A lot of readers have written to ask if Virgin River is based on an actual town, because they’d like to move there. Unpack those boxes – the town lives only in my mind, although I have heard from people who claim to live or have lived in such a place. They don’t usually say where. It might be all in my head, but I’ve been living there for a long time. I’m committed to delivering four more Virgin River novels. I’m not sure the actual release dates for these books yet, but when I know for sure, I’ll post them on my website. Meanwhile, I couldn’t ask for a better home. I get up in the morning, fire up the computer, and settle in with my old friends. When nothing much is happening with them, I bring in some newcomers who have their – uh – issues. I knew what it was about the town that appealed to me, and it didn’t take long for me to hear from readers what appealed to them. It goes without saying, my readers have fully enjoyed the strong, handsome, virile men of Virgin River; they’ve admired the beauty, inner strength and intelligence…

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,…

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…

So, the other day after my computer blew up, I decided that I needed a break from reality and I stuck a DVD in the player, sat back, and prepared to enjoy a whole lot of bare nekkid male chests. But a strange feeling came over me as I watched the previews to the movie. A feeling that I may have chosen A Really Bad Movie. Herewith is a list of my Ten Clues that perhaps I was not the target audience for the movie 300: 1. The pre-movie advertisements are for violent video games aimed at fourteen-year-old boys. 2. The men are all wearing leather shorts. 3. All the bad guys are ugly or gay or both, and the chief bad guy is wearing gold lipstick. 4. Sacred lepers. 5. Eugenics is a good cultural practice and the only people who are against it are wussy hunchbacks who can’t fight like real he-men anyway. 6. The traitor bad guy has a bad guy mustache. 7. The traitor bad guy tells the heroine that the only way she can save the hero is to have skanky sex with him. And she falls for it. 8. War rhinos. 9. The Deep…

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….

What do those two words mean, anyway? Strong, stalwart, dependable, intelligent, good in a fight. Oh, and definitely an alpha male – at least to a romance author! In fact, it sounds like an good list of things I’d want to find in a hero, doesn’t it? But when politicians talk about citizen-soldiers, they’re usually speaking about citizens who are about to leave their day jobs and go off to serve their country, probably to fight. That’s an extremely noble calling and I honor anyone who has done it. But hasn’t any such citizen-soldier also been changed – even hardened or scarred – by what he’s seen and done while he served his country? What interests me, as an author, is what happens when that citizen-soldier comes home and becomes more of a citizen than a soldier. I want to know how his military skills and personality blends into his peacetime world – for example, how he takes the strength and discipline he gained in the military into the civilian world, how his loved ones temper his cynicism, how he learns to sleep quietly at night again. It’s reassuring to know than an ex-soldier can still grab a gun and…

You want me to do what? Or, a nervous author faces her first solo booksignings. Let me preface this by saying, I am an inherently shy person. Those of you who know me personally… Shut. Up. And quit laughing. It’s true. I am painfully shy and always have been. It just manifests itself in weird ways. See, if I’m introduced to someone first, I’m okay. I can talk about any subject under the sun. If I’m part of a small group, you’d be hard pressed to shut me up, really. Tell me I have to walk into a room full of strangers and introduce myself, you’ll find me over in the corner in a fetal position clutching my blanky. This is, essentially, what a booksigning feels like to me. Add that to the horror stories I’ve heard about authors sitting at a table and the only people who talk to them are the folks looking for the bathroom and mix in a healthy dose of overactive writer imagination and you can figure that sleep’s been pretty hard to come by lately.Now, I’m not a complete booksigning neophyte—I’ve done the RWA literacy signings and various other group signings and I love…

I’m thrilled to be guest blogger here at Fresh Fiction today, and the excitement only expanded when I saw the impressive list of authors posting before me here (Gemma Holliday, Jill Marie Landis, Sabrina Jeffries…WOW!). Talk about a treat! With so many fantastic romance authors working these days, it’s mind-boggling to think my books are now going to be placed near them in bookstores. Someone pinch me… wait, don’t. I bruise easily. I was able to see my very first published novel, THE DEVIL’S POSSESSION, in the bookstore last Saturday during another first – my first booksigning. So far, the ride has been amazing, and the readers have been astoundingly gracious with their feedback. So yes, I’m a brand spanking new author. I write medieval romance. But my love for the paranormal and magical things refuses to allow me the purely romantic story lines of ladies like Julie Garwood (my hero) and Johanna Lindsey’s medievals. Amidst all the romantic growth and amazing story-telling in their books that drew me to medievals so long ago, I acquired the seeds I needed to grow my own story ideas. But, from the staple plots of alpha man meets woman who tames him, my…

I had an impulsive idea a couple of months ago. Wouldn’t it be cool to make one of those video trailers for my next historical romance, Lessons of Desire (due September 25)? What the heck, I thought. I’ll take a shot and see what happens. The way I saw it then, I’d contact that company that makes them, sign up, and voila’, it would be done. Um, no. It turned out I had to do a bit of work myself before we got to voila’. COS Productions wanted to make a video that I liked and approved, so they needed my input. This was how I found myself in early August looking at hundreds of faces. My video was going to use live action, which meant an actor and an actress had to be hired. I needed to help make the choices. My producer opened a folder for the project at an online West Coast casting site, and posted the job description with general appearance requirements. Actors and actresses deposited their headshots and resumes in the folder. I could then go online and look at their files from my home in Pennsylvania. I have never associated my characters with known…

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…