The story behind the story of BOUND TO SERVE The first thing you need to know is that I love spy novels and movies. So naturally I had to come up with, Delta Star, my own clandestine agency. It was a bit like going on an undercover mission creating my own super-secret black ops world and I loved every minute of it. Of course the agents had to be pure ice. Condor earned his reputation by being Delta Star’s ultimate secret agent. He’s untouchable, unstoppable, and he always nails his targets. But no matter how many times he’s saved the world, he’s a ghost who will never take credit. He works best alone, and to continue to protect his country, he’ll stay alone. Some of my books start with an opening line that tantalizes me until I write it down and others begin with a general, I wonder what would happen if I… idea. BOUND TO SERVE, was born after a marathon 007 and Jason Bourne viewing weekend. Hubby also loves them you see. The book is set on a lush tropic island because I truly love the Caribbean. Sparkling water, warm sand beaches, and balmy breezes, what’s not to…

When I was a little girl the last weekends in May leading up to Memorial Day were filled with red poppies and chicken bar-b-que. Yes, in Pennsylvania that is how I was taught to spell barbeque. Our grilled chicken did not have red or tomato based sauce instead it was slathered with a butter and vinegar mixture and grilled in wire frames over coals or flames. The smells were amazing. The chicken skin was dried but the rest was moist and delicious. Paired with homemade pepper cabbage and mustard potato salad the meal was topped off with a square of chocolate iced butter cake. Every church and school and family gathering had a chicken bar-b-que in May, raising money for causes or just the easiest food to make for a large gathering. At the stores or market, old men would be standing with arms or baskets full of red poppy pins. For a donation, and my grandmother always thought a nickel was enough, you got a red poppy to wear on your dress or shirt. My grandmother would mutter and fuss but she always bought a poppy for all of us and tell us to be sure to wear it…

Hi Everyone 🙂 I’m so excited to be here today with a sneak peek of my June 7th release, LOVEGAME. It’s been a long process to get this book from idea to reality, but now that release day is right around the corner, I can’t believe how fast these last few months have gone. The excerpt I’m posting today was actually inspired by what I know of the time before Heath Ledger’s death. Ledger had a difficult time after playing the Joker, one of the most diabolical, damaged and sociopathic characters in film today. He struggled with nightmares and numerous other problems for months, traumatized by the character he’d immersed himself in, until he finally died of a drug overdose. In LOVEGAME, my character, Veronica Romero, has also just played a sociopathic monster for film and now that the movie is about to come out—and she’s having to do the press and photo shoots for it, press and photo shoots that take her right back into the heart of the darkness she had to confront—she’s terrified of losing herself to the woman she spent so many months portraying. I hope you enjoy the excerpt and can’t wait to hear what…

They are men…They are brothers…They are Legends I’m so excited about my brand new historical western romance series that will kick off on October 4th. Men of Legend has the big feel of the old Bonanza TV show. Patriarch, Stoker Legend, is busy running the huge Lone Star Ranch while trying to keep tabs on his three sons – Sam, Houston and Luke. Sam Legend is a famed Texas Ranger and is featured in Book #1, TO LOVE A TEXAS RANGER. Houston Legend is a rancher and cowboy like his father. And Luke Weston Legend is an outlaw with a price on his head. Though Sam feels a duty to arrest him, he can’t bring himself to do it. Putting his brother in jail will rip their family apart. But if he doesn’t, he’ll lose his job and might find his own butt in the calaboose. This family comes from tough stock. They don’t back down. Ever. They know exactly how to administer their own brand of Legend justice—and do. About TO LOVE A TEXAS RANGER Gravely injured on the trail of a notorious criminal, Texas Ranger Sam Legend boards a train bound for his family ranch to recuperate…only to…

For me, making the hero for TO LOVE A LIBERTINE wasn’t about giving a guy in tight breeches a bunch of cool gadgets or putting him in a secret underground lair. It was about showing a man’s struggle to overcome a dark past and figure out who he wanted to be. Lord Percival Falloure, Marquess of Tavistoke, started out as the quintessential bad boy—and when I say bad, I mean Vicomte-de-Valmont-bad. Yes. My darling, dashing Percy once was a cad and a blackguard. He once tried to steal his best friend’s bride! When TO LOVE A LIBERTINE begins, however, we see a penitent Percy who has only recently set foot on Reformation Road after losing in love and unwittingly helping to rescue a severely abused young prostitute from certain death. These experiences have irrevocably altered his perception, making him question himself and his role in the world. Whereas a villain is made when a person decides to embrace their badness, a hero is created when the opposite occurs. But how does one become a true hero? Wanting to be good or simply not being bad isn’t enough. Otherwise, we would never have seen Clark Kent transform into a spandex-wearing, caped…

I love to travel – short trips, long trips (but, really, are any trips long enough?), weekend trips and daytrips. I usually say ‘anywhere with a beach’, but in reality if a trip involves a plane, train, car or cruise ship, I’m in – even if a beach doesn’t come with the visit! I also love coming home, because the best thing about going on a trip is coming home to your own bed and your own chair and your own cooking. We’ll ignore the laundry for just a bit. Here are five of my favorite places to visit: Lake of the Ozarks, Missouri I know, this one isn’t exotic, but it’s home for me. I was raised in a small town on a farm/ranch near the Lake of the Ozarks. RadioMan, bebe and I call Lake Erie home now, but it’s always so much fun to go back to Missouri, see the extended family and spend an afternoon or three cruising Lake of the Ozarks on a pontoon! Chicago I know, I know, traffic. But the train system is amazing and can get you wherever you need to go without battling other cars or trucks. Plus, there is Navy…

Well, hellooo there, my little people pets! My name is Cimil—aka, Goddess of the Underworld. Also known as Ah-Puch by the Mayans, Mictlantecuhtli by the Aztec, Grim Reaper by the Europeans, Hades by the Greeks…you get the picture! And yes, yes. I know you have many questions for awesome me, but before we begin, I would like to remind you pervy mortals out there to text, message, tweet, stalk on FB, smoke signal—whatever works—this author person, Mimi Jean. While her upcoming release TOMMASO certainly has some juicy, indecent moments, we demand she get super-raunchy, XXX-kinky, mother-will-disown-her-sexy, for the next book! #GodOfWine #MakeItDirtyMimi! My unicorn, Minky, demands it. Alrighty, now that we have that important business out of the way, I bet you’re wondering what a Goddess of the Underworld does all day besides star in books, take souls to their final resting place, and watch reruns of The Love Boat. Yep! You guessed it. I sit around being awesome! (And super evil.) I also answer a lot of fan-mail. So what’s the one question I get asked the most? You guessed right again! “When will the world end?” To which I respond, “Who the hell cares? You’re all going to…

When you are a dragon Queen, you are pampered and spoiled by your court. Of course, if you don’t have a court yet, like Queen Margery in my latest Emerging Queens book, THE QUEEN’S DANCE, you’re fighting for your life as rampaging Cultists try to kill you and greedy dragon studs try to kidnap you. But all the more reason to form a court and be treated like the Queen you are. Dragon Queen Carolyn from the first book in the series, THE QUEEN’S WINGS, recommends a few good books to read and then a few more downloaded onto your tablet. And maybe a quick visit to the library to round out your TBR pile. Make sure you bring your long suffering protector or consort to carry all those books for you. Once you have all the books to read, you can indulge by reading in the tub, in bed, in a hammock, in the car… Some of Carolyn’s favorite books are: Anne Bishop‘s Black Jewels Trilogy Lee Child‘s Jack Reacher series Sarah MacLean‘s Rule of Scoundrels series Alexander McCall Smith‘s Number One Ladies Detective series Karen Marie Moning‘s Fever series On the other hand, Dragon Queen Viola from THE…

Time-travel romances can take you anywhere, any time, and in any direction. But what makes them eternal? I’ve come up with a list of five reasons why we love time-travel romances. The experience So many people long for experiences, but the reality is, we can’t possibly experience everything in this life. That’s where books come in – and that’s especially where time travel shines! Of course we know that times were rough in earlier periods, but as time-travel romance readers, we get to experience the best of what the era had to offer, while looking at it all through the rosy glasses of hindsight. We can take the best of a culture, spin the most heroic qualities of the time into a hero (or heroine!), and make an ideal out of it. We can take a piece of ourselves – the piece that we relate to in one of the characters – and get that happily-ever-after, in the most perfect setting, in a time where the good always outweighs the bad. Love is transcendent It’s one thing to know that your beloved would give up his phone for you, but it’s a whole new experience when he’d be willing to…

If you’re familiar with cozy mysteries, you’ll know that these whodunits, often with culinary themes have recipes used in the story included in the book. My latest novel, TELL ME NO LIES is not a cozy mystery, however it does have a culinary theme betwixt the romance and danger. Rain Howard, the main character in my romantic suspense novel opens a beignet and coffee cafe. In the story, the recipes she uses were handed down from her grandmother who received them from her mother and so on. Rain’s grandmother is a descendant of a famous New Orleans quadroon, infamous for her beauty and her beignets. A quadroon referred to a person with 1/8th African parentage in the late 19th and early 20th-century New Orleans. Quadroons were involved with placage – a recognized extralegal system in New Orleans (and other places) in which ethnic European men entered into the equivalent of common-law marriages with women of color. These women owned homes and raised their children on Rampart Street. It’s a small part of the back story in TELL ME NO LIES, but one I plan on exploring in another historical romance series. But in the meantime, I wanted to share the…