Five years ago, I scribbled down a few pages about a teen witch who went up against Hecate. The story took root in my brain, and before I really knew what was happening, I’d drafted the book that would become DAUGHTER OF CHAOS, but I didn’t stop there. I fell immediately into the second book, and then the third, drafting the trilogy in under a year. Darlena and her world became almost tangible for me the longer I was immersed in the story, and these characters have been a constant part of my life for the last half a decade. I’ve connected with my different stories and characters in different ways, but whenever I came back to Darlena’s story to revise, both while I was still looking for a publisher and after I’d sold the trilogy and had begun the detailed editorial process, I was struck by the easy familiarity. It didn’t seem to matter how long it had been since I’d worked on a draft, and it didn’t seem to matter what other characters I’d inhabited in the intervening time; whenever I came back to the Red Magic series, I slipped effortlessly into Darlena’s head, her voice feeling almost…

The heroine for my new release TRUE PERIL has a complex personality, but no one can say she’s a pushover. Here are 5 things that make Eve a badass. She’s a graduate of the Police Academy. She’s an expert marksman. She prefers war zones to She takes on two rebel soldiers and wins. She points a gun at the head of the hero until he proves he’s on her side. And 5 things that show her soft side. Her life’s work is to rescue children from being used as child soldiers, cooks, and sex slaves. She tries to take down an arms dealer, but works to protect his family. She offers herself in exchange for a teenage girl who is about to be raped. Even after being mistreated by her family, she returns again and again to give them another chance. She brings orphaned children into her apartment. About Veronica Forand A Bostonian by birth, Veronica Forand regrettably lost her Boston accent while moving from state to state and country to country. Cleveland probably had the most profound effect on her ability to pronounce the “r” in the word “park.” She does try to return now and then to visit…

1.) You won’t see Lady Lila falling in love at first sight with Brook Derring. She hated him. Amazing how one might exist for years and never think of a person, and then less than a day after becoming reacquainted, she absolutely despised him. 2.) You won’t see Brook falling in love at first sight with Lila . . . again.  He fell in love with Lila seven years ago and wound up humiliated and brokenhearted. Now he won’t allow himself to feel anything but hate for her. Brook would murder Lady Lila himself. How dare she trap him in this fashion? “Brook, I don’t—I just don’t want you to hate me for this.” “It’s far too late for that.” 3.) You won’t see the Brook and Lila marrying for love. When Lila’s life is in danger, Brook is coerced by Lila’s father’s machinations into marrying her. The duke believes that marriage between the antagonistic pair is the only way to keep Lila’s reputation from being ruined while at the same time keeping her safe. In the middle of the ceremony, Lila takes Brook aside to have a heart to heart. “But you don’t want to marry me!” “I want…

This is a weird question for me, because one, I don’t have a lot of spare time, and two, I’m usually always doing something related to books! I love to read. I know some authors don’t read a lot because they’re busy writing, but I’m not one of those. I read each night, I read on the couch when my brain is fried from “book stuff”, I read in the car when Mr. Stoker is driving us somewhere. So one thing I do, that I love to do, is read. Something else that Mr. Stoker and I do together, is a game called geocaching. It’s where you use GPS coordinates to find the “treasure” that someone else has hidden. It’s cheap, free, and fun when you can find the hidden container. We have found a geocache in every state, and several different countries too. Mr. Stoker and I also love to camp. There’s something about getting out of your normal routine and relaxing and slowing down. Traveling is another thing we love to do as well. Cruising is our favorite type of vacation, but, of course, we don’t get to go more than every once in a while. But honestly,…

Sometimes it takes an individual a while to figure out what she’s supposed to be doing with her life. But if she’s really lucky she’ll finally figure it out. And then, if she’s really really lucky she’ll actually have the opportunity to do just that. I am one of those really really lucky people. I was still in my early thirties, an embarrassingly long time ago I might add, when I realized I should be a novelist. It just hit me one day. Like the proverbial ton of bricks. Something like…what the hell are you doing woman? Write a book. So I did. The rest wasn’t quite so easy. In fact, it took me many years and even more rejections before Harper Collins bought my first manuscript. But since then I’ve written more than fifty published novels. Stories that have ranged over many continents and thousands of years. But more recently I’ve been dabbling in something closer to home…closer to my heart. I’m writing about horses, and cowboys, and Indians, and mothers, and farms and did I mention horses? Honestly, I can’t talk about them enough…ask anyone who knows me. Because other than writing all things equine are my enduring…

I am not a romance writer. I always say that, despite the fact that I’ve written two books in the paranormal KEEPERS series, with romance goddess Heather Graham and Harley Jane Kozak, and – I’ve written a popular writing workbook on how to write romantic comedy and love stories: WRITING LOVE (Screenwriting Tricks for Authors, II), and – I met my own romantic partner, the Scottish noir author Craig Robertson, at the Left Coast Crime mystery convention in Colorado Springs, and one whirlwind romantic month later was living in Scotland with him. How’s that for romance? I also have to admit, I’ve hung around the romance communities quite a lot, at RWA Nationals and Romantic Times, and often teach workshops for chapters of the Romance Writers of America. So even though my current, Thriller Award-nominated, bestselling Huntress Moon series is very dark crime/suspense, I am well aware that one of the strongest draws of the series, if not the strongest, is the erotic/romantic tension between my haunted FBI agent, Matthew Roarke, and the brutal but compelling serial killer he’s pursuing, the Huntress. Many of my readers “ship” the characters, hoping for a hookup even though given the circumstances, it would…

JEWEL OF SOLANA is the 2nd in the romantic suspense trilogy, Royals of Solana. It’s jam-packed with action, adventure, and scintillating romance. Princess Alanna Peralta is on the run from a vicious cartel who murdered her father, the king, and her brother the crown prince. She’s forced into using her own wit and perseverance to survive. Only when she meets tall, silent, and drop-dead gorgeous Gabriel Flynn does she discover the power of her own strength. The story can be read as a stand-alone (you don’t have to read the 1st, PRINCE OF SOLANA, to understand everything). When you’re finished, you’ll beg to read the others! Should Hollywood ever come knocking on my door for love of these characters, my dream cast choices are: Princess Alanna Peralta Victoria Justice Nina Dobrev Vanessa Hudgens Emeraude Toubia Gabriel Flynn Jack Reynor Liam Hemsworth Kellan Lutz Who would be your picks? Pick up your copy of Jewel of Solana today! About Susan Sheehey Susan Sheehey writes romantic suspense and contemporary romance. Her latest release JEWEL OF SOLANA is available in e-book from most e-retailers, as well as paperback from Amazon, published with the Wild Rose Press. Susan is a strong advocate for Autism…

Today was a really bad day for me. I don’t have many really bad days, but when they come up, I’m not a nice person. And the strange thing is that a really bad day has a tendency to escalate into a horrific day quite easily. It started with waking up late. I try to wake up in time to work two hours before my kids go to school. Not today. I not only woke up late, but I woke the kids up late too. Once they’re up, there’s no working until I drop them off and return to the house. Today, life was a mad scramble. After working a frustrating four hours on my current manuscript, my slow descent in chaos escalated when I had a doctor appointment and was told to permanently eliminate sugar from my diet. Chocolate is my valium. Without it? A very bad day. No- make that a very bad life! From the doctor’s office I went to grab a bite to eat before heading to pick up the kids from school. My snack? A salad. No matter what anyone says, salad can NEVER replace chocolate as a snack. EVER. Add on a traffic jam…

Have you ever read a book and fallen in love with the male lead? Waving my hand. I still sigh just thinking about Marcus O’Malley from Dee Henderson’s book The Guardian. But the thing that tripped me up is that same man would have driven me crazy in real life. Marcus was a bossy, alpha-male who expected everyone to do what he said. Okay, so he was a US Marshal and had a job to do, but still . . . LOL, if my husband was like that, neither of us would be happily married. But for some reason heroes in fiction can get away with this type of behavior, and we love them all the more for it. I suppose it’s because we are able to get into their heads and see their loving intentions. To this day, I still adore Marcus. I was drawn to his strength, courage, tender heart, his desire to protect the heroine at all costs, his sense of justice, and most of all his values. Yet if he were real, he’d drive me nuts. J This got me to thinking about the heroes in the books I write. What is it that draws me…

I’ve always been a sucker for the lighthearted romantic stories, whether in book form or on the big screen. When I wrote my debut novel, Five Days in Skye, I wanted to create a fun, flirty novel that had just a touch of seriousness at the end. Naturally, when it came to the second book in the series, London Tides, I set out to write the same sort of thing. Funny thing about writing books, though…sometimes the characters take over without your permission. The hero, Ian MacDonald, had been introduced in Five Days in Skye, as somewhat of an antagonist—the rule-following older brother. But I knew there was a reason he had gone from the fun-loving athlete of his youth to a rule-following stick-in-the-mud. Deep down, the poor guy was heartbroken. But considering how much Ian had to offer to the right woman, how could his true love ever leave him? Enter Grace Brennan: a war photographer whose need to expose the injustices of the world were even more pressing than her love for Ian…a conflict that led her to leave him six months before their wedding. I’ll fully admit she’s an unlikely heroine for a romance: troubled, suffering from…