The Book of her Heart

Often people ask me which one of my books I like the best. That’s a really hard question for a writer to answer. To begin with, I’m the first to admit that I am a terrible judge of my own writing. The books I turn in to my editor that I think are perfect inevitable end up being the ones we do big revisions on. While the ones that I think need some work end up being perfect. Go figure. It’s only after the reviews start pouring in can I really tell whether I’ve written a star or a stinker.

Secondly, our books are kind of like our children. It feels wrong to rate one above another. We love them all equally.

But, having said that, I will say that most authors I know (myself included) do have a Book-of-our-Heart. This is the one that we just had to write. The story that had to be told. The message that was more distinctly personal to us than any other. For me, my Book-of-my-Heart is one that I wrote when I was unpublished, just before starting Spying in High Heels. It’s about four good friends living in Las Vegas, and, oddly enough, contains no mystery at all. It’s just about the intertwined experiences of four people trying to find themselves at different stages of their lives. Which sounds really heavy, but it’s actually written as a total comedy. This was my book that won the Golden Heart (the RWA award for unpublished writer), and, despite the fact that it was never published, I still just love it.

A friend of mine, and fellow Romance Diva, recently had the Book-of-her-Heart release. Jennifer Haymore’s, A Touch of Scandal, came out this past month. I know Jennifer was really excited about seeing this story finally hit the shelves, and, purely as a reader, I was, too! Unfortunately, tragedy hit Jennifer just as the book was about to release. She was diagnosed with breast cancer. Craptastical timing. Not that there is ever at time when you want to hear the word “cancer”, but what should have been an exciting time of celebration has become a time of surgeries, treatments, and doctor visits.

Luckily, Jennifer has a great sense of humor, a great sense of strength, and she will get through this. (Hear that, Jennifer? You WILL!) So, while Jennifer is kicking cancer’s butt, all of her friends are going to be spreading the word about the Book-of-her-Heart, A Touch of Scandal. Read it, love it, and, if you have the time, drop Jennifer a line to let her know how the book of her heart touched yours.

Hugs, Jenn!!


~Trigger Happy Halliday