I won!

I love winning things. :) I especially love winning things not yet released to the general public. Bwa ha ha!!!

I've won Crimes of Paris from the lovely Samantha at Sam's Book Blog. She has fantastic reviews over there and giveaways, clearly, so go check it out. ;)

The book is a true crime story about the theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre. Check out this description:

Turn-of-the-century Paris was the beating heart of a rapidly changing world. Painters, scientists, revolutionaries, poets--all were there. But so, too, were the shadows: Paris was a violent, criminal place, its sinister alleyways the haunts of Apache gangsters and its cafes the gathering places of murderous anarchists. In 1911, it fell victim to perhaps the greatest theft of all time--the taking of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre. Immediately, Alphonse Bertillon, a detective world-renowned for pioneering crime-scene investigation techniques, was called upon to solve the crime. And quickly the Paris police had a suspect: a young Spanish artist named Pablo Picasso....

Should be good times. If I can bring myself to part with it, I'll hold my own giveaway for it here when I'm all done.

And now... off to whip chapter 8 of Lamplight into shape. It's this looming black hole in the middle of my manuscript. I've written way past it, but just can't connect the dots in this one area. I hate that. And I'm not a note carder or story boarder. The oh so wise Kimber An was just talking about how she thinks in pictures and I've wondered if that's an easier way to hold a novel in your head. I think in words (which I suppose makes some sense for a writer) - and emotions. I can feel a scene, I can hear the words, but I sometimes have no idea what anyone looks like and any sort of graphical means of organizing scenes just drives me crazy.

And so I plod on.