You know how it is. The sun is hot, the drinks are cold and wearing a bikini and hot pants is a legitimate dress code. And then you meet the cute guy (because guys always look cute when they have a tan) and before you know it, romance is blooming. Well, that’s how it is in the movies and books. But in real life vacation flings (or holiday flings as we would say in my neck of the woods) aren’t always that easy. For a start, there are the logistics. What if you both come from different countries? Or, even share a common language. And then there is the honeymoon effect to consider. When you’re on vacation, you don’t normally have any of the responsibilities that come with your regular life. It’s so much easier to be present moment and carefree, but as soon as you step back into your real world, bills, deadlines and family obligations can reappear in a flash. All of which my current heroine Bec Watson discovers after meeting the gorgeous Lincoln Mathews when she was in Italy. But her vacation fling gets cut short when she discovers Lincoln wasn’t who he says he is. Made…

I love gadgets, bonus for futuristic technomagical ones. If a given gizmo could conceivably appear in both a James Bond film and a Bruce Sterling story, it is sure to twitterpate my fangirl heart. So of course my hero for WANTED AND WIRED had to be plugged in. But this is a romance, right, so less gore and more hotness. Which of made me think of cars. My first car was a 1966 Mustang (4-barrel 289), and I loved the way that girl roared when she topped out. So, keeping that feeling in mind, the manuscript and I played a bit of what-if. What if Heron, the hero of WANTED AND WIRED, had a really, really fast car? A supercar, in fact? And he could switch between wireless and manual control of that car? What if the car was both armored and armed? What if the control mechanism for the weapon was disguised as a gearshift? But also, because Heron is integrated with the machine, what if that gearshift served other sensory functions for my control-freak, technologically modified dude? Well, then it might be the hottest car in the history of hot cars. And heroine Mari? Gets to ride shotgun….

Being a writer in today’s market is harder than it’s ever been. You have to be a social media guru—you have to be constantly marketing and promoting and available to your fans. All the while working on your next novel. It’s tough to not get overwhelmed by all the demands. But the rewards of being a writer are many! The twelve perks of being a writer: There is something amazing about creating a world and characters. It’s like an alternate reality inside your head where you get to dictate every single thing that happens or doesn’t happen. You are Master of the Universe. Well, the universe in your mind. Sometimes the words flow like water and you just know they are pure golden goodness. That feels great. There’s a weird writer’s high that some authors get when they are creating. It’s like being in the zone—or so into your book—that you lose track of time and space. Eventually, you emerge back into a reality that seems foreign compared to the world in which you were just immersed. Connecting with other writers who are as weird as you are is like finding your home. They get you and the quirks of…

Lynx is a special operative who helps solve the riddle in WASP, the first book in the Uncommon Enemies Series (2017, SilverHart Publishing) Lexi Sobado (AKA Lynx) Lexi was an un-schooler. Un-schooling is homeschool on steroids, where everything and everyone could present a learning experience. Now that she’s an adult, her non-traditional upbringing gives her a unique world view — different from those around her. She doesn’t stand out as weird or awkward; she just stands out. I thought you might like to get to know one aspect of Lexi’s un-schooling experience, her Kitchen Grandmothers. I’ll let Lexi introduce you to her Kitchen Grandmothers in her own words: So much of my education happened around the stove, under the watchful eyes of my Kitchen Grandmothers, so much warmth and goodness. It was Snow Bird Wang who decided that I needed the Kitchen Grandmothers. She was worried that I would lack women’s skills, making it hard for me to find an honorable husband. She knew that my mother’s illness, that had left her bedridden since I was twelve, would keep her from teaching me “wifely” skills. So Snow Bird chose, amongst her friends at our apartment building, five grandmothers who were…

About Good Lies: Releasing May 8th, 2017 If Warren Price was gasoline, I’d be a lit match. Addison Wanks, rock ’n’ roll’s favorite daughter, is good at keeping secrets. Secret One She’s responsible for the long-standing feud between her father’s band, Wanks and Janks, and younger band Wild Minds. She may or may not have let Wild Minds’ sexy bad-boy lead singer Warren defile her backstage at a concert. Okay, she totally did. Secret Two She’s supposed to be attending college but instead skips town to follow Wild Minds on their European tour. Addy adores Warren Price. Secret Three Europe doesn’t go so well. Her sexy lead singer turned out to be king of a**holes. He’s arrogant, demanding and controlling. Addy loathes Warren Price. Oh, well. Secret Four Fast forward a few years and Addy is planning to attend her father’s farewell tour when she hears the news—Wild Minds is back in the good graces of Wanks and Janks. The two bands will be headlining together. This is going to make avoiding Warren difficult. Especially since it seems Warren doesn’t want to be ignored. He also doesn’t want a divorce. That’s right, Addy is married to the Wild Minds front…

Whether or not ghosts exist is a big debate in my house. My daughter and I firmly believe in ghosts, while my husband and one of my sons do not. My youngest son, Logan, who is only six years old now, has no firm opinion yet, but he is part of the reason I believe so strongly. Of course, I had other…encounters before these, but that’s another story. My younger brother, Chris, passed away when my son was only four months old. Chris and I shared a love of reading, especially mysteries, and I often feel his presence while I’m writing. Chris always had the best hair, thick, full, and loaded with natural highlights. And he always kept it long, at least past his shoulders, even after he became an air traffic controller. Late one night—we don’t keep normal hours in my house—I was sitting on my bed writing. My youngest, who was about two at the time, was lying across the bottom of the bed watching his iPad. He looked over, then past me, and frowned. “Who’s that?” he asked. I turned around but didn’t see anything. “Who’s what?” “That guy with the long hair?” I jumped and spun…

Thank you, Fresh Fiction, for hosting me and my new series today! SOMETHING OLD is the first in a series about four college friends who reunite for the wedding of one of the girls, five years after college. Most of them haven’t seen each other due to life and other circumstances and so, when the bride planned her wedding, she decided to through in some matchmaking of her own, reuniting her bridesmaids with the men she thought they should have been with all along. Weddings kind of freak me out honestly. So much pomp and circumstance. So many ways things can go wrong and yes, if I’m in the wedding, things will go wrong. You can trip walking down the aisle. You can spill something on your bridesmaid’s gown. You can mess up the dance. But the worst part about being in a wedding (or even attending one) is being the lone single person in the bridal party when everyone is drunk on love. The bride is seeing hearts everywhere. The attendees all have advice for when you can find your true love. And everyone tries to matchmake with a groomsman, or their single nephew/cousin/friend. Haven’t we all sat at…

Several years ago, TIME MAGAZINE’s cover story asked the question “Is God Dead?” in our society. While it is generally believed today that somewhere between 75% and 85% (depending upon which poll one reads) of the people in America believe in a supreme being, the belief is trending down, and those beliefs that do exist are varied, from those who say they believe, yet don’t practice any faith, to those who are daily practitioners of their faith, and every combination in between. In the early years of this great country, if polls on the subject had been taken, the likelihood is that the believers would have reached percentages exceeding 99.99% of the population, and the vast majority would have been regular practitioners. The purpose of this post is not to consider the reasons for this decline in belief and what effect that has had on our society. Each of us our own opinion on these questions, and each opinion has a germ of truth to it. The question here is what would happen if there were actually concrete proof of the existence of God? What would that do for our society? Until 1988, most people who knew about the existence…

Weddings. They bring out the crazy in a person, don’t they? I’ve done more tours of duty as a bridesmaid and maid of honor than I can count on two hands, and it never ceases to amaze me how a seemingly normal woman, a person I’ve known for years, through acne, braces, thin letters from our dream schools, first boyfriends, bad breakups, and finding true love, can suddenly morph into a flower, dress, and cake obsessed zombie swathed in organza and tulle with a tiara on her head. I believe we call her bridezilla. I’m not really sure how it starts. The guy proposes and everything is all happy and sparkling and look-at-the-ring-bling and then, about when the couple sets the date, the whole thing turns into a carnival of curiosities. Brides wearing aptly named bridal diapers (no, I’m not kidding). Apparently, this is a thing now so that the bride doesn’t have to use the restroom on her special day. Ew. Then there are the bridesmaids getting plastic surgery so they are perfect looking for the bride’s wedding photo op (oh, horror!). And lastly, my personal favorite, the bride having a life-sized cake replica of herself in all of…

Not long ago I was at a book signing for my latest novel, OPERATION SCORPION, and a reader asked me the question – why do you write so much about cops and terrorists? I looked up, smiled and said that was what I knew. We then had a wonderful conversation about the genre of police thrillers, which I actually believe are more psychological thrillers since I always delve into the minds of the characters. What is the protagonist thinking, feeling, experiencing? What is the antagonist also thinking, feeling, experiencing? The concept of writing one dimensional characters never crosses my mind as I sit behind the key board. People have breadth, depth, needs, desires (both good and bad), but mostly they are human. They may be fictional characters but they are real to me and hopefully to my readers. Why would someone believe it is the correct thing to do to murder someone? Why is that? As a person with a background in psychology, this ultimate betrayal of human life has always fascinated me. As an ex-cop it sometimes was part of my duty to investigate homicides – too many it seems – but to write about what is in a…