The Mysterious Garden Muse

Join us this week at Barnes & Noble's Mystery Book Club Forum, authors, publicists and all kinds of behind-the-scenes people from HarperCollins Publishers will be our guests. Join us!

Things are really hopping at the Mystery Book Club this month. We're celebrating a Month of Cozy Crime AND we're getting ready for Father's Day by recommending books and inviting the authors to chat with us. Our featured Cozy Mystery authors are: CONNIE SHELTON KRISTA DAVIS HEATHER WEBBER AVERY AAMES JENNIE BENTLEY In addition, lots of other cozy authors have stopped in to chat with us, including: KATE COLLINS ELLERY ADAMS LOIS WINSTON MARY KENNEDY HANNAH REED LORNA BARRETT WENDY LYN WATSON JEFFREY COHEN CLEA SIMON SUZANNE ARRUDA DENISE SWANSON KATHERINE HALL PAGE E.J. COPPERMAN LEANN SWEENEY JOELLE CHARBONNEAU AMANDA FLOWER CHRISTY EVANS JANET BOLIN and more . . . In addition to the cozy authors, a number of authors are visiting to help us celebrate Father's Day. These include: WILLIAM DIETRICH PHILLIP MARGOLIN JIM COLOMBO THOMAS KAUFMAN ANDREW GROSS DALE BROWN KEITH GILMAN and more . . . JOIN US!

Week of May 31/June 1 - Connie Shelton Week of June 7 - Krista Davis Week of June 14 - Heather Webber (her garden mysteries mainly); she may bring her blog partners along, too Week of June 21 - Avery Aames Week of June 28 - Jennie Bentley

We're globe-trotting at Barnes & Noble's Mystery Book Club in May. During Week One , we are featuring LEIGHTON GAGE , whose mysteries are set in Brazil . Joining Leighton are his blog-mates, authors whose mysteries are also set in exotic places: Cara Black (France) Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip, writing as Michael Stanley (South Africa) Yrsa Sigurðardóttir (Iceland) Dan Waddell (England) Tim Hallinan (Thailand) During Week Two (week of May 10), author ERIN HART will join us to talk about her books, which are set in Ireland. Erin is joining us by popular request - I asked our board regulars to pick an author for this feature, and many chose Erin. There is also a separate "thread" where you can make your own recommendations for future international features. For Week Three , our featured guest will be a relatively new author, JAMIE FREVELETTI . Jamie's first book takes us from Miami to  Bogotá; her second book takes us into even more...

I'm a big fan of best selling author BRENDA NOVAK and I also support her Diabetes Auction. Click the link to find out more about it. I'm donating two cute tote bags (they're listed under my pen name, Becke Martin) filled with books and maybe a few Advance Reader Copies of upcoming releases. The books will be a surprise, but there will be a LOT of them. Check with The Romance Dish blogger P.J. Ausdenmore who won the tote bag full of books I donated to the auction last year if you want to get an idea what to expect. The auction items are up now and the bidding starts May 1st. If you want to bid on the items I donated, sign up and place your bid here: Metropolitan Museum of Art Tote Filled with Books from Becke Martin  (Image shown above) Barnes and Noble Tote Filled with Books from Becke Martin

Best selling author, JONATHAN KELLERMAN, known as the Master of Psychological Suspense, is visiting Barnes & Noble's Mystery Book Club this week and next week. Click the title for a quick link to the conversation. Join us!

New York Times best-selling author is visiting Barnes & Noble's Mystery Book Club forum the first half of April. Click the title of this post to join us!

What do tons of authors, tons of prizes, tons of hotties and tons of readers have in common? They’re attending the first ever  Readers at Home Conference ! During the week of April 26-30, authors and readers will converge on Lucy Monroe’s blog , to celebrate their favorite genre – romance! We are giving away Swag Bags to the first 50 readers who register for the conference. To register, all you have to do is send an email to Lucy Monroe with your name and mailing address (for the Swag Bag) stating your intention to attend the RAH Conference. The Swag Bags are for conference attendees only and we are trusting that you truly intend to attend the conference and interact with the authors and other readers on the blog. :) Lucy is shipping the Swag Bags at her own expense, but many authors have donated loot for you all, and each Swag Bag will have a free book inside . Yes, that's right - the conference is FREE. How cool is that? Every day there will be multiple aut...

Click the title to check out my entry to NPR's Three Minute Fiction contest. They've published eight of their favorites out of 3,000+ entries this round, and mine is one of them!

Check out my blogs at Barnes & Noble's GARDEN VARIETY : Move Over Gremlins, the Gnomes are Coming Gnomes: They eat zombies for breakfast. Meet Chuck Sambuchino, author and gnome slayer, whose book gives frightening new meaning to "the red hat brigade."  The Gold Award of Garden Writing The Garden Writers Association (GWA), an organization of over 1,800 professionals communicating about horticulture, gardening, and the environment in the lawn and garden industry, recently announced its top media award recipients.  Storm Safety Gardeners—like anyone who works outdoors—need to be able to judge when it's safe to stay out in the rain, and when it's time to take shelter. Remembering "Dr. Elm" Dr. George Ware, dendrologist emeritus and, until last year, Research Associate at the Morton Arboretum in Lisle, IL, died earlier this month at age 86. Seven years ago, over the course of a year, I interviewed Dr. Ware about his work and h...