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August ’11 Lady Jane’s Salon

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We’re back from the July break, rested up and restored after The RWA Conference and ready to go with another fab Lady Jane’s Salon.

The August Salon welcomes five fabulous guest readers. Returning to the Salon stage: Dee Davis, Mingmei Yip, and Janet Mullany. Appearing for the first time will be Kathleen O’Reilly and Ken Salikof W/A Maxine Kenneth.

The deets: 7-9PM at Madame X. $5 admission (or one gently-used paperback romance). Cash bar.

Hope you can join us.

For a recap of June’s star-studded Special Salon Event, check out the Salon blog.

Beer Gardens NYC & TV JAPAN

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As many of you know from your lovely support both past and present, last fall I ventured into the app front with the release of my first iPhone app, Beer Gardens NYC.

Co-created with my partner, Raj Moorjani, Beer Gardens NYC is a guide to more than 50 NYC beer gardens by borough, neighborhood and beers. The 2.0 version, released in April, integrates Foursquare, GPS functionality and other techno bells & whistles along with enriched curated content.

Recently TV JAPAN contacted us to be part of their segment on NYC beer gardens! ((Note: pausing to catch breath yet again)). This 24/7 Japanese language news and entertainment broadcast reaches viewers in both the U.S. and Canada.

The segment aired on July 9th. (We’re the lead story!). Raj did a fab job in the interview, waxing not only enthusiastic but knowledgeable about the NYC beer garden scene and bonus, the producers included his short demo of the app. Enjoy!

Happy Bastille Day

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July 14th is Bastille Day, the day set aside for celebrating French independence, or the day Parisians stormed The Bastille, that bastion of l’Ancien Regime. No more Lettres de Cachet, no more near feudal era serfdom, no more aristocrats hoarding all the good food and wine.

I’ll be lifting a glass of champers to my happy place of Paris later today as well as to J’ai lu, my Paris-based publisher of La Rose de Mayfair.

Wherever you are, enjoy!

A la prochaine,

Hope

 

 

 

Happy Independence Day Weekend

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Last Monday’s Super Special Lady Jane’s Salon was that (and more), the national Romance Writers of America Conference here in NYC was one of the best ever, and now we’re coming up on a long–and hopefully leisurely–holiday weekend.

Ahhh…

Look for video and a brief recap of Lady Jane’s coming soon. For now…

Happy Fourth o’ July!

Hope

 

 

 

Super Special Lady Jane’s Salon 6/27 (aka Tonight!)

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We’re dubbing tonight’s Lady Jane’s Salon as “Super Special” and those are not words that we at Lady Jane’s use lightly.

This month we’re departing from our otherwise sacrosanct first Monday of the month time slot to welcome attendees of The Romance Writers of America (RWA) Conference to the Big Apple.

To kick off the conference in high style, we’re also adding an hour to the event (7-10PM) to accommodate our extended program of six great guest readers: Sarah MacLean, Leanna Renee Hieber (Salon Co-Founder), Karen Rose, Carrie Lofty, Diana Love Snell, and Eloisa James!

Read all about it on the Lady Jane Salon website.

Other deets remain the same: Madame X (Top Bar), $5 or one gently used romance novel as admission to benefit a NYC women’s charity, and cash bar (with $5 specialty cocktails).

So, if you’re in town for RWA, or just in town, join us!

Hope

May Contest Winner

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With travel companions at the Hotel Villa Cipriani, Asolo, Italy.

Congratulations to my May contest winner, Sherry B of Tyrone, PA. Sherry’s prize, a signed copy of Strokes of Midnight is en route to her “as we speak.”

My regular monthly contest will go on hiatus for June-August. That said, throughout the summer I’ll be running several contests here on my blog. Check here and look for winner announcements on Facebook/HopeTarr and Twitter @HopeTarr.

Ciao, bellas.

Back from Italy, April Contest Winner & Lady Jane’s

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In the garden, Hotel Villa Cipriani, Asolo.

So I’m back from Italy–Venice, the Veneto (Venetian countryside, specifically the foothills below The Dolomites) and Florence. In the course of my two weeks away, I went on some incredible hikes, saw lovely Palladian architecture actually designed by Palladio, and ate and drank my way through many a long, lazy lunch and even longer, lazier dinner. (Did I mention the white asparagus was in season)?

Civilized midday and evening meals always begin with an apperitivo. Sigh!

In case you can’t tell, I had a bellissima time. 🙂

Gradually I’m getting back into the proverbial swing of things, diving into the vortex of the crazy eclectic hodgepodge of energy that is New York City. As much as I miss my afternoon glass of prosecco–so civilized–and my post dinner “digestivo” of grappa (Northern Italy) or limoncello (Southern Italy), regular reality has a good deal going for it, too.

For one thing, I get to announce my April contest winner. Susan B of Marion, Iowa, come on down! Your signed copy of Strokes of Midnight is making its way to you “as we speak.”

For those who didn’t win, no worries. I’ll be announcing May’s winner on Wednesday, June 1st, so there’s plenty of time to enter. Visit my contest page for the deets.

Last but never least, the June 27th Lady Jane’s Salon will welcome out-of-town and local authors attending the Romance Writers of America’s annual national conference here in  NYC with seven super returning and new guest readers, including first-time Salon guest, the incomparable Eloisa James. See the complete list of guest authors at the Salon blog site and please note the change in date (June 27th, which is the 3rd Monday of the month) and time (7-10PM, an extra hour of romance goodness!) for this month only. We’ll skip the July Salon and resume our regular first Monday of the month, 7-9 PM schedule starting August 1st.

On the "old bridge" in Bassano del Grappa.

Until next time…

Ciao & Happy Trails,

Hope

 

 

 

April Contest Update

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Tomorrow I’m off to Italy, if not the land of milk and honey, arguably the land of two of my favorite things: olives and wine.

April 30th is also the date my April contest at HopeTarr.com closes. The cutoff for randomly selecting the winner is 12 midnight ET. Only I won’t be here.

Sooooo, I will pick and announce April’s winner two weeks from now when I’ve returned from the trip. In the interim, the May contest will run as planned from May 1st through the 31st. I hope you’ll take two ticks and enter to win a signed copy of Strokes of Midnight. For now…

Ciao, bellas!

Hope

 

Lirez-vous la langue d’amour?

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Vanquished, the first book in my Men of Roxbury House trilogy, released in France today! Retitled La Rose de Mayfair (literally: The Rose of Mayfair), the book has a fresh new cover to go with the re-imagined name.

And yes, mes amies, the book is in French!

Arguable French isn’t the only romance language that all but screams Le Sexe. Italian is pretty damned sexy, too. Speaking of which…

Vanquished and its other trilogy partner, Untamed, are slated to release in Italy later this year. I can’t wait to see what the bellas do with the cover art and yes, the titles.

For now, check out my interview with Les Romantiques, France’s hot new romance fic magazine similar to our beloved RT BookReviews. My interview appears on pages 20-21. If you don’t read French, you can at least enjoy the pretty, pretty pictures.

A la prochaine,

Hope

Lady Jane’s April Salon

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Join us tonight, Monday, April 4th, 7-9PM for Lady Jane’s Salon at Madame X.

April’s scintillating Salon guests are Lisa Dale, Leslie Carroll and guest emcee Alisa Bowman.

Guest authors books will be available for sale and signing on site. (Cash only).

Admission is $5 or one paperback romance novel. Net proceeds support an end-of-year donation to a NYC women’s charity.