From my childhood through my young adulthood, my mother wore the mask of the “Perfect Mother, Girl Scout Troop Leader, and Sunday School Teacher.” But her behavior when at home, away from the scrutiny of other adults, was anything but perfect. One of the first short stories for which I won an honorable mention from Spinetingler Magazine (yes,  horror!) was called Goody Two Shoes. I’ll let you read the story so as not to spoil the surprise, but it was my first public foray into exploring the roles women play and the masks women wear. My first full length erotic romantic suspense novel, DESIRE AND DECEPTION, explores these same themes. Similar in heat levels to noir movies like Body Heat and The Postman Always Rings Twice, DESIRE AND DECEPTION differs from these notable noir examples because it ends on an upbeat note. In DESIRE AND DECEPTION, polar opposites sex siren Isabel (Izzy) Ramirez and goody-two-shoes Sarah Wright-Rosen become fast friends and seem destined to be BFFs until Izzy’s terrible secret is unearthed–literally and figuratively. Convinced that she is unworthy of redemption, because she believes she cannot be anything but the “bad girl,” Izzy goes down a take no prisoners’ path,…

August 2011 On Sale: August 9, 2011 Featuring: Ellie Sullivan; Max Daniels 352 pages ISBN: 052595225X EAN: 9780525952251 Hardcover $26.95  Add to Wish List Romance Contemporary, Romance SuspenseBuy at Amazon.com Guaranteed good read according to JG fans The Ideal Man by Julie Garwood Dr. Ellie Sullivan has just completed her residency at a large urban hospital. While jogging in a park nearby, she witnesses the shooting of an FBI agent in pursuit of wanted criminals, a couple identified as the Landrys. The only person to see the shooter’s face, Ellie is suddenly at the center of a criminal investigation. Agent Max Daniels takes over the Landry case. A no- nonsense lawman, he’s definitely not the ideal man that Ellie has always imagined, yet she’s attracted to him in a way she can’t explain. Ellie heads home to Winston Falls, South Carolina, to attend her sister’s wedding. Shortly after she arrives, though, she receives a surprise visitor: Max Daniels. The Landrys have been captured, and she’ll be called to testify. But they’ve been captured before, and each time the witnesses are scared into silence—or disappear before they can take the stand. Max vows to be Ellie’s shadow until the trial, and…

I have two left feet. And no rhythm. What does that mean? For one, I can barely walk and chew gum at the same time, and for sure, I can’t dance. Believe me — I’ve tried. Isn’t going to happen. I’m so uncoordinated I can’t even keep up with a workout video, even the ones that aren’t dance related. Zumba? Forget it. This is also the reason I didn’t make even the Pep Squad in high school. I just couldn’t shake all the different things that needed shaking at the same time — not without causing serious harm to those around me. I know. It’s sad. However, I’ve learned to live with my physical limitations and don’t think I’m missing that much. You’ve heard the saying, ‘Dance like no one’s watching.’ Well, what can I say? That’s the only way I dance! So, if you come by my house and the music is turned up loud, don’t peek in the window. You really don’t want to see it. Really. One of the advantages of being a writer is I get to live vicariously through my characters. In the third book in my Lothario series, LOVE ME TWICE, I had my…

Fool’s Gold Romance #4 August 2011 On Sale: August 1, 2011 Featuring: Finn Anderssen; Dakota Hendrix 384 pages ISBN: 0373775881 EAN: 9780373775880 Paperback $7.99  Add to Wish List Romance Contemporary, Women’s Fiction Contemporary Buy at Amazon.com A great series for a summer romance read Only Mine by Susan Mallery You can’t win if you don’t play… Her town’s lack of men may make headlines, but it isn’t news to Dakota Hendrix. The beautiful blonde has bigger problems to deal with, such as overseeing the romance reality competition filming in Fool’s Gold. Screening eligible bachelors is a difficult enough task, but Dakota hits an unexpected snag when a sexy stranger comes to town. Finn Andersson will do anything to keep his twin brothers—the perfect contestants—off the show. Despite Dakota’s better judgment, she finds herself drawn to the mysterious outsider. Like her, Finn knows about heartbreak and how a family can fall apart, so she doesn’t dare to hope for anything more than a fling. After all, even in the Land of Happy Endings, finding true love is never as easy as it looks on TV. A captivating story about letting go of those you love so they can find their own…

Because it is summer, and because a woman at Oberlin College, Ma’ayan Plaut, gave me adjective sandwich recipes for THE ORPHAN SISTER, as I wait for the kids’ camp bus I am thinking of bread, and wondering what my mother used to do in the summer. There were three of us, my sisters and I, and mostly we didn’t go to camp, we went to the summer house and were creatively, actively, deeply bored in the sweet green timothy grass and lupines. We drew pictures and pretended moss banks were enchanted beds. We bickered and cleaned a thousand dead flies from the windows. Claudia and I made face paint from ground-up rocks: mica chips silver, iron oxide red. We read, and read, and read and made birthday ice cream with a wooden hand-crank machine and cream we got from working on the dairy farm. We grew. We used to ride up to Greensboro, Vermont from our house in Newton, Massachusetts, three girls, parents and the dog, taking turns in the way back of the Jeep Wagoneer, bouncing on the wheel well that sounded like going, going, going and made your bones buzz. Once we were there, dad would go back…

Contemporary YA Romances heat up the dog days of summer, with (of course) plenty of  chilling paranormal novels when things get to steamy. Read on for cool July and August Picks from the Teen Shelves. CONTEMPORARY If you’ve been hankering for a delicious romance grounded in reality, here are some great books to check out. LOVE STORY by Jennifer Echols. When Erin Blackwell refuses to major in business so she can take over the family horse farm (a multi-million dollar enterprise), her grandmother takes her college fund and gives it to Hunter, the stable boy. Now Erin is living a starving-artist life in New York, and writing a book for her college creative writing class–about an heiress in love with a stable boy. Imagine her chagrin when Hunter shows up in the class. Romantic wrangling ensues, as the only way these two can communicate through their hurt and betrayal is via their writing. I love Echol’s romantic comedies (check out ENDLESS SUMMER for a perfect poolside read), and her longer romances are an expansion of everything delicious about the shorter books: The voice is still witty and sharp, but the broader canvas allows her always complex characters room to develop…

There are some authors I’m drawn to because of their smoking hot heroes. Yes, I like the heroines and secondary characters and I need a solid, entertaining plot but for some books, it’s the men that really draw me in. I don’t know what that says about me and I don’t plan on analyzing myself to figure it out either. I just know I love reading about hot, heroic, alpha men. So what makes a man heroic? In some cases it’s very easy to identify a hero and some characters’ professions have that heroic quality built right in. A firefighter for example. Men (and women) who run into burning buildings for strangers are definitely heroic, even if they don’t see themselves that way. People like cops or military men who put on a uniform every day and deal with less than savory people on a continuous basis so the rest of the public can feel safe at night—now those are my heroes. Aside from what I consider heroic professions, sometimes it’s the small things that make someone heroic. Even a hero who borders on being the anti-hero can have incredibly heroic moments. On the flip side, a normally heroic character…

Sons of Chance #5 July 2011 On Sale: June 21, 2011 Featuring: Emily Sterling; Clay Whitaker 224 pages ISBN: 0373796285 EAN: 9780373796281 Paperback $5.50  Add to Wish List Romance Contemporary, Romance Series Buy at Amazon.com Short and sexy…with a cowboy to boot! Best summer reads Cowboy Up by Vicki Lewis Thompson “Never fall in love with a cowboy.” These words were drilled into Emily Sterling’s head since her parents divorced over twenty years ago. But now Emily has returned to her father’s ranch…only to find herself face-to-face with jaw droppingly hot rancher Clay Whitaker. Clay is the resident stud expert at the Last Chance Ranch and isn’t so keen on “spoiled” city slickers…until Emily arrives. Now he’s showing Emily just what a ranch—and a cowboy—has to offer. And it’s an offer Emily can’t refuse. After all, she’s not falling for a cowboy—she’s just getting hot and naked with one. Yeah, right…. A visit the Last Chance Ranch is great way to spend an afternoon. Excerpt July, present day The stallion’s scream of sexual frustration ricocheted off the walls of a shed that smelled like fresh lumber and honest sweat, both human and horse. The Last Chance Ranch baked under a…

Somebody once asked me which of my characters I’d most like to trade places with. In THE VAMPIRE NEXT DOOR the answer is…none of them! Sly is a vampire whose maker Vorigan Malvant is after him. Morgaine is Sly’s honey who Vorigan kidnaps as bait to lure Sly. Roz and Konrad moved to a private school in Newton, run by werewolves. Merry is pregnant and Jason’s father had another heart attack, taking him away to Minnesota in the dead of winter. Gwyneth is fighting with Morgaine and Nathan is well…Nathan. Everyone’s favorite character seems to be Chad, the ghost. I love him too, and the idea of being the proverbial fly on the proverbial wall has its appeal, but to be so limited by the lack of a  corporeal form would be frustrating. No wonder he’s snarky! Sly and Morgaine have been friends for years and already know each other’s paranormal secrets, so that bit is out of the way. Morgaine didn’t have to freak out over Sly’s vampirism the way Merry and Roz did when they discovered the men they loved were shapeshifters. But no two characters were more flawed than Morgaine and Sly when they first considered (and…

August is my favorite month. Not because the weather is beautiful, or because my family and I can enjoy camping in the wilds of Alaska. No, August embraces a more mystical and near religious experience. The beginning of school. The excitement starts around the first of the month with school registration. I’m thrilled by this for a couple of reasons. First, the fact that both my children have successfully maneuvered through another year and will advance to the next grade is a reason for great celebration. The second reason I love school registration is that it’s a harbinger of quiet days filled only with the tapping of my keyboard. Don’t get me wrong, I love summer and bonding with my kids. It’s not as if I drag my children out of bed on registration day, bleary-eyed, throw them in the car, and park my lawn chair at the school’s front door like I’m buying tickets to a Lady Gaga concert. That thought has hardly ever crossed my mind. It’s the anticipation that in two weeks the fruit of my loins will again spend their days learning, laughing, and chattering to somebody other than me. So, as you might have guessed,…