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 menti