I never planned on becoming a writer. Not even when a high school English teacher told me to “be sure to send [her] a copy of my first book” in my yearbook at the end of junior year. But, at the point, I thought that writing stories was something I just did for fun. She had no idea that I had odds and ends of a bunch novels on my Macintosh SE. I didn’t plan on becoming a writer when I was ten years old and spending the summer at my grandparents’ house on Lake Mille Lacs in Minnesota. My grandmother was a voracious reader, and her shelves were always stocked with mysteries, biographies, literary fiction, and romance novels. Until that summer, I’d gorged myself on all of the genres but the final one. But one day, after I’d run through all the new mystery arrivals, I stumbled on a grocery sack filled with Harlequin Romances. I distinctly remember being mesmerized by the colors and the story descriptions. Unlike the mysteries or the classics I’d read, these books were set in far flung, glamorous locales. There was *kissing* in these books. And the endings were all happy. Romance novels became…

Thanks so much for hosting me for the release of the third book in my Shifter Wars series, TAMING THE LION. At this point in the series, we’ve got enemies thrust together with decisions to make. Alicia is a bear shifter/healer, and Marco is a lion/heir to the leadership of the pride. He’s been hurt in battle and she’s got to figure out whether she will go with her healer’s oath and help him, or let her enemy die. If she helps him, she risks angering her den. If she doesn’t, her grandmother is going to be upset with her for breaking her oath. Since these two are like oil and water, I thought it would be fun to have a recipe that combines things you might not think go together well but in reality, really do! I’ve picked something I personally thought I’d never try because…well, it doesn’t seem to go together! What am I talking about? Fish tacos! Yeah! How many of you, like me, just went, “yuck”? I kept seeing Fish Tacos on the menu and did finally try them. You know what? They are good! Surprisingly so. Granted, I tried them at a Tapas place (I’m…

Inspired by the release of the new film “Dunkirk,” which explores the rescue of the trapped British Expeditionary Force (by every vessel the British could muster, from Royal Navy warships to fishing boats to ferries,) this month we’ll look at fiction set in World War II. One of my favorite dramatizations of Dunkirk was an episode of the BBC series “Foyle’s War,” which shows this dramatic event from the home-front perspective. Our first two selections also show the war from the view of the British home front. In Jennifer Robson’s GOODNIGHT FROM LONDON, American Ruby Sutton feels her journalistic career is on the fast track when, in the summer of 1940, she wins the job as staff writer for a newsmagazine in London. She’s just started to adjust to living in a new country—and dealing with some of her colleagues’ resentment of her for being both a woman and an American—when the nightmare known as the Blitz begins. As the nightly bombings stretch from weeks into months, Ruby learns the depths of her own strength, the true meaning of friendship and community, and the heartache of love in wartime. Inspired by events in the life of the author’s grandmother, GOODNIGHT…

I write in the area between romance and women’s fiction. I’ve been a romance reader since my teens, and most of my favorite stories are set in small communities or rural areas like those from where I draw my roots. When I hit my thirties, though, I also began reading uplifting women’s fiction—stories that focus on women’s life experiences and relationships that often include, but extend beyond, a central romance. Now as an author, I’ve found my happy place writing the kind of feel-good books I like to read—about women’s lives, loves and family and community relationships, all set in a heartwarming small-town world much like the one I call home. However, and as with any writing, there are challenges (and sometimes surprises) in writing this type of fiction. Here are my top five. A balancing act Between creating a believable small-town world, developing a central (and sometimes secondary) romance with related character growth, and then mixing in relationships with children, friends and extended family across generations, one of the biggest challenges in writing this type of fiction is keeping all the strands balanced and going in the right direction, at the right time. One strand can’t overwhelm the other…