Rita Herron | THE DEMONBORN: DARK HUNGER

Myths and legends and the paranormal world

When I first conceived of the idea for the Demonborn series and Dark Hunger, I knew I wanted to write about strong men, demons, crime fighters and the battle between good and evil.

Next, I needed to build my paranormal world and make it different from all the other paranormals out there. What could make mine unique -- fresh?

The answer to that for me was to write about a world that intrigued me, a setting that I felt at home with, but one that naturally lended itself to a dark, eerie atmosphere that enhanced my story lines. I also thought having the paranormal creatures appear in the normal world was even more terrifying than to have a completely fantasy world. What if demons actually existed on Earth?

Born a Southerner, spooky stories about ghosts, local legends, cemeteries, and odd things that go bump in the night filled my childhood. Since my series is a dark, gritty romantic suspense filled with evil demons and murder, my setting had to reflect that same creepy feeling.

Click here to read the rest of Rita's blog, leave a comment or enter her blog contest.

Jessica Inclan | If The Skin Fits, Wear It

What has amazed me about the past couple of years is how I have managed to finally gain some perspective on myself and my life. What's appalling about this observation is that I used to think I had this perspective. I thought that I knew what I was doing and why and how. I thought I had things under control; I imagined I was in charge. I thought I knew what in the heck I was doing.

Now, however, I realize that I have and had some behaviors and needs and feelings and thoughts, but I don't imagine anymore that I have control of it of all. I just sort of "see" myself and know a little more about what I do. I also know that in another 47 years (should I make it that long) I will be able to say the same thing about my current self that I just said about my younger self.

Poor thing, I will think. She thought she had it figured out.

Click to read the rest of Jessica's blog and to leave a comment.

Carolyn Jewel | Vampire Reproduction

The other day over at my writing blog, I mused about something that’s often puzzled me; that is, the subject of Vampire Reproduction. With vampires, I wondered, why are they so often infertile, when by the rules, they ought to be more than capable of reproduction? I won’t rehash everything I said over there, but do take a look if you’re curious or would like to weigh in on the subject.

I find my mind often wonders into these strange little alleys and then gets stuck there sometimes, leaving me no choice but to slowly work my way out.

Today’s little alley concerns werewolves. Werewolves aren’t infertile, but with them, I wonder, since they can change forms without damage to their internal organs, how come t werewolf lore so often includes the caveat that they have to mate as humans? Or, alternatively, that they can’t mate as wolves and have the pregnancy last? Let’s set aside one of the really obvious answers (the squick factor).

Click here to read the rest of Carolyn's blog, comment and to enter her contest.

Alisa Sheckley/Alisa Kwitney | Borders

Borders can be pretty dangerous places. People slip over them in the dead of night, bringing desperate travelers, contraband goods and stolen identities. I knew I was inviting in all kinds of delicious plot complications when I set my novel, The Better to Hold You, on an invisible boundary line between realities.

I tried not to think about the complications I was inviting by setting my sequel, Moonburn, on the borderline between paranormal romance and urban fantasy. At first, when I thought about writing a sequel, I thought I would concentrate on another couple, and leave my main characters to get on with the business of living happily ever after.

But the truth is, I've always had a bit of a problem believing that couples will transition straight from a passionately conflicted courtship to a stress-free marriage. In my novels, I've always ended things optimistically, but assumed that there was another book, never to be written, about what happened next.

And all of a sudden, I wanted to write the forbidden book.

In The Better to Hold You, my heroine, Abra, becomes infected with the lycanthropy virus and discovers how to listen to her instincts. But what if her condition continues to change, and her instincts, and her impulses, become harder to control?

Click to read the rest of Alisa's blog and to leave a comment.

Caridad Pineiro | Creating Characters

First I’d like to thank Fresh Fiction for giving me an opportunity to chat with you! I’m Caridad Pineiro, a USA Today and NY Times Bestseller who has written of over twenty novels. My current releases are HONOR CALLS and FURY CALLS from the popular THE CALLING Vampire series from Silhouette Nocturne. In November 2009 I will have my first paranormal romantic suspense single title release – SINS OF THE FLESH – from Grand Central Publishing.

I love writing and creating characters that stay with readers long after the book is on the shelf.

The plot for FURY CALLS, my March 2009 release from Silhouette Nocturne, definitely has two of my most interesting characters and the plot of the story is driven by the conflicts of the two heroes – Blake and Meghan. Blake, in particular, helped define the nature of the villain and also, forged the redemption of one of THE CALLING’s more interesting Big Bads – Foley, the owner of the Blood Bank.

Blake has actually become one of my favorite characters of all time. Since he popped onto the scene in TEMPTATION CALLS in October 2005, he has been hanging out in the world of THE CALLING, always on the fringe of what’s happening and never really respected. Always screaming for me as a writer to give him a story that was worthy of his unique personality.

Click here to read the rest of the blog.

Natale Stenzel | Between a Rock and a Heart Place

First of all, thank you, thank you to Fresh Fiction for hosting me here today. I love visiting this site for scoop on all the latest romance novels by my favorite authors, so I'm thrilled to be blogging here on the release day for BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HEART PLACE, the third book in my series of funny paranormal romances.

As you'd guess almost immediately upon reading the back cover blurb for this story, my heroine Daphne Forbes receives a truly unwelcome gift: renegade puca powers. Oh. Well, that explains everything. Or maybe not? A puca is actually a fantastical character derived from Celtic and British mythologies. In some traditions, the puca is a shape-shifting trickster who preys on travelers; half faery and half human, the creature has a distinctly mischievous, even malicious bent. Does my version of the puca accurately reflect all the mythological accounts? Some of them. Others I cheerfully warped and expanded to suit my own needs. The pucas in my stories have three specific powers: mindspeak (mind-to-mind communication), glamour (creating illusion/molding the thoughts of humans), and shape-shifting.


Click to read the rest and enter Natale's blog contest.

Sharon Ashwood | When Your Brand New Book Leaves Home …

Launching a book is a peculiar business.

First, the concept of “launch” is a bit different from the writer’s end. She’s already sent the manuscript away over and over again – to the editor, to the copy editor, for page proofs, and on and on. And yet the darned thing keeps coming back like a pesky cat and, sadly, editors are about as easy to ignore as a yowling Siamese hanging from the screen door. What began as infatuation with one’s literary child quickly morphs to irritation. That’s a sure sign Baby Book has hit the difficult toddler stage.

But books grow up too fast. When it finally launches, the author doesn’t actually have much of a role to play anymore. Sure, a party is nice, but all the stuff that matters is all beyond her control, subject to grand and incomprehensible market forces. Baby Book is all grown up, out in the cold, cruel world and about to encounter fast cars and loose readers. Will the universe be kind?

Click here to read the rest and enter Sharon's one day blog contest.

Karen Harper | RESEARCHING THE LIVING AND THE DEAD

No, I don’t write vampire novels, but I do write both contemporary and historical fiction. For the last ten years of my twenty-five-year writing career, I have written one romantic suspense novel and then one historical novel—back and forth. I have a writer’s split personality since it takes different skills and research techniques to do both. I love reading and writing in two genres and in two times, but it does have its challenges as well as its rewards.

For my contemporary romantic suspense novels, I can visit the settings for my story and interview people who live there or have the same careers as my hero and heroine. For THE HIDING PLACE (Nov. 2008), I spent a week in the Rocky Mountains outside Denver. I was able to interview men with dogs trained as trackers. I took two classes to learn about how my female P.I. would work, one class from a tracer who looks for lost people, and one from a female private investigator.

When I write my Elizabethan novels (most recently, THE LAST BOLEYN and MISTRESS SHAKESPEARE), I can, at least, still visit my settings. Nothing like a research trip to England! The Tower of London, Hampton Court Palace, Greenwich—and museums, of course—help me to understand Elizabeth Tudor and her times. Although I can’t interview anyone from that era, the Elizabethans were great recorders of their lives: diaries, lists of their possessions, wills, books, and, of course, their literature such as poems and plays. I even have a reference book of the poems, prayers and speeches the queen herself wrote. All of that helps my characters to come alive for me, and, hopefully, for the reader too.

One of the great things about being a writer is that I learn so much about things I would not ordinarily know. I hope my readers not only enjoy my books for great entertainment and emotion, but also for a fun, easy way to become more educated. Whether writing the past or the present, that’s my goal.

Karen Harper

www.karenharperauthor.com/

Patrice Michelle | Ideas pulled from the air...

The other day I received a question from a reader who'd already read my latest release Scions:Revelation (December 1st) and the last book in my Scions trilogy. She asked if the prophecy--that has been an underlying thread through all three of the books in the Scions trilogy--was something I planned from the very beginning, or if the outcome of the prophecy had come to me as I wrote the books.

The answer is actually somewhere in between. :)

The idea for the first book in my Scions series came straight from a dream. I'd dreamed about a woman who was kidnapped by a vampire and they were being chased by gunmen. Lots of running, leaping across building rooftops and gunshots ensued. The scene in my dream was right out of an adventure novel and too surreal not to write once I woke up. But once I started jotting down notes, I then had to figure out how to turn that "one scene" into a novel. Hmmm...I ask the question: Why the vampire might want to kidnap the human woman and why the gunmen were chasing them....and all the reasons in between....and that's how the first five chapters in the first book in my Scions trilogy (Scions:Resurrection) was created. Once I'd completed those chapters, my agent read them and said, "This is more than one book, right?" I pondered some more and came to the conclusion...Of course there would be more than one book! and there's even a prophecy, which I promptly detailed out as part of the proposal to pitch to potential publishers.

In the summer of 2006, I'd written five chapters of Scions book one, a synopsis detailing the rest of that book and a one-page overview of the other two books in the Scions trilogy (including the prophecy). As I was writing the overview, the actual prophecy itself came to me easily, yet I wasn't "set" in how that prophecy would play out in the stories.

Ultimately, even when wearing my author "hat" I'm still a reader at heart--I want to be surprised and I discover the twists and turns in the stories as I they unfold before me. ;) I didn't know who would uncover each of the pieces of the prophecy, how the layers would all tie together, who would be responsible for the biggest reveal or how each of the characters would be impacted by all the revelations. All those unknowns were very exciting to unearth as each story was written and each of the main characters played out their respective parts.

So I guess the answer to the question is that the prophecy came to me in...equal parts intuition, guess-work and good old fashioned...jigsaw puzzling. It never ceases to amaze me how the muse works in inexplicable ways!

If you're interested in reading an action-adventure paranormal story where a suspenseful mystery is woven along-side a sexy romance, then I hope you'll give my Scions books a try.

Note: Each of the Scions books are written to be read as stand alone stories, but if you'd like to read the adventures of each of the main characters in order, then they are as follows: Scions:Resurrection, Scions:Insurrection and Scions: Revelation.

Patrice Michelle
www.patricemichelle.net

Cynthia Eden | Let Your Inner Demon Out

"Let your inner demon out"—That’s what Cara Maloan, the heroine from my new Kensington Brava release, MIDNIGHT SINS, would really like to encourage all women to do.

Cara thinks ladies should start living for themselves, doing what they want—and having one heck of a good time.

Something you should probably know…Cara’s a succubus. Yep, she’s an immortal demon who gains power from sneaking into a man’s dreams and stealing his sensual energy. Hey—it’s a job, someone has to do it. :-)

Cara is absolutely one of the most interesting characters I’ve ever had the pleasure of writing. She was fun—definitely fun—but, the lady also had her hang-ups. You see, she’s a sex demon at heart, but Cara wants more than fleeting pleasure from a man. She wants love, and love isn’t something that a succubus usually gets to experience.

Ah, such is the twisted fate of my characters. When I write about my characters, I love to think in terms of opposites for them. Vampires with blood phobias…sex demons who want love…a vampire hunter who finds her perfect lover in—ahem—a vampire. Opposites.

But don’t worry too much about Cara…I gave her a good hero. She just has to get him to love her. And, of course, she has to prove that she’s not guilty of murder. Because someone is killing in the city of Atlanta—and that someone is setting Cara up for the crimes.

Falling in love, proving her innocence, catching a killer…all in a day’s work for my demon.

Now don’t you want to let your demon out? With Black Friday shopping almost upon us, whether you like it or not—she may come out. Especially once you start fighting for those parking places and those sale items…

Happy hunting! And Happy Thanksgiving to those in the U.S.!

Cynthia Eden
http://www.cynthiaeden.com/
MIDNIGHT SINS—Available 11/25/08 from Kensington Brava
Let your inner demon out…

Lori Handeland | Where do you get your ideas?

By far the question I’m asked most often is “Where do you get your ideas?” Not only by interviewers but by readers and by friends and family. I get the impression that those who know me best can’t believe I come up with all the creepy, violent “weird” stuff without some help. Which I guess is a compliment.

I get my ideas in several ways. For instance, from something I’ve read. The concept for Any Given Doomsday came to me several years ago when I was researching another book and came across the legend of the Grigori, and it fascinated me. How the Grigori, or fallen angels, came to earth to watch the humans, then mated with the daughters of men and produced a supernatural race known as the Nephilim.

I bought a bunch of books on prophesy, Revelation, angels, demons and read them whenever I had the chance and an idea started to nag at me—one of those ideas that captures an author and won’t let go. In the world of The Phoenix Chronicles, the Nephilim have been here since the beginning of time, wearing human faces, but beneath they are the monsters of legend—vampires, shape shifters and more.

I had long wanted to write a series with a continuing character—a cross between Stephanie Plum and Anita Blake—two of my favorite heroines in fiction. I had the vague idea that my heroine would be psychic; I wanted the series to be set in my hometown of Milwaukee.

I came up with the character of Elizabeth Phoenix, however I had to admit to myself that the zaniness of Stephanie would never work for Liz. Liz is dark, dangerous; she does not screw around. If she does, people die.

I continued to build on Liz’s world little by little, uncovering her background as a foster child, meeting her foster mother Ruthie, her childhood love Jimmy and her mentor, the Navajo witch, Sawyer.

Liz discovers there is a secret society that fights these supernatural creatures, and she’s just been put in charge of the ground troops. One little problem—the end of the world has been set in motion—doomsday is right around the corner—and she has no idea what she’s doing.

Sometimes an idea comes from someone I meet in my travels. For instance, when I decided to set the second trilogy of my Nightcreature Novels in New Orleans, my husband and I took a three day tour. I’d been to New Orleans twice before, but I needed more specific knowledge.

The first day we were there, we ended up in an Irish bar off of Bourbon Street. The place had a terrific juke box that played Patsy Cline. The bartender was a gorgeous red head from Boston whose name was Diana.

The bar appears in Crescent Moon as Kelly’s, where Patsy Cline sings “Crazy” while the heroine, a red head named Diana, asks pertinent questions of the bartender and the patrons.

At times I get an idea from my own life. The little boy in my Harlequin Superromance Leave it to Max is very similar to a little boy who used to live at my house (he grew into a very large, bearded young man when I wasn’t looking). A lot of my son’s best lines ended up coming out of Max’s mouth. My little guy always opened all the doors and cabinets in every room he was in. You never knew what might be in there. He was accident-prone big time.

The day I went to the fed ex box to mail the manuscript (about a little boy with a broken arm who got into all sorts of trouble) I returned home to a phone call from the school informing me that my version of Max had one too. That was kind of creepy. My husband begged me to “never put him in a book.”

Sometimes I get ideas from a line in a magazine, newspaper, an image in a movie or a TV show, a dream. I even got one once from a license plate. It was pretty cool.

I’m always interested in other people’s thought processes so tell me—Where do you get your ideas? Where do you think writers get their ideas? What have you heard from others? Share!

Lori Handeland
www.lorihandeland.com

Elizabeth Amber | Lustworthy Pin-up Guys

As I write each novel in The Lords of Satyr series, I always have an idea of what the hero looks like in my head. And pinned on my wall. Since my pin-up guys are cut from magazines, they’re usually actors, musicians, models--someone I consider lustworthy. He has to have the right hair, eyes, and muscles.

But most importantly, my pin-up guy(s) must capture the mood of my hero. It’s the mood that inspires me and reminds me who my guy is, inside and out, lest I forget over the months it takes me to write a novel.

For The Lords of Satyr series, which is historical paranormal erotic romance, I found at least some of my inspiration in a single statue I saw on a trip to Europe a few years ago. I was writing about half-satyr half-human males. Imagine how thrilled I was when I stumbled on this life-size statue of a satyr male in the Louvre! I took so many photos of it, I’m pretty sure I worried the hovering guard. I explained to her that I was writing romances about satyr brothers in Tuscany and showed her bookmarks. She was intrigued—or maybe that was bafflement I read on her face due to the language barrier. Either way, she was happy to have me autograph the bookmark, which she pocketed. But she still kept an eye on me.

The face of this statue doesn’t match what I envisioned for any of my satyr guys—Nicholas, Raine, Lyon, or Dominic. I’d find those faces elsewhere. But talk about mood! This alpha guy has what I remember Carrie Bradshaw in Sex and the City calling great “throw down” when it comes to his women. And the statue as a whole has a voluptuous, sensuous mood that’s perfect for what I wanted.

Like many authors, I don’t see my covers until long after my novels are finished, so I can’t base my heroes on the cover models. Rather, the marketing department and my editor choose the covers based on their vision of the heroes I’ve written. And I have a feeling readers put their own spin on every hero they read as well. I know I do.

In my November e-newsletter, I asked members to rank my four book covers in order of preference. Each cover depicts a single image—the satyr hero. Results are still coming in, but so far, one cover has been ranked last most often. It’s Raine, the most naked of them. Interesting. Still, three readers who ranked this cover last said it was the one that initially drew them to the series. They found the other books afterward. If you’d like to weigh in, visit www.elizabethamber.com/ to join the newsletter and vote (for a chance to win a book). I plan to pass the tally on to my editor.

How important are visual images of heroes to you? If the guy on the cover doesn’t fit your image of the hero, does it dampen your interest in the book itself? Is there one truly lustworthy romance cover that has stayed in your head for months or years? Which is more important to you--the specific look of the hero on the cover or the mood of the cover? Do you even want to see the hero on the cover?

I hope you’ll leave a comment for a chance to win a copy of my newest release, Lyon, The Lords of Satyr. I’ll randomly select a winner from among the commenters a week from today.

Elizabeth Amber
Nicholas, The Lords of Satyr
Raine, The Lords of Satyr
Lyon, The Lords of Satyr
Dominic, The Lords of Satyr (March 2009)

Karen White | Blending Women’s Fiction with the Paranormal—Is there such a thing?

I’m known for writing ‘grit lit’—Southern women’s fiction. My books are recognized not only by their Southern setting and characters, but also by their emotional intensity. So when I proposed the idea for THE HOUSE ON TRADD STREET to my agent, she was a little leery at first—especially after I told her that I planned to make this into a long-running series.

In this book I’ve blended my favorite elements of ‘grit-lit’ but threw in my passion for old houses, the City of Charleston, an historical mystery, and ghosts. The main characters are multi-layered with a lot of emotional baggage (ala Karen White books), but their dialogue is lighter, and snarkier, than my readers are probably used to. And, yes, my protagonist, Melanie Middleton, sees dead people.

So, how did I sell this idea as a marketable proposal to not only myself but to my agent and editor? After all, isn’t the publishing industry married to the ‘tried and true’ despite their insistence that they want something ‘fresh and new’? I made a deal with the devil (figuratively, of course). I promised my editor that I could still do a ‘grit lit’ novel every year—if I could just be allowed to sneak in these cool women’s fiction/paranormal mystery books in between. Seeing as how my books are usually around 120,000+ words, it was no mean feat promising two in a single calendar year. But I believed in this project and I signed the deal.

I am blessed with a really wonderful editor who likes what I write and trusts me a great deal. I think all of us (me, my agent and my editor) were holding our collective breaths as I worked on the book, hoping it would live up to its promise of being a book that my current readers would enjoy as well as one that would attract new readers. After all, I’ve always had a dash of the paranormal as well as a mystery in all of my books—this one just had a little more.

I’ll admit that I had a lot of fun writing THE HOUSE ON TRADD STREET. It’s a little lighter in tone than my previous books, and the dialogue between the two protagonists, Melanie and Jack, was the most fun I’ve had between the pages of a book in a long time. With ‘bated breath, I turned in the book and waited.

Luckily for me, my agent and editor loved the book as much as I did and they reinforced the decision to keep my name for this series because it was definitely a ‘Karen White’ book—recognizable by not only the southern setting but by likeable but flawed characters who have to work through internal and external conflicts—including a ghostly presence who’s not all that nice.

So, did I pull it off? Did I manage to merge women’s fiction with a paranormal romance? I think so, and early reviews are good. Nobody really knows what to call it—and that’s okay because I don’t know either. Maybe this series will be the beginning of a whole new genre! But I’d like to believe that I achieved that goal that I set for myself every time I sit down to write: to create characters readers will care about, and put them in a story that will make my readers feel every emotion, want to turn the pages, and give them a sigh of satisfaction when they get to the end. And that’s really what it’s all about in the end, isn’t it?

Karen White

The Memory of Water--- NAL/Accent--March 2008
The House on Tradd Street--- NAL Trade--November 2008L
Earning to Breathe --- NAL/Accent--March 2007"Critic's Choice" Atlanta Magazine, July 2007
www.karen-white.com/

Eva Gordon | Wolves as Archetypes in my Novels

My blog is about why my fantasy and paranormal novels center on wolves as main characters, or spirit guides. In my debut fantasy novel, The Stone of the Tenth Realm, my hero is a Scottish werewolf, an alpha of his own pack. My current work in progress is an epic lycan series, which I hope to sell soon. I’m not alone. Numerous authors are following the call of the wild.
Why is the wolf a common archetype in many myths and stories, even today? Nothing sends a chill down your spine more that hearing a wolf’s howl in the night. While at a wolf sanctuary, I spent the night in a trailer on the grounds and was privileged to hear night after night of thirty wolves in their nightly serenade. No sound is more awesome.

Yet in the past the wolf had a more sinister reputation. During the development of agriculture and domestication of livestock people settled down and pushed out old hunting deities. Wolves were vilified as part of pagan beliefs and turned the wolf into Satan’s ally. Fear of the wolf once ruled Europe. Wolves were hunted and exterminated. Legends of werewolves were rampant. Little Red Riding Hood and the story of Bisclaveret brought fear to the hearts of many. Many accused of being werewolves were tortured and or burned at the stake.

Today there is more of a movement to save the wolf and what was once considered a savage killer is now becoming a spirit guide for folks who need a strong archetype and for environmentalist who see the wolf as a “spokes creature” for nature. So why is the admiration and fear of the wolf so universal? My own explanation is that the wolf’s biogeography, high intelligence; and social interaction helped them enter the mythos and literature.

The wolf is ubiquitous, found throughout most of the world from the icy Tundra in the Northern Hemisphere to the deserts of the Arabian Peninsula. Even in countries where the wolf is not found such as Australia, there are canines that serve as a wolf proxy such as the dingo. Here in our modern homes and cities our pet dogs are constant reminders of our “wolfen” companion. We after all, created the dog from the ancestral wolf, as our most loyal companion.

Wolves display common social and intelligent behavior similar to our own. They both play and have a strict social status, just as some of our cultures have. They communicate with their kind, much the same way we do, both vocally and in non-verbal ways. We have kings and presidents they have the alpha pair. Humans low in status such as slaves and peasants certainly were low on the pecking order or in a wolf pack the omega. Wolves also mate for life, which endears them to people who long to have a long and loving relationship with a mate. How romantic! What impressed me the most about the wolf sanctuary was the relationship between two wolves, Bernard and Barksalot. Bernard a white wolf had been rescued from a cruel man who gouged his eyes out, leaving the wolf blind and helpless. He was brought to the sanctuary and became friends with another rescued wolf, Barksalot, who literally became his “guide dog”. Bernard grabbed on to Barksalot’s tail and would be lead around. Barksalot would also bark to communicate with Bernard. Barking is unusual for wolves. These similarities to human behaviors let us see the good and bad in us in them.

We long to emulate their hunting prowess. Wolves use team strategy and their powerful carnassials to bring down a much larger prey. Imagine a hero that can do damage without a weapon.


The wolf is universally regarded as creatures of prophesy and omens, and have connections between the worlds of the living and the dead. The wolf is affiliated worldwide with magic, medicine, healing and transformation. In Native American culture the wolf is important archetypes. They had great respect for the wolf and often offered prayers before a hunt to the wolf spirit. Wolf spirit was also powerful medicine for shamans who traveled to the world of the dead. In the New World, there never was an attempt to eradicate the wolf from their land. In Europe just as in the New World, myths and stories about wolves are universal. Early Europeans Respected the Wolf as Protector and Teacher. From the Steppes of Asia Minor to the British Isles the Wolf and Raven were mighty totemic protector. Hecate, an Ancient Greek deity was worshipped as a goddess with three wolf heads. Rome was founded by Romulus and Remus who were fed by the she-wolf, Alcala.

Ancient Celts respected the wolf as a totem and often as a spirit guide. In the Viking world to be a member of the Wolf Clan, Ulfhednar was the greatest honour. Viking warriors believed that if they died a heroic death they would be turned into magnificent wolves. Vikings also believed wolves chasing and devouring the sun and moon caused eclipses. Two wolves accompanied Odin, ruler of the Norse Gods. He created the wolves Freki (Hungry One) and Geri (Greedy One) as loyal companions.

Today the wolf is once again a positive force in literature and as an important part of the predator/prey relationship that keeps nature in balance.

Check out Eva’s novel as a fun winter read.

Eva Gordon

http://www.ravenauthor.com/
http://www.themysticrealm.net/author_eva_gordon.html_

Bonnie Vanak | A Werewolf Tale

Alpha werewolf leader Damian Marcel has a small problem. Her name is Jamie. She’s a computer geek who is into World of Warcraft and is dying of a spell turning her into stone. She also happens to be his destined mate, who tried killing him with a poison kiss. He’s faced with searching through New Orleans to find an ancient book of magick to save her life, figuring out what Jamie means when she talks about cosplay, and fighting Morphs that want them both dead.

Here’s an excerpt from Enemy Lover, a November release from Silhouette Nocturne.

Jamie sat on the couch as she typed on a laptop. Damian nearly dropped the fruit. Elongated purple elfin ears stuck comically out of either side of her head.

She glanced up as he set the peaches down on the coffee table. A question in his eyes, Damian sat beside her and playfully tweaked an ear.

“I’m a warrior Night Elf,” she said, yawning. “I’m too tired to wear the rest of the outfit. Cosplay makes me feel better. It’s comforting.”

“I thought women liked dressing in old sweats to get comfortable.”

Her mouth turned down. “When I cosplay, I am Celyndra, my elf. She’s a tough fighter, courageous and doesn’t fear much.”

“Ah, she’s your alter ego,” he said softly in understanding. A frown puckered his forehead. “Such an imagination. Where did you get the idea?”

She grinned at his expression. “Haven’t you ever heard of WoW?”

“Wow?”

“World of Warcraft. My avatar is a female Night Elf Warrior. Some who were in my alliance used to meet at the square Saturday nights to hang out and cosplay.”

Jamie’s grin deepened. “Don’t tell me you never heard of cosplay either. Everyone knows what it is. What are you, 100?”

“Eighty,” he muttered, feeling as old as an ancient mage. Merlin, maybe.

“Eighty! You look like you’re in your twenties. No wonder you don’t know what anything is.”

“I know what hanging out is,” he said defensively.

“Cosplay is costume play. You dress as a character from a book or game and role-play. World of Warcraft is an online video game. You pick a character and fight battles. It’s a lot more complicated than that, but…”

“Battles?” he echoed. Damian narrowed his eyes. “You learned to fight and organize an army? This skill you taught the Morphs came from a game?”

“I did learn some skill from it. But that’s nothing compared to some guys I know. Former Marines, Army guys. Friends.”

Raphael’s pack had checked out all her friends in New Orleans. Jamie had few. A terrible suspicion seized him.

“Guys you know from where?”

“Online. I met them on MyPlace.”

Alarms screeched in his head. Jamie was involved in a dangerous world he knew nothing about. “You have a MyPlace page?”

Damian’s glance fell to her opened laptop. He picked it up, rapidly surfed through it. He found her page. Jamie Walsh, in lavender, with beautiful illustrations of fairies in the background. If he weren’t so furious, he’d admire the intricate artwork and the delicate simplicity of the winged creatures. Damian scrolled down, shocked at the personal details. She liked fantasy books, alternative music, designed web pages and was a self-professed geek.

People she’d like to meet. “Anyone with real magick because I need magick in my life,” she’d written. The sentence sounded a little wistful. He scrolled down to her friends. Her top friends were former military types. But… Damian zipped through the last friends she’d acquired. Names like Wolfeater, Draiconhater.

Online predators. Morphs. “You’re an open target with this, Jamie.”

“It’s my page. My friends are there.”

“Friends? Will they come to your aid if you need them? Not these bastards. They used you, Jamie. You don’t need friends. You’re my mate and you have a pack, my pack and my family here as well. They’re much more important. Family will always be there when you need help.” Reining in his emotions, Damian kept his face expressionless.

“Delete it,” he ordered.

“No. And I don’t need your pack. I do just fine on my own. Go to hell” Defiance flashed in her gray eyes.

Damian stared at her as his hands slowly crushed the laptop, splintering it in half. Her jaw dropped as the crumbled pieces fell to the floor. A strangled squeak arose from her throat.

“You won’t do that again. Try defying me and I’ll break every single computer you have. Your enemies, and mine, are on that page. Who do you think infected you with this spell? You’re turning to stone, Jamie. From the inside out.”

“Kane had no reason for it, ” she protested, but her voice shook considerably.

“You’re my draicara, my mate. Reason enough. He used you to try to kill me. He used a safeguard as well. A slow-working spell that would eliminate you.”

“All I wanted was to learn magick,” she said, looking crestfallen. “It’s something I wanted my whole life. Is that so wrong?”

Damian cupped her chin in one strong hand. “Then look, little one. Look and learn. I will teach you magick. Good magick.”

Releasing her, he waved his hand, summoning a ball of white light. Iridescent sparks glimmered from it. It hovered in the air, danced as Damian created patterns with his palm. Jamie gasped in delight. A wide smile touched her smile. Damn, he’d do anything to keep her looking like that. Happy. Young. Carefree.

She leaned forward to study the orb, her slender arm stretching out. Her expression turned to awed wonder as she touched the ball with one finger. The light flashed, turned gray, then black. Before his astounded eyes, it shriveled, then vanished.

“Oh! Oh… I killed it,” she whispered.

Her mouth wobbled precariously. Jamie seemed to shrink inside herself. Moving closer to her, he clasped her hand in his. Cold, so damn cold. Like blue ice.

“It’s not you. It’s what’s inside of you,” he said gently. “When the dark magick is gone, the light won’t vanish from your touch.”

A tremulous smile touched her mouth. “I wish I could believe you.”

I wish you would as well. He picked up the bag of peaches. “Eat. You need your strength.” Damian frowned as he glanced around. “When did Renee leave? I asked her to stay with you.”

“Said she had to get back to the shop.” Jamie dug into the bag and withdrew a peach. “Thanks. I’m so hungry, I could eat an orchard.”

She brightened, a smile touching her pixy face. The sight lifted his own spirits. He steeled against the temptation to kiss her again. “Why did Renee go back?”

Jamie went into the kitchen. Her voice trailed out to the living room. “You should know. She said you’d called, asked her to bring another gris-gris to the house.”

Damian went utterly still, the hair on the nape of his neck rising. “I’ll be right back. Don’t move from here,” he ordered.

A horrible suspicion crested over him. Damian raced out of the house. Sprinting down the street, he reached the voodoo shop.

The door was ajar. Cautiously he stepped inside. The scent slammed into him with the force of a hurricane. Blood. Death. Lacing through it was the faint scent of honeysuckle.

A black cat greeted him, mewling pitifully. Damian crossed the room, started for the back and ground to a halt. Anguish spilled through him like acid.

“Oh damn. Damn, I’m sorry,” he said softly.

Mama Renee lay in the corner, her eyes wide open in terror. Blood splashed over the pretty flowered dress, splattered the walls.

Someone had torn her heart out. Morphs. They reserved the act to lick up each last drop of fear.

Grief and rage twined together. Damian closed his eyes. Renee had been a last connection to his parents. How many more of his people must die, sliced down by evil? His family. Members of his pack back in New Mexico. How could they ever hope to stop this and protect those who looked to him to keep them safe?

He pushed aside sorrow. Grief was for later.

The stench of death made him gag. Damian murmured the ancient Draicon blessing for a departed soul. He spotted the altar to Marie Laveau.

Darkness had extinguished the candles.

The police would question, snoop around. Couldn’t risk them finding out about his world. He needed a motive. A hate crime, and robbery. Damian withdrew all the money from the cash register and stuffed it into his pocket to later burn. He left the drawer open. He glanced around, found a permanent marker and scrawled on the wall.

DEVIL WORSHIPPER.

The mewling at his legs grew louder. The cat held the scent of an ordinary feline. Picking it up, he studied the animal. “You already used one of your nine lives. Let’s get you somewhere safe.”

Tucking the cat in his arms, he looked around. Waving his hand, he dispelled all evidence of his fingerprints. The cops would question Jamie, though and…

Jamie. He’d left her alone.

Damian tore down the street, frantic with fear for his draicara. He unlocked the gate, banged it shut behind him. Releasing the cat, he took the stairs two at a time.

She was sitting on the couch. His knees went weak with relief.

Then he took a closer look. Terror shaded her expression as she stared at her hand. Seeing him, Jamie thrust out her palm at him. It trembled violently.

“Damian, look at me. Look at me, oh God, what’s wrong with me? I can’t bleed. I can’t bleed!”

Shock filled him as he looked at her hand. A knife and fruit slices lay on the coffee table. She’d been cutting a peach. Then the knife slipped and hurt her.

Peaches scented the air, but he smelled no coppery scent of blood. A shallow laceration on her palm showed no crimson. Instead, a sluggish gray matter leaked out.

Gray, like granite.

She was turning to stone before his horrified eyes.

Enemy Lover is now available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble online.


Bonnie Vanak
The Scorpion & the Seducer, May '08
Enemy Lover, Nocturne, Nov. '08
The Lady & the Libertine, Leisure, May '09
www.myspace.com/bonnievanak
www.bonnievanak.com/

Linda Wisdom | Jazz Is Back and In Need of a Good Night’s Sleep

I was barely halfway through writing 50 Ways to Hex Your Lover when I knew a second book had to follow and I could see her haunted by horrific nightmares, Fluff and Puff, her mischievous bunny slippers would be in big time trouble and while she and Nick are making things work between them, there were still some outside forces threatening their peace. Oh, did I mention that Irma was demanding an updated wardrobe? No? Well, that too. Just how much multi-tasking can one witch do when she’s seriously sleep deprived?

But we are talking about Jazz who can eliminate a curse with a few words, work up a flick of a finger to banish a headache – even if she still can’t cure the common cold – and deal with Dweezil’s problems with a business rival without breaking a nail.

It’s just too bad she can’t figure out who, or what, is causing the nightmares that plague her and Nick where he tears out her throat and since witch’s blood is deadly to a vampire, not a good option, and Nick dreaming of Jazz having the perfect soccer mom lifestyle while he hides in the shadows. Or why Fluff had to cough up a button belonging to a WereWeasel carnie as proof that he and Puff dined on the Ferris Wheel operator, an act that’s an automatic death sentence. So now they’re in bunny slipper jail while Jazz sets out to prove they had better taste than that.

Authors have to love their characters. And some we even hate because they’re someone meant to be hated. I have to say that Jazz is one that I completely relate to. She does and says things I can’t, but she’s always been someone I’d love to hang out with. She has her issues, a serious Starbucks addiction and never ever infer that witches and brooms go together.

She has a fantastic support system with vampire Nick, mortal Krebs, ghostly Irma and her fellow witches, Stasi and Blair, who drop everything to come to her rescue when she needs them most. And in her mind, that was the longest forty-eight hours of her life! Sorry for not saying more, but I don’t want to give it away.

I enjoy writing and reading about characters I can relate to in one sense or another. And a spot of magick makes it even more fun.

What about you? Are there characters that psyche you up too?

Enter my ONE DAY BLOG contest for a chance to win a sign copy of Hex Appeal

Linda

Wicked By Any Other Name , March 2009
Hex Appeal , November 2008
50 Ways to Hex Your Lover , March 2008

Sharon Ashwood | Making Paranormal Sandwiches

There’s a lot to be said for the submarine sandwich. There can be as much bread, cheese, veggies and cold cuts as the maker desires. If you want two kinds of cheese, go ahead. Mayo and mustard? Why not? The only limit is appetite.

Which is all good until your boss points to a sandwich box made for the usual peanut butter and jelly sized affair. That moment of “hmm, how am I going to get this sucker in there?” sums up my experience of writing the paranormal romance. I have to tell a many-layered story as clearly and efficiently (and as briefly!) as I can.

For any author, there’s a lot on the kitchen counter when they’re building the universe of their book: there’s character, plot, and setting, plus:

• In a romance, there’s the whole fall-in-love experience.
  
• If it’s a historical novel, the author needs to bring the past alive, right down to the horseshoe nails, gun smoke and corsets.
  
• If it’s science fiction, fantasy, or paranormal, there’s the whole supernatural universe, with its vast array of creatures, rules of magic, and other cultures to explain and make compelling.
  
• For a good paranormal or urban fantasy romance, where you have most of the above, your metaphorical book sandwich is a definite clubhouse. Yum, and don’t hold the pickles.

But wait: just because an author has a lot of ground to cover, that doesn’t mean they get more pages to tell their tale. In fact, many editors are careful to put the word count they want right in a writer’s contract. How many words? Not enough! Why do they do this? Long books cost more to print (and the reader pays for that) and also not everyone wants to read a really long book.

Having a word limit does challenge an author’s skill, and that’s not a bad thing. It’s made me write smarter—but inevitably, things get left out. When the dust settled from writing my February 09 release, RAVENOUS, I had a spare demon and an entire unopened box of vampires. Plus, there was a lot to say about my universe and the people in it that I hadn’t even begun to cover. It was like I’d been whittled down to, well, half a sandwich. Thank heavens there’s a book two!

What’s an author to do with all their leftover ideas? One solution to the world-building overflow is to take all that extra content and post it on the web. Games, maps, character interviews and background histories are popping up on web sites more and more often—and that’s not the only outlet for extras. Marvel Comics has picked up some popular authors and are releasing comic books based on writers like Laurell K. Hamilton. If TV shows and movies have tie-ins, why not books? Can action figures be far behind? In trade magazines for the book industry, I’ve seen this many-pronged approach hailed as the future of reading—books aren’t just on paper anymore, but require a multimedia event.

As an author, that’s a lot to explore. So far, I have my own Monsterpedia page at www.sharonashwood.com/ that fills in snippets of information about the RAVENOUS world. I’m sure I’ll do other things as the series goes along. Overall, I’m glad there are so many ways to communicate with readers, and I enjoy blogging, and multimedia content is fun to experience and to create. But what about the story?

This “book plus web” approach is nifty from my side of the fence, but would more book and fewer extras work better for readers? Or is the opposite true? I like to think of novels as one-stop-shopping or, to go back to my original metaphor, the full meal deal. Is that view out of date?
What about you? Thumbs up or thumbs down on putting important book series information on the web? Should it be web-only, or just repeat what’s already on the page?

Sharon Ashwood

Deidre Knight | Red Fire

Hello, gang!

I’m so excited that my friends here at Fresh Fiction invited me to stop by and chat about RED FIRE, the first book in my new paranormal romance series, Gods of Midnight. This sexy series features immortal Spartans, seven warriors who protect humanity from every form of evil that stalks the night.

I’m also here to share details about a fun and exciting opportunity. I’ve just launched the Not-So-Flat Ajax contest, giving you the chance to help Ajax Petrakos, hero of RED FIRE, find the soulmate who was promised to him centuries ago. You might be wondering what a household cleaning product has to do with hot, sexy paranormal romance!

Well, trust me—Ajax Petrakos is many things, but he is no Mr. Clean. This fine man definitely knows how to get down and dirty, whether battling fierce demons or hunting for his mortal love, Shay Angel.

You see, more than a thousand years ago the Oracle at Delphi prophesied that Shay would complete his very soul. He’s sought the woman ever since that day, never knowing which century she might live in. And that’s where you come in! Ajax has reason to believe that Shay Angel lives now, in our very own time. With your help, Ajax is traveling across the world in an effort to find her; in exchange for your assistance, the Spartan offers the chance to win a Nintendo® Wii and many other incredible prizes.

For details about how you can help this noble warrior, please visit http://www.deidreknight.com/ and http://www.godsofmidnight.com/. Not only will you have the chance to win, but you can learn all about RED FIRE and the sexy Spartans featured in Gods of Midnight.

I hope you have tons of fun helping a noble warrior in his quest!

Warmly,
Deidre Knight

Elizabeth Boyle | Baking Cookies

My son had this past Friday off from school. Imagine me, standing before the calendar and thinking to myself, “Only two weeks into school and already the teachers are shipping them home?” Haven’t they a care for my poor nerves? to quote the always quotable Mrs. Bennett.

And since it was only the littlest hero and me at home, we decided to bake cookies. He loves the measuring and the mixing, and we all love cookies, so it’s a win all over the house. The first step was the debate over what sort of cookies to make: Chocolate chip? No, Nick doesn’t like those. Sugar cookies? No, not Dad’s favorite. Quite frankly, I’ve never met a cookie I’d turn down, but go figure that my house of men are picky about such simple things. We finally settled upon an old favorite recipe for gingersnaps, which everyone in the house loves but then we had to make sure we had all the ingredients.

And it was about then, as I was hunting around the cupboard for molasses, that I realized how much baking cookies for one’s family is like writing romance novels for your fans. I smiled as I pulled out all the familiar ingredients: the flour, the sugar, the baking soda, the salt, the things that go into nearly every cookie one can bake. Elements as essential as the hero and heroine, the happy ending and the conflict that keeps them apart for most of the pages. And while there are always these stock elements in every book, it is the molasses, the ginger and cinnamon that give a gingersnap its distinctive flavor, and the author’s own mixology as she writes that makes every story different.

I suppose when an writer adds something new to the mix and you bite into what you think is going to be sugar cookie, with its sweet, mother’s hug of vanilla, and you find your senses being filled with hints of licorice or cardamom, you wonder what the heck your author was doing as she was writing that book.

I know this is true, since I did just that with my Marlowe Wish series. I added paranormal elements to my usual Regency romance. Imagine Jane Austen meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which was how I pitched my new book, Tempted by the Night. Now some readers rejoiced and loved the differences, (they are probably your basic cookie-holics, just like myself) others curled up their noses, rather like one of my little heroes when you try to get him to eat a chocolate chip cookie. A Regency is a Regency, thank you very much.

To probe this peak inside human nature a little further, I tried to get the little guy to put something outside the recipe into our batch of cookies, and he looked at me as if I wanted him to commit heresy. “That is not what is says here, Mom,” he said, stabbing his finger at my grandmother’s faded, yet firm handwriting.

Ah, the lessons you learn when the kids stay home from school. There is nothing wrong with writing outside the lines, I know, but romance readers have their recipes for a great story, just as cookie recipes are written in exact terms for a reason. So the finished product comes out exactly as we expect it—to comfort us, to feed us, and to touch our hearts in a way that is familiar. And there is nothing wrong with that.

Eliabeth
elizabethboyle.com

Sophie Jordan/Sharie Kohler | Juggling Genres

Authors can find themselves writing in different genres for multiple reasons: 1) varied interests that demand you try your hand at ... well, varied genres; 2) career security; and, 3) a cheating heart. Yes, Hank William's twang is running through my head right about now. Anyone else?

As you may know, I write historical romances (Sophie Jordan) and paranormal romances (Sharie Kohler), which puts me at writing a book every five months, sometimes less. Why do I hold myself to such a demanding schedule? Which of the above reasons motivates me?

I'm guilty of all three. Like most of us, I'm a voracious cross romance genre reader. Right now I have books in the following sub-genres on my nightstand: historical, suspense, single-title, category, paranormal, young adult, women's fiction, even the occasional inspirational and erotica (talk about extremes!). Seriously though, great books all. Books that move and inspire me. I cut my teeth on historical romances: Kathleen Woodiwiss, Johanna Lindsey, Dorothy Garlock, Julia Quinn. I love(d) these books! I wanted to write books like these. So - I did. Starting with my debut, ONCE UPON A WEDDING NIGHT. Incredibly (at least to me!), Sophie Jordan was born and here she is, four books later. But I like gritty contemporary reads, too, and decided to try my hand at a paranormal, and MARKED BY MOONLIGHT came to be. Check off reason number one.

Reason two? Career security sounds mercenary, but I figured two balls in the air increased my chances of maintaining a writing career. And above all, I want to write for as long as possible. I want to keep my stories on shelves. It's the career I've always dreamed of - to write romance novels?!? For thousands to read? And I get paid to do it? Yessssssssss.

And what about reason three? A cheating heart touches on reason one a little bit. As varied as my interests, it's just impossible for me to remain faithful to one genre when there are so many other smooth-talking and good-looking genres out there. Fortunately number three only applies to my books -- I'm happily married. ;)

So what do I tell readers who read one of my books from one genre and love it, but claim to dislike books of the other genre? Don't knock it til you try it! If you like Sophie Jordan, you're going to like Sharie Kohler, too! Because, be it historical or romance, you're going to get the same type of emotional journey behind each book. No matter the genre, I write with the same tone, the same level of intensity. Test me! Take the Sophie Jordan/Sharie Kohler challenge by starting with my newest historical release, SURRENDER TO ME and then reading book #1 of my paranormal Moon Chasers Series, MARKED BY MOONLIGHT.

So the question begs to be asked ... would I ever add another genre to the mix? Hmmm... can I plead the fifth? Who can say? With my cheating heart, it's always a possibility. ;)

What about you? Readers: do you cheat, too, and read cross-genre? Or are you loyal to one specific genre? What about the writers out there? Are you exclusive?

Cheers,
Sophie/Sharie

www.shariekohler.net/
www.sophiejordan.net/

Angie Fox | How I sold my first book.

Or: Everything I needed to know, I learned from George Costanza

I’ve always loved to read, so it was no surprise to anyone when I eventually decided to write a book of my own. When I did, I attacked it head on. I planned, I worked, I outlined more than any woman should. The end result? I wrote three mysteries that didn’t sell.

I don’t know how many of you watch Seinfeld, but there is a time in George’s life where he decides what he’s been doing hasn’t been working, so he decides to do the opposite. That’s what I did with my books. I’d been writing serious mysteries, with lots of science and research involved. They’d generated some interest, enough to almost, almost sell. But nothing quite happened.

To take my mind off the latest mystery making the rounds with agents, I decided to write something completely different, a funny paranormal romance where I could build my own world and make up my own rules. I fell in love with the idea of a preschool teacher who is forced to run off with a gang of geriatric biker witches and The Accidental Demon Slayer was born.

Instead of a 20-page plot outline, I had a 5-page list of ideas, one of which included “but little did they know, all the Shoney’s are run by werewolves.” Instead of following the rules, I broke a few. Instead of painstakingly writing over the course of a year, I giggled my way through the book and had a complete manuscript in five months.

The opening chapters did well in contests and caught the eye of an editor, who asked to see the whole thing. That same editor bought the book less than a week after I finished it.

I still can’t believe The Accidental Demon Slayer is a July 2008 release.

While I’m not sure Seinfeld is the best place to go for life lessons, I really do think there’s something to be said for following your instincts – in writing and in everything else.

Angie Fox
http://www.angiefox.com/

Jessica Barksdale Inclan | Writers or Readers

Hello, everyone. My name is Jessica Barksdale Inclan, and I’m the author of a few novels, the latest BEING WITH HIM, a paranormal romance from Kensington.

I am so happy to be here today at Freshfiction.com. I blog daily at www.redrom.com/, but it’s nice to have a new place to meet people. As I was thinking about what to write about to you today, I realized I didn’t want to talk about writing but reading. Writers usually are always readers first. And as that is the case with me, I relate most with being a reader. That’s what I do. That’s what I am.

Reading saved me. It has always saved me. From before I could read myself, my mother’s daily and nightly reading to me saved me, kept me from thinking my own thoughts sometimes, giving me new thoughts to think about. Reading put me into worlds I had never been, worlds I wanted to go to.

Reading was something I could do when all else failed. In fourth grade, I was tested at 12th grade reading level and a 2nd grade math level. Things have changed relatively little in that regard, the wide disparity still there. But then and now, reading was the thing I could do and do well, sometimes the only thing.

I read during my labors with both children. I've read in airplanes. I've read on long car rides in the rain. I've read during sad afternoons, during long waits in the car for children to finish their appointments and classes. I've read in every place I've ever traveled to. I read whatever is in front of me: newspapers, cereal boxes, instruction booklets.

I don't have graphomania (the constant need to write) but I do have bibliomania. I will admit to that right now, no holds barred. I am obsessed with reading.

Now reading helps me make a living, reading and her twin writing. Reading is what I can do for others out of love. Reading is a gift I give to others out of friendship.

I read fast. At school, my colleagues have loved me during hiring committees because I could read through the application folders faster than anyone else. They loved me during writing assessments because of the same thing. It's my own true skill, something I didn't have to work at, learn to do. It's in my brain due to no training on my part.

I like to hold what I read, so I worry about ebooks, about kindles, about electronic everything. I like a book, being able to flip back and forth, feel the pages under my fingers. I like to carry it with me, even reading in the dry sauna or some times at the pool, water everywhere. I like to read outside, inside, in the sun, in the shade. This isn't going to disintegrate into Green Eggs and Ham, but you get my point.

Today, I am thankful for my reading skills, my reading love. I've read a lot today already, and it's a good thing, a nice thing, a wonderful thing.

What does reading do for you? How do you feel about reading? Is it your first true love?

Jessica
Being With Him

Jessica Barksdale Inclan
www.jessicabarksdaleinclan.com/

Michelle Gagnon | Thrillerfest 2008

Sadly, I missed the inaugural Thrillerfest, which was held in Phoenix. I had recently given birth to my first child, and the thought of Arizona in July with a newborn was not terribly appealing. Which is a shame, because from what I understand it was one for the ages.

I made up for it by attending the past few Thrillerfests in New York, and I’m happy to report that despite the fact that everyone always says, “You shoulda been at the first one,” I’ve had an amazing experience each time.

My week kicked off with a joint reading at the Park Avenue Borders. Tim Maleeny, Laura Caldwell, J.T. Ellison, Mario Acevedo, Laura Benedict, Shane Gericke, Alexandra Sokoloff, and I participated in “Quick Thrills from Out-of-Towners.” Lee Child graciously served as our MC, and in completely disregarding our prepared bios introduced us with anecdotes a hundred times wittier than anything we could have come up with. Everyone read for five minutes to an incredibly receptive crowd. The store was quick to add rows of seats as the place filled, we auctioned off Borders gift certificates and stuffed snakes (which were more of a hit than the $100 certificates, go figure). A good time was had by all.

I don’t know of many other conferences where you can rub elbows with Jeffery Deaver, Carla Neggers, Barry Eisler, and Heather Graham in the hotel bar, or where nearly forty top agents show up to hear pitches from aspiring authors. The organizers also made a serious effort to host panels outside the norm, and it showed. The “Lethal Weapons, Bombs, and Terrorism Hands-on Weapons Demonstration” by the ATF was definitely something I haven’t seen before, and perfect for thriller writers looking to expand their knowledge base. Other high points for me included the reviewers’ panel with David Montgomery, Bob Gussin, and Bookreporter representatives Joe Hartlaub and Carol Fitzgerald dishing on how and why books really get reviewed.

I am of course biased, but I loved the two panels I was on. I felt a little out of place on “Don’t Look Now: Paranormal Thrillers,” (my first novel, THE TUNNELS, has some paranormal elements but my latest is a straight serial killer thriller). However it was so amazing listening to Vicki Pettersson, Heather, Mario Acevedo, and Cathy Clamp discuss their work. The downside is that it added another stack of books to my already towering TBR pile, and nearly forced me to check my carry-on bag thanks to the added weight (you should see my biceps after hauling that thing into the overhead compartment!) Then on Saturday bestselling author Michael Palmer led our discussion of “The Art of the Thriller,” complete with berets and a lively discussion of Macguffins.

Thrillerfest is slated to take place in New York for the next two years, a decision which has inspired some debate in terms of the cost of attending and the fact that in a city with so many other attractions, people tend to disperse. I straddle the fence on this one. Part of me hoped that next year it would be moved somewhere less expensive (you should have seen my hotel bill!), preferably a place like New Orleans that I haven’t yet had the opportunity to visit. On the other hand, if it was moved it’s less likely that so many amazing authors would attend, or that I’d have the chance to meet with my editor and agent in the same fell swoop. I’m also not certain they would be able to attract as many participants in Agentfest were it held outside the city. But at least for 2009 and 2010, the deal is sealed and we’ll see what happens. I for one will be there, $16 glass of house chardonnay in hand. After hearing all the stories from the first one, I don’t want to risk missing out.

I’m running a series of contests this month to promote the release of BONEYARD. Go to http://www.michellegagnon.com/, click on “win,” and I’ll toss your name in the hat for an Amazon Kindle, iPod Shuffle, digital picture frame, Starbucks gift certificates, and other fabulous prizes.

Michelle Gagnon is a former modern dancer, bartender, dog walker, model, personal trainer, and Russian supper club performer. Her debut thriller The Tunnels was an IMBA bestseller. Her next book, Boneyard, depicts a cat and mouse game between dueling serial killers. In her spare time she runs errands and puts money in her piggybank to cover the cost of conventions .

Michelle Gagnon

Yasmine Galenorn | Things That Go Bump In The Night & Other Delights

From the time I was a little girl, I was terrified of the house I grew up in because I knew it was haunted—by what I couldn’t say, but a malign energy tainted that house. It didn’t help matters that I’ve always been somewhat psychic. I could always sense whatever was there watching me. To this day, that house shows up in my nightmares and in my nightmares, it’s usually filled with tens of thousands of spiders (I’m arachophobic) and I wake up screaming. Granted, I had a lot of serious baggage to deal with in childhood, but the house stands out in my mind as the ‘haunted house on the hill’ even though it was smack in the middle of a lower-class suburb.

Scared of the house or not, that didn’t detour me from falling in love in love with the paranormal, and from becoming a total fantasy/SF freak. When I was five years old, I stumbled over Dark Shadows and went nuts over it. I’m not certain why my mother let me watch a vampire soap opera but wouldn’t let me watch ‘the man with the funny ears’ (Spock, on Star Trek, which started the same year). I have a feeling she didn’t fully realize that Dark Shadows was about a vampire.

But before ST:TOS was over, I was watching Kirk, Spock, and my favorite—Uhura, take on the denizens of deep space. And every Saturday, I settled down in front of the TV for the Science Fiction Double Creature Feature, immersing myself in Godzilla, The Day the Earth Stood Still, War of the Worlds (and no, we’re not talking Tom Cruise’s version, we’re talking the real thing here!), The Valley of Gwangi, The Creature from the Black Lagoon—all those incredibly riveting old movies that I still love today. In fact, just last night I hauled out the DVD of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

I knew I wanted to be a writer from the time I was three and had been making up odd little stories from the day I could string sentences together. I learned to read early and my loves ran to volcanoes, dinosaurs, and…would you believe it? Yep! Fantasy and science fiction. The Space Cat series by Ruthven Todd was one of my first discoveries—I just loved that adventuresome astronaut cat. And thanks to a non-restrictive policy allowing children to check out books from any section of the library, I sped through the fantasy and science fiction section. I ploughed through Asimov, Clarke, Pohl, and my favorite to this day—Ray Bradbury. I cut my teeth on The City and the Stars, I fell in love with Something Wicked This Way Comes and The October Country. By the time I was ten I knew that I didn’t care all that much for Heinlein, but I was nuts over Clifford D. Simak.

As time went on and I left home, I discovered Anne McCaffrey, Marion Zimmer Bradley, JRR Tolkien, Jack Chalker, Joan D. Vinge. And later on—Ben Bova, and Greg Bear, among others. I added them to the growing list of writers I admired, but I also began to branch out in my reading, moving into other areas. But my love for F/SF never diminished, nor did my determination to make it as a writer in that genre.

Fast forward to my first book contract. In 1996, with seven novels hiding in my closet (and trust me, they’re still there), I received my first contract. Not for fantasy—or SF—but for a nonfiction book. Of course, the nonfiction was connected to my love for the paranormal. It was a book of guided meditations. But I didn’t care—I was ecstatic I’d finally gotten my foot in the door. Soon, I thought—soon I’ll find a home for my fantasy.

Eight nonfiction metaphysical books later, I landed an agent and she found a home for my eighth novel—a paranormal mystery, of all things. Now, I’d never planned on writing a mystery but that’s what the book turned out to be. So I wrote two mystery series for awhile, thrilled to be telling stories again instead of writing nonfiction, but still wanting to break into my favorite genre. In specific, urban fantasy.

And then, a few years ago, I sent in a new proposal. My editor loved it and my agent negotiated a contract for me for a third series—this one urban fantasy/paranormal romance. And so my bestselling Otherworld Series (aka Sisters of the Moon Series) was born. And I finally felt like I was ‘home.’

Now, as I’m starting work on the seventh book of that series—Bone Magic—the fourth one is about to hit the shelves. Dragon Wytch will be out on July 1st, and it’s my twentieth published book! Best yet, I’m still head-over-heels in love with writing this series. I’ve finally found an outlet for my wild, over-the-top imagination. And my readers seem to agree: what I knew when I was three years old—that I needed to write fantastical stories—was right on target.

So tell me, what’s your favorite genre? What do you love to write and/or read? Has it changed since you were a child, or have you had a lifelong favorite?



You can contact me through my website, MySpace, or Live Journal.
Keep watching the skies!

Yasmine Galenorn

Dianna Love | Walk the Land

Research is the strength of all stories, regardless if it is contemporary, historical, fantasy or futuristic. So how does an author create real settings in all of these worlds?

I like to walk the land every time I can to pick up details we don’t see in a casual passing or on the internet. When Sherrilyn Kenyon and I were writing our new romantic-suspense story PHANTOM IN THE NIGHT (Pocket/June 10, 2008) last fall, we spent time in New Orleans (NO) surveying areas specifically for the story in spite of our joint knowledge of Louisiana. Sherrilyn knows New Orleans well since her Dark-Hunter series is set primarily there, KCON (Kenyon Convention) is in or around the French Quarter each year and she lived in NO at one time. I had family in Louisiana at one time and still do in Biloxi, Mississippi, plus friends in NO. I’ve fished from many of the coastal Louisiana towns along the Gulf of Mexico and had a business in NO at one time, so Louisiana has been a favorite location of mine for many years.

Even with all this background, we spent time there last fall “walking the land” so we had fresh images of law enforcement locations and proximity of residences to the French Quarter, exit routes, airports (small ones, too) and shipping container storage facilities. I photographed areas and wrote notes pertinent to the story. And we always talk to people wherever we go. All this played a part in creating realistic scenes. When I wrote my RITA award-winning book, WORTH EVERY RISK, I had a lot of emails from readers saying how the setting in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida felt so real. That wasn’t too hard to do since I grew up in Florida and chose that city for many reasons that fit the story.

What about paranormal or fantasy stories – where do those settings come from? Sherrilyn has created such realistic sounding locations her books that fans often ask about the actual location of Sanctuary (Were Bear Bar) that will appear again in the upcoming ACHERON book (St. Martin’s Press/August 5, 2008), even though it is a fabricated establishment. She gives fans a walking tour through the French Quarter each year at KCON so they can see where different scenes occurred.

I have a paranormal novella coming out this fall that leans heavily toward fantasy. The setting is midtown Atlanta, Georgia – not far from where I live in Peachtree City. Even though I’ve lived here for many years and visit midtown quite often I still spent time walking through Piedmont Park just for the story, visualizing major scenes then traveling between different locations to get a good feel for time and place. But one setting is under a mystical mountain that is part of the actual Hindu mythology, another blend of mythical history with fictitious properties. I hope you’ll get a chance to read MIDNIGHT KISS GOODBYE (in the Dead After Dark Anthology by St. Martins Press/December 2, 2008) to see how I used real locations with fantasy elements.

~ Do you have a favorite story setting?

~ Did you ever read something that felt so real you wanted to go find that location…and did you try?

~ Have you read about a paranormal, fantasy or futuristic location you’d like to visit? Please tell us.

Visit my ONE DAY ONLY blog contest for a chance to win a copy of PHANTOM IN THE NIGHT. Two winners!!

Dianna Love

Dianna Love writes a romantic-thriller series with #1 NYT best seller Sherrilyn Kenyon. For more on PHANTOM IN THE NIGHT and Dianna please visit www.authordiannalove.com/, and for information on Dianna’s nonfiction book Break Into Fiction™: Power Plot YOUR Novel coming out in 2009 visit www.breakintofiction.com/

Patti O'Shea | Risky Business

One of the things that satisfies me most about writing is exploring the characters’ fears, their hopes, and dreams. Each book has had something new for me and I’ve enjoyed stretching myself—and I’ve especially enjoyed torturing—um, I mean pushing—the hero and heroine. It isn’t always deliberate, but if I have a heroine who’s afraid she’s going to fall to the dark side in her magical world, you can bet she’s going to end up in a situation where that’s tested.

IN TWILIGHT’S SHADOW (Jun 3, 2008) gave me something different to think about—risk.

I’d explored the idea of courage in an earlier book, but I never thought about risk until Maia and Creed’s story. Maia was a troubleshooter for a society of magic users and she gambled her job, her standing, even her life by playing with black magic.

She lost.

Certain that her sister, Ryne, would be sent to hunt her, Maia gave up her magic, but she also gave up the only world she’s ever known. Considered an outsider among her people, she lives a human life. She has a job she hates, a mortgage, and bills. And she’s playing it safe now, afraid to take a chance again, afraid to lose more than she already has. So she stays in the job and endures it.

Of course, that’s a guarantee that she was going to find herself in a situation where she couldn’t play it safe. If Maia doesn’t take the risk, her sister could be killed. Since she would do anything to protect her, Maia wasn’t about to stand back when Ryne was in danger.

But Maia threw a twist at me—she wasn’t all that worried about the physical risk. She didn’t want to die, of course, but she’d been a troubleshooter and had lived with that threat for years. She was used to it.

What scared her was emotional risk.

Not just fear of getting involved with Creed, her hero, but fear of pursuing her dreams. Maia loves art, she knows a lot about it, and she’d always wanted to work in a museum, but instead she became a troubleshooter and never bothered to attend college. Now that she’s no longer a player, there’s no reason why she can’t explore that dream. But she doesn’t.

This immediately intrigued me. Why doesn’t she go after something she’s always wanted now that she has a chance? Fear of the risk. What if she fails? My job was to get her to see things a little differently—what if she succeeds?

IN TWILIGHT’S SHADOW is focused on the action/adventure, the paranormal aspects, and the romance, of course, but the underlying story is about something riskier—taking a chance on a dream.

Patti O’Shea



Patti’s website: http://www.pattioshea.com/
To find out more about In Twilight’s Shadow: http://www.pattioshea.com/twilight.shtml

Patti on MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/patti_oshea

Patti on Twitter: http://twitter.com/Patti_OShea

Cynitha Eden | Getting Lost In A Book

I love to get lost in a good book. Love to let the hours slip away as I become drawn into a great read. I love to laugh and cry and have my husband look at me like I’m crazy. Oh, yeah, sometimes getting lost in a book can be a wonderful thing.

When I’m reading—I want to get so drawn into a story that I consider myself lost. But, when I’m writing a book, well, getting lost can have a whole new meaning for me…

I’m finishing up work on my latest novel, part of my "Midnight" paranormal series for Kensington Brava. And I have to say—I think I’ve gotten lost in this book—but not necessarily lost in the good way. You see, all of my free time is consumed by this book. I’m so deeply into my demon story that all my energy is consumed by the tale. So that means the rest of my life is getting a bit lost, too.

I walked into my dining room earlier and wondered when all of the lights in the chandelier (there are twelve of them) had stopped working. Surely not all at once. This had to be a gradual thing—and I missed it.

I looked in the closet and realized there were no clean clothes to be found—but the pile of dirty laundry is large enough to eat me now.

I’ve got phone messages from friends that are over a week old—and calling them with an apology that I was lost might not cut it.

Sigh. Getting lost in a book—sometimes, it’s so easy to do.

So tell me, have you gotten lost in a good book lately? Or, if you’re a writer, too—has your own story pulled you in so deeply that your family has written you off as being lost?

Cynthia Eden
http://www.cynthiaeden.com/
HOTTER AFTER MIDNIGHT—Available now from Kensington Brava
"Wicked Ways" in WHEN HE WAS BAD—Available now from Kensington Brava
Believe in monsters. They believe in you.

Jeri Smith-Ready | Heart is Where the Home is

Thanks so much for having me as a guest at Fresh Fiction. I’m thrilled to be here!

For me, knowing where a character hails from is an essential part of figuring out what makes them tick. This background—the place and time—is especially vital for the vampire characters in my new novel, WICKED GAME (Pocket Books, May 13). My vamps are psychologically and culturally stuck in the era in which they were ‘turned,’ making them walking, stalking time capsules (and perfect for their jobs as disc jockeys at WVMP, The Lifeblood of Rock ‘n’ Roll).

WICKED GAME’s hero Shane McAllister, for example, was born in Youngstown, Ohio, in 1968. He was just a boy when the steel mills closed, collapsing the city’s economy. Shane’s own family fell into poverty and despair. Growing up poor made him tough and pessimistic, but it also gave him a core of compassion and understanding.

The oldest vampire DJ, blues musician Monroe Jefferson, hails from Natchez, Mississippi. He grew up in a place and time governed by Jim Crow laws, which institutionalized racial segregation. Even now, he’s extremely cautious around the heroine of WICKED GAME, since in Monroe’s day in the Deep South, a black man could be lynched for the so-called “crime” of having a friendly conversation with a white woman.

Some people deliberately reject their place of origin. Regina, the punk/Goth vampire DJ, comes from a farming community in Saskatchewan. At age eighteen, she left town to hit the music scenes in London, New York, and LA, and she never looked back. A vicious vampire no one dares to cross, Regina defies the stereotype of the ‘nice Canadian.’

Being from nowhere can affect one’s personality, too. The human heroine, con artist Ciara Griffin, spent her childhood on the road with her parents’ fake ‘miracle show.’ This life of wandering made her leery of commitment and reluctant to settle into a steady job or relationship. But maybe deep down, Ciara secretly wants to belong somewhere, with someone.

Do your favorite characters embrace or reject their backgrounds? What about you--how does your home (in place and time) affect who you are as a person?

Thanks again for having me!

Website: http://www.jerismithready.com/
Excerpt: http://www.jerismithready.com/books/wicked-game/excerpt1.htm
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/jerismithready


Photo Credit Copyright 2006 Szemere Photography

Linda Wisdom | Are you like the character you write and read?

I’ve been told that Jazz, the witchy heroine in 50 Ways to Hex Your Lover and I are very much alike. So let’s look at the similarities.

Jazz and I both speak our minds at times, but she can says what I’d love to say and have magic if she needs it.

She’s snarky. I’m snarky. She has red hair. I have red hair. She’s tall. I’m short. She’s gorgeous. I’m short.

I think many of us would say we echo at least one of our characters. I know that’s happened to me, but never more than with Jazz. She’s lived with me for quite awhile as I worked on the book and then had no choice but to work on the second book, Hex Appeal, which comes out this November.

She also gives me the chance to stick bits of history in the book. After all, she and her witch friends have been around for 700 years.

She’s lived history, had passionate ups and downs with Nikolai Gregorivich, a vampire enforcer from The Protectorate who’s now a private investigator. She’s dealing with a cranky ghost haunting her beloved 1956 T-Bird convertible and having to keep a tight rein on Fluff and Puff, the bunny slippers from hell and considering their background, it’s not far from the truth.

I like to say that I try to make the unbelievable believable. I hope my imagination allows you to consider that it’s possible to have a vampire living down the block. Just don’t expect him to mow the lawn midday. Or run into a witch at Starbucks or Victoria’s Secret. And just maybe some of those after-hour clubs have a pretty diverse clientele. And those Midways at the fairs? Maybe the Weres handle that.

So allow your own imagination to go a little wild. What would you see?

Enter and be one of three winners in my One Day Only blog contest.

Linda

www.myspace.com/lindawisdombooks
www.myspace.com/magickbunnyslippers

Sandra Schwab | Battling Writer's Block

Most writers know – and dread – it: the horrid mid-book blues. That point when the sizzle disappears from your story and it becomes the most awful thing written in the history of mankind. No, indeed, the most awful thing written in the history of the whole wide world! Really, if dinosaurs would have been able to write, even they would have produced so much better stories than you! You are a fraud! And should you ever manage to finish the book and to hand it in, your poor editor and agent will most certainly drop dead because of the awfulness of it. And it will be all your fault!

As you might have guessed, I am intimately acquainted with the aforementioned horrid mid-book blues. Only in my case, it's doesn't happen when I reach the middle of a book, no, it usually happens when I reach the end of chapter 3. I happily scribble away for the first 50-75 pages and then, all of a sudden, I'm stuck, my characters are stuck, my Muse has vanished, and the story has screeched to a perfect standstill. What is a poor writer to do?

1) Phone a friend and whine.

2) Eat chocolate. (Lots of chocolate.)

3) Stare at the blinking cursor on your monitor until you've become raving mad and start banging your head on the keyboard.

The effectiveness of such measures, however, is dubious (especially if you manage to damage your notebook or AlphaSmart in the course of the head-banging-on-keyboard). More drastic methods are called for!

4) Kill your characters off in an interesting way (e.g. drop a mountain or meteor onto them; let a vulcano erupt; they even might become the victims of an awful - and deadly - alien attack!) Unfortunately, this wonderful way of battling writer's block isn't unproblematic as most editors don't seem to think the death of the protagonists in the middle of a romance novel is such a good idea. (Duh.) So this brings us to:

5) Skip ahead in the story and write the love scene.

Tried and tested method, which I successfully applied while writing Castle of the Wolf after my poor heroine had been stuck on a steamboat on the Rhine for months on end. (I even thought about letting her fall into the river and find a watery grave in the muddy waters of the old stream, but see notes on #4.) With Bewitched, my next novel, though, things were not that easy: a love scene was not to be found (only the aftermath of a love scene) and the story flowed along sluggishly at best - in other words: the Muse kept pouting. Obviously she wanted to be entertained.

6) Entertain your Muse by giving your characters fictitious books to read

Which is why the heroine of Bewitched gets to read a lovely shilling romance (= the 19th-century equivalent of massmarket paperbacks): "The Horrible Histories of the Rhine" is a gripping story full of daring knights and hapless damsels in distress, ghastly monsters, glorious adventures and true love (of course), and whenever I got stuck in the story proper I simply worked on another snippet from "The Horrible Histories." And why was this so effective and wonderfully entertaining? Because the daring knights and hapless damsels are, in fact, my colleagues from university. *ggg* For example, the beautiful Alexandie, who is kidnapped by the awful Green Man in "The Horrible Histories" is in real life Alexandra, whose PhD project deals with the motif of the Green Man in literature.

Naturally, even though I had successfully battled writer's block while writing Bewitched, I still thought the reading of the manuscript might prove fatal for my poor agent and editor (luckily, it didn't). And so I had to apply method #1 and #2 anyway, only this time after I had handed in the book.

***

Thanks for having me here at the Fresh Fiction blog!

Best wishes from Germany,
Sandra Schwab

To learn more about Sandra and her stories, please visit her website at http://www.sandraschwab.com/, where you can also read an excerpt from Bewitched. Or listen to Sandra reading from the novel.

Teresa D'Amario | Why Shape shifters?

Hi Everyone! I’m so excited to be here! And many thanks to the folks of Fresh Fiction for inviting me to their blog. I’ve met several of the ladies in person at Celebrate Romance in Columbia, SC, and let me tell you, they are a fun group! CR was my first ever conference, both as a reader and as an author, and I can tell you I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Rubbing elbows with some of my favorite authors, and getting to know the folks who love to read! What could be better?

It was a wonderful experience, and one I shall always remember. I only wish I could make it to RWA or to RT this year, but sadly I will be unable to join all the wonderful authors and readers at those two. So instead, I thought I’d introduce myself here at Fresh Fiction and answer the one important question I seem to get.

“Why Shape shifters?”

Paranormal romance in general constitutes so many different types of creatures. There’s the vampires we all know and love. The demons we are just learning to have love affairs with, the selkies, the faeries, and even more. So what makes the shape shifter so different?

First, we have to look at ancient lore. For hundreds of years we’ve heard of the werewolves. Creatures of the night who lose control of their bodies at the full moon and run rampant on the unsuspecting souls of the local communities. In ancient times they were believed to be controlled by witches. In fact, documents from the middle ages don’t doubt the existence of werewolves, but instead debates how they came to be controlled by witches.

An interesting concept.

And so the werewolf has haunted our imaginations for more generations than most of us can guess. But why is it suddenly so romantic? So sexy? What is it about this creature that pulls at our imaginations?

First, let me say that while my first book is about wolf shifters, I love the idea of all animals being shifters. For instance, my next work is about a Tiger. Now that has been really fun to write. Lions, tigers, bears, wolves, you name it. The powerful and the strong.

But that still doesn’t answer the question. For me, though, the answer is simple. It’s Instinct.

When we read contemporary romance, the human male is handsome and sexy, and oh so masculine. He’s either funny or serious, but he’s everything a woman ever wanted in a husband. And he’s politically correct.

That’s right ladies. A man can only be so masculine before our natural instincts kick in and say “ewww” if he gets too aggressive. We don’t want a real alpha male. Now a fictitious one? Maybe.

In walks the vampire. He’s oh so handsome, and has lived for hundreds of years. He’s so strong he can lift an ox single handedly. He is cold and calculating, yet when he gives his heart, whether it beats or is still as death, he gives it all. He’s everything we Dark Shadows fans longed for when we met Barabus Collins. The damaged soul that only the heroine can repair.

But the shifter, he’s different. He’s powerful and strong, like his vampire friends, but he has something they do not. Pure animal instinct. He doesn’t worry if his vampire buddies thinks he oversteps his bounds. Oh no. When he wants something he takes it. Whether that something be the pack or family, or if it’s the future mate. He respects power and strength and that calls to us ladies as well. But who wants a mate who’s always powerful and strong and we’re mere weaklings in his mind? That’s not a problem with shape shifters. The animal instinct inside him drives him to respect the feminine, to respect her strength and intelligence. He longs for the woman who can handle what he has to offer, and can give what he wants to take.

He steps in to protect when he is needed, is possessive of his chosen mate, and his sexual appetite, well…. Ladies, you have to read the book to find that out, but I promise you, he delivers, whether he’s a tiger, a panther, a leopard or a wolf.

So the next time you’re off looking for good reading material, and want to rely on the hot, powerful animal instincts, check out your local shape shifter author. I bet she’s got something for you, whether it be the cat, the wolf, or even the dragon. You’ll find the perfect author to your taste!

Teresa D'Amario

teresadamario.com

Larissa Ione | Keeping It Real

"Write what you know." We’ve all heard it, and maybe we’ve even stayed true to that. But what happens when you need to write about something you don’t know?

Well, that’s where research comes in.

Now, I love research, and right now, I’m researching something I’ve always been interested in – modern and ancient Egypt. The problem? Trying to blend fact with not only fiction, but paranormal fiction, and strangely enough, while there is a ton of information about ancient Egypt, information on modern Egypt, outside of politics, is lacking.

See, I’m working on the third book in my Demonica series, which is set mainly in Egypt. The first two books, Pleasure Unbound (July 08,) and Shadow Lover (April 09) were largely set in New York City and in an underworld hospital. New York was easy enough to research, since there is oodles of information available (plus, I was constantly bugging Stephanie Tyler, my Sydney Croft writing partner, for details, since she lives there,) and the hospital was easy, because I made it up, using real hospitals and my depraved imagination (hey, it’s a hospital run by vampires, demons, and werewolves – it takes a little depravity to come up with the creepier details.)

But trying to work sketchy information about modern Egypt and Egyptian culture into a world where paranormal creatures and their human enemies collide both above ground and below? Well, that’s proving to be a challenge, especially because I’m a stickler for detail and getting it right.

I don’t have a problem manipulating gray areas into something that works for a fictional situation, but I absolutely hate getting details wrong – so much so that when Stephanie and I were writing the first three books in the Sydney Croft Storm series (Riding The Storm and Unleashing The Storm, both available now, and Seduced By The Storm, available September 08,) I contacted several meteorologist friends for information, even though I spent 15 years working in the weather field for the US Air Force and National Weather Service, and I know meteorology. But I wanted to make absolutely certain that our fictional weather machine could, theoretically, do what we needed it to do.

So what about you? As a reader, how important to you is technical detail (whether or not you know it’s accurate?) For example, I have NO idea if Tom Clancy’s incredible detail is accurate or not, but he writes with such authority that he could tell me the earth has two moons and I’d believe it. So does technical detail help pull you into a rich world, or does it bog down a story for you?

Larissa Ione (http://www.larissaione.com/)

Sydney Croft (http://www.sydneycroft.com/)

Sherry Thomas | Am I a paranormal reader? Sure I am!

A couple of weeks ago, I called a local romance-friendly bookseller to invite her to have lunch with the published authors of my RWA chapter. And she invited me, in return, to attend the monthly paranormal readers’ meeting, which would take place that evening at her store.

The kids were at Grandma’s for spring break. And though I did not read heavily in the paranormal genre, I thought it was a good opportunity to get out of the house and meet the bookseller in person.

Did I mention that I don’t read heavily in the paranormal genre? I was surprised when I got to the meeting to realize how many I have read. There was another author from my local chapter at the meeting. Other than the two of us, none of the other readers present had yet to try J. R. Ward. We practically shoved the Black Dagger Brotherhood books into their hands.

During the course of the evening we’d recommended Shana Abe, Nalini Singh, Lara Adrian, Meljean Brook and Marjorie M. Liu, among others. And right after I left the meeting, I smacked myself on the forehead. How could I have forgotten Kelley Armstrong?

It was, believe it or not, my first time interaction with other romance readers simply as a fellow romance reader. I joined RWA early on in my journey to publication, and over the years, all the other romance readers in my acquaintance have also been writers. It was different and great fun to discuss books—and not just romance, but urban fantasy, mysteries and general fiction—purely from the standpoint of enjoyability.

By the end of the meeting, I had in hand Jim Butcher’s name written down as an author to try, two new releases that I’d bought at a special 25% discount for attendees of the paranormal readers’ meeting, and the bookseller’s enthusiastic assurance to increase the store’s order for my debut book (Private Arrangements, which hit shelves today).

I will most definitely be joining this readers group again in the very near future.

—Sherry Thomas
writersherrythomas.com/

Jenna Black | Too Stupid To Live

We've all "met" her in romance novels: the heroine who is Too Stupid to Live (or TSTL, for short). I read a novel recently that I really loved--except for one scene where the heroine had a TSTL moment. The book was good enough, and the TSTL moment came late enough, that I was able to forgive the author and still enjoy the book. I'll even buy her next one. But how I wish I could have been her editor for just a few minutes and convinced her to change that one scene.

Often, a heroine has TSTL moments because the author needs to get her into danger for plot reasons. Perfectly understandable, particularly in suspense plots. But I think most of us as readers prefer the heroine to get into danger for reasons beyond her control. We want to think that she is too smart to make any of these kinds of mistakes--even though we know that even the smartest people do occasionally make mistakes.

There is, however, one character whom I greatly enjoy who has constant TSTL moments. If you've read any of the Stephanie Plum books, you know that she's often having battles between “Smart Stephanie” and “Stupid Stephanie.” Inevitably, Stupid Stephanie wins. And yet, those moments never bother me. I put some thought into it--why don't these moments bother me, when in some other books, if the heroine did the same thing, I'd throw the book across the room? I came to the conclusion that Stephanie doesn't bother me because she never seems to get in trouble because of her Stupid Stephanie moments. When she does something potentially stupid (like breaking into the bad guy's house, for instance), she gets away with it.

Why does that make a difference for me? Because a big part of why I don't like those TSTL moments is because I feel like I can see the author's puppet strings. The author needs the bad guy to capture the heroine, so she has the heroine break into the bad guy's house and get caught there. Which means that the moment the heroine embarks on her quest, it's like there's a big, flashing sign telling me exactly what's about to happen. So not only is the heroine doing something stupid, I've lost all sense of suspense, because I know she's going to get caught. What makes Stephanie work for me is that that assumption doesn't hold true. Something suspenseful might happen, but it won't be whatever I'm expecting, and that makes the stories still enjoyable to me.

I'll leave you with a question that I've been pondering lately about those TSTL moments. When I've heard the term used, it's always describing a heroine. I don't see readers complaining about TSTL heroes. It makes me wonder whether we have a double standard. If a heroine knows she's in danger, but gives her bodyguard the slip anyway, she's TSTL. If a hero does something like that, I suspect we'd see him as “macho” or “alpha,” but not necessarily stupid. So what do you think? Would some of those TSTL heroines merely seem brave, rather than stupid, if they were male?

Jenna


http://www.jennablack.com/
Hungers of the Heart, coming April 29 from Tor Books
The Devil You Know, coming July 29 from Dell Spectra

Gena Showalter | What If?

Do you ever wonder what your life would have been like if one thing in your past were different? Just a single thing? Like the movie Sliding Doors, what would your life be like if you’d missed the train home one day? Invariably that thought process always leads me to think about what my life would have been like if I hadn’t pilfered that first romance novel from my grandmother’s house. Silver Angel by Johanna Lindsey. That book changed my life. I remember staring down at it, intrigued by the cover – the heroine had long blonde hair, something this dark haired girl had always desired – thinking, Should or should I? I was about fourteen and if I got caught with it, I would have been in big trouble. But in the end, I did it. Snatched it up, and devoured it in a night.

Before reading it, I was a girl who hated to read. A girl who was behind in every subject at school. A girl who had to be held back a year just to catch up. After reading it, I improved in every subject (my mother would insist I add: but math). I read every spare moment. Relationships (in every form) suddenly fascinated me. First awakenings, the journey to happily ever after, the complexity that is known as Man, I couldn’t get enough. I was hooked. (I’m still hooked!)

And that love of reading eventually blossomed into a love of writing, of weaving my own tales. So here I am, awaiting the release of my Lords of the Underworld trilogy – featuring immortals warriors who opened Pandora’s box and are now cursed to carry a demon inside themselves – and enjoying my career more than I could have ever imagined. All because I picked up that first book. I always shudder to think about what might have happened if I’d decided I shouldn’t.

To learn more about New York Times bestselling author Gena Showalter and her sizzling new trilogy about immortal warriors possessed by demons (and the women who love them), visit http://www.genashowalter.blogspot.com/.

Cynthia Eden | Why write romance?

Have you ever gotten this question before? Have you been asked just why you decided to write in the romance genre? There are so many different areas out there…why romance?

Well, for me, the answer is simple: I love romance.

I’ve been addicted to romance novels since I read my first story almost twenty years ago. (I was twelve, for anyone curious about the math!)

I love romances because I like to escape from the real world—I like to sink myself into a story that I know will give me thrills…and a happy ending.

I love romances because the romance genre—it’s huge! I can read historicals, futuristics, romantic suspenses, or contemporaries. With romance, cross-over is welcome.

My upcoming Kensington Brava release, HOTTER AFTER MIDNIGHT, is probably best described as a paranormal romantic suspense. My heroine, Dr. Emily Drake, is a psychologist who only treats paranormal patients. She gets pulled into a murder investigation as a profiler—and teamed up with sexy wolf shifter, Detective Colin Gyth. I loved being able to add darker elements to this tale. Romance, a serial killer, wolf shifters and psychics—lucky for me, the romance genre is so broad and so wonderfully accepting.

I feel like writers have been pushing the boundaries of romance for years and that push has allowed our genre to just grow stronger.

But what about you? Why do you write (or read) romance?

(And a big thank you to Fresh Fiction for having me here today! I’m thrilled to be guest blogging!)

Cynthia Eden

www.cynthiaeden.com/

HOTTER AFTER MIDNIGHT—April 29, 2008, Kensington Brava

“Wicked Ways” in WHEN HE WAS BAD—May 27, 2008, Kensington Brava

Believe in monsters. They believe in you.

Delilah Devlin | Today's the day!

All right it's in big letters on MY calendar, but likely you're scratching your head wondering if you've missed a national holiday or if I'm excited about watching the next round of American Idol.

Well, it's not a national holiday, but I'm embarrassed to say I am TIVOing Idol so I don't miss a thing. But that's still not why I'm so excited. SEDUCED BY DARKNESS will be shipping to readers and bookstores today!

So, now that my book will be arriving at bookstores and in the mail to my more modest readers, I can start the next round of "Will they like it?" Writers are notoriously insecure. We live and die by reviews and readers letters, because the actual measure of our success - SALES - won't be available for months and sometimes years.

For those of you who don't know me, it might be because my books are shelved with the "naughty" romances--sometimes with the romance books, but in a restrictive shelf high out of reach and sight of little ones; sometimes in the erotica section with the tantric sex and Kama Sutra books; and sometimes, strangely, in the zoology section. Which makes it tough for readers who would like to browse on their own rather than approach the help desk with red cheeks to ask where it's shelved.

I'm hoping they are already hooked on the series and dying for the second book. Yes, it's another vampire book--BUT, it's not the same-O, same-O--it's hotter, scarier, and full of twists and turns. Yes, it's set in New Orleans--BUT in the aftermath of a “great storm,” which will remain unnamed.

My Dark Realm series began in my mind long before Hurricane Katrina hit. I'd read a newspaper article about some minor flooding around New Orleans that lifted coffins in graveyards and left them and their occupants strewn along river banks. A very creepy concept, but so tantalizing to my devious mind, I filed it away.

When I decided to write the series, I pulled out that article, and a stack of books covering subjects like demonology, Sumerian mythology, and Templar Knight lore and constructed a history for my otherworld that is still unfolding in book #2, Seduced by Darkness. I'm really not very methodical about how I plot or write, but I let my research spark ideas, then pluck what I want from the source material, and twist it up a bit. I started submitting the book to agents, but oddly didn't get any bites until Katrina. I guess it really is all in the timing.

The second Dark Realm book is tightly interconnected with the first, INTO THE DARKNESS. I've written several series and don't know any other way to write in my other worlds without having the characters interact and work together toward a common goal. Writing series gives me chance to flesh out those intriguing secondary characters, uncover new layers in events that unfold, and give another perspective on “the battle.” That's not saying, you couldn't read one of the books on its own and be fully satisfied. I'm very careful to plant previous plot threads throughout. Of course, again, not in a methodical way. It just happens.

Delilah Devlin




http://www.delilahdevlin.com/

Jennifer Rardin | Biting the Bullet

Hello! (hello…hello) Yes, I am providing my own echo. This is what happens when you’ve been stuck inside waaaaay to long! (Come on, spring!) On the up-side, you tend to get tons of writing done. I’ve finished book four in the Jaz Parks series and am over a third of the way done with the fifth. But what I really want to talk about is the novel that just came out on February 11.

The third of Jaz Parks’ adventures, Biting the Bullet shoves the CIA assassin and her vampire boss, Vayl, into the center of Tehran. Their mission is to partner with an elite team of soldiers to take down a terrorist mastermind called the Wizard. None of their assignments is easy, but this one could break them. Because not only do they have to unearth the mole in the soldiers’ unit, they’re under attack from demonic monsters, a manipulative Seer, and their own unresolved feelings toward each other. And you thought your job was stressful!

I think you’ll like Jaz’s voice. Wise-cracking, smart-aleck, but always with a depth and vulnerability that lets you know she’s seen more at twenty-five than most people manage in a lifetime. Here’s a little sample from Biting the Bullet:

"I gave you this information as a courtesy,” I told her, “because I believe you’ll function more effectively if you understand what’s happening and why. But here’s the deal, Grace. My boss and I have been assigned to kill a man and that’s what we’re going to do. You can be part of our team, or you can be a tool we use to get our job done. Either way we have success. You just have to decide if you want to be happy or miserable."

It was a joy talking to you again! When you have a minute, feel free to stop by my website. I always enjoy chatting with Jaz fans!

Jennifer Rardin
http://www.jenniferrardin.com/

Chris Marie Green | MIDNIGHT REIGN, Vampire Babylon, Book Two

Years and years ago, when I still played with Barbies, Saturday nights were a magical time. They were all about steak dinners with the family around the candlelit table and my dad smoking his cigar in the backyard afterward. Saturday nights were also when IN SEARCH OF… aired on TV, and I remember watching it, enthralled, and oftentimes, scared to death when Leonard Nimoy told us about things like The Loch Ness Monster and Bigfoot.

Of course, I was young, and I freaked out at everything. So when a certain episode about vampires aired, it left an indelible impression that’s stayed with me until this day.

Long claws, sharp teeth, a woman in bed with a gnarly shadow creeping over her…. I was hooked, and it’s no surprise that I’m writing about vampires now for Ace Books.

In keeping with what scared me when I was younger, my own vampires usually have a mean streak and will do anything to survive. In fact, my first vamp book THE HUNTRESS (for the defunct Bombshell line from Silhouette) featured a tribe of female bloodsuckers, feral and hard to slay. I loved those gals, but the real villain in that story was vampirism itself.

I suppose you could say the same about my Vampire Babylon series, a noir-mystery-fantasy with romantic elements. This particular group survives because of secrecy; among their many gifts, they’re great spies who continually mess with the heroine, Dawn Madison, and her new team of hunters. Every book in the series revolves around a vampire-related mystery, but to me, the horror comes from how far a person might go to capture long-lasting life, youth, and fame.

Here’s a hint of what the first book in the series was about:



But NIGHT RISING, Book One (2/07), concerned more than Jesse Shane’s death. Dawn got sucked into the search for a vampire underground when her dad went missing, and her personal discoveries go hand-in-hand with what she finds out about these vampires—and what her own mother’s death might’ve had to do with them.

As you can see in this next trailer, the second book, MIDNIGHT REIGN (2/5/08), continues Dawn’s search for her dad.



There are a lot of twists and turns for you mystery fans. And for those of you who want to follow the relationship between Dawn and The Voice? There’s plenty of that, too, and BREAK OF DAWN, Book Three (out in September) is going to delve into Dawn’s search for who "Jonah" really is!

I hope you stop by my Web site at http://www.vampirebabylon.com/ because, among other things, I’m giving away a great prize for the contest. It’s a "museum quality" Giclee print called "Little Blood Sucker," and it’s signed by the artist, Billy Martinez of Neko.

Isn’t it great? I’ve got one hanging on my own wall.

Thank you for reading, and happy hunting!

Chris Marie Green (AKA Crystal Green) writes full time across the genres. Besides her Vampire Babylon series, she writes for Harlequin Blaze and Silhouette Special Edition. You can visit her other web sites at http://www.crystal-green.com/and www.myspace.com/vampirebablylon.

Kerrelyn Sparks | Where Would You Hide?

The Undead Next Door, which releases January 29th, tells the story of a French vampire named Jean-Luc Echarpe. Jean-Luc has done many things since his transformation in 1513. He’s been a knight, a musketeer, a lieutenant-colonel in the Great Vampire War of 1710, the owner of a fencing academy in Paris, and the Coven Master of Western Europe. That’s him on the cover. What a hunk!

Having lived through many different styles of clothing, Jean-Luc knows fashion. So much so that he began designing evening wear for vampires in 1922. By the 1930’s, he was secretly designing evening wear for the Hollywood elite. In 1975, he expanded his business into the mortal world and became a great success! What a great life! He’s a celebrity, surrounded by beautiful models. What more could a guy ask for?

Unfortunately, the media has realized that Jean-Luc hasn’t aged in over thirty years. They’re following him everywhere, hounding him with questions. There’s only one thing Jean-Luc can do—go into hiding. He’ll disappear for twenty-five years, then return to his beloved Paris, posing as his own son. He’s too recognizable in Paris or Milan, New York or Los Angeles. Where can he go where no one will know who he is?

The hill country of Texas! There, high fashion is a great pair of jeans and a cowboy hat, and the most exciting topic in the small town of Schnitzelberg is the next high school football game. How will Jean-Luc manage to fit in? And how will he handle a feisty Texan girl who gives him hell? Yee-haw!

And that leads me to the Question for the Day: If you needed to go into hiding, where would YOU go? A haunted castle in the Scotland? A white-washed cottage on a remote Greek isle? Frodo Baggin’s Hobbit house in New Zealand? Or maybe you’d like to share your hideaway? How about sharing a little grass shack with Josh Holloway on a lost island in the Pacific? Now we’re talking!!

Enter my one day blog contest and tell me your ideal hiding place (and if you like, your ideal hiding partner). One lucky castaway will receive a signed copy of Be Still My Vampire Heart (the third book in the Love at Stake series). To find out more about the series and play vampire games, please visit me at www.kerrelynsparks.com/!

Deborah MacGillivray | A stroll down memory lane…with a small detour through the Twilight Zone…

Inspiration for most writers comes straight from their lives. So it’s not surprising my works all begin with those core pieces. Things I love, people I have met, or the places that have been a part of my life become building blocks of the foundations for my novels and short stories.

Living on both sides of the Pond has given me a diversity of inspiration to tap. I used Scotland for the setting of The Invasion of Falgannon Isle, the first book in the Sisters of Colford Hall series (Dorchester Love Spell, December 2006). However, with Riding the Thunder the second book in the series (October 2007), I drew heavily on a small part of my childhood and early teens to conjure the setting and people for my offbeat world of The Windmill.

People reading the book continually comment that the setting is so strong they almost expect the place really to exist. Well, it did once. Long time ago, before urban sprawl took away the quirkiness of the odd spot on Nicholasville Pike, a halfway point between Lexington and Nicholasville, Kentucky, and turned the area into shopping centers and apartments, there was actually a restaurant called The Windmill.

Mysteriously, the place wasn’t special. Most people who ever ate there would likely have relegated it to labels of ‘quaint’, ‘truck stop’, or even ‘greasy spoon’; just a rundown diner that seemed forevermore stuck in the 1950s. There was also a motel, swim club and drive-in smack in the middle of horse country, as odd as that may seem. Fact stranger than fiction! And The Windmill’s jukebox had tunes years out-of-date, and it either was possessed or created with a mind of its own. Press the buttons on one song and often you’d end up with “Surfin’ Bird”, or “Tell Laura I Love Her” instead of the Beach Boys’ “Help me, Rhonda”.

On Friday and Saturday nights during the summer, the drive-in would run dusk-to-dawn specials, one price for a carload and you were treated to all the B-movies you could want. Generally, the marquee touted titles such as Vincent Price’s The Haunted Palace, Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee’s epic battle in Dracula, Prince of Darkness, or the ‘low-rent’ Roger Corman’s The Undead, all following the Woody Woodpecker cartoons.

Some of the people were also real once. There truly was an Oo-it, a funny young man who used to get too excited, though memories of him have since become mixed with images of actor Steve Bercemi,. Sam the cook was based on a janitor in my school. All the kids adored Henry. Laura and Tommy were patterned on a young couple who died very tragically in a car accident. None of these people touched my life in a profound way, other than giving a passing smile, yet they, too, are burned into my memory so deeply that they took root and slowly filled my muse with the story of Jago and Asha, and the weird place called The Windmill.

I only spent a couple weeks each year in the area, thus I am not sure why my brief visits there remain shining in my memories, so special. That they have for decades has been a puzzle to me. The riddle has led me to ponder if the oddball place was on some leyline, that there was some magical force, which made the very mundane very enchanting to me. But then again, perhaps that is what makes a writer a writer. They can look at the ordinary, a place in the middle of nowhere, a small dot on the map that thousands of other people passed through and then quickly forgot, and instead see the beauty and wonder in the sights, the sounds, the smells of a place so out-of-step with time. And dream...





Riding the Thunder with "Lost for Words" by Mike Duncan (mike-duncan.org) used with permission

A big thank you to Fresh Fiction for allowing me to take a trip down the side roads of Memory Lane!

Maggie Shayne | Get Focus and Enjoy your day!

Thanks to the wonderful people here at Fresh Fiction for having me over. Nice place you have here. I hope you'll check out my group blog, www.storybroads.com/.

Meanwhile, let's chat.

I have a lot of friends who are going through one of two problems. About a third are depressed, a third are fighting weight issues, and a third are battling with both. (There's a tiny percentage in there of people who follow the same philosophy I do, who take everything in stride and are actually doing very nicely. But it's probably less than one percent of my pals. Sadly. I'm trying to spread it around, though.)

At any rate, I thought since these two problems are two I know well, have been through, and conquered, they would be my topic today. And interestingly, the same techniques are effective at fighting both depression and weight.

Of course, the first one is exercise. You know I used to think I couldn't "run" even if I wanted to. And I never really wanted to. I was one of those, yeah; I'll run if someone's chasing me with a knife. But a friend of mine inspired me, and so I decided to try. I thought it would be impossible. Bad knees. But I walked and ran a little, and walked and ran a little, and upped the running every time. That was years ago. Now I can run five miles at a time, and I love it, and I'm going to enter some group runs this year.

It's always possible. Anything is possible, you just have to make up your mind to it and do it. But even walking is good for you. The combination of the physical exertion and the exposure to sunlight, even in cold weather, and the fresh air and just being outdoors, all work on your mood. Endorphins surge. You just feel better all around.

I started today pretty blue. But by the time I finished an hour on my Bowflex, I was bopping out to the music blasting from my Iphone and singing along and feeling great.
Exercise is number one. Just get up and move every day. As much or as little as is good for you, where you are, right now. It'll improve the fitness, and the mood.

And so will music. I'm telling you, no matter how bad things get, I've never seen a day when I didn't cheer up instantly if I just could force myself to put on some loud, rock & roll. It only takes minutes.

I could be lying comatose on the sofa, sobbing my eyes out, and if I could just get that music going, I'd be fine within a half hour.

Music. It's therapy.

My third miracle solution to depression and weight and any other problem you might encounter in life, is to understand that you get what you focus on. If you're thinking about something you don't want, even if you're thinking how much you don't want it, you'll get more of it. So try to shift your focus gently from the unpleasant stuff to the stuff that makes you happy. The stuff that fulfills you. The stuff that gives you joy. What you ignore will eventually fade away. What you pay attention to will grow bigger and bigger. When it's really bad, sometimes you can't find anything to make you feel good, so at those times, you need to reach smaller--just look for anything that gives you relief, and then build from there.

I dare you to try this for a month. Start paying attention to where your focus is, what you talk about most, what you think about most, and shift it to good stuff.

See what happens!

For more info on this stuff, visit www.abraham-hicks.com/

And be sure to pop into my site, www.maggieshayne.com/

Enjoy your day! It's the best prescription for happiness there is!

Maggie Shayne

DEMON'S KISS
On sale Now!

Patrice Michelle | Always evolving…

The great thing about being an author is that the learning curve on your job is limitless. You’re probably wondering why I think that’s a good thing. LOL! I think it’s great because in my mind, I’m always learning. When I look at the books I wrote five years ago and the books I’m writing today, I can see how much I’ve grown as a writer; how my style and my approach to writing stories has changed.

I’ve always loved a good story alongside my romance, but somewhere along the line, I wanted more. So I delved headlong into the vast paranormal genre. But even writing a straight paranormal romance wasn’t enough, and I began to add subplots, which evolved into suspenseful plot twists, which turned into more surprises in the story than even I had expected.

Layering emotional romance over complicated plotlines with mystery elements forced another transition in my writing—moving from being a pantser writer (write-by-the-seat-of-my-pants), with no planning at all, to morphing into a hybrid style author where I wrote a high-level outline as to how the story would play out to the end. Would I follow it? Not necessarily (hence the reason I’m a hybrid writer *g*), but it gave me a loose roadmap to follow.

Along the way, I began to add more action scenes to my stories: from fight scenes to chase scenes. I loved them. But the writing style for an action scene verses a love scene is very different in tone and structure, and yet another facet learned and tucked away in my writer's tool box.

Throughout all these transitions, there’s one aspect I’ve had to keep in mind with my stories. Blending fast paced and complicated plotlines with main characters that are just as deep, just as complex and just as intriguing is a delicate balance, one that leaves me challenged, energized and…always evolving.

Patrice Michelle

http://www.patricemichelle.net/

Patrice's latest release Scions: Resurrection, the first book in her SCIONS trilogy is out on the shelves now!

Kerry A. Jones | Love, Magic, Honor....

At the start of each new year, my thoughts linger on endings and beginnings. I think of memories and changes and the finite things about which I have hope. Then, there are those things that carry over from year to year, and book to book. The idea of true love conquering all. Soul mates. Love at first sight.

In 2007, Loved Enough was released – my first contemporary romance and a story of love rekindled. Later in the year I ventured from contemporary into paranormal with Cast in Stone (Book One of the Quinguard Immortals Series.)

He waited seven hundred years to find her.

For what seemed an eternity, Julen endured a nightly punishment that never should have been his. Descended from a line of ancient warriors, he vowed not to become the creature his persecutors claimed he was - the creature they did their best to make him into. Now that he has found the healer who can end his nightly torment, the stirring she creates in his Agathyrsi blood threatens to bring more danger than redemption.

She was sworn to destroy him.

Sofia Evan, owner of Fortune's Cup coffeehouse, had been raised on family lore and responsibility passed down through generations on a rare parchment. She never believed the darkness and pain in its tales to be more than myth, never questioned the reasons for the gifts that set her apart from all the rest. Until one winter morning changes everything. Now the breathtaking man who haunts her waking hours is the very being whose curse she must put an end to - one way or another.

I’m very excited about 2008, which will see the release of Book Two in my Quinguard series. I love these characters! They’ve helped add a sense of magic, redemption and honor to the list of those things that must carry over…

Come visit me at www.myspace.com/kerrywrites, or stop by http://www.blacklyonpublishing.com/. Thanks for reading! And thanks, Fresh Fiction, for inviting me to blog here today.

Kerry A. Jones

Lynsay Sands | Boxing Day

Right about now you must all be breathing a heavy sigh of relief that Christmas is over and life for the most part--well other than New Years-- will get back to normal. Truly, Christmas is a lovely holiday, giving us the chance to spend time with family and—at least for me—visit with cousins and relatives who I only see two or three times a year (and I have great family so I love that.) But boy! Three days of non-stop visiting and eating and unwrapping gifts is very exhausting, don’t you think? I do. I’m about ready to drop.

And don’t even mention the Boxing day sales. Holy cow!! People get crazy grumpy out there on their hunts for bargains. It’s a very serious business that bargain shopping stuff. Do not get between another man or woman and their sale item. You could be placing your life at risk. And watch yourselves in the parking lots too! We saw an accident happen right in front of us. A fellow backed his pick up out of his parking spot and right into a car that had stopped to let another car get out of the way. I thought the drivers would come to blows. A little blonde gal was in the car that was hit. She got out and ran around, steam practically coming out of her ears and she didn’t particularly care that the fellow in the pick up was a big guy (just a small mountain really). LOL. I hate to admit it but watching her rail and wag her finger under the nose of the huge driver who was in the wrong made me smile and murmur to myself “You go girl! Give it to him.” She’s the kind of gal who would make a good heroine in a book.

After all the excitement and rush of Christmas though, all I want to do is curl up with a good book. I hope you’re all the same because I have one that came out boxing day. THE ACCIDENTAL VAMPIRE. It’s book #7 in the Argeneau series of vamps and one I had a lot of fun with. The heroine, Elvi, isn’t a blonde, but she’d have no trouble railing and wagging a finger at a mountain in the wrong either.

Elvi Black had been married, widowed and lost her only child when, at 57, she went on a vacation to Mexico with her best friend and woke up one morning to find she’d got more than Montezuma’s revenge. She was a vampire. Fortunately, Mabel was more than a fair-weather friend and helped Elvi through it. She got her home to Canada and even rallied together the population of their small town to help Elvi with this life change. For the next five years everything just sort of coasted along nicely, but then Mabel and some of their friends decided they needed to find a mate for Elvi, to keep her company in the long years ahead. A vampire would be preferable, but where to find a vampire boyfriend? The personal ads seemed the best answer. So they put out an ad and arranged for a bunch of the candidates to spend some time in their small town. That way they could give them the once over, and if they were suitable, see how they got along with Elvi. (Really, no one can embarrass you like your friends and loved ones, huh? LOL)

Unfortunately, advertising your status as a vamp is a no-no among immortals and that ad caught the attention of the council. They sent Victor Argeneau down to Elvi’s small town to check her out and drag her back for judgment—which with them can mean death. Victor doesn’t mind the job until he gets there and finds out he can’t read our Elvi. She’s his lifemate. Now he just has to convince her of that, win her hand over the other immortals who responded to the ad, and figure out a way to keep the council from demanding her head. . . Well, if he can keep her alive long enough to worry about that. Elvi’s managed to draw the ire of more than the council and someone’s trying to end her life before Victor can enjoy his happy ever after. Is life ever easy? (grin)

I truly did have fun with this book, and I hope if you get the chance to relax with Elvi and Victor, you enjoy it too. It should bring a smile to your holiday weary faces.

Lynsay

lynsaysands.net

Cait London | PSYCHIC OR PARANORMAL, WHICH IS IT?

The Aisling psychic triplets trilogy was a departure for me. I'd always had a little of the Gothic in my books, a little suspense, and layers of characters and their interactions. But while writing the sisters' books, I was struck by how much of the material, resource, and research already dwelled within me.

Writers often speak of where they get their research, and share with others. To some extent, writing is a share and hand-me-down craft. The rest of the writing experience rests on the individual's investment of time and energy. Some people are just natural storytellers, and stories bubble out of them. But structuring them, and putting them into book form, takes editing and control.

I spent a great deal of time setting up this trilogy. Due to the logistics of business and contracts, I wrote SILENCE THE WHISPERS (a favorite story) prior to beginning this trilogy; the psychic triplets had to sit on the back burner for a while. The basic trilogy idea contains a story arc, where the threads of the story run through each book, and end in the third. I'd written several other series, including the TALLCHIEFS (9 books), and understood how to build a series from the start, not just adding book after book. I usually lay down all three story ideas at one time, rather than adding on one at a time, which may be more usual. (I happen to like building proposals and series.)

As for this trilogy, I wanted Celtic names for the contemporary sisters, who are in order: Claire, Tempest and Leona. I have a great number of baby namer books and used the definition of the names to suit the characters. In a series, in this case a trilogy, it is really important to keep a character list and to balance the names of all concerned. For instance, Claire in AT THE EDGE is an empath and more gentle and reserved (until Neil comes into her life). Tempest's name says everything (A STRANGER'S TOUCH 4/08). And Leona (FOR HER EYES ONLY 10/08), the oldest of the triplets by three minutes is a lioness, when defending her family. Greer, the world-famous psychic mother of the triplets has red hair and a pale complexion, just as they do. Greer's coloring and her gifts are inherited from her ancestor, Aisling, the captive bride of a Viking chieftain.

Greer is a widow with very unusual children, and one profitable gift in her pocket: she's a powerful psychic. As a single mother, with three daughters, born three years apart, I understood much of the family dynamics. To some measure, this trilogy mirrors my own life and interests. That research was already built into me, stacked up and ready to be used. It's true then, a writer sells pieces of their family off, a few at a time. I understood the relationship and interaction of the sisters, and somewhat how the mother would feel/react in certain instances. I'm also very interested in Viking history, and elements of the Celts. You can read much of this at my website and blog, how I used my own earrings and other elements dear to me, such as beach stones and handcrafted in artistic items, within my stories. I like to keep a variety of objects around me; each seems to have a story lurking within.

I also visit every location of every book, but fictionalize the names. AT THE EDGE is set in Montana, a state I love very much and have set several books there. A STRANGER'S TOUCH is set on the shores of Lake Michigan, where I spent a creative retreat. I thought Port Salem was an excellent choice for a fictional town, considering what happened to psychics in another Salem. FOR HER EYES ONLY is set in Lexington, Kentucky, where I visit often.

Here is where regimentation and control of the writer come into play. With everything built into me already, and my extensive interests, it was important to center into the threads of the story, running through all three books. Yet it was imperitive to give each book, each sister, an individual suspense/dangerous story. This trilogy is a crossover between psychic and romantic suspense, because there is individual danger included, and there is an overall family danger. For those unfamiliar with romantic suspense, it can be light or loaded with forensics and bullets. The Aisling trilogy is loaded with tension and danger and suspense, but also saturated with family relations. It is also loaded with sensuality and romance, as the sisters deal with their different and unwanted psychic gifts. That is the key to the trilogy: these women want to live like every woman, yet they cannot. They cannot even live close together, for fear of their sibling and psychic connections interfering with each other.

If you are a reader who prefers a light, comical read, this trilogy may not be for you. These stories are layered with intrigue and relationship and very dangerous threads. I very much enjoyed writing the individual suspense stories, and building the threads running through these books. I hope readers enjoy them, too.

As for the psychic elements, I researched much of that and interviewed psychics. But I kept the elements away from what I consider paranormal, like ghosts or vampires. In each book, the sisters relay that they are not shapeshifters or mediums for the dead, which is a psychic element. To me there is a distinct difference between paranormal and true psychic.

Do I have any interest in psychic or intuitive ability? Yes, definitely, and I feel bits of it reside within my family. (BTW, I have my own set of runes, which I understand better than Tarot cards.) I really enjoyed writing this trilogy, and hope you enjoy it too. A newsletter is available at my website, if you wish to keep up with the progress of this trilogy and my other upcoming books. Bookmarks and newsletters are also available for SASE.

http://caitlondon.com/

http://caitlondon.blogspot.com/

Jennifer Rardin | What A Day

What a fabulous day! I’ve got Christmas tunes on surround sound. The house smells like praline caramel sticky buns. And my second book, Another One Bites the Dust, officially releases in the States TODAY. I haven’t felt this fab since I spied a whole stack of Wonka’s Everlasting Gobstoppers on the shelf at my grocery and realized that I might actually live long enough to meet an oompa loompa. I’ll have to clean up my act first though. Far too much swearing for their taste, I’m pretty sure.

Should we talk about the book a sec? About the fact that Jaz has to belly dance as part of her cover? About how she’d much rather crawl through the mud while being fired upon by a long line of tanks manned by vicious, American-hating devil-worshipers? Never fear, our girl is up to the task. Gotta impress the boss-man, right? Plus, when Vayl looks at her that way…she may just learn to like the skimpy costumes.

It’s not all fun and games though. Jaz and Vayl have been assigned to take down a slippery old vamp named Chien-Lung who’s gotten away with far too much for way too long. Hindering their progress—a new kind of nightmare creature with ties that seem to stretch all the way to hell. If they don’t kill Jaz, her dreams just might.

When you finish this read, you can look forward to Biting the Bullet, which comes out in just a couple of months. February 11, 2008 if we want to be anal about it. Which I do. Sorry, one of my multiple shortcomings, along with a weakness for chocolate and a tendency to freeze like a Popsicle if I sit in one place for more than fifteen minutes at a time. I’d be a horrible mountaineer, wouldn’t I? I can just see me trying to scale Everest. If I even made it to base camp, all I’d do is walk around all day slapping my arms against my chest saying, “Damn, it’s cold! Why are we here again? And sleeping in tents? Seriously, somebody should build a hotel!”

I used to be into the whole camping scenario. When I was younger, and springier. But now, like Vayl, I kinda like my perks. Get a little grumpy, for instance, without the daily shower. Whenever I watch the survivalists on TV doing their seven-day treks all I can think is, How bad are you itching right now, not to mention the stench? Jaz could pull that off, no problem. But she’s tough, right? She’s been through it, almost from birth. And though you really have to appreciate her grit, you’ll see in later books how it’s becoming something of a detriment. After all, surviving is one thing. Learning to become a social, friendly, even loving human being post-tragedy is quite another. That’s where she’s going now as I edit the fourth book in the series, Bitten to Death and write the fifth, One More Bite. It’s been interesting watching her progress. When she falls. Whew! Spectacular. But she always gets up again. And that’s why we love her.

Jennifer Rardin, Author

Once Bitten, Twice Shy

Another One Bites the Dust
http://www.jenniferrardin.com/

Candace Havens | Charmed & Dangerous

It may seem kind of silly but I love the character Bronwyn in the "Charmed & Dangerous" series. I’m beyond excited that the first book is coming out in mass-market paperback on Dec. 4. Hopefully that means more people will get to read about this amazing chick.

When I first conceived the idea of her, I wanted someone who was strong and didn’t take crap off of anyone. Bronwyn is certainly that. She’s one of the most powerful witches in the world, but you wouldn’t know it to look at her. I like that she has a little bit of an attitude, but she has a soft heart. That one minute she can be caring for an elderly man with Alzheimer’s, and the next she’s blowing up bad guys.

Bronwyn is also an adventurer who loves to travel. People ask me all the time if I’ve been to all the places she has – I wish. (Smile) I do a lot of research into places where I would like to travel, and then I send Bronwyn on her way. I like that side of her, where she can adapt to most any situation. She always manages to make friends, even in the most harrowing of circumstances.

People also ask if she is me. The truth is, maybe a little. She says and does things I wish I could. I have a rather warped sense of humor, and Bronwyn has certainly picked that up. Some of the attributes we share are dark hair, being short and complicated, busy lives. Though, I only love one man these days, I can certainly relate to Bron when it comes to her love life. So yes, maybe there’s a little bit of me in her, but she’s definitely one of a kind.

-Candy Havens
http://www.candacehavens.com/

Bonnie Vanak | The Healing Power of Romance

My December Nocturne, The Empath, is dedicated to my dog, Tia. Someone I know thought that was strange. I didn’t. Tia wasn’t just a pet, but a loyal friend.

One year ago, Tia died from liver cancer. When my husband and I got the diagnosis, our hearts broke. Our wonderful, lively pet who barked with joy when we came home, used to howl when my husband howled with her, jumped in my lap when I wrote and rested her head on the laptop (ever try to write with a 24-pound Shih Tzu hogging the keyboard?) was dying. Typical of Tia, as I sat there crying, she pushed her nose into my face and tried to cheer me up.

I grieved, and began to write.

The story became The Empath. It started with a woman who tries to find a cure for the mysterious disease killing her beloved dog. Gradually the story shifted. The woman developed into Maggie, a veterinarian. She was a Draicon, a werewolf, and the pack’s long lost empath, unaware of her ability to heal. The hero strolled into the story, a powerful warrior werewolf tormented by a dark secret, who longed for peace but forsake it to kill the enemy destroying his pack. The enemy became the Morphs. They were former Draicon who embraced evil to gain power and shapeshifted into any animal form. They turned into army ants, a fire-breathing dragon and bees to attack Maggie and Nicolas.

Maggie finally discovers her ability to heal through touch, and realizes the person in greatest need of emotional healing is Nicolas, her mate. Then I created the mating lock, in which they come together sexually in a pure moment of communion, and exchange thoughts, emotions and powers, the two halves made whole.

I wrote non-stop, sometimes sitting on the back patio, Tia resting her head between her paws while lying at my feet. The story became my balm those months while I visited the vet for new medication to keep Tia comfortable, experimented with food and coaxed her to eat when her appetite waned, and waited, watched and prayed. Not for a miracle, but for strength when the time would finally come for us to make the hardest decision of all.

That decision came December 7. She was in extreme pain. It was the hardest thing in the world, harder even when my mom was dying of cancer. My husband drove the car, as I cradled my whimpering friend in my arms. When our vet went to give her the shot, Tia reached up and licked my husband’s face.

And then she was gone. It was so quiet, except for the sounds of all of us crying.

In The Empath, Maggie’s tremendous powers cure her beloved dog, and heal Nicolas’s spirit, giving him the peace he’s sought for ages. It’s pure romance fiction, a world where the impossible becomes possible, and dreams and hopes come true with the help of love and magic.

For me, that’s the healing power of romance. When all around you is falling apart, and your heart is breaking, you can create a world in which everything turns out all right. And where a friend who was loyal to the end lives on forever in the pages of your book.


In memory of our beloved Tia. (Nov. 1995-Dec. 7, 2006)

http://www.bonnievanak.com/

Jeaniene Frost | OH YES YOU CAN

Since it's shortly after the release of my first book, I've been thinking of
the start of this journey. I'd known since I was twelve that I wanted to be a
writer, but it took me almost twenty years to start writing. Why did I wait so
long? Here were the biggest things that held me back.

Excuse #1: I need to take classes/go to a conference before I can write a novel.

Wow, that kept me from trying for over ten years! The truth is while classes
and conferences are helpful, they aren't necessary. Now, I'm not recommending
skipping college or thumbing your nose at literary courses, but don't let that
be a stumbling block in your path to writing a novel. Do you read a lot? Are
you a (reasonably) good speller? Are you willing to take constructive criticism
and revise when necessary? Then you can do this.

Excuse #2: But I don't know HOW to write a novel.

I used this one far longer than I want to admit. When I repeated it a several
years ago to a writer friend of mine, she just smiled and said, "Then read a
book on writing, dear." Guess what? That worked! There are many great, useful
books aimed at helping new authors get started. While there is, sadly,
no "'magic formula" for writing, there are lots of steps you can learn just
from browsing one of these books. I read WRITING THE BREAKOUT NOVEL by
Donald Maass, and WORLDS OF WONDER by David Gerrold, but
go to your local book store and see which ones are best suited to you.

Excuse #3: I don't have time to write.

Many famous authors have discussed how they squeezed writing into their lives
before they were able to quit their day jobs. Sharon Sala wrote her first novel
while working full time, raising three children, and tending to a farm. Mary Higgins Clark was widowed with five children and worked a full-time job when she
wrote her first novel. Bottom line: if you don't make writing a priority, no
one else in your life will, either. Sure, the more responsibilities you have,
the longer it may take you to finish that first book, but you CAN get it done.

Excuse #4: I know any book I write will be terrible, so why bother?

This may have been the hardest thing for me to get over. Eventually I decided I
was going to write regardless. When I started my novel, I did it with the
intention that it would never see the light of day. This was very freeing,
because I wrote for me, and when I finished that first book, I was - gasp -
proud of myself. Was the book terrible? Um, yeah! But the very process of
writing was a learning experience, and I started the next book right after.
When I was almost done with that, I went back to my first book and began the
first of many revisions. By then, of course, I was hooked on writing and knew
I'd keep doing it even if I never sold a single word. I still have that
opinion. If I never sell another book, you'll still find me smacking away at my
keyboard, because this is what I love.

Excuse #5: I'll start my novel - later.

Later can turn into never a lot faster than you realize. Speaking from my own
experience, once I started writing, I regretted letting my excuses hold me
hostage for as long as they did.

So for anyone out there with the desire to write, but with fear and
procrastination standing in your way...haven't you waited long enough? Get to a
keyboard! Don't let the stories just sit in your head. It is a tough road, but
it's well worth it.

I'm extremely thrilled to say my first novel, HALFWAY TO THE
GRAVE, debuted on the New York Times bestseller list, as well as the
USA Today list. Dreams still can come true in publishing for new
authors. I'm proof of that :)

http://www.jeanienefrost.com/

Kimberly Adkins | Is there a mystical connection between lost loves?

My hands were clammy and the nervous feeling in my stomach felt like it was trying to work its way out as I dialed the numbers on the telephone.

“Hello?” he answered, and I was immediately taken off guard.

“I…I am sorry, I didn’t expect you to pick up the phone,” I stumbled over the words, desperately thinking about what I could say. After all, he hadn’t actually answered the phone for years; how could I have predicted that he would now!

“I dreamed about you all night last night,” I decided to go for broke with an honest explanation.

“And I tried to call you yesterday,” he said quietly, like the words might betray some emotion. “Most of your old numbers don’t work, but I left some messages at the one that did. I just wanted to hear your voice.”

Has something like this ever happened to you? I am a firm believer in the magic of love. Whether it is the science of chemical reactions or an attachment on a spiritual level that we can’t explain, I can honestly say that it is the last true magic I see in the world

I once had a friend tell me that we are all attached to the people in our lives by little psychic threads, and the thread to our soul mates is a beautiful, shining silver. At the time I considered it to be a lovely statement, prompted by fantasy and passion and I accepted it in an abstract fashion, but I have grown quite fond of the thought.

Do you believe the force of love can connect you to someone you haven’t seen or spoken to in years? What unusual things have you experienced with someone you are apart from? I’d love to hear some stories from the folks out there, and see what everyone thinks about it!

Thanks for sharing, and thanks for all your time :)

Kimberly Adkins

Author, The Medallion of Solaus

You can visit me at a couple of places, if you’d like to keep in touch or see what I’m up to:

My main website http://www.kimberlyadkins.com/

Come on over to Myspace and meet my wonderful friends! www.myspace.com/solaus

I have to travel out of state for a book signing on Nov 10th, but I’ll be checking in to see what everyone has to say!

Shirley Damsgaard | "Witch" is Better -- Romance or Mystery?

How did a small town Midwesterner ever decide to write about witches?? Well, I’ve always been the type of person who believed if I could read about it, I could do it, so when at the tender age of 48, I decided to write, I bought every book about the craft of writing that I could. The first piece of advice was to write what you like to read, and at the time I was reading a lot of romance. Okay, so we’ll try our hand at romance.

I bought (again) the books I deemed necessary to help me with my quest and set about writing a romance novella. I leaned two things. First of all, I can’t write a love scene to save my life!! And if one is going to write romance, love scenes are kind of important! The second thing I learned is that if you use a password, be sure, and write it down. You might not remember it six months down the road if you don’t. Yes, I pass worded that terrible novella, but forgot what it was! The good thing is—that piece of literature, and I use the term loosely, is forever lost and can never come back to haunt me!!

What to do now?? It was during one of my whines about my lack of skill that my late husband suggested I give mysteries a go. He pointed out I was always ruining movies for him by telling how they would end. He thought writing mysteries would be a more profitable way to exercise my talent at figuring out plots, and leave him alone to enjoy his movies!

Okay, so mysteries it would be, but what type of mystery? Since I have no background in a profession, such as law enforcement, that would lend itself to creating a detective, I knew my protagonist had to be an amateur sleuth. The problem was deciding what type of amateur sleuth. I’ve been interested in the paranormal since I was a teenager, so how about a psychic? What a great idea! It was such a great idea that several, already published authors, had the same thought! I needed a different kind of a hook.

Another interest of mine has always been folk remedies, herbs, old wives tales—it wasn’t much of a leap to jump from folk medicine to folk magick, hence witches. More books about the subject were purchased, and Ophelia and Abby were born! And it’s been fun! I’ve met psychics, real witches, a rune-master, a Native American medicine man, and lots of others who’ve made my life more interesting than I ever conceived it could be. Not bad for a small town Midwesterner who can’t write a romance!

http://www.shirleydamsgaard.com/

Patti O'Shea - A Peek Behind the Book

Ideas come to authors at different times and in different ways. Sometimes one flash is enough to trigger an entire story. That's what happened with THE POWER OF TWO. I was staring out the window at my day job when the word "nanotechnology" came into my mind. All I had to do was ask, well, what about it? and the next thing I knew, I had my heroine, the hero, and the way they were tied to each other.

Other times, nothing more than a concept pops into my head and I'll write down what I have and file it away for some day. Only some day never seems to come--except with my latest book.

IN THE MIDNIGHT HOUR started with a dream I had more than ten years ago. I knew the hero's name--Deke Summers--I knew he was under a magical curse, and I was aware of what that curse was, but there was no heroine and no story. I wrote down the concept in one sentence and moved on. I loved the idea and hoped that some day I'd have a plot to go with it, but I didn't hold out much hope because I have file drawers full of ideas waiting to be used.

Time marched on, and while I didn't exactly forget Deke, I didn't think about him often. Then it happened. December 2003 a woman appeared in my head and started talking about her people. (It's true, I hear voices. It's a good thing I'm a writer.) Anyway, this character wouldn't share her name, not until she'd spent weeks telling me all about a magical society called the Gineal. Only after that did she let me know that her name was Ryne Frasier and she was a troubleshooter.

When a character comes in and talks to me, I know I'll be writing their story, but I had a problem. While I had all kinds of facts about her people, I didn't have a hero for Ryne and I didn't have a clue what her story was. It's funny I remembered Deke at that moment--or maybe it isn't. Once I realized he and his curse belonged with her, the story began to flow--for a couple of chapters.

I could see the opening of the story clearly and how tough Ryne was--and how vulnerable and lonely. I could see her relationship with her sister and how both of them were hampered by their pasts, And I could see how Ryne and Deke met and how that would play into their relationship. But I couldn't seem to get a handle on Deke beyond his curse and how much he hated it. Then I found the picture.

The man was gorgeous and he had attitude written all over his face. This guy totally fit Deke and that quickly, that easily, I had his personality. Deke is a horrible smart aleck and one of his favorite things in the world is to push people's buttons--especially Ryne's. She's so serious, so intense, and he likes to see the heat in her eyes so much that he can't help himself. He drove her crazy. Ryne was trained to control her emotions--she has to in order to function as a magical troubleshooter--but she had very little self-command when it came to Deke.

There was one other thing about this book that made it different for me--I knew the ending almost from the start. It's the first time I've had a clue how one of my stories would close before I was past the halfway mark, and usually it's deeper into the book than that. It was pretty darn cool to have that in my head from the beginning, but I'm not counting on being that lucky again any time soon.

Each book has a different story on how it came to be, but I thought I'd give you a little peek behind Midnight Hour. If you have any questions about any of my books, feel free to ask. I'm happy to talk about my stories.

Patti's Website - http://www.pattioshea.com/
Patti's Blog - http://pattioshea.blogspot.com/
Patti's MySpace Page - http://www.myspace.com/patti_oshea
In the Midnight Hour Video - http://www.pattioshea.com/midnight_video.shtml

Bonnie Vanak | When Romance Authors Cheat On Their Heroes

The heroes of Bonnie Vanak’s Egyptian books stood outside their creator’s house. Jabari of The Falcon & the Dove gave the door a blank look.

“What’s wrong?” asked Graham of The Panther & the Pyramid.

“I do not know what to do,” Jabari admitted. “I live in a tent.”

Kenneth of The Cobra & the Concubine rolled his eyes. “You knock, you bloody fool.”

“Do not call my father a bloody fool,” warned Tarik of The Sword & the Sheath. “You once lived in a tent.”

"Do you think we should formally announce ourselves?” asked Ramses of The Tiger & the Tomb. “After all, she is not writing and may not want to see us.”

The men exchanged glances. “You’re right,” said Thomas of The Scorpion & the Seducer. “We should just walk in and surprise her.”

They went inside, walked down a hallway and entered a bedroom. Bonnie was sorting through laundry. Shock dawned in her eyes. “Not you guys again!”

“We came here to recharge your creativity,” Thomas explained. “You haven’t written since my story was finished. I’m not published until next May, so you have time to write your next Egyptian historical.”

Bonnie laughed. “What time? Come with me. I have been writing.”

She led them to another room. Bonnie opened the door. “Go ahead, look. But watch out. They bite.”

The six romance heroes stepped into the small office. Bonnie pressed a button on the computer. Suddenly two tall, handsome men materialized. They were muscled and looked menacing. They shapeshifted into two sleek wolves.

“You’ve been unfaithful,” Tarik protested as Nicolas and Damian growled at him. “Werewolves? Whatever happened to Egyptian warriors and English noblemen?”

“You guys are for my Dorchester historicals. Nicolas and Damian are for my paranormals for Silhouette’s Nocturne line. The Empath, Nicolas’ book, is out in December. Look, please leave. I need to concentrate on Damian and his internal conflict.”

“A werewolf with internal conflict? Ridiculous,” Thomas declared.

Nicolas and Damian shapeshifted back into human form. “Show respect for my pack leader,” Nicolas warned.

“Bonnie put me in a fierce mating heat and hasn’t allowed me to have sex yet in order to build the sexual tension. Fighting you would relieve some of my frustration.” Damian growled at them.

The six historical romance heroes stared balefully at the two snarling werewolf heroes. Bonnie held up a hand. “Enough! Damian’s book is due in less than two months. I need to think about New Orleans and magic. You guys can come back when the next Egyptian historical is due. Now go!”

She hustled them out of the bedroom, closing the door behind Nicolas and Damian. All six heroes muttered as they left Bonnie’s house.

“Bloody werewolves, think they’re so special,” Thomas grumbled. “Why couldn’t she be happy enough writing about me, an English earl who falls in love with an outcast Egyptian woman? I gave her enough internal conflict!”

Jabari put a hand on Thomas’s shoulder. “I do not know, my friend. Let us hope Bonnie gets through this and returns to her Khamsin warriors of the wind. Perhaps it is a passing phase that will not affect us.”

“I hope so,” Ramses said morosely. “I wouldn’t look good in a fur coat.”

For more information on Bonnie’s historicals and paranormals, check out her website at http://www.bonnievanak.com/

Patrice Michelle - Turning Readers On!

I’ve been an avid reader since I was ten years old. Blame it on the elementary school’s reading program (re: read twenty books in a month and win a prize!). I wanted that prize, so I read the twenty books. Along the way, I discovered…I LOVED reading. Since then, I’ve always had my nose stuck in a book, much to my childhood best friend’s annoyance.

When I was in tenth grade and my older sister was in twelfth, she brought home an assigned reading book. The fiction book sat in the exact same spot she’d dumped it—on the chair next to the stairs—for days. After a week of passing by this book, I picked it up and read the blurb on the back. A mystery to solve and a love story…hmmm, it didn’t sound too bad. I sat down that night and read the entire book and I loved it! I was so excited about the story that I told my sister all about it, hoping I could get her excited enough to read it herself. While I blabbed on and on, my sister nodded and uh huh’d and smiled. The next day she wrote the book report and turned it in. Got a B, too. *rolling eyes* :-) So much for trying to get my sister interested in reading.

But that author had hooked me and I went on to read her entire backlist. I told other friends about her books, turning them onto this author’s work. To this day, I believe the best advertising an author can do is write the best story she can. Give her readers a great plot with interesting twists, main characters to empathize and fall in love with, and deeply emotional, heart-wrenching moments that will pull the reader into the story, making them feel like a participant as the tale unfolds.

When I sit down to write my own books, I keep in mind all the things about the books that I adored. From suspenseful plots to stories that make your heart twist, I try my best to create heroes and heroines who readers consider their friends. My goal is always to create a compelling story with engaging characters. If the readers close the book with a smile and wonder what’ll happen next in the main characters’ lives, then that’s the highest compliment in my mind, because that’s the standard I use as a reader that “hooks” me on books.

Do you remember what books/authors have hooked you such that you had to go out and tell everyone, from family to friends to YES, even strangers you meet in line at the bookstore, “You HAVE to read these books? They’re fantastic!” What was it about those books that really drew you in?

Patrice Michelle currently has three series available in print:

1) Scions (vampire, werewolf, paranormal)– Coming January 2008

2) Kendrian (vampire) – Available now

3) Bad in Boots (contemporary western)

– Available now For excerpts, blurbs and reviews of all Patrice's books, visit her website at http://www.patricemichelle.net/.

Jamie Leigh Hansen - To Dream a Hot Dream

I can’t be the only one. I hope. Are writers the only people who occasionally wake up with this scene in their head, like they were watching a movie while they slept? I do that quite often. I think it’s the best part of being a writer. I can lie in bed and slowly wake up from that dream that has my heart pounding and honestly, with complete sincerity, say I AM WORKING.

So, this one summer night, I had a dream. I was in the past, way back like a medieval, and there was this warrior and his bride. She didn’t know him, was very afraid of him – not that I knew why at the time. It was a dream. All I knew was right there, sometime that night, they had to consummate the wedding.

Now, for some reason, my brain tends to skip to the good stuff. So I pictured the warm skin and the closeness, his scarred muscles and her fear. There was caressing and gentleness and lots of invasion of private space. Then I went back. Like rewind. I do that.

I wanted to know, now that I’d seen these two people together, who were they and why was she afraid? And so the words started to flow. I don’t just watch it like a movie, I read text. And if I don’t think the text is doing it right, I edit. In my sleep. I so want one of those brain wave machines that scribble down all the thoughts a person has in their sleep. Have they invented one yet? I could get so much done!

So, I went over and over picturing and writing this tall, dark warrior in chain mail. And this delicate heroine who was full of this unreasoning, bone deep terror. And they were supposed to get naked. Yeah, okay.

The dream continued and he reached out to her, moving slow, talking low, being gentle. She helped him off with his armor and he brought her closer to the fire where it was warmer. He held her close and slowly she relaxed, but when it came time to do anything, she ran away. Well, my tall warrior hero who wanted to soothe his new bride did the only thing he could do.

He stripped down, tied his wrists and ankles to a chair and left the rest in her hands.

After working for several years to learn how to nail down a story, I was in the process of making up short stories. I wanted to get the format set in my head and slowly expand to longer stories. That didn’t work. Holding no hopes that the dream would stay with me for long, I got up and wrote it down. For several days. Then stopped and thought about it for a few months. Then I wrote a whole draft. Then thought about it for a year, slowly evaluating all the parts and working on research.

After much thought, prayer and work, I found out why the heroine was so afraid. And I learned that one night could fuel a passion that lasted centuries. That one woman could take a journey from abject terror to strength and courage. She can save her husband and break a tragic curse and even learn to love him all over again.

Betrayed is due out January 2, 2008. It’s a Tor Paranormal Romance. I can’t wait to share it with everyone. So, anyone impatient like me, the prologue and first chapter are on my website: http://www.jamieleighhansen.com/

Now, I would love to know about some of your most memorable dreams…

Jame Leigh Hansen

Eve Silver | A Little Bit Dark....

I wrote my first book when I was nine, the story of an unwanted teddy bear that found a new and loving home. Poor teddy! I guess even at the age of nine was a little dark, LOL!

Years later, I tried my hand at romantic comedy (an abysmal failure). My next attempt was at a lighthearted, fun historical, the kind I loved to read. Only problem was, no matter how hard I tried, I just wasn’t funny. Everything that flowed from my imagination was creepy and dark and moody.

So what is it with me and dark books? Whether I’m writing historical gothics or sexy, contemporary paranormals as Eve Silver, or speculative romance as Eve Kenin, everything I write is dark, dark, dark (with the occasional quirky humor thrown in).

What is it about a dark, tortured hero that is so appealing? And why does the heroine love him when he’s so hard to love?

In my historical gothics (DARK PRINCE, HIS DARK KISS, DARK DESIRES), the heroes are secretive and a little sinister. Terrible things have happened to them, and they’ve done terrible things in turn. Yet, the tortured hero captures the love of the heroine and the reader, and we cheer for his happily-ever-after. Because the heroine is strong enough to be his match. She’s brave and resilient, and she brings light to the hero’s darkness.

My first contemporary paranormal, DEMON’S KISS, is just hitting shelves now, and guess what…? Yep, dark tortured hero. But this story threw a twist at me that I wasn’t expecting. The sexy, seductive hero, Ciarran D’Arbois, is sworn to protect the world of man from the demons who would decimate it. Problem is, he is the very thing that he’s sworn to fight against. How’s that for tortured?

DRIVEN, my post-apocalyptic trans-Siberian trucker tale (written as Eve Kenin) brings a whole new perspective to my dark side. The world that the book is set in is barren and bleak, and the hero is a man with no emotion. Not a guy who hides his feelings. Not a guy who has buried them deep. A guy who doesn’t have any. Kind of made finding true love a bit of a challenge.

Coming up next I have—you guessed it—a few dark, moody tales to tell. My next historical gothic, HIS WICKED SINS, will be out in August 2008. DEMON’S HUNGER, the second book about the Compact of Sorcerers is coming soon. And HIDDEN, the next book set in the post-apocalyptic world I created in DRIVEN will hit shelves in July 2008.


So what appeals to you about a dark, tortured hero? What makes him so appealing? And what sort of heroine do you think is his perfect match?

Happy reading!
Eve
--
http://www.evesilver.net/
http://www.evekenin.com/

Lori Foster | "The" Writer

So You’re the Writer

I get asked that a lot. By everyone. My doctor. My dentist. Neighbors. Friends to my extended family.

I’m not “a” writer.

I’m “the” writer. Like there’s only one.

Or it’s so odd, it deserves special definition.

Most times I keep the writerly part of myself private. Only with other writers and among readers who know I’m published do I relax about my profession. But somehow, everyone finds out. And it’s always embarrassing.

I’M not embarrassed to be a writer. No, never that. I LOVE being a writer. But some people have these interpretations, or just things they say, or maybe WHEN they say them, or HOW they say them, that can make it very uncomfortable.

I recently attended a neighborhood block party, and lo and behold, the topic of my books came up.

I’m NOT the one who raised the subject.

A woman said, “You’re the writer!”

And a male neighbor – a nice guy, but still... told me that, given what his wife reads of my work, he expected me to be a hottie.

I’m positive that I disappointed him. :-)

Not too long ago, I was sitting at a high school sporting event and a woman I know said – from about eight rows away, “I read your book” – they never give titles. Just like being “the” writer, they just say “your book.” Anyway, she said, “I read your book, and then I highlighted the good parts for my husband.”

She had a very carrying voice.

Several people looked my way.

I could feel my face getting red.

And a woman sitting in front of me turned around and said, “Oh. So you’re the writer.”

All that from writing romance novels. And now I’m writing urban fantasy/horror, too.

I wonder what they’ll say next!

Have you ever been in a public situation that embarrassed you? (C’mon, you know you have!)

Is there anything about your profession that raises brows?

If you could ask me anything about writing, what would it?

I hope everyone is having a good day!

You can find out more about me at my websites –

http://www.lorifoster.com/

http://www.llfoster.com/

Lori Foster

Susan Grant | Ever Yearn to be Swept Away?

I’m often asked how an airline pilot/ex-USAF jet jockey ended up writing romance. “Easy,” I say. “Too little time on the ground coupled with way too much time to think!” Trust me, nothing aids plot-hatching and character-developing like fifteen straight hours stuck in the cockpit with lukewarm coffee and a sky so black you can see every star in the Milky Way. I do six to eight Pacific crossings in a month. On any given day, you can find my body clock hovering somewhere between Tokyo and Sacramento. Ouch. Perpetual jet lag. But on the up side, the sights, smells, and tastes of the exotic locales I visit, and the conversations I have with people I’d never normally meet, provide the most amazing material to weave into my stories. With a little imagination, a dank high-walled alley in Taipei, ripe with the stench of sewage, garlic, and moped exhaust becomes the lower deck of an ill-maintained 19th century sailing ship. A Chinese restaurant where I nibble on pickled jelly fish, stir-fried fungus, and sautéed morning glory transforms into dinner-for-two on a distant planet.

Okay, so I’m a hopeless daydreamer. Only I don’t publicize that fact – I mean, the last thing air passengers want to hear is that their 747 pilot is “zoning out.” Not to worry, though: my imagination “runs” in the background like Norton Antivirus software. And, because I am, after all, a professional, I ensure that all musings cease during critical phases of flight. :)

When I’m not a jet-lagged zombie wandering around Sydney, Shanghai or Saigon, I’m a typical suburban mom, if there is such a creature. They’re teens in high school now, but when they were much younger I used to bring them (and the neighbor kid who somehow ended up eating all his meals at our house) to the local park. I remember one day when the boys ran off, each clutching a laundered-too-many-times Beanie Baby (the only two toys in the car), leaving my daughter empty-handed. “But, Mom,” she said, grief-stricken. “Now I have no one to be!”

To be...

Whoa. Simple words, but what a concept. My daughter, with the boundless, easily accessed imagination of a child, intended to be a Beanie Baby, slipping into the fluffy body of a kitten, or duck, or crocodile to live through its eyes. And, boy, did I understand her disappointment. That’s exactly how I feel when I open a book and can’t lose myself in it, when I’m unable, for some reason, to form that seamless emotional connection with the characters that allows me to live the story right along with them.

At that point I suppose I got that faraway look that so exasperates my family, because my daughter accepted my understanding hug and deserted me. I sat on a park bench, mentally shuffling through some of my many “keeper” books like One Perfect Rose by Mary Jo Putney, Elizabeth Vaughan’s Warprize, Primary Inversion and The Radiant Seas by Catherine Asaro. What linked them? A terminally ill duke, a woman forced to marry in order to secure peace for her people, a battle-weary futuristic soldier? Certainly at first glance the characters share little in common with each other, let alone me, yet I was equally swept away with each book.

Because the authors succeeded in giving me someone to be.

When I open a book, I yearn to be swept away to another place, another time, another body! I want a story that will completely engross me to the point of being totally unaware of my surroundings, so that when I look up I’m disoriented for a few seconds. I can identify with the situation and characters to the point of being totally immersed in a book and not realizing what time it is or even what century I’m in then the author has written a great book.

Although I’m not any closer to knowing the secret to why some books have the magic to sweep me away and others don’t, the question itself has always intrigued me. How about you? What makes a book sweep you away? What are some you’ve read lately that have worked this rare magic on you, where when you turned the last page you looked up blinking because you forgot who and where you were?

If you’d like to come along on some of my adventures, visit my blog: susangrant.blogspot.com. No luggage required! Oh, and for a peek at the stories these adventures have spawned over the years, stop by my website http://www.susangrant.com/ where I maintain a printable list of all my books and what series they belong to.

Susan Grant

Vicki Lewis Thompson | How I killed off the "Reading With Ripa Book Club"

It’s not my fault. I swear, I wasn’t the one who killed Kelly Ripa’s book club. Sure, I know it looks suspicious. In 2002 she was rockin’ along with her anti-Oprah picks, six of them, and didn’t we love it? Books with happy endings were getting on a TV talk show! Carly Phillips made it! Romance writers had a shot!

More important – it was all about me – I had a shot. I figured Nerd in Shining Armor might make the grade with Kelly. Then she went on maternity leave and Reading with Ripa took a short break. But the book club message boards were still up, and no one was throwing in the towel, least of all me.

Time marched on, however. My book came out the end of April, 2003, and no word from the LIVE folks indicating the book club would resume. It seems Kelly was home nursing her baby. I ask you, where were her priorities? Had no one suggested that she could nurse a baby and read a romance at the same time?

In May, Kelly returned from maternity leave, and I held my breath. I held my breath for a very long time, so if I look a little peaked when next you see me, remember that I held my breath for approximately five weeks back in 2003 while I waited to see if a)Reading with Ripa was back in business and b)whether my submission had a chance in hell of making it.

Oh, glorious day, the answer was YES. I found out the first week in June that I was the seventh pick, baby! I could breathe again, which allowed me to drink copious margaritas in celebration. So I was on the show, the book hit the Times and my life changed forever.

Today LIVE with Regis and Kelly is celebrating twenty years on the air, and I’m thrilled for them. I wish them the very best! But it pains me to tell you that Kelly won’t be using the occasion to announce another Reading with Ripa Book Club Pick.

You see, there was no eighth pick. After my appearance on the show, the book club DIED. There, I’ve said it. Dear God, was it the white Capri pants paired with the deep blue blouse? Should I have gone with gold instead of silver jewelry? Was it my use of the word crucible? How did I go wrong? How did I manage to screw it up for the rest of the romance writing world???

Whatever it was, I deeply apologize. I’m very sorry, and mostly I’m sorry for myself, because I have this new series coming out, starting with Over Hexed on October 2, and I could really, really use the boost.

Vicki Lewis Thompson
http://www.vickilewisthompson.com/

Jaci Burton | Genre Jumping

One of the questions I get asked most is whether it's difficult to write in different genres.

The answer is absolutely not. I love genre jumping. In fact, I think it would make me insane if I were to write in only one genre. Perhaps that's because I've been writing in multiple genres since I started writing. It's impossible for me to stick to one...flavor. I love so many.

When I first started writing for Ellora's Cave, I started in contemporary, then branched out into paranormal. Then I got this great idea about faeries so I started a fantasy series. Then came futuristics and...well, you get the idea. I can't seem to stay with one genre, and I'm fine with that.

Several years and multiple publishers later, I've pretty much settled on mainstream paranormal romance and contemporary erotic romance...mostly. And that was because I was given the wonderful opportunity to write for Bantam Dell and Berkley, and each contracted me for something completely different, which was like a dream come true. I've always wanted to write paranormal romance, and my writing roots were in erotic romance. Now I can do both. And I also write for Samhain Publishing where I can mix it up with any genre I like. So I guess I'm not settling for just too after all. (Do you sense the craziness here? Heh)

But there's a method to my madness (Yes...brace yourselves...I'm about to get to the point). Genre jumping allows me a break. When I write my Demon Hunter series for Bantam Dell, I throw myself into the world of demons and the battle between good and evil. There are plots and subplots and twists and turns and romance and hawt sex and the series must continue, so I have to constantly build on that. When I finish a story, the next story I work on is typically a contemporary erotic romance for Berkley--a complete change in genre. It clears my head and allows me to focus on something entirely different. Then I can delve into the world of contemporary characters and their struggle to find love (with fun sex included!). The genres are so different, it's like taking a vacation. By the time I finish my contemporary romance, I'm ready to dive back into the world of the Demon Hunters again.

Really, I have a great job. Or multiple jobs. I get to do different things all the time and I realize how very lucky I am.

Jaci Burton

www.jaciburton.com

Hunting The Demon

www.jaciburton.com/huntingthedemon.html (released 8/28/07)

Exclusive

www.jaciburton.com/exclusive.html (released 9/4/07)

Colleen Gleason | Research & the Paranormal Historical

I’ve been asked many times about whether I research before writing my historical novels, or as I go. The short answer is: I research as I go.

But that's partly because I've been writing, reading, and watching historical fiction for a long time. So, I already have at least a sense of the era.

I know the basics about what the people wear, how they travel about, what conveniences they have and don't have, etc., so when I sit down to write a book set in the past, I have enough information just to be dangerous.

But the fun part comes as I'm writing, because that's when things start to happen. Usually, I have the bare bones of a plot, but not the details. And the details, in my opinion, are what make a book. And the details are what I research when I'm in the process of writing.

When I have to make decisions--about what someone is wearing in particular, about where a certain house or building is located, about what they might eat at a ball or fete, about a political event that's happening--that's when I do the research for that particular thing. I stop writing and start searching.

I think this works partly because it keeps the whole process from being so intimidating. I don't have to know everything before I start! You can't eat the elephant all in one bite, as one of my bosses used to say--and that's a great mantra for historical research.

For example, when she wrote Unmasqued: An Erotic Novel of the Phantom of the Opera, Colette Gale says she didn't have the best sense of 1887 Paris. “I had enough to start off (I'd read the book, seen the movie), but I didn't have the details.”

She explains, “So when I had Christine and Raoul take a drive through Paris, I had to find out what it might have looked like, and what they might have seen. I was able to answer this question by using three tactics:


1. Googled "Paris 1887" and got lots of stuff

2. Looked at paintings of Paris that were done in the late 19th century

3. Read fiction set during that time period

Paintings particular were helpful to me, because I'm a visual person, and seeing a picture of Paris with the Eiffel Tower just being built gave me an image to work from.

And reading fiction written (and set) during the time in question is really valuable. I can hear how people speak, what words they use, and often get little details that I wouldn't have found otherwise.

So it was fun for me to learn, through this research, that in 1887, the Eiffel Tower was just being built and the Parisians hated it. They thought it was a monstrosity.”

And that brings me to another serendipity about research, and why I do it as I go: it's the gems I find. The little nuggets of detail or information I'm not looking for, but I find accidentally. If I did all the research up front, I may not find these pretty little things.

Here's an example from my own experience: I'm currently writing the third Gardella Vampire Chronicles book, which opens in Rome. I had to decide where a particular church that is important to the Venators (the vampire hunters) is located.

I guess I didn't really have to exactly identify where the church was, but I wanted to. It gives me a better sense of place, too. So I spent about three hours, literally, poring over a book about Rome and then validating my decision to locate the church of Santo Quirinus in what is called the Borgo.

When I started researching the Borgo, I found a lot of interesting information about that area; details that I included in the setting: that the umbrella makers were relegated to this quarter because the wet silk they used smelled so bad, that rosary makers lived in the Borgo, and I even found a painting of the area.

Another question that I’m asked a lot in regards to research, since I write paranormal historicals, is whether the world-building in a non-contemporary time period is more difficult than in a modern one.

I don't think that paranormal world-building in a historical setting is any more difficult than it is in contemporary settings. In fact, in some ways it might be easier.

It's a lot of fun to take a historical fact and twist it to fit my world-building. A perfect example occurs in Rises the Night. I introduce John Polidori, who is the author of The Vampyre (the first book that really portrayed vampires as aristocratic, mysterious creatures that lived amid Society).

My research taught me that John Polidori died in 1820, which is the year in which my book is set. How convenient is that? I also learned that there was some mystery surrounding his death. Hmmm.

Some said he died from poison. Others said he died in an accident.

I decided that he died from a totally different reason--related to the world I've built--and made that an event in my book.

So, to sum up, let me just say that for me, as far as research goes, once I have the basic idea of the time period, the research is just for little details. But the little details (hopefully) are what give the book its flavor and color and authenticity, and paint the picture.

I don't use everything I learn. I don't describe my characters' dress every time they come on the scene, or every single carriage or room. I give enough to paint a wide swath, with a few well-placed details, and that usually works to give a good flavor of setting without bogging the book down.

Colleen Gleason

www.colleengleason.com

Annette Blair | Living the Impossible Dream

To Live the Impossible Dream

or

How I’m adapting to becoming a Full Time Writer

It’s been a little over a year since I left my 21 year job as a Prep School Development Director to become a full time writer. You wouldn’t think adapting would be necessary when reaching your dream, but dreams don’t always match reality. No more twice-monthly paychecks. They come twice yearly, now. Then there’s medical insurance. I have to pay it myself. Yikes! I didn’t expect to miss the school as much as I do, nor the creative energy spinning around me there, but the Witchy Chicks have topped off the well of creative energy beautifully.

Really, who wouldn’t want to leave their job for lots of great sex, psychic witches, scary ghosts, hunks who seduce, and kidnapping heroines with fuzzy purple handcuffs? I mean, the best part of a great story is living it, whether you’re writing or reading it.

I don’t set my alarm clock anymore. Gee, somebody’s got to make the sacrifice. I often go from my bed to my computer, because I plot in my dreams, and I don’t stop writing, until I run out of creativity. Sometimes, my pesky muse can keep me going for sixteen to eighteen hours. I’m thinking this muse is female and likes my heroes way to much to let go. The problem is, I might not shower until I’m finished. Yeah. It can get ugly in here. I wear these soft old, but clean, though, let’s call them ratty, L.L. Bean full length t-shirt nightgowns, which hubby calls either my “writing uniforms” or my “anti-Bob devices.” He also tells our neighbors that the porch roof beneath our bedroom window is where I take off and land on my broom.

Creating my own schedule feels decadent. I like decadent. I can now accept speaking engagements all over the country, which I love. And on the days, I don’t feel like writing, which doesn’t happen often, but occasionally, I can meet my sister for lunch or shopping or antiquing. We even went to a gem show, which is her specialty, not mine, but oooh, nice. One thing I can’t shake, though, when I’m out gallivanting in the middle of a weekday: I feel as if I’m playing hooky. What an awesome high.

What did I create during my first year? Well, SEX AND THE PSYCHIC WITCH, the first in my Triplet Witch Trilogy, another National Bestseller and my latest little bundle of joy—yes they’re my babies, except that labor lasts four months. SEX was the #1 bestselling “contemporary romance-humorous” on Barnes & Noble for a few days—fun. And it hit the B&N bestseller lists at #36 for overall mass market sales; #34 for overall fiction mass market sales; and TA DA! #7 for romance mass market sales. On Nielsen Bookscan, it hit #20 for romance mass market, and at Borders: #13 for romance mass market.

I also gave birth to GONE WITH THE WITCH, second in my Triplet Witch trilogy, Storm, the Goth rebel’s story. And I signed a contract to write a series of comedic mysteries for Berkley Prime Crime. Details will begin to appear on my website and MySpace soon.

And since I’m living my dream, I’d like to know what your dream is. What would you like to do for a living—your ultimate day job—if all systems were finally go?

Please accept my huge THANK YOU—picture me riding around the country on my broom shouting this—to all of you who bought SEX AND THE PSYCHIC WITCH and help me hit the overall bestseller lists for the first time in my writing career. Yay you!

Visit my website: http://www.annetteblair.com/ and friend me at MySpace: www.myspace.com/annetteblair. Hugs and happy Reading!

Annette Blair

Cathy Spangler | Lions and tigers and . . . Sentinels! Oh, my!

I admit it. When I was growing up, I loved watching the Wizard of Oz, which was shown on TV once a year. I adored the magical and fantasy elements, and of course the HEA ending. But then I had teethed on fairy tales and already had magic, mystical creatures, resourceful heroines, and hunky, princely heroes firmly ingrained in my imagination. Then when I was eleven, I came across the book "Many Mansions" by Gina Cerminara, which was about the psychic Edgar Cayce. That was the beginning of my life-long interest in metaphysical subjects and in the Cayce readings. I was especially drawn to his readings about Atlantis (over 700 of them).


So it’s no wonder that my books embraced romance and the paranormal from the very start. After I wrote the Shielder series (science fiction romance), I turned to romantic urban fantasy, and found the perfect venue for my fascination with Atlantis and all things paranormal. Enter the Sentinels, reincarnated Altantians whose sole purpose is to track Belians (evil Atlantians also coming to Earth to wreck havoc). Both Sentinels and Belians have superhuman powers, and they’re waging an ageless battle of good versus evil. But wait—there’s hope for our heroic Sentinels, in the form of a small group of humans called conductors. A matched conductor is always the opposite sex of the Sentinel, and able to psychically link with that Sentinel and enhance his or her ability to track Belians. But there’s a catch—the conduction process raises powerful sexual energies—and many conductions include sex.


Oh boy, oh boy! Now we have Atlantian myth, magic, superheroes, combustible sexual attraction, and chilling suspense—all combined in romantic fantasy thrillers I call the Sentinel Series.


Book one, TOUCHED BY DARKNESS, sets the stage, in Zorro, Texas, a small town in the Hill Country. Conductor Dr. Kara Cantrell has fled from a dark supernatural underworld, and is trying to live a normal life with her young son, Alex. Yet Alex is anything but normal. Like his deceased father, he’s a Sentinel, and his powers are growing. Not only that, but a Belian is stalking the citizens of Zorro, and is being tracked by tall, dark, and dangerous Sentinel Damien Morgan. Damien instantly recognizes Kara as a matched conductor, and her son Alex as a fledgling Sentinel. Now his challenge is to convince Kara to help him track the Belian, and to let him train her son for his destiny. Not to mention dealing with the powerful sexual urges between Damien and Kara, and putting his life on the line when the Belian attacks. All in a day’s work for a Sentinel.


Book two, TOUCHED BY FIRE, will be available October 2, and moves on to ultra-sexy Luke Paxton, a leather-clad Sentinel who drives a Harley. Luke is tracking a particularly heinous Belian, a serial bomber creating a high body count. He finds help in the form of conductor Marla Reynolds, except she’s not going for the Sentinel/conductor thing. Since a brutal attack on her sister eleven years ago, Marla has been emotionally frozen and has insulated herself from the world and from relationships with men. Then she meets Luke in a Houston bar and is upended by an intense attraction she doesn’t understand. Of course Luke does—it’s the sexual pull of a Sentinel/conductor match. Luke sets out to convince Marla to help him focus his psychic powers and do his job. He’ll do whatever it takes—even if he has to kidnap her—and he does just that. Despite the friction between them, It doesn’t take Marla to come around and work with Luke, especially after she finds herself mentally linked with the Belian. As they track this unimaginable evil from Houston to Austin to Dallas, more players are drawn into the story, including Marla’s sister Julia, and Luke’s boss, the powerful Sanctioned Adam Masters. When Marla and Luke finally give into the sizzling sexual pull, they find themselves more deeply involved than they had ever planned or expected. Plus there are a few other surprises along the way. Life is never dull with Sentinels around.


Book three, TOUCHED BY LIGHT, will be available in early 2009, and is Julia and Adam’s story. Expect some explosive fireworks.


On my website, I have cool information on Atlantis and Edgar Cayce, a glossary of terms for the Sentinel universe, book excerpts and other fun stuff. Please visit me at http://www.catherinespangler.com/.


Back to The Wizard of Oz. It will remain one of my favorite movies, and I’ll always root for the good guys and the HEA. Meanwhile, in a world where Sentinels and Belians and conductors are secretly moving among us mere humans, I think it’s safe to say “Toto, we’re not in Kansas any more!”

Cathy Spangler

Guest blogger - Marta Acosta

Paranormal fiction continues to be very popular right now, which is good for me since I’m now writing the third in my Milagro De Los Santos series. The last thing I need is for vampires to lose favor with the public, thereby forcing me to do something unpleasant, like getting a real job. (The New York Observer just ran a story in which writers confessed the hardship of being successful. Honestly, it made me want to smack these whining nitwits upside the head with an unabridged volume of Shakespeare’s tragedies.)

As fictional characters, vampires have it all over other paranormal creatures. Mummies are always unraveling, and you can’t understand a thing they say through all that fabric. Cannibal zombies smell bad, have rotting flesh, and want to eat your brains. Don’t even try to write a clever conversation with a zombie; it can’t be done. Demons are too metaphysically ambiguous, and ghosts are useless as love interests since they lack corporeal being. Werewolves have a following, but writers constantly struggle with the perplexing problem of clothing. Half of werewolf books are devoted to the shapeshifters’ ripping off their clothing during transformations, and then finding themselves stark nekkid behind the 7-11 dumpster.

There are miscellaneous faeries, warlocks, elves, and mermen in paranormal fiction, but they just don’t have the allure of the vampire. The modern vampire is eloquent, attractive, well-dressed, and successful. You can take them to just about any social event so long as you keep them from sunlight, crosses, stakes through the heart, and garlic-laden Mediterranean cuisine.

They’re powerful and have a seductive undercurrent of danger, but they’re not so crass that they’ll drain you of blood in the middle of amusing banter. Nope, a writer may let the conversation flow when vampires are in a scene. And if a writer is given to ornate dialog, there’s no better spouter of such chat than 400-year-old vamp. Many popular vampires spend an inordinate amount of time being melancholy and thinking about sex, which readers find intriguing. In real life, someone melancholy who thinks a lot about sex is probably trolling chat rooms for underage girls and claiming he likes strolls on the beach and cuddling. But I digress.

A cultural anthropologist could probably tell you why our society is now drawn to paranormal stories. I sat in on an anthropology class once (I left when I found out there would be no field trips to dig up bones and artifacts), so I feel qualified to propose my own theories.

Theory One. In the post-9/11 world, we want to know that heroes and heroines will protect us from unexpected and powerful dangers. This doesn’t quite work when you consider that Anne Rice rocked the book world long before 9/11.

Theory Two: Reading scary stories makes our adrenaline kick in, good for a cheap thrill. This is true for the really scary stories, but most paranormal fiction doesn’t come close to the spine-tingliness of most horror books.

Theory Three: People want to fantasize about having their blood sucked. Well, I think more people fantasize about winning the lottery, yet there’s not a “Lottery Winner” genre of fiction.

Theory Four: In our banal, sanitized “Paper or plastic?” lives, we yearn for characters with more primitive appetites for sustenance, sex, and power.

Theory Four: Paranormal fiction presents characters with dilemmas that are not easily resolved by standard means. They can’t run to the police about an elf, file a lawsuit to stop harassment by a vampire, or talk to a therapist about a were attack. They’ve got to be self-reliant, imaginative, and brave, and readers enjoy those qualities in a lead character.

Okay, Theories Three and Four work for me.

When I wrote Happy Hour at Casa Dracula, I intended my book to be a romantic comedy wherein an impoverished, yet appealing heroine, Milagro, has to deal with people who think she is beneath them. The characters needed to successful, attractive, and sophisticated; modern vampires fit my needs perfectly as the rich snobby family that treats Milagro as if she’s an unaccomplished, tacky skank. She proves herself, but learns that their sophistication is a veneer for darker instincts; there’s a delicious frisson of sex, danger, and power.

Well, when you’re at the top, you get to look down, and vampires are definitely at the top of the paranormal food chain.

Marta Acosta is the author of Happy Hour at Casa Dracula, a Fresh Pick of the Day, a BookSense Pick, and Catalina Magazine’s Humor Book of 2006. Her second novel, Midnight Brunch, was released in April 2007. Her website is www.martaacosta.com.