Sandi Shilhanek | Series

For the last couple of weeks I’ve been reading the Bakery Sisters Trilogy by Susan Mallery. People who know me best know that I love connected stories. I tend to horde the first and second book until the third becomes available, and then read them back to back to back.

While for a short series that will release quickly this is a great plan, but for a longer series such as the In Death books this does not work. When Naked In Death by J. D. Robb first came out I bought the book even though I didn’t think it was truly my thing. I saved it knowing there would be more to follow.

What happened? I’m sure you know. I kept collecting expecting an end to this series so I could finally begin to read, but that end is still nowhere in my line of vision. Finally I saw a website that was beginning a book of the month read, and offered people several choices to choose from, and amongst the choices Naked In Death.

A few friends and I decided to all vote for Naked In Death and get one book or perhaps more should our choice win out of our TBR mountains. Luckily for us it worked! Now three years later the three of us are current and awaiting the next release.

However, I truly digressed, I’m reading The Bakery Sister books, and saved them once again until I could attain all the books. Thank you to the publishing person who decided to release the books in quick succession. I’m learning a bit about the bakery business and a lot about family dynamics. Would I be getting these lessons if I had had to wait for the books and read them spaced apart? That’s a question that will never be answered.

What about you? Do you save a book until you have all the books in the series or do you read them as they release? If books are spaced apart like the In Death books or the Black Dagger Brotherhood books by J. R. Ward do you have to reread them before you read the new release?

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/.

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/

Tracy Anne Warren | Back to Back to Back . . .

Trilogies are an interesting beast—especially back-to-back trilogies. Readers enjoy them since it means they don’t have to wait long between books to find out what happens in a series they’ve discovered and come to love. On the flip side, it does mean that once the trilogy is concluded, it’s over for a good long while––at least if the follow-up trilogy is another back-to-back.

That’s the situation that occurred with my first two trilogies––both of them written back-to-back-to-back! After the best-selling success of my debut Trap Trilogy, I was excited when my editor told me she wanted a second back-to-back trilogy. I rubbed my hands together and got right to work. But that excitement was soon tempered with expressions of frustration from some fans who wanted more books as soon as possible. While the time between trilogies seemed a bit too long to a few of my readers, it seemed very brief to me as I hurried to write three new books in the shortest amount of time I could manage. Still, in the intervening months between trilogies, my readers have been wonderfully supportive and patient, eagerly counting down the days with me!

I’m happy to confirm that the wait ended last month with the October 30th release of My Fair Mistress, the first book in my new Mistress Trilogy! In that story, young, aristocratic beauty, Julianna Hawthorne, risks her reputation and her heart by agreeing to spend six months as the mistress of Rafe Pendragon, the man who holds her brother’s gambling debt. I adored this story with its elemental conflicts of power and sacrifice as well the chance to explore the lengths to which people will go to protect and cherish those they love. Similar themes and lots of good, sexy fun continue when Rafe’s rakish best friends struggle against the inevitability of love, starting with Ethan’s story in The Accidental Mistress––which, thanks to the back-to-back release schedule––will be in stores starting November 27th. Tony’s tale follows on December 26 with His Favorite Mistress––a day-after-Christmas present, as it were.

So which release schedule do you like best? Books that come out in quick succession, but which may entail a longer wait in between new trilogies or series? Or a more frequent schedule where a new book in the same series is available every six months or so?

http://www.tracyannewarren.com/