LN Cronan

 EXCELLENT!!!!  Er, well, now we've got another mystery on our hands. AGH!!!!

 Well the shots of the rings is either real or fake -- so it was either posted on the wrong day (if real) or hacked (if fake).  Today's official shot (the guy with the long hair) DID come from the Bared to You: A Crossfire Novel page, because that's where Sylvia herself grabbed it to re-repost to her own Facebook page approximately eight hours ago. I checked by looking at her own Facebook page.  I don't see any follow-up comments from her regarding the rings picture. She did pop in twice on the FB thread about the guy picture, though the comments she made were related to the release of Entwined, not the picture. I hope she comments some time in the coming hours one way or another about the rings picture making the rounds. She might be fast asleep right now -- in the Western U.S. Time Zone it's currently a little before 4:30 a.m.

The non-official picture, the rings, did remind me of something, though -- Â Corrine proposed to Gideon all those years ago. He'd have been around 20 years old at the time -- already rich enough that he could afford that year to hire Angus away from the Vidals. Did Gideon go pick out an engagement ring on his own and present it to Corrine in some romantic way? OR ... Did she have to take it upon herself to drag Mr. Doesn't Do Romantic Gestures to Tiffany's in order to pick out a ring? Â If I had to guess .... Â She probably waited and waited and waited for him to get her a ring, and when she figured out he wasn't going to do it on his own, dragged him to the jewelry store. His heart really wasn't in this engagement, wasn't in this relationship. The only reasons he said "yes" was because he figured that she'd be the only one who would even want to marry him and he didn't want Corrine ending up with some other guy. A combination of settling and insecure possessiveness, in other words -- not love.

 This is the one Sylvia posted to FB, and she also posted the link to it on Twitter, so this is the official Day 13 picture.  That other one of the engagement and wedding rings? Two theories .....  Fake posted by some third party who knows how to use Photoshop. Internet trolls like to pull stunts for cheap thrills. Real but meant to be the final countdown picture. Though if that's true, it shoots Andie's theory the pictures are going through the chapters in reverse order (Chapter 22, 21, 20, etc ...)  My thoughts on the real picture above:  It's a guy with dark shoulder length hair, so it's safe to say it's meant to represent Gideon. The outdoor setting, wet hair and no shirt might suggest the beach (especially because we got a beach picture yesterday as the Chapter 19 snapshot). One figurative meaning would be his continuing to work on his issues regarding his nightmares, which include whether or not he can return to Dr. Petersen for treatment to deal with the sleep disorder that causes him to sometimes attack Eva. Another figurative meaning would involve getting away with the killing -- will the case ever truly go away, or will the specter of it continue to hang out there? Because if they don't charge Gideon, the case status officially remains "unsolved" and so would always be in some sort of under-investigation status.

I'll likely read the site June 4-6, but right now I am leaning toward the consensus here to hold off until June 7 to start going crazy posting. Â I can amuse myself by going back over some posts made in the past, especially since the snapshots started showing up, about various guesses I had about what they mean. See how near or off the mark I was. Probably off the mark, given the clever plot twists. At best, maybe half right. Â I was half right about snapshot #1 involving media manipulation by Gideon and/or Eva regarding the Gideon/Corrine cover story or possibly the Eva/Brett story coming in. Half right in that Eva is considering manipulating Deanna Johnson in the future, and Deanna has already caught wind of the Eva/Brett connection. Totally taken by plot twist surprise thought that a reporter is gunning for Gideon and is hoping Eva would secretly cooperate by turning against Gideon in revenge for Gideon "using" her (Eva). Whoa!

 We haven't definitely found out. My guesses:  The very last one had been someone downstairs tipping him off to the arrival of the police -- probably Angus waiting outside, but also possibly the lobby desk guy downstairs, who'd been put on some sort of standing order to let Gideon know when anyone showed up asking for Eva (Cross Industries owns the building, and I have a theory that for some time now, part of Gideon watching over Eva has involved the doormen and desk people in her building getting paid lots of $$$ money to watch over Eva and at times report directly to Gideon or perhaps to Angus.)  Other calls during the evening might have been some of his people keeping him updated about what was going on regarding the discovery of a murder victim that morning in a hotel owned by a Cross Industries subsidiary.  I'm sure at some point, Corrine called too, hoping maybe he'd take her out that night. She'd have been back to calling him daily, perhaps multiple times daily now, encouraged that she's gotten him back.

I'd consider Angus. He's in the same age range as Victor -- and he's also a really good guy. Â Raul - yep, him too, provided he's available. Â Cary - no. Not as a one-night stand, though I'd love to hang out with him platonicaly. He's not single - he's in an on-again-off-again relationship with someone.

 Hmmmmmm, Brett.  I might consider a one-night stand there.  Provided, of course, he's open to brunettes. I hope he hasn't developed some sort of blonde fixation.  There's always Arnoldo, too.  Oh and Victor is single.  Am I missing anyone else?

 If Magdalene has spent any time at all around Gideon the past two-plus weeks, such as running into him somewhere, she'd be able to tell the guy is in a great deal of pain.  Maybe she thinks Corrine managed to screw this up for Gideon by running Eva off. Maybe she's figured out for herself Gideon never looks at Corrine the way he looked at Eva. Hopefully, she's hoping that Gideon will somehow manage to get Eva back. Hopefully, she's even tried pulling Gideon aside to lecture him for being, as usual, something of an idiot when it comes to women. Hopefully, she'll do cartwheels when Gideon manages to "get Eva back" somehow.  OK, well maybe not cartwheels. But she'll probably quietly gloat over the fact that in the end, Corrine lost.

 ::: another brunette raising her hand :::  (and no, Christopher Jr., I'm not interested. You're a poor substitute, and I wouldn't settle for anything less than the best) Â

 I think Magdalene actually will be happy for Gideon.  But a whole lot of other brunette hearts will break when Gideon puts a ring on Eva.

 His motives for creating a permanent solution to the Nathan danger were pure.  And Eva knows Gideon himself is not a danger to her.  I think most of us can agree though that start to finish, the way Gideon set about handling the whole Nathan situation was one long series of really bad choices.  The main reason his choices turned out badly was because he's a control freak. So each of the choices he made (from keeping Eva in the dark to using Corrine) were made under his delusion that everything would go exactly according to his plan. Real life doesn't work that way, because other people are beyond our control. Gideon learned this the hard way when the parts of his plan involving other people -- like Eva, like the detectives -- spun completely out of his control and blew up in his face.

Gideon already has made some remarkable progress. But he's still got lots of work to do. It's why Crossfire is going beyond three novels - there's so much to cover still.

I'm flexible ... Â If someone with experience juggling spoiler/non-spoiler threads in real time, like Sharonm, wants to take a lead, I'm good to go into those whenever, as long as I know how they work so that I don't inadvertently spoil something for other fans here. Like I said, I've never participated in a situation where a book is literally hot off the press. Â I'm just as willing to go radio silent from June 4-7, holding off on starting to post anything until all of the fans here, most especially the regulars here, all have had their shot to read the book first. Â We'll get 'er figured out between now and that magic first week of June.

I've got a paper copy reserved at a great indie bookstore near my apartment. Plus I'll be downloading the audiobook from audible.com.  In case of emergency -- i.e. the book shipment arrives late -- I have my Kindle at the ready to download. I've never yet had a problem with my bookstore getting something late, but I'm not leaving anything to chance.  I'm a natural speed reader, so I expect to have my first read-through done in about 3 1/2 hours. Then I'll spend more time re-reading to savor it all over again and to dive back into Bared and Reflected as well, to connect some dots.  Plus the audiobook runs a little over 11 hours, so I can spread that out over days.  SQUEEEEE!!!!

Our Gideon is a very good man, not some love-em-and-leave-em jerk. A guy who, however, had erected an elaborate set of defenses in order to be able to enjoy some sort of social and sex life without having a repeat of how his first relationship ended over a sexual dealbreaker issue. Â Gideon tried as best he could to let women know what the deal was. He couldn't help it if the women went nuts for him anyway, but as best as he knew how, he tried to lessen the chance. Poor guy was somewhat clueless though to just how appealing he truly is to women. His rotten self esteem made him feel he wasn't worthy of love, so he must have believed the main appeal he had to other women was his fortune and social standing. Â And then .... Â .... he fell in love. Had a reason to try to dismantle that old system in order to make a real relationship work.

Though I've participated in other book discussion threads, I haven't yet participated in a real-time spoiler situation involving a new book (i.e. starting to discuss a book while others in a group are still in the process of reading.) Â Thus I'm willing to sit on my hands if necessary until June 7, lest I spoil anyone's surprise. But I know others here have more experience in discussion threads about books (and/or TV and films) who have seen different ways of handling spoiler material. Â I'm hoping collectively we can try to plan ahead, now that June is almost here. Â OMG, June is almost here -- it's really almost June. SQUEEEE!

We've got a very lively international crew here. Alas, not every one of us will be able to get our hands on Entwined the same day, because the June 4 release date in the United States is not worldwide.  Thus I'm throwing out for discussion/ideas with everyone, but most especially for readers outside the United States, ways to handle spoiler threads in early June. Some U.S. readers very active in this forum will have finished reading the novel before other active members, such as those in the U.K., have even had a chance to get their hands on the book itself yet.  Thoughts on how to balance things so that fans who have already finished can discuss while others still reading, or even still waiting for delivery, can take part without having the ending ruined for them?  Group effort on how to structure different threads instead of throwing stuff into one huge Entwined thread?

 I'm sure that as Entwined opens, Monica especially is unhappy about the break-up -- but from a legal liability point of view for every last one of them, Eva included, the safest thing to do would be for Gideon to leave all their lives. Indeed, this is the very reason why he had cut off all contact with Eva herself in the days that followed the police questioning him.  Monica and Stanton would know that if the police charged him with murder, she and Stanton could face the real danger of being dragged into the murder case too on conspiracy allegations. Even Eva herself wouldn't be immune -- it's obvious she didn't know anything before the fact, but what about knowledge of the crime after the fact? A danger would exist the cops might attempt to go after her as well -- despite the fact she's innocent.  Once Monica and Stanton figure out though that Gideon is going to do everything he can to protect Eva now -- which includes by extension protecting Monica and Stanton -- then they'll be happy. Because at the end of the day, Gideon did stop that sicko forever.

I loved some of the things Gideon said to Eva in her bathtub as both of them soaked themselves together following very hard workouts at their respective gyms. Poor Gideon has been under so much secret pressure over Nathan, and the whole Corrine mess that had gone down the prior week has only just begun to settle down. Now Eva had tried to pry open his past, and he begged her to just give it a rest for now. Â From page 112: Â "I just want to be with you, all right? order something in for dinner, watch TV, hold you when I sleep. Can we do that? .... I just want some time with you ... I need it, Eva. You and me with no drama. Give me that. Please. Then give me a kiss. .... Kiss me, d*** it ... kiss me like you love me."

 Agreed - Gideon has treated both Eva and Corrine badly throughout this whole Nathan plot.  Eva got her heart broken -- but she's always had a clear shot -- the only shot -- at being with Gideon forever. Corrine is going to get her heart broken permanently.

 I wish it had been with us on May 4

 "Board Master" is as high as the titles go.  Welcome, young Jedi master

http://www.sylviaday.com/2013/05/21/entwined-snapshot-19/ Â A single red rose on a beach. Â North Carolina escape?

 I think Gideon, Stanton and Monica all began cooperating with one another on how to protect Eva and deal with Nathan.  Did that cooperation extend to Gideon's decision to kill Nathan? We'll find out one way or another, I think, in Entwined, but my guess is Gideon made that decision unilaterally and did everything without Stanton and Monica's knowledge. They've figured out he was responsible, but now they've distanced themselves from him to cover their own butts, lest they get charged with conspiracy. Gideon is on his own now, I think, is Stanton's position, and I think Stanton and Monica are relieved Gideon "dumped" Eva.