By Robin Rowe

HOLLYWOOD, CA (Gosh!TV) 11/10/2011 – Fashion Minga celebrated fashion, music and dance with a collaboration of designers and performers at LA Fashion Week on Friday, October 21st. The Spring 2012 Fashion Minga showcased six designers, sever performances, and welcomed over 2,000 buyers, media and celebrities to host venue Boulevard3.

The Fashion Minga red-carpet included Dancing With The Stars celebrities Brooke Burke, Maksim and Val Chmerkovskiy and Kyle Massey. Also on the red carpet were Diana DeGarmo of American Idol, Harvey Walden of Celebrity Fit Club and Andrea Gabriel of The Twilight Saga 1 & 2.

OmniPeace, a humanitarian fashion brand that

supports breaking the cycle of poverty through peace and education, was the first line to show on the Fashion Minga runway. The spring collection showcased T-shirts and accessories made from the finest quality materials while being comfortable, fashionable and raising awareness.

www.OmniPeace.com

SewGRATE‘s eccentric avant-garde collection paired sharp graduation layers of denim with bold color separates and feminine bows and accessories. Designer Kenyetta Grate Spring 2012 line was intended, "to be classy enough to offer the wearer room to style her inner uniqueness while providing a platform in which to do so."

www.SewGrate.com

Monah Li showed a wide variety of luxurious, sexy, and distinctive designs, staying true to her signature bohemian style. Bright dresses and camisoles were paired together in saturated rainbow colors. Sultry leather dresses and tailored jackets were also a part of the Monah Li collection. All of this surrounded her eponymous hook- and eye closure and thigh-high slits.

www.MonahLi.com

Bipolar Gear turned up the glamour by introducing amazing sequined gowns and forty-inspired cocktail dresses. Exuding the look of sophistication, the Bipolar Gear spring 2012 collection was enhanced by the use of metallic’s and ultra-feminine clean designs.

www.BiPolarGear.com

Claudette offered sheer indulgence on the Fashion Minga runway showing bra and panty sets from their Sophia Collection. Color-blocked styles including plum grey and lavender and crisp snow mixed with slate blue, black plus trims and the supplest stretch crepes. Claudette’s Desseous Collection paired layered mesh with bold black grosgrain bows, offering understated sophistication for women in all shapes and sizes with offerings from A-G.

www.LoveClaudette.com

Party Rock Clothing closed the show with their outspoken and daring pieces featuring animal prints, bold colors and daring patterns. "Sexy And I Know It" was the perfect soundtrack to highlight their fun party based collection where Mahogany, neice to Redfoo of LMFAO and creator of Party Rock Clothing strutted down the runway modeling their last look amidst a cloud of confetti.

www.PartyRockClothing.com

Performers at the event included: Kyodo Taiko Drummers, SoleVita Dance Company, Cherry Boom Boom; burlesque dancers, Chris "cj3" Rutledge; Body Percussion Artist, Rachele Royale; Singer, aerialist Leslie Vaughn; Aerialist and choreographer Matt Steffanina.

www.fashionminga.com/index.php?page=performersCurrent

Sponsors included the salon PLATINUM BLACK, the vitamin beverage ACTIVATE, Just Glam Cosmetics, airbrush tanning Colour Couture, and stylist Forté Fashion & Designs

Fashion Minga will return to present its Fall/Winter installment in March, 2012.

Morganite Diamond and Rose Gold Meira T Charm Necklace

Meira T Jewelry Line Great for an award show or everyday glamour

By Gabrielle Pantera

HOLLYWOOD, CA (Gosh!TV) 9/16/2011 – Award season is starting and it’s time to get glammed up.

Meira T Jewelry is a jewelry line that is classic yet fresh and hip too. In 1990 Meira began designing for IDI then she moved on to devolve her own Meira has developed a line that is sold in major jewelry stores throughout the world.

Meira T gets her inspiration from her European and Middle Eastern background. These inspirations are clear in all her designs. The Meira T collection has a unique flair that speaks a combination of creativity and fashion creativity. Meira prides herself on designing jewelry that the independent women will and can want to buy for themselves. Sophistication, elegance and price are what drive Meira’s collections.

These and others jewelry designs by Meira T would be great as gifts for the holidays too.

The  Morganite Diamond and Rose Gold Meira T Charm Necklace at the top is $875.00

Rough Emerald Yellow Gold and Diamond Meira T Charm Necklace

Style #: 1n6660 Rough Emerald Yellow Gold and Diamond Meira T Charm Necklace. $2,100

Style #: 1r2288 Rose and White Gold Princess Cut Morganite and Diamond Ring $860.00

Style # 1e5667 Rough Diamond, Diamond and Rose Gold Meira T Earrings  $2,200.

Emerald Splash II - Bold Bangle

Mango Bangles -Mix and match to go with your personal style or mood.

By Gabrielle Pantera

HOLLYWOOD, CA (Gosh!TV) 9/7/2011 – “It all started when we met in India in the summer of 2004 while David was studying gemology,” says co designer and founder of Mango tree bangles Helen Dukat. “Ever since David was a child, he was fascinated by the beauty of nature’s treasures.”

“Helen, with her passion for creations and skillful hands was the Ying that completed my Yang,” says Co designer and founder David Aviv. “Designing custom jewelry came very natural.”

Mango Tree Bangles are made from Organic grade Mango trees that don’t yield fruit anymore. They’re hand carved and hand painted bangles. The other great thing is they’re eco friendly. No Mango tree bangle is the same as the colors and patterns will vary from bangle to bangle, making every bangle unique.

There are three different styles in four sizes with 50 colors to choose from. The Slim and Samba styles are $18.00 each and the bold is $22.00 each. The colors and styles can dress up any outfit.

http://www.mangotreebangles.com

Celebrating Georgette Heyer

Georgette Heyer’s fiction and nonfiction novels on Sale August 15-August 21, 2011 to celebrate her birthday.

By Gabrielle Pantera

HOLLYWOOD, CA (Gosh!TV) 8/18/2011- Georgette Heyer would have been 109th birthday on Tuesday, August 16. Heyer is considered the Queen of Regency romance.

Sourcebook  is honoring this most beloved author by discounting all 46 Heyer eBooks in their current catalog to $1.99 for one week starting August 15^th through August 21^st.

Also available is Georgette Heyer’s Regency World by Jennifer Kloester. This  is a reader companion book also for $1.99 from August 15-August 21.

Celebrate Heyer writing and fall in love with Regency romance, mysteries, historical and historical non fiction books as e-books.

Remember the promotion start Monday August 15^th, 2011.

I’ve included the full list of Heyer titles available separated by category:

The link to get these books at Sourcebook’s is: www.sourcebooks.com/readers/casavip/happy-birthday-ms-heyer.html

The eBooks will also be available at major eBook retailers. It may take them a bit to update their data so if the price is not correct early on Monday give them some extra time to update.

eBooks Available for $1.99
August 15-August 21, 2011
Heyer’s Birthday is : August 16, 2011

REGENCY ROMANCE

1.        Arabella

2.        Bath Tangle

3.        Beauvallet

4.        The Black Moth

5.        Black Sheep

6.        Charity Girl

7.        The Convenient Marriage

8.        The Corinthian

9.        Cotillion

10.      Cousin Kate

11.      Devil’s Cub

12.      False Colours

13.      Faro’s Daughter

14.      The Foundling

15.      Frederica

16.      Friday’s Child

17.      The Grand Sophy

18.      Lady of Quality

19.      The Masqueraders

20.      The Nonesuch

21.      Powder and Patch

22.      The Quiet Gentleman

23.      Regency Buck

24.      The Reluctant Widow

25.      Sylvester

26.      The Talisman Ring

27.      These Old Shades

28.      Venetia

MYSTERY

29.      Behold, Here’s Poison

30.      A Blunt Instrument

31.      Death in the Stocks

32.      Detection Unlimited

33.      Duplicate Death

34.      Envious Casca

35.      Footsteps in the Dark

36.      No Wind of Blame

37.      Penhallow

38.      They Found Him Dead

39.      Unfinished Clue

40.      Why Shoot a Butler?

HISTORICAL FICTION

41.      The Conqueror

42.      An Infamous Army

43.      My Lord John

44.      Royal Escape

45.      Simon the Coldheart

46.      Spanish Bride

NON-FICTION

47.      Georgette Heyer’s Regency World

Silk is for Seduction

Exclusive interview with author Loretta Chase and a review of her novel about a Regency dressmaker resisting a scandalous romance **** 4 Stars

By Gabrielle Pantera

HOLLYWOOD, CA (Gosh!TV) 08/04/2011 – “I was already obsessed with early 19th century women’s fashion magazines, which had recently become available on Google Books,” says author Loretta Chase. “A visit to Colonial Wiliamsburg put me in touch with their historically accurate dressmakers and tailors and their highly contagious enthusiasm. I must have mentioned the subject to my agent on many occasions, because as I was finishing Last Night’s Scandal and we were talking about what to do next, she said, ‘What about a series about dressmakers?’ My ‘Yes!’ was probably deafening.”

Silk is for Seduction is the story of Marcelline Noirot, a London dressmaker determined to be the most sought after dressmaker to the ton. The Duke of Clevedon is getting married. If Noirot can get the duke as a customer for the future duchess’ gowns, her business will be a success for her and her sisters. Unfortunately, there’s a growing physical attraction between the two. Can she close the deal with the duke without seduction becoming a part of the game? Will it all end in scandal?

Chase is always a stellar read. There are passionate and sexy scenes. The humor in her books will make you laugh out loud. The beginning of Silk is for Seduction builds slowly into a strong connection in the relationship between Marcelline and Clevedon. You’ll want to read all the books in the series.

Part of Chase’s research came from unexpected sources. “Early on I watched the movie Valentino, which turned out to be far more useful than I’d expected,” says Chase. “The way his team made clothes is the same way my heroines make them…  every stitch by hand, cutting done by trained eye…on some of the world’s most expensive fabrics. Though I’d created my heroine Marcelline before I saw the movie, I can see how Valentino influenced the way her character developed, the artistic vision, the close attention to detail, the one-track mind, and the big artistic ego.”

Another surprise was meeting a dressmaker guest at a friend’s dinner party in Washington D.C. “Her history had certain parallels to my heroine’s, and I think that meeting her helped me deepen and enrich the character of my heroine…the modern version of the 19th century dressmakers I was writing about. She lives in Maine, and makes clothes for her clients the way my dressmakers do, draping and cutting the fabric.” A thunderstorm that night created an extensive blackout and completed the 19th century atmosphere.  The party happened entirely by candlelight, without air conditioning in 90° heat.

Chase says she studied early 19th century gossip and fashion magazines and consulted with the dressmakers of Colonial Williamsburg, whose knowledge extends well beyond the site’s historical era. “Since Silk is for Seduction is set later in the century than my previous books, and since there’s travel between Paris and London, I spent a lot of time with 1830s travel accounts and guides, too. I added many tomes to my collection of books on historical dress. These days, much of this material is online at Google Books, Project Gutenberg, Internet Archives, and other sites.” Chase says it wasn’t necessary to travel to university or big-city libraries to find the primary source materials she wanted.

Chase’s editor at Avon Books is May Chen. “May inherited me when my previous editor had to reduce her workload,” says Chase. “May works fast, so I get almost immediate feedback, which is a blessing…and not all that common in publishing.  But working fast, she still digs deep. Her style is collaborative. If something bothers her, she’ll ask first what I was trying to do, because she wants to work with my vision.The big challenge is working with myself. Things go so very slowly in the beginning of a book. There’s a crazed, high stress interval as the deadline approaches.”

Chase’s agent is Nancy Yost of the Nancy Yost Literary Agency. “I’d met Nancy years ago when she was an editor at Avon,” says Chase. “When, after a hiatus, I returned to writing historical romance and was looking for a new agent, an editor put us in touch, and things clicked. She has great ideas, tremendous enthusiasm, and an incredible work ethic.”

At this time Silk is for Seduction is not being adapted for film or TV. “It has screen potential,” says Chase, “the dog-eat-dog world of high fashion, the extravagant clothes, the high intensity relationship between hero and heroine plus lots of banter, a couple of the kind of big action events that John Gregory Dunne would have called ‘whammies’, and two good-looking aristocrats punching each other in front of St. James’s Palace.”

Four of Chase’s books have been finalists for a Romance Writers of America Rita award, and two have won. In the Top 100 Romances Poll, All About Romance readers have voted one of her books, Lord of Scoundrels, the #1 romance four times and other Chase books have made this list.  She’s received awards from RT Book Reviews and elsewhere.

Two Nerdy History Girls is a blog where Chase and historical novelist Susan Holloway Scott entertain readers with interesting historical facts they find in the course of their research. “Rather than politics and wars, we focus on people and their everyday lives: what they wore, what they read, how they lived, who they loved, who they hated, what they laughed at,” says Chase. “The blog offers readers a daily dose of time travel as well as insight into our stories.”

Chase is currently working on the second book of the Dressmakers series. Scandal Wears Satin, whose heroine is the second sister of the trio of sisters. Chase lives in New England. She was born in Worcester, Massachusetts.

Chases website is: www.LorettaChase.com

Silk Is For Seduction by Loretta Chase
Mass Market Paperback: 384 pages, Publisher: Avon; Original edition (June 28, 2011), Language: English, ISBN: 9780061632686

Anthem for a Doomed Youth

Exclusive interview with author Carola Dunn and a review of her new book Anthem for a Doomed Youth the 19^th novel in the Daisy Dalrymple mysteries *** 3 Stars

By Gabrielle Pantera

HOLLYWOOD, CA (Gosh!TV) 5/26/2011 – “I was listening to Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem on the radio and Wilfred Owen’s poem Anthem for Doomed Youth, as always, brought tears to my eyes,” says author Carola Dunn. “It struck me that his title would make a good title for a mystery. Obviously, as my Daisy Dalrymple series is set in the 1920s, the mystery had to be connected with events that took place during the first World War.”

Wilfred Owen was killed in action a week before the Armistice.

As ususal Dunn paints an illuminating picture of England during the 1920’s the fact that this one is after the first World War sets it apart in that she show the horrors of war on the veterans. This novel is darker because of the subject matter.

Det. Chief Insp. Alec Fletcher, is investigating the deaths of three men found in Epping Forest. Glad that his wife Daisy, wont’ become embroiled in this investigation he want t get it solved before she comes back to town. When there is a murder of a teacher at the school her friend Melanie’s daughter goes to Daisy get involved. This is Dunn’s 19th Daisy Dalrymple Set in 1926.

“I was in Saffron Walden, Essex, visiting Bridge End Garden because I wanted Daisy to find a body in the maze there,” say Dunn. “I needed to see what was in the centre. My friend and I went in, wandered about, and never did find the centre, though we did–happily–find the way out. Seeing a gardener at work, I asked him what was in the middle. He took us to see for ourselves, leading us without hesitation to the open space at the heart of the maze. Not only that, he was kind enough to give me one of only two copies of the plan of the maze!”

“I read a lot about WWI, especially about Conscientious Objectors and soldiers who went AWOL from the horrific conditions in the trenches in France and Flanders,” says Dunn, “. I visited Saffron Walden–I went to school there but needed to reacquaint myself with the town. While there I contacted librarians and museum curators who later answered email questions for me.”

“I did a lot of research about the history of Friends School, Saffron Walden, my alma mater, as quite a bit of the book is set there,” says Dunn. “I had the good luck to acquire a Facebook friend who lives near the school, where her son is a pupil, and who is involved with the Quaker Meeting in town, another theme of the book. And I found the website of a brewery in Hertfordshire, which, I discovered, had just the history I needed for my story. The owner kindly allowed me to use the name of the brewery so long as the beer was not the cause of death.”

“I found most of what I needed online, e.g. scanned photos of Saffron Walden and the school, and the teachers who were there in the 1920s, with information about them,” says Dunn. “Oregon Health Sciences University library sent me via interlibrary loan an amazing book, illustrated, about prosthetics in the ’20s.”

At this time Anthem for a Doomed Youth is not being made for TV or Film. “There is some interest in the first in the Daisy series, Death at Wentwater Court,” says Dunn.

Dunn’s agent is Alice Volpe. “My previous agent was leaving the business,” says Dunn. “I had a hard time finding a new agent, (in spite of over 40 books published with major publishers), and had asked lots of people for suggestions.”

“At a mystery conference in Seattle, I happened to be on a panel with a best-selling author, and afterwards she told me she’d heard I was agent-hunting, would I like to meet hers? Of course I said yes. She took the microphone from the table and called, “Would Alice Volpe please come up to the podium!” So I met Alice, and she’s been my agent ever since.”

“That’s really an easy one.  I thought, “Aha, a real professional. Prolific, yet humble, and clearly aware of the fact that that the only place where “success” precedes “work” is in the dictionary, says Agent Alice Volpe. “I really liked Carola’s sense of humor, which comes across beautifully in her writing, but I also quickly learned what a stickler she is for detail and how prodigiously she researches her subjects.”

“Like so many successful fiction writers, she makes it look easy, which I know is the most difficult thing in the world,” says Volpe. “I always learn something from Carola, either from her books or just from talking with her.  We share a love for animals, particularly dogs, but I do NOT share her green thumb and am always amazed at how much she knows about things that grow.”

“Carola has a publisher and editor who are extremely supportive of her work, and this makes my job much easier since we are progressing with several series,” says Volpe. “I would close with saying that Carola Dunn is an ideal client. She takes deadlines seriously, is open to editorial feedback from her editor and works well with him, and she has realistic goals and expectations vis-a-vis her career.  As I thought when I met her, “Aha, a real professional.””

Dunn as born in London and is based in Oregon. Dunn’s website is http://CarolaDunn.weebly.com
She just finished another Daisy Dalrymple mystery, Gone West, and she’s started work on the third Cornish mystery, The Valley of the Shadow.

“I’m very happy to report that now the Daisy books are being reprinted in England, the titles that have been almost impossible to obtain are available again or will be later this year,” says Dunn.

Anthem for a Doomed Youth by Carola Dunn
Hardcover, 304 pages, Publisher: Minotaur Books; First Edition (March 29, 2011)
Language: English ISBN: 9780312387761 $24.99