February 2013 On Sale: February 6, 2013 ISBN: 0373754426 EAN: 9780373754427 Kindle: B009YF5AYS Paperback / e-Book Add to Wish List  Romance Buy at Amazon.com An American duo of Valentine stories My Cowboy Valentine by Jane Porter, Tanya Michaels 2 Stories in 1 A Kiss From A Cowboy… Be Mine, Cowboy by Jane Porter Years ago, Rachel James gave Cade King an ultimatum, and he walked. Heartbroken, Rachel moved on. Life is tough as a single mom, but Rachel is doing just fine. Now Cade’s back after burning up the rodeo circuit, and things are different. He’s sober, but with one burning regret. He has some work to do to show Rachel he’s changed-but he’s up to the challenge. Hill Country Cupid by Tanya Michaels Tess knows what young Bailey Calhoun wants: a mom. So when she sees shy cowboy Nick Calhoun giving someone the eye, Tess goes into full matchmaking mode. Nick is happy to have Tess’s help…but her matchmaking backfires. How can he convince his cupid that she’s the one he wants? Previous Picks

“Give me something that’s the same—but different.” Sounds impossible, right? Well, it’s not. At least, I hope it’s not. Because that’s exactly what a category romance writer has to do. We have to take fake fiancées, ugly ducklings, and romance with best friends’ brothers and make it fresh. In today’s market, this is arguably harder than ever. It was one thing to make a marriage of convenience story work when people actually got married for convenience. But in the twenty-first century? How do you convince readers today to believe in the magic you’re weaving? How do you draw readers into the familiar love story and yet serve them something that’s up to date and contemporary? I can’t speak for every category writer, but for me, the best way to keep category fresh is to start with the characters, not the trope. For me, the friends-to-lovers, marriage of convenience, or fake fiancée story line must be secondary to the characters I’m creating. My hero and heroine have to be real people with flaws, dreams, and vulnerabilities. My readers don’t fall in love with plots, they fall in love with people. So that’s where I start. Once I’ve got my characters, I…

I don’t remember whose slogan that was, but it is a good one. When I was little I didn’t sleep much. My parents gave me a bedtime, tucked me in, sometimes read to me. I was supposed to go to sleep. If they heard me moving around I got in trouble. But I couldn’t sleep. So I lay on my back, listening to the television in the other room, imagining the action. The heroes were valiant (and handsome), the women beautiful and good (women weren’t valiant very often back then as I recall. Things have changed.) Years later I saw those movies. I was SO disappointed. The images in my mind were so much better. I think that’s why so often readers are disappointed when their favorite book is made into a movie. They’ve imagined these wonderful people and worlds, and while the actors may do a fine job, and the director, producers and other filmmakers work hard to make the imaginary world come to life, they just can’t match the power of a human imagination. There are exceptions, of course. But more often than not it’s “just not the same.” I’ve never had one of my books made into…

I love romances.  Reading them, writing them, looking at the hot covers.  I recall reading romances in the Fabio days – you know, when every hero was Fabio with different hair?  I loved the cartoon covers -not only because they were fun, but for the humorous story I knew they promised.  There are so many types of covers.  Sexy covers, sassy covers, dark covers, intense covers.  Ones featuring the couple, some with just the hero, a few with no characters at all.  The ones with babies, puppies, chocolate.  Every one of them sends an image.  A message about the book.  A snapshot, if you will, of the story itself. Covers are that first peek at a story. Like a magnet, they often draw us across the bookstore, or pull our mouse over the screen, toward a particular book.  Actually if I had to say I have one cover peeve, it’d be that it in some way resemble the story inside.  Other than that, I’m an equal opportunity cover lover. And then there are those cover cover-ups.  Made of paper, fabric or felt, they wrap around the book and hide the cover.  My friend has one.  Hers is cute, it says…

  The life you want may not be the life you need Berkley February 2013 On Sale: February 5, 2013 352 pages ISBN: 0425259692 EAN: 9780425259696 Kindle: B0099CTR0E Paperback / e-Book Add to Wish List Amazon Barnes and Noble Books-A-Million Powell’s Books Local Independent Bookstore     Visit Mary Ellen Taylor The life you want might not be the life you need… This line introduces my first women’s fiction novel THE UNION STREET BAKERY, just published as a Berkley Trade Paperback. These few words perfectly sum up the lesson facing my heroine Daisy McCrae who has not only broken up with her boyfriend and lost a great job, but has been reduced to living in the attic above her parents’ failing bakery. Making matters worse, Daisy is an adult adoptee with unresolved feelings surrounding her adoption that have her questioning if she’s a “real” McCrae. For Daisy, who grabbed her college scholarship, left town and swore she wouldn’t return, being with her family and living and working in the place where she was abandoned as a three-year-old is painful. The McCrae’s adopted her and love her as one of their own, but Daisy still wants to know why her birth…

When you hear the words indulgence and romance, I’m sure the first thing that comes to mind is Kansas, right? What could be more indulgent than flat, empty prairie and…barbecue? I kid, of course, but somewhere along the way I decided a nowhere town in the middle of Kansas was a great place to set my Entangled Indulgence title, SEVEN-NIGHT STAND. I’m not a city person. I don’t like crowds or traffic or lines, so the upmost indulgence for me is somewhere I can be pretty much left alone. Besides, there’s something about the isolation of a small town in the middle of nowhere that offers a great backdrop for romance. You can’t really hide from your feelings when there’s nowhere to hide, and my hero and heroine both have some feelings they’d love to hide from when their seven- night stand turns into something more. Then there’s the beauty of sending someone living in LA (the heroine, Vivvy) to nowhere Kansas (where the hero, Nate, lives) with the assignment to find something reality-TV-worthy in a place Vivvy herself describes as “flat and boring as hell.” And the fun in having small-town Nate in all his airplane grease glory fall…

Who doesn’t love a paperback hero? That’s why writer’s write. Whether it’s crime fiction, paranormal romance or an action-packed thriller, somewhere in it you will find an alpha male. Strong and sexy with a body to die for, he’s the one who will fight for what he believes in and protect the ones he loves…*sigh*. Which brings me to my favourite alpha male hero of all time…long before he was an X-Men werewolf, Hugh Jackman was a Paperback Hero. In the 1999 movie, Hugh played a tough, Australian truck driver, Jack Willis, who writes romance novels under a pen name of Ruby Vale. That’s where things get a little sticky because Ruby Vale is a real person—and his good friend (played by Claudia Karvan). Ruby is in love with Jack but engaged to marry Jack’s best friend, Hamish. What a plot and what a movie! It’s easy to see why Hugh Jackman has rocketed to fame. One of the questions we’re often asked in interviews is who we’d like to play the hero if our books were made into movies. I’m sure you’ve gathered what my answer would be! In FLY AWAY PETA, my hero Jaime Caruso has never forgotten…

I am a horse girl. Those similarly afflicted know that for every birthday, Christmas, Easter, and visit from the tooth fairy, all I ever wanted was a horse. Fortunately, my daughter was born with the same gene, but she is more skilled than I, and so it happened that she outgrew Delray. Del, now styled, Delray the Wonder Pony, is a 17.1 bay Oldenburg gelding. For those of you won’t don’t speak Horse, he’s tall, dark and handsome. I owe that horse my writing career. Beloved Offspring needed a more skilled mount, I needed something to ride, and so, Del and I—like Lady Eve and Lord Deene—fell into an arranged marriage. We had low expectations of each other, but Del is the honorable sort, so when I showed up at the barn, he put his best hoof forward, much like Lord Deene. Riding is both physical and analytical, also cerebral. To work with your mount, you must listen to him with your body. Your backside must hear his spine, and your hands must hear his mouth. This is hard to explain, but once you’ve had a few rides in this zone, you want to go back there. Some days, I…

I write at a small nineteenth-century desk that I found in a consignment shop called Aunt Teeks. It has a tooled leather top with gold scrolling and two small drawers. The leather is a bit scratched, and the drawers are too small for files, but I love the feel of this desk. When I first saw it in the store, surrounded by larger pieces of furniture from various eras, it called out to me. It had such a nice energy, like something out of a Jane Austen novel. I could see reams of letters being written on that surface in beautiful copperplate handwriting. People in the nineteenth century wrote letters and thank you notes and careful lists of recipes and remedies. They had inkwells and steel pointed pens, blotting paper and wax seals. True, I write on a Mac laptop in bytes and pixels, but I like to think some inspiration seeps through the years and technologies from the old wood to me. In my latest historical ONCE AGAIN A BRIDE the heroine, Charlotte, discovers how greatly furnishings can affect a person when she moves from a comfortable childhood home to the cold, rigid house of her elderly husband. Henry…

I have to confess, as much as I love the strong alpha male, I also have a weakness for “best friend” stories. I can all too easily see a woman falling for a man who’s been her rock, her shoulder to cry on, her safe place. Soul Deep is one of those rare books that allowed me to combine an alpha male with a “best friend” storyline. Marcus is the ultimate soldier—tough as nails, driven by duty, and more inclined to chew on broken glass than talk about his feelings. His partner, Regan, is the exact opposite, a reckless free spirit who always thinks with her heart. Marcus and Regan have worked together for years, so they share an easy banter that comes from a lifelong friendship. They tease each other, insult each other, but when all pretense is stripped away, what remains is a deep-seated respect. This gave me a strong foundation to build upon, and I enjoyed watching their relationship blossom and grow into something deeper. What I like best about “best friend” storylines is how clueless the parties usually are. Everyone can see they’re in love but them. There is something extremely endearing about watching two people…