First off, it’s time to announce the winner of last week’s free books. And the winner is…Bunny. E-mail me through the Contact page on this site with your mailing info, and I’ll get the books out to you.

Up for grabs this week are:

Under Siege by Catherine Mann
The Wrong Child by Patricia Kay
The Cinderella Rules by Donna Kauffmann (an advanced reading copy)

Remember, all you have to do to be in the running to win is comment on one of my blog posts this week.

On to my own book news. My YA editor and I are tossing some ideas about my second book for Razorbill back and forth. While we’re doing that, I started work on a proposal for Harlequin American today. I hope this will be the first book on a new contract. My goal is to write 10 pages a day. At that rate, I should finish the proposal this week and have it polished up and sent to my agent by the middle of next week at the latest.

Okay, on to the latest TV observations. I was disappointed in the Survivor results last night. I was rooting for Amanda and Cirie, and they ended up coming in second and third respectively. While she didn’t win $1 million, Amanda did come away with love in the form of fellow competitor Ozzy. His words to her during the final Tribal Council made my romance writer’s heart melt. I wish them all the best. Cirie’s final words after being voted out about broke my heart. And what was up with Natalie’s weirdo bedroom question for Parvati (the big winner)? I kind of felt sorry for Parv having to answer that out-of-the-blue and totally irrelevant question. Jeff Probst, the jury, and viewers were all confused.  And let me just say here, I really like Erik. Sure, he made a move that really cost him, but he seems like a really genuine nice guy. And I like to see the really nice people do well. I do think this is an experience that he’ll really treasure the rest of his life since he’s been such a fan for so long.

Looks like Survivor is going back to Africa again, this time to Gabon. This will be interesting since the first Africa season is one of three seasons I missed (Hey, it’s when Friends got good, and it was in The Time Before TiVo). I know the beach locations are popular, but I like it when they shake it up a bit like they did by going to China. The only time they’ve gone to what should have perhaps been a more memorable location and the season wasn’t good was Thailand, which goes down as the worst season in Survivor history in my book. Suckola.

Anyone watch Bones tonight? If you didn’t and plan to, SPOILER WARNING. It was a perfectly fine episode until the end when it turned into a great episode. Loved Tempe singing Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” on stage, loved how Booth was really enjoying himself watching her, and gasped when crazy stalker chick shot Booth. Okay, we know Booth has to live because there’d be no show if he didn’t, but I’m so interested in seeing what happens in next week’s season finale. Oh, and Gormagon will be back, and someone in the lab is going to betray the rest. If it’s any of the main characters (as in Angela, Hodgens, Zach, or Tempe), I’m so not going to be happy. I really don’t want it to be Angela or Hodgens because I don’t want them to split up. That leaves only Camille or some minor walk-on character as the culprit. Hmm…

I’m working on an essay for Benbella Books, for a compilation they’re doing for their SmartPop series on the show Supernatural, my favorite show on TV. So, I’ve been re-watching the first two seasons, taking notes to support the theme of my essay. It’s interesting what you catch when you’re watching something analytically versus just for fun. And though I already knew it, it’s striking me again just how good this show really is — great writing, great acting, totally fun and believable relationship between the brothers. Thank you, Eric Kripke!

I was talking to my husband yesterday about how different our TV viewing choices are. I like certain shows and don’t want to miss a single episode. That’s because I like shows that have a developing story arc over time. If you miss an episode, you miss a valuable part of the arc. Hubby, on the other hand, watches programs at random as he’s surfing, stuff you can miss and it won’t matter. For instance: Me (Supernatural or Moonlight) versus Hubby (South Park or The Colbert Report). I think our viewing choices are also reflected in our reading choices. Hubby watches Book TV on C-SPAN on the weekends, which makes sense because he’s almost exclusively a nonfiction reader (and really smart dude). I like shows that have stories to tell, just like my preference for fiction. I do think I’m more likely to read a nonfiction work than he is a fiction work, though he will be reading my published books — good hubby that he is. Same goes for TV. I’ve watched some Book TV, and I really enjoy The Daily Show. But I don’t see hubby giving in to weekly watching of Bones anytime soon.