Book Signing and Blog Tour

I had a terrific time at the BYU Life the Universe and Everything Symposium this past weekend. I love getting to spend time with so many writer friends. I always learn so much from the panel discussions. Tracy and Laura Hickman were the special guests. Wonderful. Just wonderful main addresses from them. The conference was especially great since my editor, Stacy Whitman, was there. Here's a picture of us together at my Saturday book signing.

Note, my new hair-do, special for the occasion. My husband took one look at me and asked if I was having a mid-life crisis. LOL (I will not mention what age I'm turning very soon on my birthday). I think the stylist did a terrific job. Now if only I can manage to get my hair to go like that on my own. The odds aren't good.

Well, Brass Dragon Codex has launched and is doing very well. I've got a blog tour going. Here's excerpts and links to the first few blogs. More will follow.

Reviews of Brass Dragon Codex

The Brass Dragon Codex is a truly enjoyable book. It was a fast and friendly read, enjoyable for both me and my son.If you love dragons as much as I do, love a good story with the thrill of adventure, then you'll love R.D. Henham's Brass Dragon Codex. (Ali Cross)http://grrlinawhirl.blogspot.com/2009/02/book-review-brass-dragon-codex.html

The action goes on and on. And so, too, does the reader's interest. I'd definitely recommend this book to young, fantasy loving readers. (Ronda Gibb Hinrichsen)http://thewriteblocks.blogspot.com/2009/02/what-they-did-right-rd-henham-rebecca.html

In my wanderings through StoryLand, it's far too seldom that I find a book I want to absolutely rave about.This is one of the few! I loved it and I would whole-heartedly recommend it to anyone! (Wendy Elliot)http://wendword.blogspot.com/2009/02/review-brass-dragon-codex-by-rd-henham.html

This was an easy, fun read, which is very understandable, as it is aimed for ages 9-12. Still, part of the reason I read it in one day was it was hard to put down. There was a lot of action and conflicts from so many areas, (Annaliese Lemmon )http://storyengineer.wordpress.com/2009/02/18/review-brass-dragon-codex/

. . . it was a very fun book to read. I mean, hey, how can you not like a book with a lovable, free-spirited dragon and a cute little gnome? :o) I'm definitely going to read the rest of the books in this series. (Jewel Adams) http://www.jewelsbestgems.blogspot.com/

My New Book Coming Out

I'm super excited. Brass Dragon Codex releases this Tuesday (February 10, 2009)!

For those who are close to Utah, I'll be doing a book signing at the BYU Bookstore in Provo Saturday, February 21 at 2:00 PM and a reading at 5:00PM the same day as part of Life The Universe and Everything conference(upstairs in the Wilkinson Center I think). I'll also be on two LTUE panels on Friday at 1:00pm and 2:00pm.

I'm also having a book signing in Salt Lake at the Jordan Landing Barnes & Noble Saturday, March 7 from 2:00-4:00 PM. I'm hoping to have some helium balloons for the kids.

Most likely I'll be at ConDuit in the summer and MountainCon in the fall as well.

Brass Dragon Codex was a really fun book to write. I'm very happy to see it finally hitting the shelves. :)

Writing Once Again

Well, I've survived Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas and am finally moving from writing short stories back to starting a new book. Wrote 41 pages yesterday. If I can keep up that pace I'll have a very rough exploratory draft done by the end of the year. Of course if I'm writing in this blog, it means I've hit a spot in the book that I don't quite know what happens next. I guess that means it's time for some kind of battle. LOL. I feel really good starting a new book.

Brass Dragon Codex cover

Good news. I finally got the cover for Brass Dragon Codex which is due to come out January 2009. It's kind of the comical adventure for the series. In this picture the young brass dragon, Kyani, sits on a valuable painting, trying to decide if he's going to eat it or not. But what he's really hungry for is companionship.

Kyani's search for friendship leads him to the gnome, Hector, who ventures across the desert to complete an invention that will fulfill his life quest. But Hector's new invention is far more valuable and dangerous than he realizes, and many forces plan to take it out of his hands--dwarves, knights, a clever thief, and a colossal blue dragon. Hector and Kyani must work together to complete the invention before they lose everything, including their lives.

Surprise Packages

Hey all, I got to read a review copy of the newest book in the Company of Good Woman series. It was quite a read. The authors have done a great job of showing the challenges and triumphs in the lives of three everyday women. Of course I'd like to give them each a sword and magic powers and see how they fare against a horde of invading fairy monsters, but all books can't be fantasy, I guess. And I have a feeling that the three women in Surprise Packages would probably make out heroically in whatever setting they end up in. Sometimes just living a good life is more heroic than anything else.

Here's some more info about the book and an interview with the authors.

In an unusual approach to novel-writing, Nancy Anderson, Lael Littke and Carroll Morris each wrote from a single character’s point of view. Seamlessly knit together, their characters’ compelling stories have made the first two novels in the series Deseret Book bestsellers.

Surprise Packages (Deseret Book, $17.95, Softcover) begins fifteen years after Deenie, Juneau and Erin meet at Education Week at BYU. Deenie, now living in Gainesville, Florida, wonders if "a new where calls for a new who.". Juneau's feelings of guilt come to a head when a secret from her childhood resurfaces. And Erin takes a risk when she has a second chance for love—with surprising results.


Surprise Packages is the best book of the series! —Erma Carrier

I’m inspired by the character's spiritual strength and real-ness. —Vicki Wright

The Company of Good Women series is an endearing tribute to women and every kind of love they experience—times three. —Ginger Franz


Interview Questions forAnderson, Littke, Morris

Surprise Packages is the last in your trilogy, The Company of Good Women. Tell me what makes your trilogy unique.

It’s the story of three women in three different parts of the country and their quest to become Crusty Old Broads—written by three women from three different parts of the country who are self-professed Crusty Old Broads! Readers praise it for offering a realistic—but hopeful—view of the issues faced by LDS families.

Where are you from?


Lael is from Pasadena, CA; Nancy is from Sandy, UT; and Carroll lives in Green Valley, AZ.

How did you come up with the idea of writing together?

We were vacationing together in Moab, Utah, when Nancy said, “Why don’t we write a book together?” We sat down right then and brainstormed about what we wanted the themes of our novel to be. We still have the notes that Carroll wrote in aqua ink!

What experience did you have that made a novel a feasible project?

Carroll is the author of several fiction and non-fiction books published by Deseret Book. Lael as over forty YA books (Deseret Book and national publishers) to her credit. Nancy, though at the time unpublished, had been working on some book ideas.

How long did it take until the first book came out?

We got the idea in 1998 while on vacation in Moab. We wrote “at it” for several years—we finally got serious when Deseret Book expressed interest in what we were doing. The first book in the series, Almost Sisters, was released in July of 2006, about eight years after we first got the idea.

What were the biggest challenges you faced as co-authors?

1. Merging files and making corrections. On the first book, Lael was the manuscript master. For the last two, Carroll took on that job.
2. Literary liposuction. The story of each character—told completely—would have filled its own book. So cutting the text without gutting the story was a challenge.
3. Writing the third book of the series. We knew where we were going in the first two books, but none of us had written ahead in book three. We had only general ideas about where it would go. 4. Making the series add up to something. We wanted our readers to finish the series feeling that they’d been changed by the time spent with Deenie, Juneau and Erin. We hope they will periodically read the series over, like visiting old friends.

What is your personal favorite part of Surprise Packages?

Lael: Gradually bringing Juneau and her husband, Greg, closer so that eventually they “speak the same language.”
Carroll: The romance between Erin and Vince Gerlach. Much of the Erin material is quite serious and dramatic, but the romance was fun to write.
Nancy: Deenie discovering that being a Mormon woman raised in Utah doesn’t make her better than other people. She learns a lot about herself and other as she sees life with this new self-awareness.

How did you come up with the title Surprise Packages?

That comes from a talk the three of us heard when we were vacationing in Sedona. The speaker said that when we make a decision, we’re wrapping up a package that we open in our future. In book three of the series, the three women open the packages created by the decisions they—and others—made in books one and two.

Are the characters and events in the novel based on someone you know or events in your own life?


Lael: Many incidents are loosely based on my own or a friend's experiences, but I changed them to suit my purposes.
Carroll: As authors, we throw everything we’ve experienced, heard about, read about, wondered about, and imagined, into the great stew pot in the back of our minds. As it bubbles away, all those elements emerge in a new form—fiction that’s as real as life itself.
Nancy: It’s true that we start with what we know or know about, but then the characters take over. Some plot lines are the result of our characters refusing to go where we want them to!

Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp?


That no matter what situation a person is in any moment, the story isn’t over yet. Never, never, never give up—on others or on yourself!

Are there any similarities between you three and the three characters in the novel?

There are some superficial similarities. For instance, Carroll and Nancy (actual sisters) met Lael (their virtual sister) at a Women’s Conference. Deenie, Juneau, and Erin meet at Education Week. The three authors have vacationed together every year since then; they drew on their experiences to describe the vacations the characters go on together. Nancy actually appliqued denim jackets for herself and the other authors. They wore the jackets when they were on vacation in Moab—and they did stop traffic, just like the characters in the book!

It sounds like you three have vacationed togeter a lot. What’s your favorite vacation spot?

Our favorite place is Carlsbad, CA, but Moab, Utah, and Sedona, Arizona, are right behind.

Do you three have a new project in the works?

We have an idea for a book that will have the same format as the series—we’ll each write from the viewpoint of a character. It’s a stand-alone novel set in Powell, Wyoming, during World War II. But it is on the back burner while we’re working individual projects.

For more information visit http://www.crustyoldbroads.blogspot.com and http://www.virtualsisters.net/

Blog Tour Hosts:

August 1st: Candace Salima

August 1st: Tristi Pinkston

August 1st: Shirley Bahlmann

August 2nd: Traci Abramson

August 2nd: Keith Fisher

August 4th: Don Carey

August 4th: Alison Palmer

August 4th: Jewel Adams

August 5th: Lynda Bennett

August 7th: Nichole Giles

August 8th: Karen Hoover

August 8th: Karlene Browning

August 15th: Stephanie Humphries

August 18th: Jen Lords

August 20th: Kim Thompson

August 21st: Heather Moore

August 22nd: Alison Palmer

August 23rd: Heather Justesen

August 26th: Marsha Ward

August 27th: Stephanie Black

August 28th: Rebecca Shelley

August 28th: Anne Bradshaw

August 29th: Carole Warburton

August 30th: LuAnn Staheli

August 30th: Tristi Pinkston

Breaking Dawn

Of course I read it. Actually, I read it out loud with my 12 year old daughter. We finished up Sunday night. Didn't do anything but read Saturday and Sunday except attend church. My daughter is very bright and figured out much of what would happen early on, so she didn't have too many surprises. That just made her happy of course, because things turned out the way she wanted them, with one exception at the end, which I'm not going to mention at this time so as not to spoil the story for anyone who hasn't finished it yet (I know there must be a few people in the world who haven't, because my sister was still reading last night and not even half way through).

As for me, I thought it was brilliantly done especially the tasteful way the more mature content was handled. I very much enjoyed the book, and probably will read it again on my very next day off.

What Have I Been Reading?

Well, I signed up for a short story workshop, coming this September 2008.

The pre-work for the workshop is to read all the Asimov's magazines for this year. Alas, it has taken me three weeks to get through seven magazines. Not my usual reading speed since since I devour books like Twilight in one evening. But that's fantasy, and I'm very comfortable with fantasy. Science Fiction on the other hand . . .

The first story in the January 2008 issue, "The Perfect Wave" by Rudy Rucker and Marc Laidlaw is absolutely brilliant--setting, voice, characterization, all wonderful. I'm smart enough to know that, but the perfect wave drowned me. For the life of me I don't understand it. Some kids get on virtual surfboards and change the world. Don't know how. Some sciency stuff. Clearly I spent too much time in college studying Beowulf and not enough time studying science. Physics 101 just doesn't cut it. I could tell right then that it would take me a concerted effort to make my way from January all the way through July.

I'm glad to say that bit by bit I've come to understand the stories and articles better. You might be glad to know that I pretty much understood all of the stories in the July issue. I particularly enjoyed "26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss" by Kij Johnson and "Thought Experiments: When the Whole World Looked Up" by Kristine Kathryn Rush.

My other favorite stories were "Galaxy Blues" by Allen M. Steele, "The Room of Lost Souls" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, and "The Egg Man" by Mary Rosenblum.

"Galaxy Blues" is about a guy named Jules Truffaut who ends up taking on a black hole. Can't tell you if he survives or not, because I wouldn't want to ruin the story for anyone who hasn't already read it.

"The Room of Lost Souls" is a sequel to Kris's December 2005 Readers' Award winning novella, "Diving Into the Wreck." The story is about a woman who works with teams of space divers to find and explore/recover wrecked space ships much like undersea divers do sunken shipwrecks here on earth. In "The Room of Lost Souls" she must face the most ancient dangerous wreck of all, the wreck that killed her mother and she alone survived.

"The Egg Man" is the story of, Zipakna, a Mexican aid worker helping poor unfortunate Americans. That thought just makes me smile. But Zipakna has good reason to go into the dangerous American desert. His wife vanished out there, and he hopes his efforts will someday bring him in contact with her once again.

So, despite the slow difficulty of the read for me and often feeling completely non-intelligent, I'd say it's been a great assignment. I've sure learned a lot.

Of course the next assignment is to write a science fiction story. It's been a loooot of years since I've done that, and of course science has changed so much since I was in school, no doubt about it after reading all those magazines. I admit to feeling a bit (okay a lot) intimidated. But I have a deadline. The story must be done and sent off by the end of next week. And deadlines have a wonderful way of forcing my creativity into action. I still don't have a clue what I'm going to write. But when I sit down to work on it Monday morning, I'm sure something will pop out.