. Although, by the way DB's eyeing it, there might be a fight on to see who gets it first.

In just over a week, I'll be at the Romance Writers of Australia conference at the Crowne Plaza Coogee Beach in Sydney. Three days of non-stop writerly talk and laughter. I can't wait! But there's also the Australian Romance Readers of Australia booksigning event scheduled for Friday 13th August between 4pm and 6-30pm at the same venue. Forty-five authors, including me, are booked in for the signing and I'm sure there'll be plenty of others wandering around. If you love reading romance, especially by Australian authors, this is a not-to-be-missed event. For more details and registration, please click here.

ODDS & SODS

This is a must see. The Huffington Post featured nine of the most amazing bookstores in the world. And they are. Sadly, I've only been to Shakespeare and Co in Paris. Really must get to the rest, especially the one in Maastricht, Holland. There's something quite appropriate about a bookstore in a church, as though browsers are worshipping knowledge.

If you're after an e-reader, then it might pay to check out this offering. Kogan is an Australian company selling electronic consumer goods online and I found their e-reader pretty impressive. So impressive it's shot to the top of my buy list. It takes multiple file formats, has an expandable memory, a six inch e-ink screen and plenty of other things going for it. Customer service looks excellent too with a 7 day money-back guarantee. The only downer is you can't make notes with it.

SYDNEY SWANS NEWS (because what else would I watch on telly if it weren't for Swans' games?)

We lost. Again. Going down to Geelong by 53 points, although it wasn't as horrific as the score indicates. Certainly not as bad as the week before. My boys put up a pretty good fight but Geelong were just too good.

By sheer luck (and some handy losses by other teams) we're still in the eight and holding onto a very slim chance of playing finals footy. This week sees my darlings against 6th placed Hawthorn on Saturday afternoon at the SCG. Hopefully the home crowd will gee them up and send the Hawks flapping limply back to Melbourne.

And don't forget the Wallabies play the All Blacks in Christchurch, New Zealand this weekend. You can spend a joyous afternoon watching the Swans strut the field then move straight onto rugby for a perve at young James O'Connor. Lovely!