I love sprinkling little bits of the “real world” into my books, whether it’s a real place or landmark, a real story or a real bit of dialogue that I’ve heard with my own ears. It’s those fine little details that make a book memorable, both for me and my readers. But how do you know what’s real and what’s not? Well, I’m here to spill the beans… The “Naked Pirouette Incident” from BETTING THE BAD BOY Paige tells Noah about a time when she drank too much tequila and accidentally walked naked into the wrong bedroom in her share-house. Then she did a ‘naked pirouette’ to spin around and run out of the room. Real or fake? Yep, this was a real event. My good friend is the real Naked Pirouette legend, but I’ll be keeping their name a secret. The “Chihuahua Lock-Out” from TAKEN BY THE CEO Emmaline gets locked out of her car by an evil Chihuahua and calls on the hero, Parker, to borrow his phone so she can call someone to unlock her car. Real or fake? Fake…kind of. The evil Chihuahua is loosely based on my mother’s dog, who isn’t evil…but she’s a bit…

“Your daughter is doing great,” I continued, trying to focus on Nicole and not the way his hand curved around his iced tea. “There’s a school in Santa Monica called Crossroads. It’s a great school, academically, but one of their core directives is the emotional health of the student. They have a grade-bearing course that focuses on each child’s emotions.” He smiled that award-winning smile. “Ma’am, I’m from the South. That hippy-dippy shit ain’t gonna fly.” “And when your daughter breaks down because she never dealt with losing her mother, your good-old-boy shit ain’t gonna fly neither.” I heard his foot tap, but didn’t look at it. We were eye-locked, measuring each other. Thank God I wasn’t working for him. He was melting me from the inside out, and I had a feeling it was on purpose. “You play nine-ball?” he asked. “Sure do.” “You win and I’ll go see your hippy-dippy school. I win and you go see the one on Wilshire.” “I don’t see why it matters what school I see. It’s your decision.” “You consulting or not?” I hadn’t considered seeing him after that meeting, but he had a point. A real consult on how to manage…

“The Bowery, the Bowery! They say such things, And they do strange things On the Bowery! The Bowery! I’ll never go there anymore!” The words to the popular song from the 1891 musical A Trip to Chinatown tell you everything you need to know about the Bowery, which is both a street and a neighborhood in Manhattan. In turn of the century New York City, many neighborhoods had bad reputations, and the Bowery was among the worst. Originally, however, it was actually several miles outside of town. “Bowery” is an Anglicization of the Dutch word bouwerji which means “farm”, as the area contained many large farms in the 17th Century. When the City grew, it spread northward, and the farms gave way to residential lots where elite citizens built mansions. By the mid-1800s, those citizens had moved farther north, and Bowery became the eastern border of the notorious “Five Points” slum where all manner of evil flourished. To make matters worse, the Third Avenue Elevated Train ran above Bowery, turning the street dark even at midday. The neighborhood housed cheap bars, dance houses, brothels, and flophouses. So what was a Society debutant doing there? That’s what Private Investigator Frank Malloy…

As a mystery writer, I’m always ripping out newspaper or magazine articles and copying/pasting links that might someday become an inspiration for a future book. The premise for the first book in my Hamptons Home and Garden Mystery series came from a magazine article I read about writer Sally Quinn purchasing the falling-in-ruin Grey Gardens in East Hampton, New York. In the article, Ms. Quinn talked about the items she’d discovered in the mansion’s attic and how she restored the interior of the house, based on old photographs, to its original splendor. I tore out the article and filed it under, “Story Ideas.” A few years later, I went to my file and found the article. As an antiques dealer and fixer-upper, the thought of treasure in an old attic at an estate where the rich and famous live and die, gave me the idea for BETTER HOMES AND CORPSES. BETTER HOMES AND CORPSES by Kathleen Bridge Hamptons Home & Garden #1 After Meg Barrett found her fiancé still had designs on his ex-wife, she decided it was time to refurbish her life. Leaving her glamorous job at a top home and garden magazine, she fled Manhattan for Montauk, only…

Every man should have a secret dish he can cook to knock a woman’s panties off. Imagine this. Tonight’s the BIG date at your place. Date #3. The money date. The date where you and your date either screw your brains out, or move on to someone new. A lot of pressure, a lot of performance anxiety. Any little mistake could spell disaster. All of your charms (and ab work) would have been for naught. That said, there’s a few hard and fast rules that need to be followed. Clean up your place. If you’re too lazy to do it, call in a cleaning service. Generally speaking, chicks hate to use a bathroom with piss stains on the toilet seat. Light some candles. If you’re a man, not living with Mom, there’s at least a 79.3% chance your place smells like beer, farts, and cigar smoke. Change the sheets. Ever see a chick’s bed? Twenty-five pillows, shams (whatever the fuck that is), and a comforter cover from Anthropologie. Case closed. Rub one out. You have to clean the pipes before the big night. Trust me on this one, you’ll actually have an interesting conversation without thinking about having sex every…

What do you think of when you hear the word ‘bodyguard’? One of those huge, silent, black-clad men keeping a discreet distance as celebrities walk the red carpet at a film premiere? The secret service types with their concealed weapons who are there to make sure no harm comes to a head of state or captain of industry? Or maybe that tense but tender moment when Kevin Costner carries Whitney Houston to safety through a crowd of screaming fans in the imaginatively titled The Bodyguard? While most of us appreciate the work a bodyguard performs, none of those are situation we’ll ever have to consider happening in real life – however much we may fantasise about being in the arms of a hunky paid protector. We don’t have the money, level of fame or security concerns that would make hiring someone to look after our wellbeing necessary. For most of those people who do need to employ bodyguards, the role is seen as just another of their employees, like the nanny, the accountant or the personal assistant – a necessary evil and payroll expense that comes with being someone with power or influence. In romance fiction, however, the bodyguard is…

Buy at Target THE PROMISE GIRLS by Marie Bostwick In an emotionally rich and captivating new novel, New York Times bestselling author Marie Bostwick reunites three sisters whose deep bond is rooted in an unconventional past. Every child prodigy grows up eventually. For the Promise sisters, escaping their mother’s narcissism and the notoriety that came with her bestselling book hasn’t been easy. Minerva Promise claimed that her three “test tube” daughters—gifted pianist Joanie, artistic Meg, and storyteller Avery—were engineered and molded to be geniuses. In adulthood, their modest lives fall far short of her grand ambitions. But now, twenty years after the book’s release, she hopes to redeem herself by taking part in a new documentary. Meg, who hasn’t picked up a paintbrush in years, adamantly refuses to participate, until a car accident leaves her with crushing medical bills. While she recuperates in Seattle, the three sisters reluctantly meet with filmmaker Hal Seeger, another former prodigy. Like them, he’s familiar with the weight of failed potential. But as he digs deeper, he uncovers secrets they’ve hidden from each other—and a revelation that will challenge their beliefs, even as it spurs them to forge their own extraordinary lives at last. Women’s…

We haven’t met yet so I need to ask you to read the following sentence and withhold judgement until the end of the post, okay? Ready? Here goes: My goal in life is to find my authentic self and live my truth. I know, I know, that’s about the most stereotypical LA thing that has ever been said. It could only be more clichéd if I’d mentioned traffic on the freeway making me late for my yoga class in the Whole Foods cleanse aisle. But it’s true. I want to live every day being honest with myself. This is exactly why I write young adult paranormal romance. The characters I create are strong, brave, sexy, and always have a witty retort ready to shoot back at anyone who gets in their way. Basically, THEY’RE ALL THE THINGS I’M NOT and that’s why I love writing them! YA paranormal romance allows me to live vicariously through confident, no nonsense girls who wouldn’t let a bully (human or otherwise) come between them and their goal. A horrifying creature chases you through the woods? No problem—find a clearing and stand your ground. Obnoxious demons trying to get the better of you? Don’t sweat…

No, that’s not a euphemism. It’s an actual job and my heroine, Clover Lee, in THE NEGOTIATOR has held the position along with a ton of other weird temp jobs. “She’d done time as a snake milker—don’t ask; smiled for pictures as a paid bridesmaid—bridezillas, she’d known a few; bellied up to the table as a dog food taster—think stale crackers with a funky aftertaste; learned the true benefit of good arch support as a professional line stander—always in the rain or the cold or the blazing heat; and distilled the mysteries of the universe as a fortune cookie writer. Clover had done it all to pay the bills, have some excellent adventures, and stay as far away from the small town of Sparksville as possible.” So, of course, when she sees this job ad, there’s no way she’s not answering it—out of pure curiosity if nothing else. I mean, come on. What in the world kind of job is persona buffer? WANTED: PERSONAL BUFFER Often snarly, workaholic, demanding executive seeks short-term “buffer” from annoying outside distractions AKA people. Free spirits with personal boundary issues, excessive quirks, or general squeamishness need not apply. Salary negotiable. Confidentiality required. The idea for…

In WOLF BITE, released in July 2014, Mason Clayborne heard the sound of a familiar woman being mugged—pursuing the sound he raced into an alleyway in Dallas, Texas, in time to see Alexis Huston breaking the nose of her would-be assailant. Coming face to face with his past dropped a pebble into the still waters, and those ripples would become a tidal wave. The wave would gather force as the ripples spread out to include wolves like A.J., abandoned by his previous alpha and left to stew in a prison, and Owen, the senior Hunter whose love for a journeyman healer drove him to follow her to another pack when Hudson River needed her help. Mason’s relationships with other alphas like Brett and Serafina opened the door to new challenges and changes for more than only Willow Bend. With each subsequent novel, we journeyed to the five different packs and even met an alpha from Italy. Each arc from Rise of the Alpha (books 1-3), Dawn of Three Rivers (book 4-6), Wolves of Change (Books 7-9) to Guardians of the Wolves (Books 10-12), has played a role in the evolution of a world which brings us to GHOST WOLF. I…