Today I am guest blogging over at Susan Wiggs' site.

CLICK HERE to come and visit!

Get Elfed

I Elfed myself this morning :)

Check it out by clicking here. You can elf yourself too.

By the way, I'm loving all the private emails and comments about your messes! Keep telling me in the comments or via email about the big messes in your life and I'll be adding your name to the Dec. 1st draw for a copy of Remains.

RT Review

I finally got around to picking up this month's Romantic Times magazine. Here is the review for The Remains of the Dead:

"Roberts has a unique gift: She makes talking to the dead as natural as talking to your neighbor over a cup of coffee. Sadie Novak, who cleans up crime scenes for a living, is a charming new heroine with a great deal of heart who helps stranded spirits and solves crimes. Sadie and hunky ex-cop Zack make a delightful odd couple. Here's hoping she comes back soon."

They gave the book 4 1/2 stars out of 5. Great way to start off the week :)

Reminder: All posts to my blog as well as all who join my mailing list will be entered to win a copy of Remains in my Life's Messy contest. Draw is on December 1st. Oh and in answer to a couple email questions, yes, if you want you can email me to tell me about your big messes privately instead of posting them to the blog!

Something Stinks

As you can see, we had an unwelcome visitor take up residency under our front step. After much discussion I convinced the children that a skunk would NOT make an ideal pet and also could not be trained to fire stink at their friends or enemies on command.

I called an exterminator and he set a trap using an egg as bait. Apparently using anything else would catch us a neighbourhood cat. It took a few days but finally Mr. Skunk got hungry enough and wandered into the cage to grab the egg. I took the above picture of him from the safety of my living room window. Hey, I'm not stupid.

The exterminator came and picked up the cage and took the little guy off to a forested area far enough away that he won't find his way back. I hope he's very happy there. I thought he would spray once he was trapped but he just curled up into a ball and went to sleep. If he had sprayed I'm not sure what I would've done to remove the smell.

In light of my Life's Messy contest, I thought it only fitting I deal with the smelliness of our messy life. When there's a particularly nasty smell around, I rely on Vicks Vaporub. A tiny dab of that under your nose and it's hard to smell anything else. I was told that a lot of crime scene investigators use that trick when they're dealing with the smell of decomp. I haven't verified that tidbit but it seems like if it works on other pungent smells, it could have some usefulness there.

If you celebrated Thanksgiving yesterday, I hope all the smells were pleasant. But how about other times? Do you have any tricks for dealing with bad smells?

Life's Messy Contest

In The Remains of the Dead my heroine, Sadie Novak, spends a lot of time cleaning messes. She cleans up after the CSI team is done and the coroner removes the body. We're talking some grotesque mopping here.

As a mom I can tell you there are times I wish I wore a hazmat suit. There's all those diapers and let's not get started on the projectile stomach viruses. However, even before I had children there were messes. Natural disasters involving plumbing problems. The messes that accompany having friends who over indulge. Oh and pet messes.

I'll never forget the time a couple decades ago when I came home from work to find streaks of blood all over my walls. I freaked! My dog wasn't looking well so I rushed him into an after hour emergency vet because all that blood meant something was terribly wrong. Except it wasn't. My dumb dog had sniffed a bug up his nose and had given himself a nose bleed trying to get it out. He'd rubbed his darn nose all over my house. The blood still had to be cleaned up and I didn't get a your-dog-is-stupid discount from the vet either.

I'm having a Life's Messy contest. You can enter by posting your comment to my blog or adding yourself to my mailing list here. Winner will get a signed copy of Remains.

So tell me about your big messes :)

Thanks to Rachel for pointing out I'd forgotten to mention a deadline for the contest. Get your comments and/or emails to me by December 1st.

Review!

I've been a fan of Allison Brennan's books since The Prey. When she gave me a fab blurb for Remains I just about fainted with gratitude. Now she's posted the full review here on WritersareReader.com.

My favourite part of the review:
"And Wendy Roberts makes us not only care about Sadie and the dead people she helps, but takes what could have been a gruesome story and made it fun and light. The breezy voice and self-deprecating humor keep the story moving, the mystery is compelling, and the ending provides a twist that I didn't see coming. This is a fast, comfortable, solid read from a gifted storyteller."

Honest, I did not pay her.

I just can't say how wonderful it is to have a big hitter like Allison take the time to give me a review. Makes me all verklempt.

By the way, Allison's got a new book out next month - What You Can't See

Mother Nature can be a real ...

Mother Nature had a temper tantrum this weekend. She huffed and puffed and created 100 km winds to knock down trees in my area and *bam* no power for days.

Last night when the power was finally restored the children were thrilled and I hugged my computer. It's interesting trying to live a modern life without the benefits of electricity. We all read a lot which is a good thing but everyday things still needed to be done. Laundry had to go to the laundromat. Meals were brought in, eaten out or eaten cold. One day I made grilled cheese sandwiches on the barbeque.

The tree in our front yard was a mass of red a few days ago but the wind stripped it bear, except for three leaves. I laughed at the tenacity of those leaves. They hung on for dear life refusing to go on someone else's schedule. They wanted to do it in their own time and would not be bullied.

Mother Nature blew the cobwebs out of my head. Today I'm ready to get down to work. How is the weather where you are?

It's time for the BIG girl panties

Some Friday silliness...

It started a couple months ago when I picked up the book, Put Your Big Girl Panties On and Deal with It. I've adopted the title as my personal slogan. My dear writing friends have come to laugh along and tolerate me when I shout it out at conferences.

I'm sure you can guess what it means. Suck it up. Sometimes I need to remind myself to pull myself up by my bra straps and just get the job done ... whatever the job may be.

There are days when you have to do things you don't want to do. Big Girls just do it and get it over with. They stop the whining.

Also, Big Girls know that life is tough but the only way to make it easy is to be tougher on yourself. Nobody promised you a rose garden or a pretty thong. You gotta make your own lacy lingerie. And no I don't know what that means either LOL except our life is what we make it.

Got something you've been putting off? It's time to put on your Big Girl panties. Oh and boys? Jockeys come in extra large too LOL.

Counting down!

I'm counting the days until REMAINS hits shelves in a month. I can't believe how fast the year has flown by!

I've done a lot to prepare but soon it will be out of my hands and into yours :)

Right now I'm busy fine-tuning book two in the series. Yes, it has a name but since it will change I'm trying not to become too attached. Oh okay, you wanna know the temporary title? The Heat of the Dead. There. I told you. Now don't get too attached to it, okay? :)

Feeling Lucky?

Looking for a great book? My friend Jana DeLeon has a book out this month called Unlucky. Here's the description:

Everyone in Royal Flush, Louisiana, knows Mallory Devereaux is a walking disaster. At least now she's found a way to take advantage of her chronic bad luck: by "cooling" cards on her uncle's casino boat. As long as the crooks invited to his special poker tournament don't win their money back, she'll get a cut of the profit. But Mal isn't the only one working some major mojo. There's a dark-eyed dealer sending her looks steamier than the bayou in August. Turns out he's an undercover agent named Jake Randoll, and for a Yank, he's pretty darn smart. Smart enough to enlist her help to catch a money launderer. As they race to untangle a web of decades-old lies and secrets amid a gathering of criminals, Mallory can't help hoping her luck's about to change.

Even the description makes me giggle! Jana's previous book Rumble on the Bayou was an absolute riot and Unlucky is laugh out loud funny mingled with witty characters and a fascinating plot. I promise you won't be able to put it down!