Mount Bruce just turned two. Which means he went from this ...

to this in a mere 2 years...

I calculate that in that time he has eaten 547 kgs of food, chewed up two very expensive dog beds, has grown from 5 kg to 50 kg in weight. To put things into perspective, in the photo above of Bruce and Oscar, Bruce was roughly the size of Oscar when Secondborn was chosen by adopted him as a puppy. And I reckon between beds, freight (so he could go on holidays with Secondborn), food (only the best for Mount Bruce), oh and the bling bling collar, the back pack and all his other acroutrements... he's cost, so far, about $4000.

That's two grand a year. And this is a mutt SB got for free. Sheez... and they reckon kids are expensive... that's about on a par with the private school Dace goes to...

But we love him anyway. Even if he is a giant mouth to throw money into. For his birthday, Bruce got an ice cream (which he loves and licks off the stick like a human) and today we're going out to buy him yet another bed.

Unconditional love don't come cheap...LOL

Well, the lovely people at Heyne, my German publishers, aren't wasting any time getting the Tide Lords out there. Got the cover for Die Götter von Amyrantha (the German language edition of The Gods of Amyrantha) today and it's gorgeous.

The blurb is here too... I have no idea what it says:)

Die Macht der mythischen Gezeitenherrscher in Amyrantha wird immer stärker. Unerkannt haben sie sich unter die Bewohner der Welt gemischt und wollen sich erneut zur Herrschaft aufschwingen. Doch die junge Herzogin Arkady ist ihnen auf der Spur. Mit Hilfe eines Sets von Tarotkarten und den Erzählungen des unsterblichen Prinzen Cayal will sie die alten Götter ausfindig machen und die Welt vor ihrem zerstörerischen Zorn retten. Derweil hat sich am Königshof von Arkadys Heimatland Glaeba eine der Unsterblichen eingeschlichen und spinnt nun finstere Intrigen, um die Königsherrschaft an sich zu reißen.

So, hi to all my German readers! Hope you enjoy this one, too:)

Toward the end of this film, which Evil Ella and I saw last night, a distinct aroma of woodsmoke started to filter through the airconditioning. At first, we thought the cinema might be on fire and we wouldn't have to sit through the end of the movie. We decided, though, given the lack if fire engines and evacuation orders, they were probably pumping something (you know...the romantic aroma of an open fire) through the vents to add to the atmosphere of the film.

Didn't work:) Here's the review:

 

I am sure that somewhere out there, you can buy screenplay generating software, load it onto your laptop, select "Rom-Com", type the names of the two main characters you want, select the number of main supporting characters, and the half-dozen minor supporting characters, hit the “generate screenplay” button and hey presto, it will spit out something like What Happens in Vegas. 

 

The story, such that it is, involves uptight stock trader Joy McNally (Cameron Diaz) who heads for Vegas after being dumped very publicly by her fiancé, where thanks to a hotel room mix up, she hooks up with recently-fired carpenter Jack Fuller (Ashton Kutcher). After a wild, alcohol-fuelled evening, the two wake up to discover they’re married. This alarming state of affairs is bad enough, except right after they agree to an annulment, Jack uses Joy’s quarter in a slot machine and pulls off a $3m jackpot. 

 

So, it’s off to court for a ruling on who actually owns the money, where interfering Judge Whopper (Dennis Miller), orders the couple into counselling with Dr Twitchell (Queen Latifah) — seriously only a computer would generate names like Whopper and Twitchell — and insists they cohabit for 6 months before he decides who gets the loot. What ensues are the inevitable hijinks as each of this mismatched couple tries their damnedest to make the other renege on the deal, thereby forfeiting their share of the cash. Of course, in the process, *spoiler alert* … Oh my goodness…they fall in love. What a brilliant twist! 

 

I sat through this film, ticking the scenes off in my head. “Oh look, the isn’t-she-lovely-in-an-evening-dress scene.” “Aha… now we’ve come to the look-what-a-great-dad-he’ll-make-because-he-coaches-Little-League scene.” We even have putting-down-the-toilet-scene lesson and a final kiss against the sunset. I kid you not. 

 

In the end, this is a mildly amusing way to spend an hour and a half, if you can get past the unbelievability of the premise, plot, the characters and the ending. Kutcher is fine as the lovable slacker, because that’s what he does best. I had a harder job believing Diaz as either a stock trader or the object of Jack’s desire. Queen Latifah phones in her performance as the marriage counsellor. Dennis Miller, on the other hand, looks like he’s actually having fun, but then, they let him sit in a great big courtroom and bang a gavel. I’d find that fun, too.

 

The rest of the supporting cast does their job competently enough, but debut director Tom Vaughan (Big Love, Cold Feet) can do nothing to disguise, when it all boils down to it, that this is a C-Grade script with an A-Grade cast. The actors give this film everything they’ve got, but with a script vying for a spot in the Guinness Book of Records for the number of Rom-Com clichés, they’re doing it tough.

Great news! The Immortal Prince, Book 1 of the bestselling Tide Lords series is finally available in the USA and Canada.  (UK readers will have a to wait a little longer for the British edition, but you can purchase the series in the meantime through Amazon.uk if you absolutely can't wait.)

So... what is The Tide Lords about I hear you ask? Basically, it's about a suicidal immortal. That was my first choice for a title, actually - Suicide of the Immortals" - but my agent (and the publishers) balked at the idea of having the word "suicide" in the title. Despite my argument that The Virgin Suicides did all right, my pleas fell on deaf ears. Oh well.

The Immortal Prince turned out to be a very cool title, and the book has been a mainstream bestseller in Australia and I still can't believe nobody had thought of it until now...

Publishers Weekly had this to say about The Immortal Prince...

With snappy dialogue and deft characterizations, especially of her sympathetically drawn canine Crasii, Fallon neatly pulls the story threads together into a multihued tapestry of myth, deceit and ambition.

So... here's the blurb ...

When a routine hanging goes wrong and a murderer somehow survives the noose, the man announces he is an immortal. And not just any immortal, but Cayal, the Immortal Prince, hero of legend, thought to be only a fictional character. To most he is a figure out of the Tide Lord Tarot, the only record left on Amyrantha of the mythical beings whom fable tells created the race of half-human, half-animal Crasii, a race of slaves.

Arkady Desean is an expert on the legends of the Tide Lords so at the request of the King's Spymaster, she is sent to interrogate this would-be immortal, hoping to prove he is a spy, or at the very least, a madman.

Though she is set the task of proving Cayal a liar, Arkady finds herself believing him, against her own good sense. And as she begins to truly believe in the Tide Lords, her own web of lies begins to unravel...

You can buy the US edition here from Amazon

Or you can get it from Barnes and Noble

If you live in Canada, you can get it here

If you live in the UK, you can get it here.

You can get the German langauge edition here

And if you live in Australia (or the USA, or Canada for that matter) and haven't got it already, run straight down to your local bookseller and demand they get it for you, if it's not already in stock!

This is a four book series. The next book is The Gods of Amyrantha, will be out early next year, followed by The Palace of Impossible Dreams and then the last book, The Chaos Crystal, which is finished and delivered, so you can start the series confident in the knowledge that if I happen to get hit by a bus before you get to book 4, you'll still be able to find out what happened... LOL.

I hope you have as much fun reading this series as I had writing it.

 Here's a fun way to kill a few minutes while you should be working...

This meme is thanks to the wonderful G.B.H. Hornswoggler, Gent.

I'm off to conquer something now. Have fun:)