Last weekend I had the great pleasure of going to RomCon, in Denver. It was fabulous! I met loads of fans and had such a great time. When I first arrived, I immediately hooked up with the effervescent Heather Osborn, of Tor. I adore Heather, and we always have a great time together. Here’s us posing in a Romance cover . . . that inexplicably (to me, at least) involves a baby. I am the baby:

Besides Heather, loads of great peeps were at RomCon. On the shuttle bus from the airport, I ran into an editor from Grand Central’s Forever line (a sister imprint of Orbit’s), named Amy Pierpont. The first thing Amy said to me was, “Are you an author? You have romance writer hair,” which cracked me up. When I told her I wrote for Orbit, she was kind enough to invite me to dinner that night with other writers from Hachette (our parent company). The dinner was awesome. We went to this super swank place called 1515 that was rocking the nouvelle cuisine. Which is apparently French for “stick a fake syringe in that shiz.” For example, there was an appetizer of melon, prusciotto and cheese that arrived with a small syringe of balsamic vinegar stuck into it. But when I ordered my dessert–a root beer float–I was more than a little shocked to see this bad boy come at me:

That said, it was delicious. And I had a lovely time chatting with Amy and the other writers from Forever.

Mario Acevedo, my fellow Leaguer and a native of Denver, met me at the restaurant during dessert then took me on a tour. Of course, it was a Denver Tour, Mario Style, which means it involved stories of murder and mayhem, the most memorable of which was the murder of a midget crackwhore named Lil Bit, whose body was discovered shoved in a box behind some bar. Mario claims her death was investigated by a detective named Snowhite, something so entirely ridiculous it has to be the truth.

On the second day of the con, we were really busy. I met Meljean Brook, who was really sweet and interesting. I also hung out with Nalini Singh, which was super fun as I’m a HUGE fan of both of her series. At the Con, itself, I did speed dating, charades, and tons of other events that meant I got a lot of time to chat with readers and fans. We also did a huge signing, which was very fun except for a wee mix up with my name:

That Friday night I was a bit of a bore and went to bed really early. But that was partly because we had big plans for the next day.

On Saturday, Nalini was nice enough to do a signing with me, Carolyn Crane, and Jeanne C. Stein at the Broadway Book Mall. Heather Osborn came along, and she took us out for a gorgeous lunch. The signing itself was very fun, and we signed lots of stock. Heather took this fab picture of us all in action:

After the signing, Mario had made huge plans for us involving a restaurant called d Bar–which specializes in desserts–and the absent-but-attending-in-spirit Juliet Blackwell, who was represented by a parfait. Basically, Mario’s intentions were to get us to act out eating Juliet’s parfait, because he’s subtle and not pervy at all. Ever. Right Mario?

Here’s the action sequence, involving Carolyn Crane, Juliet’s Parfait, and moi. We go from diving into Juliet’s parfait, to a little post-parfait snuggle, to an empty parfait glass wearing a witch hat (which is obviously a metaphor for something very suggestive, and stuff).

Needless to say, there was much shenigans. After dinner, Jeanne took Nalini and Heather back to the hotel, while Carolyn and me went out with Mario. We went for a walk in this gorgeous park, then I found my ultimate dive bar, called the Satire Lounge. Yes, Satire. Amazing!

It was absolutely hilarious, with PBR on tap for only $1.75. My inner hipster came out to play. I also had the honor of sitting next to the craziest sumbitch in the bar, who was filthy and bearded and doing some serious chair dancing to Michael Jackson.

Carolyn and I stayed at the Sheraton in Downtown Denver, and it was a very, very nice hotel. Seriously swank. on Sunday morning, Mario was so sweet as to pick us up to take us to brunch, then give us a ride to the airport:

Full service Mario! Both Jeanne and Mario were unbelievably hospitable to us, and I know we all had a great time hanging out with them and attending RomCon. I loved meeting all my old and new fans, and talking with the Romance community, in general, about what they read and why.

So thanks for inviting us, RomCon! And I look forward to attending next year, hopefully. Not least because I absolutely loved Denver and would love to see some more of it.

Up next is my move to PA and my trip to Seattle. Never a dull moment… 😉