This Giveaway Is Now Closed

My debut novel, Poisoned Kisses, has received a lot of attention, including a Romantic Times Reviewer’s Choice nomination for Best First Series. But near and dear to my heart is my recent second-place finish for the New England Romance Writers Bean Pot award. To celebrate, I’ve decided to host a give-away. When I reach 25 new followers to my infrequent newsletter, I’ll be giving away a small box of about 10 new paranormal romance books including my own. (For those who don’t know about me yet, I write very smart books for very bad girls…)

To win, post in the comments below a link to where you helped spread the word to folks about me on twitter, facebook, your blog or any other social networking site including but not limited to goodreads.

Jeannie Lin is spear-heading an effort to create a collection of romance trading cards for the Romantic Times Convention 2011 in Los Angeles. To that end, I’ve come up with these proto-types. I’m pretty happy with them, but does anybody see any typos or anything I should fix before they go off to the printer?

As we all know, Dear Author can be a tough cookie so I held my breath while reading this review of Poisoned Kisses only to end up with a big grin on my face. The summary?

Part of the love relationship that develops between Marco and Kyra occurs during periods of deception. At one point, Kyra impersonates an old girlfriend of Marco’s. The fact that I didn’t have a huge problem with this is a testament to your skill as a writer. I didn’t believe that Marco still held a torch for the old girlfriend but rather he was hungry for acceptance and love. Kyra’s true identity is revealed to Marco about half way through and together they search for a solution that would not require Kyra to kill Marco.

Kyra is truly kick ass. She does what she thinks she has to do to achieve her end goals. I ended up caring quite a bit for Marco despite the fact that he was an arms dealer. For me, his path from UN peacekeeper to hardened war criminal made sense and I sympathized with him (within the safe confines of the book of course). Kyra and Marco were a good match. Neither of them wanted war but both used violence to try to tamp it down, not realizing that their own actions were contributing to the furtherance of war.

The plotting was very tight in this book. The sex scenes meaningful and hot. And the writing voice was strong.

A day will come when my books will be panned. I am ready for it. But this is not that day. Today a very thoughtful review of POISONED KISSES was published at Long & Short Reviews. It delighted me. My favorite part:

Poisoned Kisses isn’t a light and fluffy read. It’s hard edged, gritty, and serious. It even delves into the possibility of why war is so prevalent and dare I say, popular. Ms. Draven has provided this reader with a clever and intelligent story with an out of the ordinary romance that hooked me as soon as Kyra drew her knife. There is just something special about a tough woman who needs saving and a man who stays true to the course of honor and justice even when dark forces want to seduce him to their side. This is a book that made me think. I enjoyed how the author took a page out of real life and injected Greek mythology in a most entertaining way. Poisoned Kisses is a must read for anyone with a yen for a supernatural romantic suspense that is not only unusual but has a romance that survives extraordinary odds culminating in a terrific happily ever after. I am simply in awe of Ms. Draven’s talent and can’t wait to read more written by her soon.