The Rise and Fall of Florence Lawrence, the World’s First Movie Star What makes a movie star? Today we’ve got the general recipe down: mix bankable films with broad popularity. Add a healthy social media following and sauté in critical acclaim. Garnish with head-turning red carpet appearances. And if you’re very, very lucky, pair with a performance of your blockbuster movie’s Oscar-winning theme song … But in 1909 no one knew. The concept of stardom didn’t exist because early movie studios didn’t want anyone to know. The thinking went like this: the more popular and “known” actors became, the more money they would demand. Studios kept their performers anonymous—no acting credits were listed—so that if a particular actor became too demanding or difficult, he or she was more easily replaced. Disposability served the bottom line. Then Florence Lawrence came along, and all hell broke loose. She was attractive, but no more so than many other actresses of her day, such as Mary Pickford and Lillian Gish, both of whom would go on to be far more successful and well-remembered. What Florence was, besides anonymously popular, was prolific. From 1908 through the middle of 1909, she was featured in over 100…

My latest book, Under the Northern Lights, is about Mallory Reynolds, a driven, passionate woman who is pursuing her dream of photographing wild animals in remote locations. On the way to her favorite spot in the Alaskan wilderness, the unthinkable happens—the engine on her plane stalls and she crashes. Mallory survives the crash only to find herself injured with limited supplies and no hope of returning home. Just when all seems lost, Michael Bradley, a mysterious mountain man, comes to her rescue. Mallory soon discovers that she has to spend the entire winter in a small, isolated cabin with a stranger. The remoteness, the caregiving, the constant threat of danger—it all creates a near-instant intimacy between the characters that is both real and understandable. I love writing tension between characters, so having them stuck together for months was a writing playground for me. It led to some great interactions early in the story, keeping the pace flowing in a fun and realistic way. Here is one of my favorite interactions between my hero and heroine from Under the Northern Lights: “How was work?” I jokingly asked. A brief laugh escaped him. “Good and bad.” “Oh, how so?” I asked, amused that he…

I’m a Kansas farm girl at heart, and I love a great cowboy romance. Throw in a quirky small town and a dog, and I’m sold. That’s why I write small town stories filled with humor and heart. And I love when a western romance does something unexpected, like when Colorado cowboy heroes also play hockey. Oh wait, I know that series. And if you love the idea of cowboys who are as hot on horseback as they are on the ice, then you need to check out the Cowboys of Creedence. The third book in the series, It Started With a Cowboy, is just releasing now, and in this one, Colt, the youngest James brother, talks shy schoolteacher, Chloe Bishop, into helping him coach a youth hockey team of rowdy eight years olds. Being so close to the cowboy she’s crushing on is dangerous territory for Chloe. But when a real enemy threatens her, Colt will do anything to protect her. Even if it means risking himself—and his heart. Once you’ve devoured the James brothers and made Colt James your newest book boyfriend, here are five other great cowboy books to sink your spurs into. It was so hard to pick just five,…

Do you remember the TV show Buck Rogers in the 25th Century? For a while, it was my favorite show as a kid. For those who don’t remember, the premise of the show was that a US astronaut got accidentally frozen on a deep space mission and then was defrosted five hundred years later, only to find that Earth was a completely different place to the one he remembered. Although the TV producer’s vision of the future looked a lot like the era it was made—Farrah hair, shiny neon cat-suits, and mini-skirts! The thing that really stuck with me though, *mumble-cough* years later, was that the hero was a man out of his time. All the cultural references he made were lost on the people around him. His jokes fell flat because they didn’t have the context for them. But we did. And the audience laughed along with Buck and commiserated that no one else got the joke. Although to be fair, I think sometimes we were laughing at Buck rather than with him. Go back and watch an episode, you’ll see what I mean! The thought of being transported to the future has always tickled my imagination. What would…