Books of Summer: 1/7

I came up with something to do: seven books of summer. These are books for summer, about people doing summery things, and convenient for summer.

Choice number one?

DEATH BY DENIM by Linda Gerber



Okay, so you should read DEATH BY BIKINI and DEATH BY LATTE first. It is a mystery series and this is the one that reveals the Mole's identity. In Paris!

But seriously, this series is cheap and pocket-sized. You can toss all three in most purses and have something to read in the bus/car/plane. And believe me, these books will make the trip far more exciting. (Especially if you're driving through Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, and South Dakota. If you live in those states, please tell me what you do for fun.)

Back to the book: Aphra and her mom have escaped to France, but they're about to be separated after an unexpected death. And it seems that her path is about to cross Seth's again . . . perhaps my favorite touch was the return of a character from DEATH BY LATTE. I liked him in his brief previous appearance and really worried when he got hurt since he didn't have main character immunity.

Linda Gerber answers many questions in the third DEATH BY . . . novel, though I hold out hope the series will one day be continued. But with all the murders, spies, and explosions of DEATH BY DENIM, you'll definitely be distracted from the more boring parts of summer.

And if you finish the book before you reach your destination, you can play with the cover cutout.

Linda Gerber Has Too Many Choices

Linda Gerber is the author of DEATH BY BIKINI and DEATH BY LATTE as well as two S.A.S.S. books. She's lived in all sorts of countries which is major cool, especially since she uses it in her writing. Linda is extremely nice and definitely an author worth getting to know.

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Too Many Choices

When the lovely Livi asked me if I would like to participate in her birthday celebration, the conversation went something like, what do you want me to write about? I don't know, what do you to write about? I don't know. Brilliance at its best. She gave me a list of possible topics, but them I was like, ooh, fun! Which one do I choose?

I suck tremendously at making decisions. Seriously. Ask me to choose between A and B and maybe we're OK, but ask me to choose between A,B and an infinte number of other choices and we're in trouble.

This indecision creeps in at the stupidest moments and renders me useless. For instance, while I was on my deadline push recently, the kids TIVO'ed the shows we usually watch together and now I have too many choices now that we finally sit down to watch something. What do you wanna watch, Lost, Heroes, The Mentalist or Lie To Me? Ooh. I don't know. What do you want to watch? I don't know. What do you- so we get stuck with American Idol. Which is not such a great show for someone with an affliction like mine. Especially when it looks like the judges can't make up their minds, either. Who should we select for the wildcard, the talented girl we just gave a second shot to, the guy with the golden pipes or the cute little country-singing blonde? I don't know, who do you want to select? I don't know. Oh, I can't decide! Let's just go with the annoying, emotional chick no one likes. And somehow in their confusion, they came up with a top 13 instead of a top 12. Sounds like something I would do.

I've put off making travel arrangements before because I couldn't decide which airline to choose. I am not kidding. But there are so many in the Sky Team!

I've put off buying presents because I couldn't decide which of my awesome ideas to go with. I don't care. It's the 24th! Just get them all! (My kids like this solution...)

I've even put off naming a character because I couldn't decide on the name. (This is not a good thing because to me, a character doesn't become 'real' until he or she has a name. They just kind of wander around the manuscript doing things that I'll probably have to go back and edit out.)

What about you? Do you ever have a hard time making decisions? Does it throw you into a holding pattern like it does me? Do you have any secrets to share about effective decision making? Can you narrow these questions down to one? Not me. I can't decide.

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And yet, she sounds more decisive than me. I must admit I just bought airline tickets without much trouble because one airline was about two hundred dollars cheaper. (Yay for British Airways!) And that really is how our conversation about this guest blog went.

Linda is giving away an ARC of DEATH BY DENIM plus some swag. Obey my rules or don't get entered to win. (You might also want to stop by her blog or MySpace for Freebie Friday.)