Start 2010 with Places to Find Pitch Dark :D

Pitch Dark, my debut novel of Romantic Suspense, is available in both e-book and paperback formats in many places for your convenience. The updated book trailer is on YouTube  for your viewing pleasure :)

Paperback is available at
Cerridwen Press

Barnes & Noble

Amazon USA

Book Depository USA

Alibris USA

Amazon Canada

Amazon UK

Eruditor Low Cost Book Store in the UK for £13.95

Amazon Germany/Austria

Amazon France

Booktopia Australia

Fishpond Australia Australasia's Biggest Online Bookstore for $34.97 AUD

Eden Terrace in New Zealand for $NZD34.12

Libreria Universitaria Italy

Ebook is available at:
Cerridwen Press

Amazon Kindle for $9.99

Pitch Dark has been receiving great reviews:

RT Book Reviews Magazine, November 2009 issue, gave Pitch Dark an impressive 4 out of 5 stars, saying "This story has the perfect mix of romance and suspense, with plenty of twists to hold your interest. London has created two strong-willed and passionate characters. Connor and Alyssa strike sparks off each other whether they're fighting or making up."

Night Owl Romance, Reviewer Melinda, gave Pitch Dark its Reviewer Top Pick designation, saying, "Pitch Dark was an awesome read from beginning to ending. I loved the whole suspense, betrayal and lies twisting in the book.

The attraction between Connor and Alyssa was great. You can tell they both are afraid to love because of their pasts but man the heat between them is explosive. Even the grandfather in the book was great to read. His attempts of matchmaking will really make you smile. This is the first I have read of Brooke London and it won’t be the last. Brooke London knows her men, action and how to create chemistry between her characters. All of that just makes her books worth reading.

Joyfully Reviewed said, "I thought that Alyssa and Connor were the perfect foil for the other, being so different. I just loved learning new things about both of them that enhanced their personalities. While the sparking passion and corky humor would have kept my attention, it was the thrilling suspense that kept me turning the pages to discover just what would come next. If having espionage, betrayal, spies and danger along with your romance has you grabbing for a story as it does me, then Pitch Dark is a must read for you."

Madame Butterfly gave Pitch Dark an 'A' grading, saying "Pitch Dark is one of the best romantic suspense novels I’ve read in a while. There’s a nice easy flow to Brooke London’s writing style and from this book, she has an ability to write well rounded, complex characters while keeping them from coming across as stereotypical and stale. Her ability to slowly build up on the plot and keep the tension going at just the right pace is just as fine. I’ll definitely be looking out for more of her books.
Sex rating: Crotchless panty- the sexual situations are written with a lot of intensity and passion, but with soft, non graphic, sensual language. This is not an erotic romance on that level. Still, very spicy though."

Literary Nymphs gave Pitch Dark a 4 out of a possible 5 Nymphs: "An impressive read. Quality literature, recommended for anyone who enjoys the genre." The reviewer noted, "Pitch Dark is a good suspense story...I did not want to put it down."

New Year, New Directions

Yes, it is that time of year yet again—December 31st, New Years Eve. The night when one and all are supposed to party like it’s 1999. But like Christmas, New Year’s Eve has lost a lot of the sparkle as I have become older. Quite honestly, I’m probably going to be in bed and hopefully asleep by 10:30pm. And when I wake up, it’ll be 2010.

Crap, 2010??? How the hell did that happen? Through all the good and the bad, time marches on. What happened to being 21? What happened to traveling around the world just because? I’m hardly in my dotage but responsibilities tend to take precedence over being footloose and fancy-free. That said, I still take risks and try new things.

2009 was an eventful year for me, I got published, for the first time/hopefully not the last time, and divorced, hopefully the only time, on the same day. How many people can say that? Between these two events, I’ve managed to keep busy and stay relatively sane. Not completely sane because, honestly, that would be boring. ☺ I received a Rising Star award from my publisher, which I am now looking at on my bookshelf. Not a bad start for a first time published author. I learned how to use Photoshop fairly well (the light version, the full version is out of my price range). I updated my blog today with new graphics and a new color scheme/look, which I’m quite pleased with. Always room for improvement though.

Just over a year ago, I was invited to be a member of a great critique group of ten people who keep me on my toes and offer loads of encouragement / support / advice / information, both personal and professional. And this year, I discovered how truly valuable my group is. Ladies, I love you lots! If you’re a writer, a critique partner/group you trust is invaluable. The women in my group are great – not a wilting flower amongst them. We all have strong opinions and strengths and a great synergy has been created. We’ve connected both as writers and as women (hear us roar – LOL!!).

Not everything has been great but such is life. I’ve learned from my mistakes and my difficulties. I know they, whoever they are, say that difficulties build character but I think I have enough character now, Universe, so please lay off just a bit ☺. I am in a much better mental space now than I was in a year ago at this time. My emotions have settled, I’ve settled into my home, I’ve settled into a routine, I’ve settled somewhat into my life. All of which makes me feel, well, more settled overall.

I don’t make New Year’s resolutions on principle but this year, I am going to make a few.
1. Become a terrific photographer
2. Get my second book finished (I’ve got 11 days to go) and published.
3. Restart and finish my third book (a paranormal romantic suspense) which I’ve been itching to get back to for a while.
4. Find a great agent.
5. Put together a course on the different aspects of writing novels. I have a different way of setting things up that I’m pretty sure no one else uses.
6. Meditate daily.
7. Exercise daily to get the creative juices running.
8. Complete my morning pages every day (see Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way).
9. Live consciously and be happy.

So the past year has been one of leaving my past behind and starting to look to the future. 2010 will be the year when I consolidate the gains I’ve made in 2009. I’m looking forward to this year. The shackles have been shaken off and I’m ready to fly. I’ll see you in the sky. ☺

The Undomestic Goddess

I have never in my life claimed to be a “domestic goddess”, unlike the many people who write cookbooks or give tips and tricks to the hopeful on how to fold fitted bed sheets properly. Growing up, domesticity wasn’t really a big thing for me (okay, I can hear my mother laughing hysterically at that gross understatement). Don’t get me wrong, my mother tried and, I think, for the most part she succeeded admirably with my sisters, both of whom cook and pull off domesticity very well. Me, well, not so much.

When I first moved to Toronto, my younger sister and I lived here for a while in the city. I remember she came over to my place once and for some reason she was looking through my cupboards, probably to help me cook something. She turned to me in amazement and said, “You have no canned goods, no staples! How can you cook with no canned goods?” I think my answer was, “Um, cook???”

She used to go through cabbage roll phases – I’d go over to her place, which would be permeated with the smell of cabbage, and she’d have multiple pans filled with cabbage rolls, cooked and ready to go into the freezer or for lunches or dinner. An organized domestic goddess even in her early 20s.

My older sister married young and had three kids out on an acreage. She would plant these huge vegetable gardens, bake bread every day it seemed. Make loads of pies and freeze them. Those kids ate well. She’d put on these huge holiday feasts for a zillion relatives and friends. Another organized domestic goddess early on.

And me, well … I watched Oprah many years ago when Martha Stewart appeared on her show. Martha showed Oprah how to fold a fitted bed sheet. And, I swear, I tried to fold a fitted bed sheet into a nice, even, neat square. On the tenth try, I balled up the sheet into a messy roll and shoved it into the linen closet.

Baking is fairly straightforward but I seldom get the urge to bake. Cooking seems to be a lost art for me. I don’t think I got the domestic gene that apparently my sisters got. But I can’t blame genetics. My interest in the domestic side of life is sadly lacking – I just don’t care enough to be domestic. I wish I had more domestic interests. I’m one of the few women I know who hates decorating. Every woman I know seems to be a decorating maniac, changing the decor with the seasons. I moved into an apartment once and someone asked me if I was going to paint the walls to something other than white. I said, “No, I like white.” I don’t notice these things, never have.

I’d rather be doing almost anything other than domestic stuff – writing, reading, watching tv, going out, anything but. In a perfect world, I’d have a maid and a chef, but as I haven’t won the lottery, it is up to me to at least try to be somewhat competent domestically.

And the really strange thing? I love cookbooks. I love cooking stores. I love cooking implements. I just don’t love cooking. Or baking. Or decorating. I manage to keep my place clean for the most part. It’s not that I’m incapable. I can follow recipes in cookbooks and get the correct result. Mostly. I’m just not interested. Which is why I’m eternally grateful to have a double side grill press – I can grill everything year around. And it takes me five minutes to make dinner – perfect for someone who can’t be bothered.

If I have people over for dinner, I can actually cook fairly well. At least no one has died yet and I’ve had no complaints. I think it’s easier to get motivated to be domestic if other people count on one being domestic. Like a parent. Or a spouse – but the cooking should be shared – or have one person cook and the other person clean, just to equitably distribute the tedium.

Maybe the issue is that my head has always been elsewhere than at home. I work at home but I’m not AT home. I’m thinking of plots, sub-plots, characters, politics, world events, science, psychology and human behavior, quantum mechanics (although not so much anymore), the state of the world and society, and information technology. And romance fiction. It’s a real hodge-podge of interests and none of them include anything in the domestic sphere. You’d think that I’d at least appreciate baking more because that is based on chemistry.

I think I tried for so long during my disastrous marriage to be a domestic person that now I feel like running screaming from the kitchen if I’m required to make anything that takes more than six minutes. Ten minutes at the outside. Square-peg-in-a-round-hole syndrome.

I still don’t keep canned goods. I still can’t fold a fitted bed sheet. I still don’t like cooking. I’ll never be Julia Child or Nigella Lawson or Martha Stewart (but that last one is probably a good thing – no pun intended - as she is a veritable menace to women everywhere by insisting that one should only use kosher salt, fresh eggs from your own chicken coop and being a perfectionist without mentioning that she has a huge staff to do all this stuff for her 24 hours a day). Women have enough to feel inadequate about without someone telling us we need to keep an immaculate home, cook and bake everything from scratch and do everything to perfection. Why doesn’t anyone tell men to do this? But I digress. Sorry. ☺

I guess the point is, I get on well enough by keeping my kitchen and domestic adventures to a minimum. It works for me. I start cooking and the smoke alarm goes off. The universe is telling me, unequivocally, to be an undomestic, unconventional goddess.

And I can live with that.

A Banner Day for Pitch Dark!

I am having a banner day today! Pitch Dark is now available on Amazon USA, Canada, UK, Germany / Austria and France AND the Barnes & Noble websites! Excited bouncing happening here!! Select the links below to take you to the website of your choice :) Discounts from the list price are available at some sites.

Barnes & Noble

Amazon USA

Amazon Canada

Amazon UK

Amazon Germany/Austria

Amazon France

WOW!!

Wonderful review of Pitch Dark in RT Book Reviews magazine, November 2009 issue!

PITCH DARK received a fantastic four out of five star rating from RT Book Reviews magazine! I am thrilled to death with the review - my first attempt at fiction got published and landed four stars out of the gate with a well-recognized and well-respected voice in romantic fiction. Thank you to reviewer Barb Anderson!

RT Rating:
Category: ROMANTIC SUSPENSE
Publisher: CERRIDWEN
Type: Romantic Suspense

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This story has the perfect mix of romance and suspense, with plenty of twists to hold your interest. London has created two strong-willed and passionate characters. Connor and Alyssa strike sparks off each other whether they're fighting or making up.

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Summary: Former intelligence operative Connor Donnelly, now the CEO and president of Energy Unlimited, has been negotiating a co-venture between his company and a company owned by Douglas Tiernan. Douglas' granddaughter, Alyssa, wants to protect her grandfather's interests and offers to meet with Connor at his headquarters in Colorado.

Alyssa and Connor are wary of each other but also very attracted. When their lives are threatened, they are thrown into a world of espionage and terrorism, and Connor and Alyssa will have to combine their skills to stay alive. (CERRIDWEN, Jun., 349 pp., $18.99) HOT

—Barb Anderson

The HOT rating means: Most romantic fiction falls into this category. Ranges from conventional love making to explicit sex.

The Four Star Rating: Compelling. A Page Turner.

Yay!! Got it right the first time and it'll only get better from here!

No Man’s Land

I think most men today are feeling under siege due to the upheavals in society in the last fifty years or so. And in a way, I think it’s time for everyone to change how he or she reacts to and perceives the opposite sex.

It used to be that, generally, women stayed home with the kids, protecting and nurturing hearth and home, while their men went out to slay the dragon (or protect his family against threats, physical and economic) everyday to bring home the spoils for his family. Everyone had a role and life was simpler because everyone generally knew what their role was.

Of course, nothing stays the same and abuse of authority, whether by governments or individuals, leads to revolutions and rebellions to erase the perceived and/or real inequities.

From the beginning of time, women were viewed a chattels, like a cow or a goat, from which children and service were extracted. Sometimes the chattels were loved and respected and sometimes they weren’t. And then there was always the argument as to gender superiority. Since bigger is ostensibly better (witness all those teenage boys with a penchant for measuring things), women lost out and, it was presumed, declared inferior to men.

The problem is men and women are now so busy pointing fingers at each other to assign blame for everything that we’ve lost sight of what we’re trying to accomplish. I can hardly blame a living man for all the wrong men have done in the history of the world. Just as women cannot be held accountable for all the wrong women have done.

What I don’t understand, and don’t know how to fix, is why do we have to point fingers at all? Why can’t we just work with what we have and do our best? In the past fifties years, the cultural and social pendulum has swung from “Father Knows Best” to “Everyone Loves Raymond”—from benevolent, wise man to idiotic man, while women have gone from brainless doormats to mistresses of their own domain. Just look at the sit-coms. The woman is the smart, insightful character while the man bumbles around and learns something by the end of the show. Have any of these depictions been accurate? No.

I don’t know one man who hasn’t had their head handed to them on a platter because they opened a door for a woman. The woman invariably feels indignant that a man thinks she’s not capable of opening a door. Unless one is disabled, most people are capable of opening doors. So it’s not a reflection on the capability of the woman, but the manners of the man. Hell, if someone opens a door for me I say, “thank you”— I also open doors for other people. Big deal. Why would I get upset over someone opening a door for me? I know I can open the door. He knows I can open the door. But someone taught this man that opening a door for a woman is simple courtesy. So THANK YOU. Any woman who reacts badly to having a door open really needs to take a look at her priorities and possibly go for therapy.

Some women, and I see this all the time, will walk through a door that a man has opened and not even said “thank you” to the guy, not even smile at the guy. These women have really, really poor manners— obviously no one taught them about common courtesy.

But I digress. Sorry, pet peeve.

So, we’re on a pendulum that was stuck on the guys’ end forever and now that swinging bob has swung more onto the gals’ end. And some people think that somehow reverse discrimination should be SOP for righting all the wrongs done to women by men. We have affirmative action programs, not only for women but also for anyone who isn’t a white male.

Well, excuse me, but I am perfectly capable of getting a degree/diploma and a job in a male dominated field all by myself. But really, am I?

Affirmative action programs and the like are part of a massive social engineering experiment. I don’t know about your country, but in Canada in 1965, approximately 65% of men and around 38% of women smoked. The Canadian government knew that smoking cigarettes caused major health problems and death. So they embarked on a massive social engineering experiment to get people to stop smoking or to not start smoking. Forty-four years later, something like 20% of all people in Canada smoke—that’s a huge drop of around one percent per year since 1965. It took nearly half a century to get attitudes towards smoking to change. But change it did.

If I hadn’t been a beneficiary of feminism, I probably would not have ended up with a business degree, and I would probably not have received a diploma in computer science. Nor would I be competing with men, based on merit alone, for jobs in a male-dominated field like information technology. Feminism has allowed me to do things that were not generally approved of for women forty or fifty years ago. Any woman today that says she is not a feminist is a hypocrite, because feminism that has given women choices.

Unfortunately, the way feminism has been proposed and practiced has sort of screwed everyone over and left many of us, okay…me, wondering what my role is. There is this ‘thing’ in feminism that resulted in the Superwoman syndrome. Hey, we’re women, we can have it ALL: we can have an education, careers, kids, a man (but really that’s optional), do all the housework, do all the cooking, nurture and teach your children and still be a sex kitten at night. Are you kidding me?? We’re freaking exhausted trying to have it all, do it all. And men? They don’t know what to do. Feminism has sloppily re-defined what it is to be female but has not held out an olive branch to men at all. Men are the ENEMY.

According to http://www.chivalrynow.net/,

“In America, we shy away from defining manhood as if the very subject were taboo. After a long history of unwarranted violence and discrimination, men are being taught from birth that they automatically carry an inheritance of guilt for past sins. We make sure that no male child slips by without taking his share. Each of us is expected to bear the guilt of our forefathers along with a personal stigma for simply being male. We are told in a thousand different ways, either in silence or in the commercial media, that there is something inherently wrong with being a man.

The intent is clear. We do not want today's men repeating the crimes of the past. The hope seems to be that by tearing us from any sense of cultural identity the world can move toward greater harmony. More guilt and less pride make for a calmer species. Women and minorities will be treated better. The demise of Western male dominance might even bring an end to war.

Such conclusions are dangerously simplistic. We cannot excise the cultural identity of half the population like a cancer and replace it with nothing. Doing so sends our entire cultural evolution into a tailspin, leaving a psychic void that can only lead to disaster.

The results are all around us — a population of boys and men searching for who they are and how they fit in. No road map, no gender specific guidelines, no rite-of-passage — not even an articulated goal. Finding no guidance at all, many turn to whatever distraction is available, be it entertainment, business, sports or narcotics. Or they just give up.”

This is no way to run a society, no way to run a world, where half the population is mad about the past and the other half is mad about the present. We need to turn a page in male/female relations. We’re at war with each other. And there are no winners, only losers in this conflict.

And I don’t know how to fix it. The only fix would be to celebrate both the masculine and feminine without referring to the “other” as evil or depraved or stupid or weak or inferior. But people are not perfect, understanding is never perfect, we don’t even understand our motivations and ourselves for the most part. It all stews beneath the surface, waiting for the next inciting incident to tip off the next round of skirmishes.

It plays out on the world stage and on a personal stage every single day. We’ve created an enormous no-man’s land between men and women. Somehow we have to figure out how to bridge this gulf. And we all need to contribute, need to be open to different viewpoints and come up with a happy medium, where everyone compromises.

Yeah, dream on. Sighhhh.

Older Men and Flirting

The other day, I was sitting in a large mall waiting to meet someone. As is normal for me, I was early. I'm always early - it's like a disease :). Anyway, I sat down with a coffee to wait for this person, my laptop open on the table (also like a disease - needing my laptop near) and kept one eye out for the other person to arrive.

A man approached me - he must have been somewhere in his late 70s, maybe early 80s - and he complimented me on my outfit and jewelry and said something flattering about my appearance. I managed to say "thank you", smiled at him and he went on his way. I guess I must have looked suitably surprised because the couple at the table next to me laughed and the woman said, "That would make any woman's day." I laughed, agreed with her and the couple left.

And I had to wonder if that man had been nearer to my age, would I have wondered what he was after? Probably. Suspicion factor would be built in for a younger man in the same situation. But older men can do this sort of thing without seeming sleazy. My own father does this type of thing - I've seen him do it numerous times. Nothing lascivious or inappropriate, just friendly.

I think much older men know that approaching a younger woman with a compliment won't result in an insult or a put-down. I knew he wasn't being disingenuous - he was just being nice.

But a man nearer to my age doing the same thing? All my radar would have sprouted up, looking for any signs, however minute, that he was less than sincere. I'm a suspicious person, always have been. Very few men my own age approach me - I think I broadcast "don't come near me" signals, which is close enough to the truth. And I've been known to be oblivious to men - I don't notice them unless they approach me, as this older gentleman did. I do know a physically attractive man when I see one - I register the information and then I forget about it. What is attractive to me is a man who is friendly, intelligent, trust-worthy and nice. Appearance doesn't count for much unless the person would need to have their front window removed and a crane to lift them to an ambulance - that, I would have a problem with.

So, I guess the question becomes, at what age does a man need to be in order to approach an unknown woman, give a compliment and not be perceived negatively? Or is it an age thing at all? Maybe it's more of an attitude thing. I would like to think that I could differentiate between a genuine compliment and a disingenuous one.

Or maybe, it's just as well that I'm not looking for that "special someone" at this point. I'm saving the entire half of the single population for the time being :). Yes, I think that's the way I'll look at it.