Help a sister out?

So, I wrote a novel. (well actually I wrote two, but the first one is so horrible that only a few friends and family have ever seen it... It was a Harlequin romance called Love's Bouquet featuring a "plucky" florist, 'nuf said).

Anyway. I finished the second one in June. It's a murder mystery set in Canada's national archives. I hope it's kind of funny and kind of suspenseful, but who knows?

On a whim in November I submitted it to the amazon.com breakthrough novel contest and I found out today that I had made the semi-finals! They received 5000 entries, and picked 836 semi-finalists... so that's pretty good, right? Finalists get flown to New York and wined and dined and the winner gets his (or hopefully her) novel published. Very exciting.

This is now where you come in. Amazon wants to generate public interest in the contest, so they've posted excerpts from all of the semi-finalists on their site. A key part of the whole contest is customer reviews of the excerpts. Basically, Amazon is going to be picking finalists based on people's posted reviews. Here's what Amazon has to say about it:

From now until March 2, we're inviting Amazon.com customers to download, read, and review excerpts from our semifinalists and help decide who will make it to the Top Ten. Penguin will select manuscripts to read from the semifinal round based on customers' feedback and Publishers Weekly reviews. The 10 finalists selected from this round will be announced on March 3. Customers will then vote to select the winner, to be announced April 7, 2008.

So, you guys would be doing me a huge favour by checking out the excerpt from my novel (17 pages) and if you're inspired to write a review, posting it at their site. I just looked at it (but didn't post a review of my own work, that would be lame, right?) and it looks pretty easy and straightforward.

Checking out my entry will, at the very least, offer you insight into how I waste my time when I should be writing my dissertation.

La la la.

As an added incentive to the oodles of love I would throw at you, Amazon is offering prizes for the best reviews. Here's the info:

When you read excerpts from the semifinalists and post reviews, you’ll be in the running to win a prize package (including an Amazon Kindle, a $2,000 Amazon.com gift certificate, and an HP photo printer) for providing the most--and the most high-quality--reviews.

Also, if you like what you read, or just like me, and feel like spreading the word about the contest and my entry, I would appreciate it.

For the full info on the contest including a short section on "how to write a good review" check out:

http://www.amazon.com/b?node=332264011

To get to my entry, go here:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00124COWA

Thanks, dudes!

PS The deadline for helping a sister out is March 2.