In my new book, A Lot Like Love, there are a lot of things to admire about the heroine, Jordan. For starters, she’s wine and business savvy, has excellent fashion sense, and she hosts a monthly “Girl’s Night In” with her best friends. They bring takeout dinner and dessert, and Jordan provides the wine. Who wouldn’t like an evening of excellent food, good wine, and the best of friends?

My question to you is this, if you had a “Girls Night In” book club, what would you serve? What are some of your favorite pairings of inexpensive and friendly wines or other beverages with either takeout cuisine or a fun and easy recipe of your own? (And yes—dessert counts!) As a little incentive to get even the shyest readers to share, let’s do a contest. The grand prize will be an awesome “Girl’s Night In” Book Club Bash that includes a 24pc. box of Godiva Bakery Dessert Truffles, a $50 Visa Gift card (to help cover the cost of refreshments) and twelve signed copies of A Lot Like Love, plenty for you and your own close circle of book-loving friends.

But even if you aren’t the lucky winner, everyone will get something: I’ll put together some of your best recommendations for a special PDF of “Girls Night In” Book Club Menus, featuring your recipes, wine pairings, and takeout recommendations. It’ll be posted here as a free download for everyone to enjoy on Tuesday, March 15.

So to get things started, I’ll go first. . . one of my favorite food/wine pairings is a full-bodied cabernet sauvignon with gnocchi alla vodka. Want a specific suggestion? Check out the Excelsior Cabernet Sauvignon from South Africa. This cab is definitely full-bodied, but I like my wine the way I like my heroes: bold. Consistently named a Wine Enthusiast “Best Buy,” the Excelsior has flavors of blackcurrant, blackberry, dark chocolate and spice, is perfect for parties and for everyday drinking (it even works with pizza) and is a steal at $9 a bottle. Like a really good book, this is a wine I love to tell everyone about.

Now it’s your turn. Enter the contest here, or post a comment below, and share one or more of your favorite pairings and you and your friends could win the grand prize package for your own “Girls Night In” Book Club gathering. And don’t worry—you don’t have to post a specific wine to enter the contest, although that’s certainly encouraged. The point is for all of us to have fun and learn about some fun menu pairings!

The contest will remain open until 10pm CST on March 11th. The winner, and the “Girls Night In” Book Club Menus, will be posted on March 14th.

Good luck to all!

Thanks to everyone who participated in the “Share the Love” Giveaway! You all said some wonderful things about my books and I’m touched.  : )  So without further ado…

The winner of the $100 book store gift card is…

Christine Brigden

(comment #6)

And the two winners of copies of A Lot Like Love are…

Paigee

(comment #22)

and

Stella

(comment #86)

Congrats to all the winners! Winners, please contact me at info@juliejamesbooks.com with your snail-mail addresses.  And Christine, please let me know whether you would prefer a gift card to Barnes & Noble or Amazon.

Now, don’t despair if you didn’t win this time, because tomorrow I’m launching another contest that is going to be awesome. Trust me, you’ll want to check this one out. So be sure to drop by!

Please note: the contest is now closed. Winner will be announced shortly.

It’s almost here.  My upcoming book, A Lot Like Love, releases on March 1st. So to celebrate, it’s time to share the “Love”.

I’m giving away a grand prize of a $100 gift card to Amazon or Barnes & Noble (at the winner’s choosing).  I’m also giving away second and third prizes of a signed copy of A Lot Like Love.  What do you have to do to enter, you ask?  It’s simple: spread the word about A Lot Like Love. Here are the details:

1.  Post somewhere letting people know about the upcoming release of A Lot Like Love.  Anywhere.  (I’m not fussy.)  You can talk about the book on your blog, your website, on Facebook, Twitter (my Twitter name is @juljames, for those of you who want to get extra-super bonus points for including that).  Don’t have a blog? Don’t tweet?  No problem–you can post a comment on somebody else’s website or blog, or even on a message board.

2.  Then, come back here and comment below with a link to wherever you’ve posted your qualifying blog/post/comment. This is important, as your comment below is your entry in the giveaway.

3.  Please make sure your link works!  If I can’t confirm you that you’ve posted/commented/blogged/whatever-ed about the book, you won’t be entered in the giveaway.

4.  To qualify, your blog/comment must be new (meaning it must be posted starting February 16th).

5.  For those of you who want to include details about A Lot Like Love in your post, the back cover copy can be found here and there’s an excerpt here.

6.  While I would love for each of you to spread the word about the release of A Lot Like Love far and wide with numerous posts, blogs, etc., in order to give everyone who promotes my book in some way an equal chance to win, I am limiting the giveaway to one entry per person.

7.  The contest is open until 10pm CST on February 27, 2011.  Everyone who correctly enters will be in the running for the $100 gift card and the second and third prizes of a signed book. Authors are eligible to win as well.  Winners will be chosen at random from among eligible entries.  The drawing will occur on February 28th.

Thanks, everyone, for helping me share the love for A Lot Like Love!