It was more of a desire to ‘spin a yarn’. An old phrase for a story teller but one I feel fits me. When I was young, my family owned a motor home. We went everywhere in that thing. This was before ipods, Gameboys and even DVD’s…much less DVD players. We had board games and the radio but there were places there wasn’t even good reception. Filling those hours on the road came down to using your imagination. I used to tell stories to my younger siblings, creating characters and worlds. My mother was a Medical librarian by day. She often took a second job at night at the public or university library to keep up with unexpected expenses. I learned to enjoy reading young because she took me along. I began reading romance in my teens. Without a doubt it hooked me and I still read the gene today.  Writing these tales came about rather by chance. I was unhappy with an ending to a book I had been enjoying and sat down to write a book. Sounds easier than it was. Writing is a skill and one I had a great deal to learn about…still do. A smart…

I’ve been writing professionally for ten years, making a fulltime living at it for the past six. So why should I be so excited to have THE TROUBLEMAKER NEXT DOOR coming out with Sourcebooks? First of all, I’m ALWAYS excited on release day. I don’t care if it’s for a publisher or myself. Release day is the culmination of a lot of hours of hard, grueling work in the manuscript draft, editing, more editing, polishing, proofing and promoting. It’s exhausting but so worth it to see that cover ready to be opened. But this series with Sourcebooks marks the beginning of a new medium for me—mass market. When I started writing, if you didn’t have a book published in paperback you weren’t considered a real writer, an unfortunate happenstance considering I started my career in ebooks. *grin* Back then, ebooks were the redheaded stepchild. Today, they’re the new black. I’ve had books in electronic format, trade format, and audio. But never before mass market. And it’s a true thrill, I’ll admit, to line up my McCauley Brothers books right next to others on my keeper shelf. Unlike my others, these fit! What makes THE TROUBLEMAKER NEXT DOOR also special is…

All writers have a cave, that place where they get sucked into another world. One without dishes and dust and carpools, just characters trying to find love and escape death. The cave can be a good place. We can block out the outside world and focus completely on our stories and our characters. Fix those nasty holes in our plots. Wear our pajamas, and if we’re really on a tight deadline, we might skip a shower and a meal. Our characters don’t mind. They don’t really care if we’ve eaten today, if we missed a doctor’s appointment, or we’re late picking up the kids. They just want their story on the page. But we’re more than just writers, more than our characters and stories. We can’t get so busy with our characters and plots that we forget family. Remember those people who keep knocking on the door asking “where’s dinner?” and we yell out, “Just one more paragraph. My heroine is dangling off a cliff. For heaven’s sake, I can’t just leave her there.” There needs to be a balance. If we spend all our time in the cave, we’ll burn out. Our lives and our stories will suffer. It’s…

Hi there! Thanks for coming to talk playboys with me today. Almost every book I write features a playboy, and my latest release, SEDUCING THE PLAYBOY, is no exception. I love a good reformed playboy. Actually, I love a good UNreformed playboy, but an unattainable man kind of ruins the end of a romance novel. What do I love most about a playboy? Number one: he’s got tons of sexy experience. This guy knows how to flirt, how to act on a date, and he certainly knows how to behave in the bedroom. Who can resist that? You don’t have to worry about fumbling or flailing with him because he’ll get it right every time. Even if you have charming idiosyncrasies, he’s gotten around so much (and so safely, of course!) he’s bound to have encountered your quirks in the past, and he’ll know just how to drive you wild. He’ll make it work between you…oh yes, he will. Secondly, he’s a challenge. Not to bed, of course. The playboy is a challenge to claim. I would say he’s a challenge to tame, but who wants to tame him? Keep him wild—wild but eating exclusively out of your hand. Yes,…

Henry thundered into my life with one persistent demand: Tell the story of how he and his lover seduced their neighbor into a romantic relationship. At the time, I had no idea that taking Henry’s command to heart would produce the Neighborly Affection series or propel the first book, PLAYING THE GAME , onto the USA Today bestseller list. I only knew I had three characters – Henry, Jay, and Alice – who wouldn’t be denied. The whole thing started one night at dinner, Alice, the neighbor in question, informed me. She’s a practical gal, an engineer who’s maybe a little too career-focused and definitely not a fan of emotional entanglements. Her remembrance of that first night is a scorcher, thrilling and sexy and spiced with the unexpected joy she finds in handing control over to Henry. Not so, Henry insisted. The attraction started the day they met. He’s a long-term thinker, an artist and something of a strategist. Sizing up Alice’s potential comes as natural to him as being a welcoming neighbor and a charming host. He’ll tease out the desires she hides from herself, and he has the perfect lures with which to do it: a no-strings contract…

Fresh Pick for Monday, June 9th, 2014 is AGAINST THE WILD by Kat Martin #SuspenseMonday The Brodies Zebra June 2014 On Sale: May 27, 2014 400 pages ISBN: 1420133829 EAN: 9781420133820 Kindle: B00GYLVSJQ Mass Market Paperback / e-Book Add to Wish List Romance Suspense Buy A Copy Amazon.com Kindle BN.com Powell’s Books Indiebound Against the Wild by Kat Martin Alaska – Where the men are as bold and untamed as America’s last wilderness It’s been three years since Lane Bishop tragically lost her fiancé, and she’s finally ready to risk her heart on someone else. The hot look in Dylan Brodie’s eyes says he’s going to be that man. But when Lane flies to the remote 1930’s fishing lodge to help him renovate, she discovers a little girl who won’t speak, eerie legends and strange sounds in the night. And when she investigates the history of the lodge, she uncovers a legacy of injustice and murder. As danger stalks his daughter and the woman he is coming to love, Dylan must risk everything to uncover the shocking truth. Sparks Ignite the Wilds of Alaska in Kat Martin’s Newest Series Excerpt The low moaning of the wind awakened him. The old…

When Agatha Christie introduced an eager world to the Cozy Mystery, she knew how important settings were. She made readers feel the hot desert sun of an archeology dig and the opulence of a country estate whose host was about to be poisoned. She took us for an exotic ride on the Orient Express. But she also created cozy places like St. Mary Meade that we wanted to keep returning to. When I started writing the Delhi Laine mysteries, starting with A NOVEL DEATH, I wanted to create a world that people would find as comfortable as sinking into a warm bath. With a few murders, of course, to spice things up. I began with the battered farmhouse that Delhi and her in-and-out husband, Colin, rent from the university where he teaches archeology and writes poetry. The kitchen appliances are the original Harvest Gold and work when they feel like it. The living room furnishings of shabby couches and ancestral photographs haven’t changed since their oldest daughter Jane was a toddler. Delhi puzzles things out with a juice glass of wine, curled up in the oversized wing chair. Out behind the house, beyond the pond, is the barn where Delhi…

Fresh Pick for Sunday, June 8th, 2014 is THE WHITEHALL MANDARIN by Edward Wilson #SpiesOnSunday Arcadia Books March 2014 On Sale: March 20, 2014 363 pages ISBN: 1909807532 EAN: 9781909807532 Kindle: B00ILZPTXY Hardcover / e-Book Add to Wish List Mystery Buy A Copy Amazon.com Kindle BN.com Powell’s Books Indiebound The Whitehall Mandarin by Edward Wilson British intelligence has a mole deep in the KGB. When that mole reports on a Soviet spy ring in London, MI6 gets worried. And when MI6 gets worried, they call Catesby. He is sent on a mole hunt that leads him through the seamy sex scandals of 1960s London to the jungles of Vietnam. The tectonic plates of world power are shifting. Thrilling and deeply intelligent, The Whitehall Mandarin reveals the US government’s most deeply held secret – its investigation into the People’s Republic of China, and its concurrent rise to world domination. It’s a secret that Catesby may not live to share. Sex, Spies, and Tape Recorders Previous Picks

Fresh Pick for Saturday, June 7th, 2014 is DELICIOUS by Adrianne Lee We all agree on food and love! Big Sky Pies Forever July 2014 On Sale: June 24, 2014 272 pages ISBN: 1455574368 EAN: 9781455574360 Kindle: B00CO7GI8A Paperback / e-Book Add to Wish List Romance Contemporary Buy A Copy Amazon.com Kindle BN.com Powell’s Books Indiebound Delicious by Adrianne Lee Workaholic Nick Taziano is the proud owner of a successful marketing company in Montana. But his career takes a backseat when he learns his dad plans to remarry his ex. Nick fears she’ll break his heart . . . again. And he doesn’t like being reunited with her obnoxious daughter-until the all-grown-up beauty kisses him at the engagement party. The kiss might be a mistake, but once he tastes Jane’s lips, nothing-not even her famous blueberry pie-compares. A promising chef at Big Sky Pie, Jane Wilson never, ever wanted to see Nick Taziano again, but he’s just been hired to do the pie shop’s marketing. How’s a girl supposed to bake the best pastries in town when he’s a constant reminder of their steamy chemistry? His chocolate eyes and sexy dimples heat up the kitchen-and every part of her body….

I’m sitting outside a conference hall somewhere in the middle of England. The birds are beginning their dawn chorus and a hint of light is appearing in the gloom. I’d like to pretend I rise at this time every morning, to sit and meditate deeply on my Bible and to contemplate greater things before starting my two-hour morning work-out. But the fact is – I never get up at this time of day, and I rarely do any of the above before….well, ever, really. I just think I had a little too much cheesecake last night. Weird dreams, an uncomfortable bed and the sub-conscious knowledge that this guest blog should have been with my publisher yesterday combined to thoroughly mess up my sleep. But maybe excitement had a little to do with it too. My debut novel, The Fight, launched yesterday in the UK.  It’s a wondrous moment for any writer when their first-born book is published. The culmination of years (ten in my case) of toil, breakthrough, dreams and self-doubt offer a heady mix of thankfulness and pride. And to get highly positive reviews and congratulations from people who are not obliged to be nice to you is, for…