I kill people. And for the most part I make sure they stay dead. No, this isn’t an admission of guilt that will now land me on the front page of my local newspaper and maybe a few national rags. In fact, not only do I not bear any actual guilt, but I don’t feel guilty about killing people at all. Or killing dogs. Or cats. My killing sprees are wholly fictional and completely a product of my imagination. I kill people in my stories (and a few dogs and cats too). Well, to be fair, I don’t kill them; my characters do. But since I’m the puppet master controlling the strings, I guess I’m mostly to blame for the crimes committed in my books. And while I don’t feel bad or guilty about forcing fictional characters to perpetrate crimes against one another, I do need to be careful. Sometimes fiction can spill over into reality. To create believably bad dudes, I need to put myself inside the heads and psyches of those villains. I need to become them on a certain level. And that can be a frightening ordeal. I don’t want to be a villain, not physically and…

STEEPLEJACK: hybridity or when the books you thought you were writing turns into something else. I had ideas for two books. One was a faintly Dickensian murder mystery which centered on one of the boys who worked to maintain the tall factory chimneys and other high places in a Victorian city. It came to me as an image inspired by spotting one of those chimneys on my drive to work and noticing that a bush was growing out of the top. It got me thinking about the steeplejacks who—though rare and dying out—still existed in my native Lancashire when I was a kid. I could see the cover illustration. A boy on a rickety ladder a hundred feet above a smoggy industrial landscape… The other idea was for a fantasy novel. It centered on a girl who had a rare condition that allowed her skin to mimic the color and texture of her surroundings in the ways octopuses do. She had to hide her gift/curse, but then had to take in a baby sister who had the same condition. The book would be about how she juggled the perils of her predicament while learning to use them as a kind…

Research! For research purposes, I type “best fuel to use in an improvised explosive” into the browser search bar. Two hours later, I’ve read so, so many interesting things, but I still haven’t written the scene with the homemade bomb in it. Promo. Sigh. I start down the slippery social-media slope with the best intentions of spending five minutes (max!) updating my author stuff. Next thing I know, I’m blinking gritty eyes at the screen, trying to figure out what happened to the past three days. Darn you, Facebook—you and your time-sucking ways. How can I not watch the video of the cop rescuing the ducks trying to cross the Interstate? How?? Conference Call. I adore my editor. When we need to have an occasional chat over the phone, I don’t mind at all. We start with the issue at hand and usually find a solution in short order. Feeling smug, I say something like, “Now that we’ve solved that, I’d better get back to writing. Oh, wait! Before you go, what did you think about that revision on [whatever book I’m editing at the time]?” With that, our neat, tidy and short call goes off the rails. Pretty soon,…

Hi, all, Jennifer here. Some of you may (or may not) know that a majority of the books that I’ve written usually take place in some sort of small New Jersey shore town. Why? Well, most likely because I live in a small NJ shore town and I know it like the back of my hand. However, I also like to write about it, because there are so many bad ways NJ is depicted (yes, I’m looking at you, Jersey Shore TV show) that I feel the need to capture the better things about New Jersey. Today, I’m happy to share with you WHY southern NJ shore towns make great small-town settings: the year round population of most of the shore towns by me can range anywhere from 2,000 to 11,000—not counting Atlantic City. (In the summer that can increase to sometimes 200,000 people) But they are true small towns in the winter! Everybody knows everybody! NJ shore towns have the most beautiful beaches. In fact, Ocean City, NJ was rated Best Beach in America by Coastal Living magazine this year beating out beaches in CA! Your hero or heroine can surf, fish, crab, paddleboard, or just walk the beach…

While touring the Acropolis Museum in Greece, I stumbled upon a stone relic that caused me to smile, as though I’d just learned a powerful secret. The English translation said simply: thesaurus, a treasure box. The meaning that fueled my interest is the idea of a storehouse or a treasury. The ancient Greeks used a thesaurus to store treasures, and for writers, our words are our treasures. Since grade school, we’ve used a thesaurus to find synonyms and sometimes antonyms for specific words. This valuable resource helps writers locate specific words when the ones normally used are not exactly what we intend or the concept needs to be bigger, more definite, unique, or the writer wishes to avoid repetition. Meanings twist and turn according to culture, dates used, and what the writer is desperately seeking. Word lovers can get lost in a thesaurus. But there are dangers in tossing aside creativity and diving into a treasure box each time we want to sound distinct or extraordinary. The result builds barriers in our writing. We lose our voice and our character’s voice in an endless pursuit of the perfect word when often the most common fits our passage. Communicating with our…

I had so much fun with Alex and Sydney in BAND OF BACHELORS: ALEX, which comes out today in all formats. I’ve never written a heroine who is 4” taller than the hero, with thighs stronger than Amazon tree trunks and who can jump like a gazelle. And she wears a bathing suit so tiny, you wanna watch the game for a clothing malfunction. They meet on a blind date. Little does Alex know that chocolate, caffeine and zombie movies drive Sydney out of control, such that she nearly mounts him in the theater. Even for a Navy SEAL, this is something he has a hard time juggling. Trained to get the bad guys, there wasn’t anything in his training that could prepare him for the cyclone he’s about to become attached to. And to find a girl who likes sex as much as he does? He thought that impossible. Here’s our fun trailer that gives a “taste” of what I’ve written. Enjoy. And let the games begin! Watch the Book Trailer for Alex. About BAND OF BACHELORS: ALEX Adrenaline junkie and Navy SEAL Alex Kowicki is one of four bachelor SEALs trying to navigate his successful military career while…

About THE SUN GOES DOWN Mitch Mitchell needs a vacation, and he is determined to make the most of his trip to the Mediterranean island of Gozo. Death never takes a break however, and at the behest of fellow doctor Bob Southern, Mitch soon finds himself investigating the demise of a young, gay lance corporal. The police have ruled it a suicide, but the young man’s boyfriend claims it was murder. Suspecting an official cover-up of a queer scandal, Mitch gets to work on an investigation that leads him into a labyrinth of lies, false identities and secret sex. With tension, humor and plenty of Mitch Mitchell’s exuberant sexual encounters, The Sun Goes Down cranks up the Mediterranean heat for one of his most baffling and dangerous cases. Buy THE SUN GOES DOWN: Amazon.com | Kindle | BN.com | iTunes/iBooks | Kobo | Google Play | Powell’s Books | Books-A-Million | Indiebound | Amazon CA | Amazon UK | Amazon DE | Amazon FR | Goodreads A little farther along the deck, huddled in chairs and surrounded by excessive amounts of luggage, was an English family with thin, pinched faces, gray hair and ill-fitting clothes that were quite unsuited for…

Anyone who knows me knows just how much I adores me some dark chocolate. The 72% variety that pairs wonderfully with a cup of coffee, a glass of red wine, or a flute of champagne. Frankly, it’s kinda like the perfect food! And while I’d like to claim it as my secret indulgence, in truth it really isn’t. For one thing, it’s not a secret. Secondly, it’s not an indulgence if it has its own space on the food pyramid – my version of it, anyway. Go on, tell me I’m wrong! However, I do have weaknesses that, once triggered, are a bear to stuff back and overcome. So I mostly just don’t indulge. Mostly. *stares at the ceiling and whistles* But I digress… While most people think of food, I’ve got three non-food indulgences: A good book. Let’s face it, there’s never enough time to read. Between life at The Male Observation Lab (aka, my day – and sometimes night! – job at a construction company), raising a (drama) teen, writing-related stuff, and making sure the house is shoveled out enough so the place isn’t condemned, there’s just not enough time to indulge in a good story. I often…

The older I get, the more I’m against the concept of ‘guilty’ pleasures. You want that cupcake, go for it! You want to put off the laundry and binge-watch every season of a television show, have at it! You want to crank that pop song and sing loud and proud in traffic, you belt that song, baby! Even in the bedroom, as long as it’s between two consenting adults, and hurts no one, why feel guilty about something? Unabashedly love and own the things that make you feel good! Whether it’s tattoos, or dancing to a certain type of music (hey, reggae! I love you!), there’s something out there for everyone that makes their smile a little brighter. And that is especially true when it comes to publishing. Search for nearly anything and you’ll find it—sometimes thanks to the inimitable Chuck Tingle. Like I said, I’m not about judging you for the things you like. But there’s one trend in romance that was definitely not my cup of tea. The taboo romance involving stepsiblings, in particular, the stepbrother romance trope. Stepbrother romances lit the literary world on fire in the past year or so. It seems a release date didn’t…

Many people have asked me what my inspiration was for writing BURNOUT. Answering that question is a piece-a-cake. I’ve been a federal agent for over two decades, so the suspense part of the story flowed naturally from my brain to my fingers, and from there, to my keyboard. That, and I’ve always enjoyed the underlying crime that has to be solved in a suspense novel. That aspect of a story inevitably throws the hero and heroine together under extreme circumstances, something that always leads to emotions and passions running high. Perfect fodder for a romantic suspense. Having worked with police and federal law enforcement officers my entire career, I have the most amazing contacts. I like to be factually accurate, so when I don’t personally know a specific agency factoid, I have an incredible contact list of cops and feds who are only too happy to assist in the creation of my stories and bringing my characters to life. There is also a huge part of me in this book. Many times in my career, I’ve considered leaving “the business” and doing something completely different, like opening a small restaurant or a bed-and-breakfast and cooking my little heart out. The…