Hot Fun in March books!

As an author, meeting with my fans/readers is one of my favorite things to do. I just heard about a new convention called Rom Con that is taking place in Denver, July 9-11. It’s a chance for readers to interact with some of their favorite authors. And they have all kinds of events. I don’t know if I’ll be there, I’m checking the schedule, but I really want to go. Mainly, because as a fan girl several of my favorites will be there including Anna Campbell, Christine Feehan, Carly Phillips, Cindy Gerard, Julia Quinn, Jeaniene Frost, Lori Foster, Melissa Mayhue, Nalini Singh and Susan Mallery. That’s just a few of the great authors who will be there. The best part is, it’s not as expensive as some of the other conventions. I’m really thinking about going! You can find more information at www.romconinc.com.

Speaking of fun authors. We have several with new books out this month.

Defeat the Darkness has been a real labor of love for me,” says Alexis Morgan. “Way back in the second book in the series, one of the Paladins came rushing in ready to do battle wearing only flannel pajama bottoms and swinging his sword. He never said a word, just got down to the business of saving the world. From that point on, I knew he'd have his own book someday. He became known among some of my fans as PJ Guy, and they'd often ask about him. When he finally got around to telling me his name, his whole story just unfolded for me. That's one of those rare gifts that writers learn to cherish because it doesn't happen that way very often--at least for me.” “My March book, Around the Bend, is a story about a mother-daughter journey across country,” says Shirley Jump. “Of all my books, it’s the one closest to my real life—my mother died a few years ago (a year before I wrote the book) and she and I had a few years where our relationship was rocky. When she got sick, I flew back home to take care of her, and we got to know each other all over again and become friends again. Like Hilary, my heroine, I read my mother wacky magazine articles and told her terrible blonde jokes, and we laughed so hard in the hospital that I think we annoyed her poor roommates. But those days made an impossible situation much better and brought us close in a way I never expected.” She’s the One wraps up Kay Stockham 's five book Tulanes of Tennessee series with Harlequin Superromance, “and is about a recluse bush pilot hiding himself and his traumatized son in the wilds of Alaska after rumors of murder,” says Stockham. “Alexandra Tulane isn't a woman who hides from anything--except maybe her feelings for a man who has to fix himself and overcome his past before they can be together.” Private Eyes in Some Like It Rough is “part of an anthology with Kate Pearce and Anne Rainey,” says Susan Lyons. I was the 3rd author to be invited to join this antho, and had overnight to come up with a story idea. Kate and Anne told me their stories, and we figured the theme of our book would be ‘kink that turns your crank.’ Not actually knowing a lot about kink, I took a quickie Google tour. When I read that exhibitionism can be empowering to women, the ideas flowed. I’d write about a buttoned-up admin assistant at a P.I. firm going undercover as a stripper (with, yeah, the hot P.I. “keeping an eye on her”). The editor approved my story and… you guessed it. I knew nothing about strippers. So I read, went to stripper shows, interviewed exotic dancers – and I have to be one of a very small number of romance writers who’ve judged a rookie stripper show! The whole adventure pushed me out of my comfort zone, and I had a lot of fun writing the book.” Christmas in March? Mardi Ballou’s characters in Sherry Amor need all the miracles they can get -- as we all do at certain times in our lives. “The initial inspiration came when a dear friend's husband suddenly fell desperately ill,” says Ballou. “Mardi's happy to report he's doing better than ever thought possible. Mardi, who always finds inspiration in the flamenco and enjoys a nip of sherry now and then, chose Spain as the perfect setting for the miracle of healing and love she'd love to see come true. Linda Thomas-Sundstrom is continuing her popular series with Wolf Trap. "I love the wolves," Thomas-Sundstrom says. "Their stories intervene in every thing I do, and I just have to write it all down to pass along to readers." She also loves strong characters. There's no weak female in any of her books, she promises. "Behind every good hero there is a great heroine!" When 2,000 years of lost emotion hit a fierce Atlantean warrior all at once—does he fall in love or die? That’s what Alyssa Day is asking in Atlantas Redeemed. “Atlantean warrior Brennan thought he was doomed to live life emotionless and alone, until the beautiful human woman Tiernan Butler dragged him into the middle of a desperate search for truth and justice,” says Day. “Sexy Atlantean warriors, courageous shape-shifters, and scheming vampires surround a scientific conspiracy that threatens to turn desire to danger.” “I first got the idea for ‘Reyn's Redemption from a dream I had many years ago about a guy who was an outsider in his hometown and who had lots of mystery and danger surrounding him,” says Beth Cornelison. “It was all rather vague, as dreams tend to be, but I took that seed of a character and built Reyn's Redemption from it. The story, of course, went through many drafts and the villain changed multiple times, but Reyn's persona never wavered. I stole Reyn's great name (pronounced Ren with a short ‘e’) from a friend whose son was named Reyn, short for Reynold.” The idea for Too Wicked To Kiss first occurred to Gothic historical author Erica Ridley during a writers' workshop about "high concept" novels. “Many of the examples given mixed two known factors in an unusual way, such as "Disney World with live dinosaurs" to describe Jurassic Park,” says Ridley. “My imagination combined a love of historical romance with a paranormal suspense series I'd recently seen, and sent me bainstorming on Dead Zone in Regency England. Months after finishing the first draft, I went back and blank-page rewrote the manuscript with a sensual, Gothic tone, and fell in love with the result.” Vonnie Hughes’s book Coming Home was a book that surprised her. “I sat down to write a different book using April Khilstrom’s Book In A Week class,” says Hughes. “This wasn’t the book I’d planned on writing, and it wrote itself, which is a wonderful place to be as a writer. Well, that's it for this month, see you next month with more news...Candy

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Candace Havens is a columnist for FYI Television, an online news and media service, where she writes five weekly columns for an overall audience of 44 million readers. She is also an entertainment reporter for 96.3 KSCS in Fort Worth. She lives in Fort Worth, Texas. She is the author of the Charmed & Dangerous series including CHARMED & READY, CHARMED & DANGEROUS, CHARMED & DEADLY, and LIKE A CHARM as well as the Caruthers sisters: DRAGONS PREFER BLONDES and THE DEMON KING AND I. Her latest book, TAKE ME IF YOU DARE is in stores in February 2010.

Her non-fiction prose includes JOSS WHEDON: THE GENIUS BEHIND BUFFY, and essays in ALIAS ASSUMED: SEX, LIES AND SD-6, and FIVE SEASONS OF ANGEL.

You can visit Candy daily at her blog or her website