Will you have a moment to spare on Wednesday? I know that’s three days away, and I expect you have a million things to do between now and then, but I have a favor to ask. If you remember, and if you’re willing, when Wednesday comes around please drop by the Ruby-Slippered Sisterhood blog and say hi to me over there. I have a guest post and I’d really like to avoid looking like Jilly No-Mates 😉 .

The Rubies are the RWA Golden Heart Class of 2009. They’ve been writing, publishing, and blogging for the last decade and they’re still going strong. They have an annual contest, a winter writing festival, and every summer they schedule a series of guest posts for the current Golden Heart finalists. This year’s GH selection has been great fun (see below), and there are more posts to come over the next three weeks.

On Wednesday I’ll be talking about my GH finalling story The Transformation of Alexis Doe and the prequel I’m planning to publish first—The Seeds of Power, otherwise known as Christal’s book. I think I’m the only fantasy writer among the paranormal finalists, so my blurbs sound quite out there compared to the others. I’m more than a bit nervous.

To whet your appetite, here are the interesting and varied guest bloggers so far, and thumbnail descriptions of their stories based on their posts:

• Fenley Grant—fellow paranormal finalist whose story Warrior of Eden stars a female Alpha werewolf who joined the Army to escape an arranged marriage. Now she’s returning home, injured, and she’ll have to deal with the Alpha she left behind.
• Rosie Danan’s long contemporary Never Have I Ever is a strangers-in-close-proximity story about gossip, secrets, and an uptight East Coast rich girl and a Hollywood charmer who find themselves sharing a three-month lease on a crumbling Los Angeles bungalow.
• Sammy Spizziri’s YA story After I Bid You Adieu is about an eighteen-year-old NYU college student and podcaster who returns home for the summer after her dad has a heart attack. She faces a choice between the big-hearted small-town values of her best friend/sort-of-boyfriend and her big-city ambitions.
• Janet Walden-West’s contemporary Salt + Stilettos is set in the Miami fine dining restaurant scene, with a muscular Samoan chef/restaurant owner and a career-minded Jimmy Choo-wearing image consultant.
• Becke Turner has Murphy’s Debt, a Carolina-set short contemporary whose heroine is a Marine widow with four young children. She bids for a property lease and finds herself in competition with her late husband’s commanding officer. He finds himself torn between his obligations and his feelings. She’ll risk a new relationship, but only if it’s a partnership of equals built on love, not guilt.
• Susan Lee is a YA finalist. Her story, Dragged, has a goody two-shoes heroine who’s desperate to beat her arch-nemesis to her school’s Most Outstanding Student award and its hefty scholarship. That involves getting not just good grades, but a role in the school musical, so the heroine enlists the help of New York City’s hottest teen drag queen. And as opening night approaches, the heroine has to decide whether the future she worked so hard for is still the one she wants.
• Anna Collins has a mainstream story with a central romance. Resurrecting Annie Wolff is a second chance story about a woman who abdicated motherhood to spare her kids her maternal legacy of depression and suicide. But when the kids lose their father, she returns to make sure they are okay, and meets a man who aims to do the same for her.
• Lisa Heartman’s romantic suspense High Heels and Handguns has a romance between a heroine who’s a special forces weapons specialist turned personal protection agent, and her former captain, who’s now with the FBI. Her client is murdered. He investigates, and they team up to tackle violence, revenge, politics, and their own personal unfinished business.

See what I mean about variety? There’s surely something for everyone in that list. You can read more now about these talented ladies over at the Rubies’ Blog.

And—fingers crossed—see you over there on Wednesday!