Havin' A Party! With Games!

Yes, it's here! It's here! Jen's Book Thoughts second anniversary AND the release of Robert Crais' THE FIRST RULE. So we have double the reason to party today.

First, as promised, I have winners in the Steve Hockensmith autographed books giveaway. Darcy O. is the winner of ON THE WRONG TRACK and Vicki W. is the winner of HOLMES ON THE RANGE. I have contacted both winners to get mailing information. Congratulations to you both.

Don't you love these dancing lemons? They cracked me up. And since they have better rhythm than I do, I thought I'd include them in the celebration today. I did try Pop Culture Nerd's suggestion of running naked through the snow. But since it's so darned cold, I moved fast...so fast that the image only resulted in a streak (pun intended) across the picture.

A few little factoids about Jen's Book Thoughts over the last two years. This post is post number 554. As of this writing there have been in excess of 32,100 unique visitors (of which, just under 5,000 visited in Year One), and those unique visitors have translated into many new book friends. I hope you will all stick around for Year Three. You are, after all, my motivation!

Year Three will see, God willing, a second season of 6-word memoirs, another Bouchercon and L.A. Times Festival of Books. More reviews, interviews, giveaways and other fun book stuff. I may even pop in some reviews of movies and TV. We'll see. I'm also working hard on a theme week for later this year. I have no intention of resting on my laurels. This is just too much fun! So again, I hope you'll stick around and join me for Year Three. Let's make it a great year of sharing books.

Alright. Let's talk about party requirements here. We have dancing lemons, hopping beagles. You are each required to join me in toast. Hold your glasses up to your monitors...I'm toasting you from my end of the blog-o-sphere, "here's to another great year with crime fiction and friends!"

And what's a party without games? We have a game in honor of R.C.'s book launch today. We waited over a year for this one, so it's cause for celebration, right? Oh, who am I kidding, we wouldn't have to wait a year to have cause for celebration. But this game is in his honor. And the inspiration came from Pop Culture Nerd. We were discussing "degrees of separation" between R.C. and well...everyone. So, today we're going to play Six Degrees of Robert Crais. I hope you all will play along with me. Here are the rules:

1. Pop Culture Nerd is starting off the game by giving me a name that would be recognizable to most people. I have to connect this person to R.C. in six degrees or less (but not any more).

2. I throw another name out that would be recognizable to most people (in other words, I can't pick my sister's ex-boyfriend from seventh grade).

3. The first person to comment and play the game, needs to connect the name I gave to R.C. in six degrees or less then come up with the name for the NEXT commenter. And so on as long as the comments go.

4. All connections must be real and verifiable. So, no, "I dreamed that..."

So let's see how well we can do with The Six Degrees of Robert Crais! Pop Culture Nerd's name is:

Kevin Bacon

Wasn't that nice of her? She gave me an easy one. I don't need six degrees, so here goes:

1. Kevin Bacon was the movie A FEW GOOD MEN with Demi Moore.
2. Demi Moore was married to and had three children with Bruce Willis
3. Bruce Willis played the role of Jeff Talley in the film version of Robert
   Crais' standalone HOSTAGE.

At first I had a name that would be kind of challenging. Not impossible, just challenging, but I'm going to be just as generous (maybe even more so) and choose the person I always thought would make a good Max Holman,

MARK HARMON

So now it's your turn. In the comments section, connect Mark Harmon to Robert Crais in six degrees or less and then contributed the next name. The names don't have to be Hollywood names, just names that would be recognizable by most people.

And thank you all for helping make this a FANTASTIC Year Two for Jen's Book Thoughts! Happy Reading!