The invitation to blog here today came at a perfect time – the third installment in the Virgin River series – Whispering Rock – will be released in a few days. And I’ve just experienced the most amazing couple of months. When I started Virgin River, beginning like I always do – on page one, flying by the seat of my pants – I was writing one story, one romance. I became acquainted with Mel Monroe, a nurse midwife in search of peace and meaning in her troubled life. Enter Jack Sheridan, a retired marine who built a small country bar and grill in a town of six hundred because it was the perfect place for him to hunt and fish and wind down from a life far too adventurous. I was getting acquainted with a couple of remarkable people. By the time I was a hundred pages in, I knew there was more than one book in this town. When I met the marines who still hung tight after serving in combat together, frequently gathering in the pristine beauty of the redwoods to hunt, fish, play poker and rally around their leader, Jack, I knew they would be the…

OK, there is NO WAY that I can possibly top the previous blog about Sara and Gwen going to the Lee & Bob Woodruff book signing for In An Instant. Speaking as a news junkie and the daughter of a nurse & doctor, Bob Woodruff’s story and recovery are remarkable. …and now on to my usual fluff… I have been busy reading again. It’s so nice being able to do that. Now if only I could have a nice peaceful weekend at home. My neighborhood association is having a Mayfest celebration at the neighborhood park tomorrow. I also have a dog days of summer celebration going on tomorrow. Bella (my four legged child) is especially looking forward to the dog days of summer celebration! I mean come on, free dog treats and possibly toys. She’ll be exhausted by the time we get back home. That said, so will I! And then next weekend we have Memorial Day. I am looking forward to going back home for memorial day weekend. I cannot say the same for the five and half hour drive and gas prices. I’m trying not to think about it. Anyone else out there tackling the highways for Memorial…

Its never a good thing if I don’t have time to read. The last two weeks have been crazy with family and work that I have not had time to read or blog which I normally do after work and on the weekends. I finally decided to get a queen sized bed for my spare room, but first I had to empty out the spare room (if you had ever seen my house you would understand what a true feat that was) to move furniture and make room for the new bed. Then my family invaded my nice and quiet house for several days around my sister’s graduation with her MBA. I never get much rest when family is in town. The days were jammed packed. I even took my father to work with me one day. (Hey, if people can take their kids to work, I can take my father to work.) Two days after they go back home I get a phone call from my other sister saying that while my father was fine he had fallen off his bicycle at was at the hospital. My father is an experienced cyclist, but it had been raining back home….

Ah. The horror. I forgot to bring a pen & paper to the table during our conversation with Jenna so I’m going off of some notes that I wrote down after the call. My apologies. I will be more diligent next time. I get a little wrapped up in the conversation. It’s like taking meeting minutes at my day job. I’ve never been overly great at that 😀 As anyone who has read the Lady Spies books will tell you, there is a HUGE James Bond and Charlie’s Angels influence. Bond’s superior named “M” from the Bond books/movies and “Lady M” in the Lady Spies series. Jenna did have stray thoughts about naming the secondary character from “Charles Isley” (as he is in the Lady Spies books) into “Charles Bosley.” She also swears that Lady M’s identity will be revealed in the third, and as yet, final installment of Lady Spies, Seduction is Forever. Lady Spies is currently only set to be a trilogy, but Jenna is open to writing more Lady Spies books based on some of the secondary characters. Possibly even a Charlie/Lady M book! She is blessed by the cover art gods! There was quite the controversy…

My name is Jenna Petersen and I write romance. Sort of sounds like a twelve step program, right? But if loving your job is wrong, I don’t want to be right (er, write?). I love writing romance! There is nothing better than taking two flawed characters, putting them together, throwing in some sexual tension, a lot of conflict and growth and mixing until smooth. And voila! True love. I have written historical and erotic historical romance (as Jess Michaels), both for Avon Books. My historical releases include Scandalous (October 2005), From London With Love (August 2006), Desire Never Dies (January 2007) and the upcoming Seduction is Forever (October 2007). The last three books are all part of the Lady Spies series. Think Charlie’s Angels, but in Empire Waists. As Jess Michaels, I’ve written “Fallen Angel” in Parlor Games (June 2006) and the upcoming Everything Forbidden (November 2007), plus novellas in Red Sage’s SECRETS collections. For both my names, I love dark heroes, intense sensuality and adventure. And I also love hearing from readers. I’m really looking forward to visiting with the book club tonight! Jenna PetersenDesire Never Dies (Avon), Available Now!From London With Love, Still AvailableSeduction is Forever (Avon), October…

I spent my lunch break and after work time putting out grass seed today in hopes of putting tomorrow’s expected rain to use. My town is still under water restrictions due to lake levels so I’m all for using free rain water instead of hauling out the sprinkler. Anyone who reads this had better be doing a little rain dance for me in hopes that I will see a lot of baby grass out in my backyard (what I affectionately refer to as a mud pit currently — not fun when you have a dog) soon. It will be so nice NOT having to do that ritual 5 minute (2 towel!) paw cleaning that I currently have to go through when I let the dog back in from being out after it has rained. My mother was telling me about how her yard people had put out the weed control stuff and I said that I frankly didn’t care if I had weeds because that would be an improvement on the mostly dirt that I have now….and weeds can always be mowed to the height of grass. Come on! I’m desperate. I love the huge trees in my backyard, but…

Today is Earth Day and I have decided that I’m finally going to start recycling again. My parents have been very big on recycling for close to 20 years now. Probably because one of my older sister’s became very interested in it in high school and then went on to become a science teacher herself. When my parents were designing the kitchen for their home over 15 years ago, they planned the layout to account for additional recycling trash cans, newspaper pile and plastic grocery bags. Anyways, ever since moving to Dallas I stopped recycling. No more. I’m starting my pile of newspaper & advertisements (now I just need to buy some string to tie it all up — am I the only one who doesn’t just have string laying around the house?!). I also need to buy a can crusher and a separate trash bin for cans to recycle. More shopping. I’ve already started switching all my lightbulbs over to the Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs (CFLs) whenever the regular lightbulbs burn out. Changing topic. I read the mystery High Heels are Murder by Elaine Viets this week and loved it! The main character, Josie Marcus, lives in Maplewood, Missouri (right…

Off topic: For anyone in the Dallas area who has not been to high tea at the Grand Lux at the Galleria with DFWTea, you do not know what you are missing! My parents were in town this weekend and I dragged them there to experience high tea. They were thoroughly impressed 🙂 Now, I’m a self-proclaimed news junkie, but with all the chaos and tragedy in the world lately, I have rediscovered why I love reading romances so much. They (well, almost) always have a happy ending and they are a way for me to escape the reality of whatever is going on in my life or the world. Of course, I could live without the tear-jerker romances. You know the ones – they require a box of kleenex to get through and usually become Hallmark movies. (The Night We Met required kleenex toward the end, but I’m still glad I read it.) I’m definitely more of a romantic comedy or romantic suspense reader. Though I used to read a lot of historicals (love Julie Garwood‘s back list and I’m anxiously awaiting her new historical) and still read some new ones, I generally prefer contemporaries. Whenever I’m stressed, just…

What is with this weather?! Easter in Dallas should NOT be this cold. Of course, my irritation with the weather could have something to do with the fact that I refuse to turn my heater back on in April. So, I’ve been a little chilly. Drum roll, please… I have highspeed internet access at home. I had been holding out, but I finally went and picked up the self-install kit with the modem from the local cable company. On Tuesday. Work kept me busy so I did not get a chance to hook the modem up until Friday afternoon. Why did I wait this long?! Working from home was so much faster today. Drawback: I was able to get in a lot reading during those long uploads and downloads on dialup when I was working from home. No more. Fingers are already starting to get cold again so I’m going to wrap up this posting with my weekend reading list. What I read over the weekend:Feels Like Family by Sherryl WoodsSay No to Joe? by Lori FosterFirst Comes Baby by Janice Kay JohnsonFinding His Way Home by Barbara Gale Visit FreshFiction.com to learn more about books and authors.

CR2007 in Kansas City was a blast! I had been to it once before in Seattle in 2000. (What can I say, I was a hermit for a while. No more!) There were…ummm…memorable discussion topics, such as: “Kick Ass Heroines: How They Are Changing Romance”, “Characters, Plot, or Cock – What Makes a Book Sexy?” and “Sexual Oddities in the Animal Kingdom.” Being the good note taker that I am, I just had to write down a couple of the statements I heard in the “animal” discussion because they are definitely the type of odd trivia that could be the winning answers on a game show: “Chinese hamsters have the longest sperm” and “frogs tend to like orgies.” I know what you’re thinking, but I couldn’t make up these things even if I wanted to. But there were also some discussions where I learned something, like Lorraine Heath‘s “The Victorian World vs The Regency World.” I don’t read a lot of historicals so there was no way I could explain the difference until Lorraine’s talk. I now know about the influx of American heiresses into Europe in the Victorian era and that Winston Churchill’s mother was one of those American…