Janna, at Erotic Romance Reader featured a clip yesterday from Daughters of Persephone, Book One Exile.  Yikes!  I wrote that, eh?  Cool!

Here’s her main link in case you can’t get in the back door – http://erotromreader.blogspot.com/

All next week while Janna’s on vacation, you can read guest posts and win books – I’m giving away a copy of Daughters, Mia Watts and Bronwyn Green are also providing prizes.  Make sure to stop by Janna’s place for some goodies!

Wiping the sweat from my brow!  Whew!  Sixteen hours straight of revising Anytime Darlin’ - my cowboy rancher/farm girl romance with Siren.  I had to get it done…we may be getting a new puppy tomorrow.  This was a major re-write and it took me days as this honey-bunny is a full-length romance/suspense.

I just this minute got a review for my very popular romance/suspense, My Everything, from Happily Ever After Reviews:  http://hea-reviews.blogspot.com/2010/07/review-my-everything-by-julia-barrett.html Ben and Grace seem to be characters readers love.  They are lovers reunited after ten long, heart breaking years apart.  Five Tea Cups!

Drop by tomorrow as author, Anny Cook, gives us her take on fantasy.  She writes very hot, very fantastic books – we’re talking major world-building!

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1.  My Everything, my romance-suspense with Cobblestone, got a five-star review from The Romance Studio:  http://theromancestudio.com/reviews/reviews/myeverythingbarrett.htm

2.  Beauty and the Feast, my contemporary with Resplendence, received a five-teacup review from Happily Ever After:  http://hea-reviews.blogspot.com/2010/07/review-beauty-and-feast-by-julia.html

3.  The release of Daughters of Persephone will probably be delayed…ACK!  DOUBLE ACK!!!  I’ll be working on it all day today…@#$%^&*+=!

4.  Author Mia Watts, my not-so-secret online lover, arrives tomorrow!  Yay!  Pant…pant…pant.

5.  I tried a piece of bacon in Montana.  I liked it.  My daughter told me I can no longer officially call myself a vegetarian.  I’m a lapsed vegetarian.

6.  Siren sent me congrats yesterday on becoming a PAN-Eligible author, thanks to sales from Captured.  I’m in the news over there and if I had time, I’d do a happy dance!   http://www.sirenbookstrand.com/pan/

7.  We get to look at the puppies early next week!!!  The breeder says there may be three long-coated babies, which we want, and one is a really big male.  Give me those really big males any day!  I do love boys and I miss mine!

8.  After reading Read React Review‘s take on Passion, by Lisa Valdez, my husband wants to know – here’s the question of the day – and if you can answer, you might just receive a copy of one of my books…How does one measure a penis?  From root to tip?  Where do you start your measurement?  LOL!  Only hubby-mine could come up with a question like that!

love, a stressed-out julia

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Have you been watching the World Cup?  I have, along with Susi, The Geeky Bookworm, over in Berlin, Germany!  We’ve watched together, screamed, hooted and hollered, and cheered over google chat.  It’s been great!  Well…except for the United States losing, that is.  Susi and I agree that the vuvuzelas have to go.

Speaking of Germany, an author contacted me about my post on the true identity of Will Shakespeare entitled, The Dark Lady.  Lev Raphael left me this erudite comment regarding the article I quoted:

“It’s a lovely fantasy, but Reform Judaism’s editors should have been more thorough and done some fact checking.  Bassano Lanier was not a Jew, first  of all.  Her mother wasn’t, and there’s no proof whatsoever that her father was.  As for the rest of the story, it’s a lovely fantasy constructed out of half-facts and suppositions and starts from a false premise: Shakespeare couldn’t have written the plays.  This premise took root in the mid 1800s, more than two hundred years after Shakespeare died. That should give people pause.
Interested readers should check out James Shapiro’s “Contested Will,” Irvin Matus’s “Shakespeare in Fact,” and http://www.bibliobuffet.com/book-brunch-columns-322/1304-anyone-but-shakespeare-062010

Mr. Raphael is the author of My Germany.  He’ll be speaking in Berlin this fall.

http://www.levraphael.com
Watch an excerpt of the book at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFhrajH-6AE

Yes, I’d like to think that Shakespeare was a woman – it’s a very romantic notion, ah well…

Thanks to the blog hop, I’ve met some great new book bloggers, like Steph at Fangs, Wands and Fairy Dust.  We’ve been discussing True Blood.  http://fangswandsandfairydust.blogspot.com/

And today I was thrilled to find a new-to-me site, (it’s a long story), Kelly and Five Agents and a Funeral – a name I find hilarious!  http://www.fiveagentsandafuneral.com/

News:  Little by little, I’m doing better.  I’m no longer crying all the time.  I can’t wait to see the puppies, but that won’t be until we get back from ten days in Montana – leaving on Friday.  Author Stacey Espino has had a great week with her new release, Saving Grace.  I think she’s like, um, numero uno over at Siren.  I’m sending many positive thoughts to my friends, authors Regina Carlysle and Paris Brandon who’ve faced some tough personal challenges lately.  All right, going to bed, night.

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Tote it to the beach – it’s big enough to hold a bathing suit, a beach towel, flip-flops, wallet, car keys, three or four bottles of water, sandwiches…or take it to the local super market and bring home a tote full of groceries.  Hey, use it as a carry-on bag -  I guarantee this tote will get you some looks!

Hey…I’m right there in the middle, see?  The cover for My Everything is right there, along with covers by many authors you know – on both sides!  The tote is from cover model, Jimmy Thomas.  He gave a few of these priceless gifts away at RT.  You know you want one.  Even my cat, Yoshi, is hot for this tote!

Here’s all you have to do…comment!  Even better, sign up for my newsletter!  Tell me about your favorite books, (no, they don’t have to be mine!), what genre you like and why, what authors you visit.  Do you like to read a quickie over lunch or do you like a book to cuddle up with at night?  I’d love to know.  I’ll announce the winner on Sunday so stay tuned because I’m going to need your email addy.

Ooh, Yoshi’s brother, Rico, got into the act!  He wants one too!

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To join the fun and make new book blogger friends, just follow these simple rules:

• Follow the Follow My Book Blog Friday Host { Parajunkee.com } and any one else you want to follow on the list
• Put your Blog name & URL in the Linky thing.
• Grab the button up there and place it in a post, this post is for people to find a place to say hi in your comments
• Follow Follow Follow as many as you can
• If someone comments and says they are following you, be a dear and follow back. Spread the Love…and the followers
• If you want to show the link list, just follow the link below the entries and copy and paste it within your post!

Happy Weekend!

This is a Blog Hop! You’re next!

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Here’s an update on our boy.  He’s improved slightly with massive doses of steroids.  We don’t know if this will get him over the hump so he can fight what appears to be more of a viral infection or if the slight improvement is just the steroids talking.  Hubby was man enough to stay up all night with Louie.  I hit the wall yesterday evening and when he got home from work, I was huddled in a corner sobbing and incoherent.  I wish I could be stronger, I mean for Christ’s sake, I’m a hospice nurse, I work with dying people, and I’m really really good at what I do.  You’d think I’d be able to handle this situation.  I suck.  I just suck.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll have better news.  Much love, Julia

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Security consultant Ben McCall is alone. His wife and unborn child are dead, victims of an assassination attempt meant for someone else. Grieving, he disappears. When his best friend is in danger Ben resurfaces, only to find his friend isn’t the target of a murderer, he is.

Grace Adams is one of the walking wounded. Her husband died two years ago. One night she is incapacitated. A man comes to her aid. He’s the man she fell in love with years before, Ben McCall. As the passion between them reignites, Grace too becomes a target of the madman who stalks Ben.

Yes, this is a romance/suspense, but it’s also a sweet story.  I fell so in love with Ben and Grace and had such compassion for their struggles that I did something I will probably never do again, I wrote them an epilogue – I wanted everything to come out right in the end.  Like Job, who got back what he’d lost, I wanted to give my characters back everything they’d lost in their lives.

Thanks to Cris Griffin, cover artist extraordinaire over at Cobblestone Press and Jimmy Thomas, a major hot cover model, I got the above gorgeous cover.  The book is available at Cobblestone and it’s just been listed on Fictionwise.

http://www.cobblestone-press.com/catalog/books/myeverything.htm

http://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/b110090/My-Everything/Julia-Barrett/?

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When we moved here, we had three kids, a dog, two smuggled pet mice (Chocolate was one of them, along with his wife, Skunky), a beat up old couch, my grandmother’s dining room table, bookcases of all shapes, sizes and colors, and books.

Over the years, we’ve accumulated more…books!  Along with the usual assorted kid games, sports gear, clothing, uniforms, cleats, National Geographic Magazines…you shoulda seen me lying on my stomach using a fishing net to haul all the soccer gear and elementary school year books out from under my daughter’s bed.  I don’t even want to mention what else I found.

So, what science needs to figure out is, just like that old Monsanto ride at Disneyland, how did all this stuff shrink to fit in my kids’ rooms?  Because when I pack it up all neat and tidy in brand new packing boxes, the stuff from the smallest room alone covers nearly every square inch of my garage.  Most of the boxes contain books and magazines.

Lest you think we live in a house filled to the rafters with garbage, nope, not the case.  I’m not a pack rat and I recycle.  That’s why I don’t get it.  Where did all this stuff come from?  Who squeezed it in here when I wasn’t looking?

I’m dividing books into categories:  Forever keepers.  For now keepers.  Each kid keepers.  Those that someone will ooh and aah over several generations from now keepers.  Donations – OMG – I’ve already made six trips to the library and I have to return again tomorrow morning – I foresee many more trips in my future, believe me.

So that’s what I’ve been doing – reorganizing one room after another.  Four more rooms to go.  The end game?  A place to call my own.  Yes…fist pump!

Okay so, other news.  Just finished reading So Much for That, by Lionel Shriver.  The last two chapters were beautiful, the rest of the book not so much.  Not a keeper.  I’m starting Cutting for Stone, by Abraham Verghese.  I hear the book is magnificent, but Under Heaven, by Guy Gavriel Kay, is a very tough act to follow.

I’m super excited about my new contract for the menage, All Four One – that means I’ll have three books out this summer and possibly another by fall.  In the meantime, when I’m not packing boxes and cleaning rooms, I can focus on my three longer WIPs.  I noticed that My Everything has just gone up on Fictionwise.  Fingers crossed!  Night all!

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The Sawtooth Mountains near Stanley, Idaho, may be one of my very favorite places on this planet.  At one point in my life, I spent a solid two months backpacking throughout the range.  I descended into the tiny town of Stanley exactly twice, both times to do three things: take a hot shower, wash some clothes and pick up supplies.  In the two months I spent in that wilderness, aside from my traveling companion, I encountered a total of three people, the ranger we checked in with from time to time, and two riders heading up into the mountains on horseback.  Otherwise it was just the animals and us.  After a while, I never wanted to come out.  But then the snows arrived early and our cached supplies dwindled and we moved on to the the High Uintas in Utah for another month before settling into jobs in Ogden.

I’m remembering the Sawtooths, not just because of Anytime Darlin’, but because the June issue of Sunset Magazine has a feature on The Hidden Rockies, the Idaho Sawtooths.

http://www.sunset.com/travel/rockies/things-to-do-sawtooth-mountains-00418000067836/

Enjoy the article and if you ever get the opportunity, make a visit.  The Sawtooths are way prettier and much more rugged than they appear in the magazine photos.

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Captured has come out in print on Amazon!  Yay!  This makes me really, really happy.  I can’t wait to get my own copy.  There’s something about seeing a book, holding a book, smelling a book, opening a book that just feels good!

http://www.amazon.com/Captured-Publishing-Classic-Rachel-Barrett/dp/1606018582/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1275021374&sr=8-2

The book can also be purchased for your Kindle, if you’ve got one!  http://www.amazon.com/Captured-Siren-Publishing-Classic-ebook/dp/B00371V7WO/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2

Beauty and the Feast is a bestseller on Fictionwise and all it’s outlets.  This so takes me by surprise!  I’m in good company – Tessie Bradford and Desiree Holt – author friends – are there with me.  http://www.fictionwise.com/topstories.htm

It’s also available for Kindle.  http://www.amazon.com/Beauty-and-the-Feast-ebook/dp/B003NX70QS/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1275021641&sr=8-2

SusiSunshine over at the Geeky Bookworm invited me to post for her anniversary week – you can win an e-copy of Beauty and the Feast or Captured or My Everything.  http://thegeekybookworm.blogspot.com/2010/05/guestpost-by-julia-rachel-barrett.html Susi will be announcing the winners on Sunday so you have plenty of time to leave a comment!

So…coming soon with Resplendence Publishing:  Daughters of Persephone, Book One Exile and Book Two Return.

Coming with Siren:  Anytime Darlin’ – my favorite romance-suspense.

Ya’ll have an excellent weekend!

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