Author: Elizabeth Bass (Liz Ireland)

Giving away stuff on my Facebook page today. Tell me your favorite vacation spot for a chance to win a gift certificate or free books!

I’ve gotten great reader feedback so far, which is gratifying. Also nice to see a great notice in a newspaper.  (And to know that newspapers are still reviewing books!)

http://www.yourhoustonnews.com/courier/living/article_5c75e2ca-f936-56d3-ba1a-f144e6bd5bda.html

I’m doing a giveaway of three free copies of Wherever Grace Is Needed on my Facebook page.  Visit and name your favorite or least favorite 70s band/singer for a chance to win!

Wherever Grace Is Needed is coming out tomorrow, and on the eve of its release, a really nice review appeared at Chicklit Plus.

Also, this excerpt appeared at RT Book Reviews: http://www.rtbookreviews.com/rt-daily-blog/extended-excerpt-elizabeth-bass-wherever-grace-needed

This is the official paperback release day for Miss You Most of All. To celebrate, I’m having a giveaway on my Facebook page. Name your favorite Hepburn and win a $25 Amazon gift certificate!

I’m up and running again after a health snafu. Thanks to my friend Berit, I spent my post-operative recuperative time lost in George RR Martin’s Song of Fire and Ice books. Game of Thrones is worth reading, even if fantasy isn’t your thing. Whether you decide to be absorbed further into the madness after that is up to you.

I also caught up on Downton Abbey. I just love Maggie Smith!  This clip contains one of my favorite Maggie moments:

This weekend I finished Val McDermid’s latest, Fever of the Bone. Absorbing, gruesome, and suspenseful, as always. Plus, the characters developed in ways that surprised me. After reading the last line, I already couldn’t wait for the next installment in the Tony Hill/Carol Jordan saga.  The American edition of this one features one of the worst covers of the series, however. What were they thinking?

This morning I was sad to read about layoffs at Powell’s Books in Portland. Powell’s was my go-to place for used book buying when I lived in Oregon. On their shelves I could always count on finding the out-of-print Dorothy B. Hughes mystery I was looking for, or a reasonably priced copy of the next Anthony Trollope on my list (there’s always a next one). They have a great website that is worth looking into if you are buying used or new books.

From their press releases, it sounds as if profits are sinking for new book sales. I hope they will find a way to piggyback the ebook revolution.

This week I turned in Runaway Christmas, a holiday novella that will appear in a Christmas collection from Kensington entitled Making Spirits Bright. The other authors are Fern Michaels, Rosalind Noonan, and Nan Parson Rossiter. Runaway is a sequel to Miss You Most of All.

And it’s already available for pre-order on Amazon!  Hey, we’re halfway through January. October’s just around the corner…

Last year was a fantastic year. I got to do a bit of traveling, including visiting with relatives in Virginia and Alabama who I hadn’t seen for a while, was able to help with the launch of Carina Press as a freelance editor, and saw the publication of my first book in hardcover.

So far, 2011 is shaping up to be even better.  My next book, Wherever Grace Is Needed, is going to be released at the end of May, and I have a story in a holiday collection from Kensington that will include a novella from Fern Michaels. Runaway Christmas, a story I’m finishing this week, features some of the characters from Miss You Most of All. It’s been fun visiting with them again.

I don’t know about you, but I love January.  I love having a new year to work with–it’s like a blank slate.  I always draw up a reading list for the coming year–a list that usually gets ignored in favor of spur-of-the-moment reads–and a few resolutions.  (And yes, I have on occasion followed through on them!)  This year my favorite resolution is to kick my knitting skills up a notch and attempt to knit something more complicated than a scarf.  I’m searching for the world’s easiest sweater pattern.  I know it’s out there somewhere!