If you’re not familiar with the Sinners on Tour series, it’s about a hard rock band called—you guessed it—Sinners. In each book of the series, one member of the band finds true love with a very lucky and self-confident woman. I think you have to be self-confident if you’re going to date a rock star. Do you agree? DOUBLE TIME, which will be released this November, is about Sinners’ sexier-than-sin rhythm guitarist, Trey Mills. I once had a reader comment in a review of the first book, BACKSTAGE PASS, that she had no idea what all the music technical terms meant. As a die-hard rock music fan, I thought the lingo was common knowledge and that most readers could figure it out from context, but I apparently assumed wrong. So if you don’t know a fret board from an amplifier, allow me to bring you up to speed on a few things. Sinners is made up of five members. While everyone knows that lead vocalists sing and drummers play drums, the roles of the guitarists might not be as readily apparent. In most metal bands there are three guitarists: lead, rhythm, and bass. Jace Seymour (hero of HOT TICKET—coming out…

That’s an intriguing question, one I believe has a long history of continuous development until it reached the position that it occupies today.  Let’s begin by describing a real cowboy was actually like. He was usually a young man between the ages of sixteen and twenty-six who wanted more adventure than his home in the East provided.  He was a cowhand, sometimes a foreman, and occasionally a rancher.  His job was unglamourous, the hours long, and he was too poorly paid to allow him a wife and family.  His constant companions were his horse (usually a mustang)  and the cows he tended.  His bed was a hard mattress in a bunkhouse or a bedroll under the stars.  He rarely saw women or a town.  When he did, he tended to drink up his wages or spend it on the ladies.  He often worked alone with only his wit and courage to protect him from danger.  As long as he took his boss’s pay, his loyalty was unwavering. As a group, these men opened the West, facing danger with only their ambition and their guns to back them up.  They fought for honor and justice – and profit.  When necessary, they…

One of my very favorite things in the whole word is the directions that country friends give you to their houses. It could be that in the city, directions are just as colorful, but my experience is that people rely heavily on road signs there. Out here, there may or may not be road signs, and maybe that’s the reason for the detail, or maybe the reason has everything with slowing down and enjoying the journey. Maybe it’s that we simply see the opportunity to interject well-intended but unsolicited advice. Let me tell you how to get to my house so you can see what I mean. Don’t take the exit with the big fruit stand, but do slow down there because the staties will nail you with their radar guns from the overpass if you don’t. Cha-ching. Now, take the next exit– the one with the smaller fruit stand that’s only open in the summer. Usually there is someone urinating on the shoulder of the off ramp. Honk at them. There’s a rest stop just a couple miles ahead, so there’s no excuse to be urinating there. Turn right at the stop sign. Turn right at the next stop…

Gage Chance wants to forget Christmas—for good. It used to be a favorite holiday. But that was before he lost his wife on one snowy Christmas Eve five years ago. This year he intends to skip Christmas by tracking down the family’s baby sister, kidnapped twenty years before.  The search takes him to a quaint ski resort town in the southern California mountains.  Bah humbug on quaint Christmas towns. That’s how Gage feels about the whole thing…until…he spots a woman who looks remarkably like his dead wife.  And it turns out this Christmas will change everything. Elana Kelly has been on the run so long, she has almost forgotten why. That is, until Gage Chance shows up and both her memory and her lonely heart return with a poignant thud.  It doesn’t take her long to remember that she is running to save both Gage and her child. I love writing reunion stories about troubled souls who were always meant to be together. And Christmas time is a wonderful time of year to rekindle romance.  So this story has turned into a special favorite of mine. CHRISTMAS CONFIDENTIAL is a two-book anthology with my Chance, Texas story called A CHANCE…

I have had the great pleasure of writing a number of Christmas novels and novellas, all of them set in Regency England. They are all love stories, of course, and therefore have a hero and heroine who fall in love in a happily-ever-after kind of way. But I have always contended that a Christmas romance ought to be not just a love story that happens to occur at that particular season, but one that happens because of the season. Christmas ought to be, in fact, almost a character in its own right, the very embodiment of love itself. Christmas, even regardless of its religious significance, and regardless too of all the excesses of commercialism that do their best to stifle it in our own era, is that time of year when we celebrate all that is finest in human nature–the power of love and family and forgiveness and peace and goodwill and warm enjoyment of the company of loved ones coupled with a reaching out to those less fortunate than ourselves. Christmas is a time of joy and hope, a time we would all love to hold onto for all of the year to come and beyond if only it…

Nearly three years ago I took a trip to Las Vegas to do a writing weekend with friends. I had just finished one book and wanted to get started on a romantic suspense since I was in the mood to write a sexy, action-packed story. Just one problem. I needed an idea for it! The time with my friends was filled with everything books, as we discussed on what we were working, did critiques, and brainstormed all kinds of plot issues. But we did squeeze in time to take in the sights of Las Vegas, have a nice dinner, see a show, and spend some relaxing time at a spa. As we went from place to place, ideas started taking hold in my brain.  What would happen if my hero owned a casino?  What kind of casino would it be?  What would the suspense be about?  How would the hero and heroine react to a very sexy massage at the spa? Little by little THE PRINCE’S GAMBLE came to life in my head, but being a Jersey Girl, I decided to set the story in Atlantic City.  I’ve been there lots of times with my mother-in-law and I thought it would be fun…

I love a feisty women, one who isn’t afraid to stand up for herself and take what she wants. One who starts off a slightly timid and grows into a character with backbone makes me go all warm and fuzzy inside too. That is how I see Libby Holland, my heroine, in TAMING THE OUTBACK. Libby is a widow raising two kids with a mortgage that is getting too much and a job that is going nowhere. Out of the blue comes a letter from the solicitor. She has been left two country farms and the requirements of the will are that she live there and turn a profit within two years. Not too difficult you might think? But when you take into account the Australian outback and the harsh conditions you could be forgiven for jumping the gun. Throw into the mix Nathan Miller, her arrogant and lust worthy neighbor and you see just how much Libby has to contend with. But not one to sit and simper over what can’t be done, Libby gets her hands dirty and learns to run her farm.  The city barmaid who was used to pouring a beer now has to learn how…

One of the things I love most about the Holiday Season is the memories it brings with it. Standing with my sister on the steps of St. Paul’s cathedral, listening to the church bells ring out all over London to celebrate England’s first Christmas of peace after six long years of war. The first Christmas I spent here in the U.S., aching with home-sickness for the family and friends I’d left behind, unaware of the many happy holidays that would follow with new friends and family. My son’s first Christmas, his eyes wide with wonder at the lights on the Christmas tree. The first Christmas I spent with my husband in snowy Philadelphia. So many memories, and some of them stand out more than others. When my mother decided to open a seaside hotel, she uprooted the family from London to the southeast coast. We opened for business the following spring. The previous owners, knowing they were selling the place, hadn’t bothered to take any bookings for the summer season, so our first year wasn’t a roaring success. Just a handful of regulars were booked in, which was just as well, since none of us knew much about running a…

Authors draw on their own experiences, their memories, their desire to give their stories an authentic edge. Not that I’ve ever run across a dead Santa Claus as does my heroine in HOLIDAY IN CRIMSON… Westbrook Department Store’s Christmas party wasn’t that wild–until, that is, Santa ended up dead. Now window designer Shelby Corbin is the prime suspect in his murder, and the holidays are anything but festive. If Shelby doesn’t figure out who killed Santa, she’ll be ringing in the new year behind bars. Westbrook’s impossibly sexy co-owner and CEO Rand McNabb’s romantic attentions both thrill and frighten Shelby. But is he really helping her search for the truth about that fatal night? Or does Rand have a deadlier motive for courting the only possible witness to the crime…? So what about HOLIDAY IN CRIMSON comes from my own experiences? As a child, I used to look forward to the day when Mom would take me to downtown Chicago to see the holiday windows. My favorites were always windows at the iconic Marshall Field’s, a department store that took up a whole block on State Street. The windows always told a story that captivated me. So in wanting to…

Happy Black Friday! It’s that time of year when everyone is filling out their holiday wish lists and then rushing to fill the wish lists of others. And that got us thinking about the Hadley family and what each of them might each add to their own holiday lists this year (if 200 years didn’t separate us, that is.) THE TAMING OF THE WOLF Dashiel Thorpe, the Marquess of Eynsford ~ As the pack alpha, Dash has had quite the time keeping up with his three wayward half-brothers. So this year, he’d like a smart phone with GPS tracking to help with that endeavor. Caitrin, the Marchioness of Eynsford ~ Cait is in need of a few gift certificates to Victoria’s Secret. When one has a Lycan husband who likes to rip one’s clothes off in fits of passion, what’s there to do aside from replace them? THE WOLF WHO LOVED ME Weston Hadley ~ Weston is in need of a new wallet to hold all the blunt he’s made on his gambling ventures. Lady Madeline Hadley ~ What do you get the heiress who has it all, up to and including the man of her dreams? Maddie wants for…