Thanks for having me today! I had the first opportunity to see Michael in the shelves at Barnes and Noble this weekend so that was pretty darn exciting.  It feels that Michael has been a long time coming. I first started envisioning the story during a time when I use to travel to Vegas several times a year. I started out in denial that I would EVER gamble, and so I explored the city. Of course, I later developed a real love for roulette, but thankfully not until the city caught fire in my blood. Once I found the roulette table, I was hooked, but even that fun game couldn’t overshadow the excitement and energy of Vegas. The series has lots of that Vegas energy I so adore, and I hope readers will enjoy experiencing it through my characters. Aside from the Vegas flavor, the Zodius series is about a group of Special Forces soldiers that were told they were receiving immunizations and instead received injections of experimental alien DNA. These soldiers become immune to all human illness, but they also develop very special skills — super speed, super strength, and they can travel with the wind. Some even develop…

Pop Culture has always been in love with doctors, who figure prominently as heroes in movies like M*A*S*H, TV shows like House and Grey’s Anatomy, and in books like Eloisa James’s WHEN BEAUTY TAMED THE BEAST and Jo Goodman’s MARRY ME. And no wonder. In many ways doctors are the ultimate alpha males since they hold the power of life and death in their manly hands. They’re also educated, smart, and exercise their skills with a calm precision that instils confidence in the rest of us lowly mortals. By those characteristics alone, what’s not to love in a guy like that? But unlike other alpha males—who often channel a wee bit too much aggression and usually need to be tamed by the heroine—doctors have a nurturing side that displays itself in the very nature of the profession. They are warriors of another kind. They don’t come on all strong and warlike by hacking their way through a line of marauding invaders, nor do they rush into a hail of bullets to save a hapless victim from a psychotic criminal. No. Doctors fight a quieter, more intense battle by caring for vulnerable people and doing it in an intimate, personal way….

At different times I’m looking for different romances. When I’m working hard, or hip-deep in the problems brought to an Irish matriarch (sounds awful, doesn’t it?), I want something light, frothy. Regency romances, drawing-room comedies.  Barbara Metzger, Julia Quinn and the like. When I finish a bad deadline and I don’t have any words left of my own, I love beautifully written, poetic romances that linger long on the tongue.  Laura Kinsale,  Sherry Thomas. Or I might want romantic adventure, a la Patricia Veryan and Marsha Canham. But there are quite a few times, when what I really want is a good emotional wallow. I want to not just laugh, but sob. I want my chest to hurt, knowing that it’s safe to feel devastated for the characters, since I know that in the end,end all will be well. As a romance author, I write books the same way. I’ve been lucky enough to write all manner of romance in my career: contemporary and historical, issue books and comedies, adventure and suspense. Well, when Grace Fairchild walked onto the pages of BARELY A LADY, I knew she had to have her own story. There was something very special about her…

THE ALCHEMY OF DESIRE (originally titled, Once in a Coyote Moon) was my NaNo 2008 project. For those of you not familiar with NaNoWriMo, it’s where a bunch of writers get together in the month of November and try to write a novel of at least 50,000 words in a month. It’s fun, it’s crazy, and it borders on insane at times. But it’s doable if you have a story that’s driving you forward. I use NaNo to “play” with different ideas. In the case of THE ALCHEMY OF DESIRE, I not only got to play with a new genre (Steampunk), but I also got to play with an atypical hero. That’s right, ladies and gentleman – Diah Reynolds is not your typical alpha male. He’s the good son, a gentleman, and — dare I imply it? — a virgin. Or at least he was in the original draft. My editor asked that I tone down Diah’s naivety in the bedroom, but I tried to keep the changes to a minimum. I know most romance novels feature an alpha male as the hero – or as I like to call them, “man whores”. And don’t get me wrong — I…

I love spring, love everything about spring.  The warm, steady rain, the temperatures that are neither too hot nor too cold (which in Texas is really saying something), the flowers that seem to pop up everywhere and the birds that sing outside my window while I work. I love taking my boys to the park and playing basketball or football or simply watching as they swing and climb and generally act like the sweet, funny, slightly insane children that they are.  I love the fresh fruit that has suddenly come back into season—and working in the kitchen with my boys to turn it into fun desserts.  I love walking in the rain with my youngest son and working in the garden (or what we hope will one day be a garden, LOL) with my husband. I love daylight savings time and the long, lingering afternoons where I can sit by the window and write or go for a long walk and admire the way everything is blooming, coming back to life after the long, dormant winter. And this spring, particularly, I love all the fun things that are happening to me career-wise—in April and May, I have three books out…

I’m so glad to be back with Sara and Gwen and Faye and everyone here at Fresh Fiction.  My husband, Tim Barney, and I are on a fifty stop original post blog tour, and a physical tour as well for our new book, IT HAPPENED ON MAPLE STREET.  We’re having all kinds of new experiences and are very grateful for every one of them, but it just plain feels good to be someplace familiar!  In celebration of our return to Fresh Fiction, we’re giving away a copy of IT HAPPENED ON MAPLE STREET to one of today’s commenters. IT HAPPENED ON MAPLE STREET is a very unique book.  It’s marketed as romance fiction.  And it’s a true story.  I am a romance writer.  And I wrote my true life story in the form of one of my fiction novels.  As we travel, we’re hearing some of the same questions over and over and today I’m going to answer the three at the top of the list! First:  How much of the story is true? Almost all of it.  As in with films based on true stories, some of the names and circumstances have been changed, but not many of them. …

How many times do writers edit their manuscript before showing it to an agent or a publisher do you think? If they are anything like me, countless times. Once the agent has made a few editorial suggestions, there are more changes. Then, you work with the editor, the copy editor, the proof editor … By the time a book goes to press, the writer will have been over the manuscript so many times they can probably recite sections by heart. So when you are reading the same book over and over again, how do you keep it fresh? The final, beautiful hardback copies of my debut THE BEAUTY CHORUS were delivered by DHL the day before publication. Opening the box, and seeing the real book was a dream come true. The first thing I did was sit down and read the book again – and it felt fresh. Of course, I knew what was coming, but falling in love with the characters again – laughing with them, loving with them, crying with them – had the quality and depth of a long relationship or friendship seen in a new light. That, I think is the key to keeping a story…

Yesterday I did my first school visit as an author.  The occasion was the career fair at my great-niece’s middle school.  Yeah, my sister is old enough to have a granddaughter in middle school! The PTO (Parent Teacher Organization) was looking for people with interesting jobs to serve as presenters for their eighth-grade career fair.  Although I live 100 miles away, I raised my hand and volunteered to take a day off from the day job and show up.  Besides, it would give me the opportunity to combine the trip with a visit to local bookstores, so I would get double use of my travel time. I asked them to list my job title as “Mystery Writer,” figuring that might sound more exciting than “Published Author.”  Or at least friendlier somehow. In the days leading up to the event I found myself worrying about a million things.  What if I dressed like a dork?  What if they didn’t want to know about writing?  What if they thought writing wasn’t cool?  What if nobody talked to me? Good grief!  It was like being in junior high all over again! The big day finally arrived.  I put on my best outfit, loaded…

A compelling and great writing draw us into a story—but what we stay for is the characters. Elizabeth Bennett and Darcy; Jane Eyre and Rochester—what’s a romance without great lovers who come alive on the page? Giving life to characters is the best part of writing. I love creating a small town of my own, peopled by characters who hopefully come alive for the reader. They’re certainly real to me! I spend a lot of time in my fictional universe, and my characters become like friends—or maybe more like family, because much as I love them, they sometimes drive me crazy. Demanding, difficult, and determined—they’re just like real people. Teague and Jodi have been with me a long time, waiting for their story to be told and gradually revealing who they are and what they want. By the time I actually sat down to write the book, they’d taken on so much personality that it was all I could do to keep them under control. It wasn’t easy to keep them out of bed, either. These two were definitely made for each other. The best part about having a new book released is knowing that my new characters are out…

As I type this, I have butterfly bush in my pants. This sounds like a wonderfully naughty Brazilian wax, but I mean it literally. I was cutting back the butterfly bush in my yard, and the flecks of last year’s petals rained down the back of my shirt and into my long underwear. Not sexy at all, though probably not quite so uncomfortable as waxing. This led me to thinking about all the ways in which I am NOT like the heroine of my latest book, VOWED IN SHADOWS. Nim—aka, the Naughty Nymphette—would know all about waxing. She is a pole dancer; I sit at a computer for ten-plus hours a day. Nim goes on dangerous adventures fighting monsters; I avoid looking in the back of the fridge toward the end of the month. Nim is possessed by a demon….Okay, that one we kind of have in common. Although hers is a repentant demon trying to earn its redemption, and mine is the demon of writing. That demon can never be redeemed. People often ask which parts of the characters are the author, at least in disguise. Sometimes I wish it was more. Like when I see the covers of…