Romantic Times has their reviews up for the March issue and The Treasure was reviewed.

4 1/2 Stars!!! WOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOO!

Here’s a snippet…

Williamson creates a novel filled with complex characters, searing love scenes and social issues that are relevant today. From their first ardent kiss, Ray and Lily are combustible, and their path to love is fascinating. Book four of the Malloy family series is just as absorbing and passionate as the previous novels. — Keitha Hart

Thank you Keitha for reading my book and for writing such a wonderful review. It makes me feel so good inside! I’m dancing on the ceiling today!!

Today is release day for the first Secret Thoughts anthology titled Erotique, compiled by the fabulous Sasha White.

Join some fabulous ladies and their smoking hot stories. There are 6 authors in the Secret Thoughts Anthology and more than a dozen very hot and erotic short stories. The line-up includes:

~ Sasha White
~ Beth Williamson
~ JJ Massa
~ Laura Bacchi
~ S. Desires
~ Nix Winter

Erin the Innocent has taken on a personal cause to raise money for breast cancer research. Here’s a snippet from her blog:

On July 27-29, 2007 I’ll be participating in a very special event called The Weekend to End Breast Cancer.

I’ll walk 60 kilometres over the course of one weekend with thousands of other women and men. The net proceeds will support breast cancer research, treatment, and services through the Alberta Cancer Foundation.

I’ve agreed to raise at least $2,000, but I’ve set my personal goal at $3,000. So I need your help. Would you please consider making a donation? Use this link to go visit my site – and please take the time to support me. Please keep in mind how far I’m walking – and how hard I’ll have to train.

According to the National Cancer Institute of Canada, approximately 20,500 Canadian women will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year, and about 5,400 will die from the disease. That’s why I’m walking so far. To do something bold about breast cancer. I hope that you’ll share this incredible adventure with me – by supporting me in my fundraising efforts.

Some fabulous authors (including me) have offered up lots of books as prizes to be given away from now until July. Please take the time to donate some money to help the cause and perhaps get a free book as a sweet treat!

A peep at work sent this to me. Fun stuff! Somebody out there answer too!

1. What time is it? 7:00 am (gooooood morning!)

2. What is your full name? Beth Williamson

3. What are you most afraid of? Something happening to my children

4. What is the most recent movie that you’ve seen in a theater? Borat (OMG, I’m still laughing)

5. Have you ever seen a ghost? Yes!

6. Where were you born? Upstate New York

7. Ever been to Alaska ? No

8. Ever been toilet paper rolling? No

9. Ever loved someone so much it made you cry? Yes , unfortunately.

10. Been in a car accident? Yes

11. Croutons or bacon bits? Bacon Bits

12. Favorite day of the week: Saturday

13. Favorite Restaurant? Home :)

14. Favorite Flower: Calla lilly

15. Favorite Drink: Water, hot tea, and diet coke

16. Favorite ice cream: Peanut butter cup and mint chocolate cookie

17. Favorite fast food restaurant? Chic-fil-a because it’s the only one I eat anything at. *sob* And it’s only the french fries.

18. What color is your bedroom carpet? Beige

19. How many times have you failed your driver’s test? 0

20. Before this one, from whom did you get your last e-mail? My mom

21. What do you do most often when you are bored? Read!

22. Bedtime? 10 pm (yes I’m a dork)

23. Who will respond to this e-mail the quickest? Janet

24. Who is the person you sent this to that is least likely to respond? Sasha

25. Who is the person that you are most curious to see their answers? Sybil

26. Ford or Chevy? Chevy

27. What are you listening to right now? A Disney movie in the background

28. What are your favorite colors: Purple, purple and purple

29. How many tattoos do you have? 0

30. How many pets do you have? None, except if you count my kids.

31. Which came first the chicken or the egg? Too philosophical. I eat them both!

32. What would you like to accomplish before you die? Have a book published in hardcover.

33. How many people are you sending this e-mail? Nobody, but I sure hope somebody answers.

I was browsing on an astrology website and found a very interesting Chinese astrology site. I was born in the year of the Goat. This is what it says about 2007…

Goat Overview

Provided by Astrology.com

This year you’ll benefit from excellent astral influxes. You’ll know how to profit by life and by all the events it brings about. You’ll achieve most of your dearest projects. However, you’ll sometimes have to cope with questions that may perhaps be brutal and painful but that will bring about a definite improvement of your attitude and of your heart. Submit yourself graciously to such astral influences, do not shirk them. You might pretty often happen to be too idealistic, to the point of losing your sense of reality and consequently exposing yourself to deceptions you’ll find hard to endure. Try to have better balanced views of people and things. In order to protect yourself against sorrow and discouragement provoked by other people’s demeanor that you will deem deplorable, remind yourself that man could be everything but reasonable.

{Okay, who’s going to be mean to me?}

And here is my romantic overview for 2007…

Goat Romantic

Provided by Astrology.com

First quarter

A relatively calm period as far as your love affairs are concerned. You must reckon with the star Van Khuc, who’ll incline you to idealize your beloved one for the best but also for the worst. If you’re single, be careful not to delude yourself too much; you may embellish reality and lend remarkable qualities to a person who’s, in fact, quite ordinary.

Second quarter

There’ll be an upheaval in your love life on account of the uncomfortable position of the star Cu Mon in House XI. Passion might very well rush into your life and disrupt everything on its way. You’ll be ready to follow your new love to the end of the world, or to give up immediately if your couple is going awry. Prudence, prudence! At least take some time to think, otherwise you may have to regret having acted on the spur of the moment.

Third quarter

During this period, if you’re married and happy with your spouse, the astral influences will simply bring about an alternation of tender moments and some small tensions. Some natives of Earth years will fall in love; beware, domestic risks will be inevitable! If you’re single, a planetary cocktail will result in provoking sweeping love at first sight and also in confronting you with difficult choices.

Fourth quarter

Rather stormy relationships with your spouse or mate in view! Your house will be fairly shaken. However, at least, you won’t have the impression of sinking into routine. Your couple life will be spicy, and such strong emotions will perhaps not displease you. Beware nevertheless, as you must know which limits not to cross! Think of treading carefully where the other one is concerned, especially if they are a native of the Rabbit sign. Most of natives of the sign will live their love affairs in a chaotic manner, but they won’t complain about it!

{Kind of up and down, eh? I like the spicy, but not the chaotic}

You know how they have those display tables right in front of the door? The ones that have the newest releases?

Guess what I found at the second table?? The Treasure! Standing on the back splash with three copies.

Look I’ve got proof…

I signed them and put my pretty Signed by Author sticker on them. After walked around and shopped for books I wanted (only to find two of them aren’t released yet ), I went back and looked to see if anyone had picked one up in the 15 minutes since I’d signed them.

Oh yeah, majorly excited geek!

When I checked out I told the cashier about it and she says “I remember you – historical romances right?” Hey, even cooler!! I remember talking to her during my signing.

Yep, it was a good day.

My mom sent me this…

Actual events from the past year:

Number One Idiot of 2006
I am a medical student currently doing a rotation in toxicology at the poison control center.
Today, this woman called in very upset because she caught her little daughter eating ants.
I quickly reassured her that the ants are not harmful and there would be no need to bring her daughter into the hospital. She calmed down and at the end of the conversation happened to mention that she gave her daughter some ant poison to eat in order to kill the ants.
I told her that she better bring her daughter into the emergency room right away.

Here’s your sign, lady. Wear it with pride.

Number Two Idiot of 2006
Early this year, some Boeing employees on the airfield decided to steal a life raft from one of the 747s. They were successful in getting it out of the plane and home.
Shortly after they took it for a float on the river, they noticed a Coast Guard helicopter coming towards them. It turned out that the chopper was homing in on the emergency locator beacon that activated when the raft was inflated. They are no longer employed at Boeing.

Here’s your sign, guys. Don’t get it wet, the paint might run.

Number Three Idiot of 2006
A man, wanting to rob a downtown Bank of America, walked into the Branch and wrote “this. Put all your muny in this bag.”
While standing in line, waiting to give his note to the teller, he began to worry that someone had seen him write the note and might call the police before he reached the teller’s window.
So he left the Bank of America and crossed the street to the Wells Fargo Bank. After waiting a few minutes in line, he handed his note to the Wells Fargo teller. She read it and, surmising from his spelling errors that he wasn’t the brightest light in the harbor, told him that she could not accept his stickup note because it was written on a Bank of America deposit slip and that he would either have to fill out a Wells Fargo deposit slip or go back to Bank of America.
Looking somewhat defeated, the man said, “OK” and left.
He was arrested a few minutes later, as he was waiting in line back at Bank of America.

Don’t bother with this guy’s sign. He probably couldn’t read it anyway.

Number Four Idiot of 2006 (partly clever idiot)
A motorist was unknowingly caught in an automated speed trap that measured his speed using radar and photographed his car. He later received in the mail a ticket for $40 and a photo of his car. Instead of payment, he sent the police department a photograph of $40.
Several days later, he received a letter from the police that contained another picture, this time of handcuffs.
He immediately mailed in his $40.
Wise guy… but you still get a sign

Number Five Idiot of 2006
A guy walked into a little corner store with a shotgun and demanded all of the cash from the cash drawer.
After the cashier put the cash in a bag, the robber saw a bottle of Scotch that he wanted behind the counter on the shelf.
He told the cashier to put it in the bag as well, but the cashier refused and said, “Because I don’t believe you are over 21.”
The robber said he was, but the clerk still refused to give it to him because she didn’t believe him.
At this point, the robber took his driver’s license out of his wallet and gave it to the clerk.
The clerk looked it over and agreed that the man was in fact over 21 and she put the Scotch in the bag.
The robber then ran from the store with his loot.
The cashier promptly called the police and gave the name and address of the robber that he got off the license.
They arrested the robber two hours later.
This guy definitely needs a sign.

Idiot Number Six of 2006
A pair of Michigan robbers entered a record shop nervously waving revolvers.
The first one shouted, “Nobody move!” When his partner moved, the startled first bandit shot him.

This guy doesn’t even deserve a sign…

Idiot Number Seven of 2006
Arkansas: Seems this guy wanted some beer pretty badly. He decided that he’d just throw a cinder block through a liquor store window, grab some booze, and run.
So he lifted the cinder block and heaved it over his head at the window. The cinder block bounced back knocking him unconscious. It seems the liquor store window was made of Plexi-Glass.
The whole event was caught on videotape.

Yep, here’s your sign.
(Please note that all of the above people are allowed to vote).

IDIOTS IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD:
I live in a semi-rural area. We recently had a new neighbor call the local township administrative office to request the removal of the Deer Crossing sign on our road.
The reason:
“Too many deer are being hit by cars out here!
I don’t think this is a good place for them to be crossing anymore.”
From Kingman Kansas.

My blog is getting hit by spammers. Lousy bastards. I’ve gotten at least 500 spam comments in the last two days that were caught by the program Frauke installed on my blog, BUT there’s a bunch getting through. You know I’m going to get on my soap box here…

What is the purpose of spam comments? Really… Every one of the 500 say something like “I’m not an active serfer {yes it was spelled wrong}, but I’m going to tell my friends about your site.”

I’ve gotten stupid e-mail and comments that are linked to porn sites, online casinos, tons of prescription meds, and erection enhancements. So what is the purpose of the spam? I just don’t get it and that annoys me. I’d like to understand the purpose of someone wasting my time and my server space.

Let’s take all those spammers and give them a virus made by the other group of whack-jobs out there (those that create malware) and make them trade goodies.

Sasha White blogged about me today. She’s featuring a Secret Thoughts: Erotique contributing writer for the days leading up to its release on January 30. Today is my day.

Come on by and check it out!

Lately I’ve gotten some reader e-mails that have really touched me. Folks that e-mailed me for no reason other than to tell me what they thought of my book and my writing.

To those readers, I want to say thank you so much for taking the time to let me know what you thought. I’ve had some that made my ears tear up they touched me so deeply. I am trying hard to finish my current WIP (getting so close) and to have two people tell me that I’ve convinced them to give western romance another chance, I can’t tell you how that feels.

To every reader who has spent their time reading my books, thank you. I don’t think authors spend enough time thinking about the individuals who take a chance on us, who spend their money and time on those of us that live to write. I am a voracious reader too, and have my favorites, but I am also one who loves to try something new. I’m going to make it a point to e-mail authors myself after I read their books.

Here’s a few snippets from the e-mails I’ve gotten.

From Olivia: “Thank you so much for writing this great book. I’m glad I had the chance to read it. I will definitely consider more Old West titles in the future because of ‘Madeline’”

From Cheryl: “The entire Malloy family is wonderful, and not since my reading of the entire books of Laura Ingalls Wilder have I loved a story centered around the west.”

From Ann: “I just had to let you know I recently discovered your Mallory series – and LOVE IT! Keep up the great work – I’ll buy anything with your name on it!”

From Tammy: “I love your books they are so great I hope you write more of them.”

From Annmarie: “I just finished reading all of your published Malloy family books. I read them all in 2 days and just love them.”

From Lillie: “I simply love your books. I was starting to get bored with romance novels, you have brought them back to life for me. Thank you!”

I’m energized and more sure than ever that writing should be my passion in life. Really y’all, thank you, thank you, thank you!