Sunday, July 18, 2010

Lori Handeland

Lori Handeland has written nearly fifty novels, novellas and short stories in several genres--historical, contemporary, series and paranormal romance, as well as urban fantasy--for such publishers as: Dorchester, Kensington, Harlequin, St. Martin's Press, Harper-Collins and Simon and Schuster.

She is a New York Times, USA Today, Waldenbooks and Bookscan Bestselling Author and the recipient of many industry awards, including two RITA Awards from Romance Writers of America for Best Paranormal (Blue Moon) and Best Long Contemporary Romance (The Mommy Quest), a Romantic Times Award for Best Harlequin Superromance (A Soldier's Quest), the Colorado Romance Writers Award of Excellence, the Write Touch Readers Award, the National Readers Choice Award and the Prism Award. She lives in Southern Wisconsin with two sons, a husband, and a yellow Lab named Elwood.

Her new book is Shakespeare Undead.
As summer approached I kept hearing whispers about an upcoming "big" summer vampire book, The Passage. It sounded like something I would like, but when I caught a glimpse of the length (766 pages) I put the thought aside. I like to carry my books around with me and at that size, I might hurt myself!

However, I kept hearing about the book. Everything I heard, I liked. When I saw the quote from Stephen King: "It has the vividness that only epic works of fantasy and imagination can achieve. Read this book and the ordinary world disappears" I decided I'd risk the injury.

I'm very glad I did. The Passage reminds me very much of The Stand, one of my all time favorite King novels. By combining great characters and stellar writing with vampires, secret government experiments and an apocalyptic setting, Justin Cronin has penned both a literary work and a great summer read.
Visit Lori Handeland's website.

--Marshal Zeringue