First of all Happy New Year to everyone and thank you for visiting and following my blog during my hiatus in the last 2 months of 2010. Due to circumstances, one of which was me finding a full-time job after a year of unemployment I am skipping any end-of-the-year overviews and such for now because I simply didn't have the chance to do one and maybe I'll do as last year and post one in the course of January or February depending on the free time I'll have.


However I'm back at blogging again and am thrilled to have an awesome reason to do so. In the course of last year I contacted author Mari Carr with an idea to review her Wild Irish Series on my blog. She graciously agreed and in between all the hectic stuff going on at the end of 2010 I did manage to read and review the series up till the penultimate book. She also was sweet enough to write a guest post for me to kick-off the Wild Irish Week here on Pearl's World of Romance.


In the coming week I will be reviewing the books of this series, every day of the week, corresponding to the day included in the titles of the books. I'll be starting tomorrow with COME MONDAY and will close the Wild Irish Week reviews on Sunday January 9th with my review of ANY GIVEN SUNDAY(provided I'll be able to finish and review it on time). Commenters will be eligible to win the book of the day they leave a comment with the review, but more about that with the first review tomorrow.


As said, Wild Irish Week will start of with a guest post by Mari Carr, author of the series and she will be telling us some interesting facts about the series. Please give Mari a warm welcome and I hope you will return to read my reviews on this lovely contemporary romance series.

Any Given Sunday, the final book in my Wild Irish series, releases on Friday, January 7. Pearl has very graciously offered to host a week-long Wild Irish celebration and we thought we’d kick it off with seven interesting facts about the seven books in the Wild Irish series…

1. The story stemmed from the traditional nursery rhyme Monday’s Child, which I’d always thought was called Sunday’s Child—hence the mother’s name! Oops.


2. I found the names of the Collins siblings on a website for baby names that showed Gaelic names. I chose names with meanings to fit the poem. For example:

Keira means dark. She was dark haired—full of beauty.
Teagan means little poet. She was my songwriter—full of grace.
Tristan means tumult. He is full of woe.
Killian means war, strife. He has far to go.
Ewan means God is good, young. He is loving and giving.
Riley means Rye. Picked it because I liked it. She works hard and plays hard.
Sean means God is gracious. He was the child born on the Sabbath day.

3. All the titles of the books are taken from song titles.

Come Monday by Jimmy Buffett—my favorite!
Ruby Tuesday by The Rolling Stones.
Waiting for Wednesday by Lisa Loeb
Sweet Thursday by Matt Costa
Friday I’m in Love by The Cure
Saturday Night Special by Lynyrd Skynyrd
Any Given Sunday by Sandpeople

4. Justin in Sweet Thursday was originally named Jason. Wrote the whole book with him as Jason. We were near the end of the first round of edits when my editor remembered that Jason was on the list of ‘overused’ names at Ellora’s Cave and we switched it to Justin. I will still slip up and call him by the wrong name periodically.

5. Every book ends with the family gathered together for some special event.

Come Monday – Sean’s high school graduation party at the pub
Ruby Tuesday – Backstage at The Universe’s last concert
Waiting for Wednesday – Killian’s homecoming from Iraq
Sweet Thursday – Keira and Will’s daughter Caitlyn’s first birthday party
Friday I’m in Love – New Years Eve/Teagan and Sky’s wedding
Saturday Night Special – Riley and Aaron’s wedding reception
Any Given Sunday – Thanksgiving dinner

6. Even though Sunday, the mother, is deceased when the series starts, she is mentioned in every book. I cried when I wrote the Sunday scenes.

7. While the names of the siblings were fictional, I pulled a lot of the names of the other characters from people I know in real life. Mrs. Tibbs, Yvonne, Joy, Johnny Sparks, Bubbles, Aaron Young, Bella, and Johanna really do exist!



Thank you Mari for these great and interesting facts about the series!