I love to travel. I think it’s because I grew up in a small town and always imagined what it would be like to live in faraway places such as Shakespeare’s England or on a tropical island like the girl in Scott O’Dell’s ISLAND OF THE BLUE DOLPHINS. Reading only stirred my traveler’s heart. The more adventures I had through books, the more adventures I wanted to have in real life, so my parents probably weren’t too surprised when I was off to see the world at the tender age of eighteen. Now that I’m past the backpacking through Europe phase, I’ve learned that I also enjoy staying in places that have comfy mattresses, a Starbucks downstairs, and a neighborhood in which I can wander around and experience my travel destination’s culture. Naturally, my booklover’s heart still looks for literary connections everywhere I go, so in New York City I had a martini with my husband at the Algonquin’s Blue Bar where Dorothy Parker and her friends started The Algonquin Round Table in 1919. And just last week during a visit to Chicago, my book-loving friend Jennifer and I made our way to the Newberry Library. Do you remember the…

On May 30, 1868, a group of Union veterans held the first Decoration Day (now called Memorial Day). They picked that day because they believed that flowers would be in bloom around the country. The purpose of Decoration Day? To honor and remember the men who fought and died on both sides of the Civil War. This weekend Memorial Day services will be held around the country. Many communities will host events and parades. All in an effort to honor the many men and women who have lived and served throughout the wars this country has experienced. While many graves will be decorated, it is also a time to remember. Remember those who served in the trenches of World War I. Remember the boys who stormed the Omaha beaches and Guadalcanal during World War II. Remember the men and women who died in the jungles of Vietnam or the land of Korea. Remember those who still serve and give their all around the world. This act of remembering and memorializing is why I write books set during World War II. I want to capture through the power of novels the many roles men and women occupied during that all encompassing…

Being a romance hero or heroine is often a lonely profession. It certainly is for the characters in my newest historical romance, TO CHARM A NAUGHTY COUNTESS. The heroine, Caroline, is a wealthy widow who cements her social power by being friendly to every woman and flirting with every man. This may not sound lonely, but sitting at the pinnacle of society means she can never relax or be less than perfect. All the regard she works so hard to earn is ornamental, since no one knows her true self. Well—not quite all of the regard. The hero, Michael, has no use for false courtesies. A brilliant, impoverished, eccentric duke, he has just as few social skills as he does guineas. Rumored mad, he retreated from London years before to devote himself to administering his dukedom. When cold weather ruins his harvest and investments, though, the only solution is a quick marriage to a wealthy bride. Rumors work against him, though, and no heiresses seem willing to trade their fortune for a title. It’s not in Michael’s nature to entrust his responsibilities to anyone else—but with the livelihood of his dukedom’s tenants on the line, he cannot fail. He needs…

I tell people that THE ADVOCATE feels like the book I was created to write; that it brings the three strands of my life together—pastor, lawyer and writer. (And reawakens a fourth—history teacher). Perhaps that’s because the idea for the book came from several different directions all at once. The first strand came when I was wearing my lawyer hat and teaching advocacy at Regent Law School. We were studying the great trials in the history of the world and I was ranking them in order of importance. The first, at least in my mind, was eons ahead of the others: the trial of Christ. What could compare to that? The redemption of all mankind hinged on the outcome. But the second was less clear. The Scopes monkey trial came to mind, unfortunately clearing the way for evolution to be taught in our schools. Or, on the more spiritual side, what about the trial of Martin Luther before the Diet at Worms? Then again, a few of my own cases seemed pretty significant. I finally settled on a trial that not many people think about—the trial of the Apostle Paul in front of Nero. It seemed to me that the…

First of all, I don’t tell people what I do for a living, mostly because I don’t like talking about myself. I don’t even tell my neighbors, and I’m pretty sure a lot of them think I’m unemployed. At least one, though, thinks I’m a drug dealer because he, in a moment when his own dealer’s supply ran low, inquired if I’d be willing to sell him a dime-bag of marijuana. I declined the transaction. My morning begins the same as most people’s. My wonderful, beautiful wife gently wakes me up at 8:15AM when she goes to work, and then my infant son ensures that I stay awake by screaming at the top of his lungs from the room next door. As I swing my legs off the bed, I look at the mirror, where, taped to the upper right corner, is a hand written sign that says, “You wanted kids, too.” After I get up, my son and I play for a few hours in the living room. In that time, I’m usually vomited upon at least once. There’s also a fair chance that I will be kicked in the wedding vegetables as well. My friends with older children…

Every moment we can’t be sure the next moment will come. Life is a battlefield no one survives; death is the midnight prowler who gets us all in the end. So we love suspense literature because it reminds us of this while reassuring us it’s happening to someone else. The same reason we slow down to see the bodies of a car wreck: horror and obsession. Trying to understand death. Hoping, perhaps, for a clue that something survives. And so we love risk. We climb cliffs and jump from airplanes, drive too fast, live as dangerously as we dare, and sometimes kill ourselves in the process. Why? Because risk and suspense are living deeply. At times when my own life has been most in danger, although terrifying, are among those I’ve lived most deeply and instinctively. Danger brought me back to my primeval bones, an atavistic hunger to survive. Suspense reminds us of our mortality and deepens our hunger for life. And a good novel can put us so deeply into its suspense that we become silent characters – terrified, loving, joyous or sad – just like the others. Begging for one outcome yet dreading the worst. As if it…

Readers may know, years back, I cut my teeth co-authoring several thrillers with James Patterson. Judge and Jury, Lifeguard, the Jester, and the early Women’s Murder Cub series. I always refer to it as a combination MFA/MBA in Thriller Management.   That was many books ago. I just published my eighth solo thriller, Everything to Lose, the story of a determined mother who is lured to do something wrong, indeed criminal, to protect her challenged son, who has Asperger’s syndrome, and then her world caves in.   I never set out to write Patterson-clones. What I have always wanted to do was to keep the pages turning. And to write twisty, plot-centric thrillers with lots of reversals and surprises, but about recognizable, every day heros and families with emotionally resonant endings. My first book, The Blue Zone, was probably pretty Pattersonian at that. With a hundred chapters, lots of unexpected twists and turns; lots of italics and exclamations. Then I was pushed to write frenetic thrillers like 15 Seconds and No Way Back, putting likeable people in situations that spiral out of control from the opening pages. This book I just took my time and let the reader live in…

Good guys chasing bad guys. Bad guys chasing good guys. They’re all armed with pistols, rifles and knives while sporting devil-may-care attitudes. Throw in the ladies doing their own chasing and saving lives while wearing (attractive) skirts and matching (lethal) accessories. Mix all this with lawless Delaware Bend, Texas, and even more lawless Indian Territory in the 1880s and you’ve got suspense, mystery and heightened emotions. Romance ups the ante. LADY GONE BAD LADY GONE BAD In LADY GONE BAD, a saloon singer called Lady consorts with outlaws to get a lead on her parents’ murderers. Rafe, Deputy U.S. Marshal, arrives in town to arrest her. Instead, his name ends up on a Wanted Poster. Together, they escape into Indian Territory to clear their names and hunt down murderous desperados. ANGEL GONE BAD ANGEL GONE BAD In ANGEL GONE BAD, Angel is a dime novelist determined to save a friend kidnapped by outlaws. She enlists the help of Rune, an Anti-Horse Thief Detective (http://digital.library.okstate.edu/encyclopedia/entries/A/AN012.html), hot on the trail of a notorious bandit. They brave the wilds of Indian Territory and an outlaw gang’s hideout for justice. BRIDE GONE BAD BRIDE GONE BAD In BRIDE GONE BAD, Tempest is after her…

You know those scented perfume ads that fill the pages of fashion magazines and spill out of beauty store fliers? The ones with the sticky flap, that once lifted, fill the reader’s nostrils with an olfactory overload? Yeah, I hoard them. Just to be clear, I am not a hoarder. In fact, I consider myself the very opposite. A clutter purger, if you will, who often times has to go out and buy the odd knick knack or doodad because I threw it out in my last decluttering frenzy. But perfume flyers are different. Those, I take and carefully stack in my office drawer, pulling them out whenever I need inspiration. Why? Because those little fragrance ads are far more than just a piece of paper with a bit of scent sprayed on their glossy surface. They are scene setters, writer’s block breakers, and character creators. Whenever I peel back that sealed flap, images appear, of a tropical paradise in St. Tropez, of an English rose garden in full bloom, of a silk tent in an exotic Oriental hideaway. Refreshing clean top notes, light floral layers, and musky overtones whisk me to foreign places and help settle me into a…

Hello, and thanks for inviting me to hang out with you here at Fresh Fiction! Who brought the wine? This is my last stop on a blog tour that’s been devoted entirely to bad dates. We’ve all had them, right? In my new romantic comedy, FRISKY BUSINESS, my heroine endures more than her share. After vowing not to date any more wealthy men, Marley embarks on a quest to date only blue collar guys. While the plan makes it easier for her keep her distance from Will—the quirky, unlikely millionaire she desperately doesn’t want to fall for—it sends Marley down a path of truly terrible dates. But like most romance novels, Marley and Will’s story has a happy ending. I’ve been sharing my personal bad date stories throughout this tour, but now it seems appropriate to wrap things up with a happily ever after of my own. Not long before the release of my debut romantic comedy, Making Waves, I went through a pretty lousy divorce. Um, we’re not to the happy part yet. After the dust settled, I reached out to a male acquaintance who’d been through his own divorce a few years earlier. At first, I asked him…