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…

There seems to be a misconception about sweet romance. Sweet romances are not all bonnets and prairies. Nor are they about baking or chocolate, though that would definitely make for a delicious book. One that would probably have me reaching for bonbons with every page. As with any romance, sweet romances must have a satisfying ending. After all, a romance without a happily-ever-after is like a Starbucks without coffee. To help set the record straight, though, here are a few things you may or may not know about sweet romances. Sweet romances do not have sex. Or as I tell people, no bodice ripping. Okay, so you may have already figured this one out. However, as the name infers, sweet romances are loaded with romance. Two people falling in love. And isn’t that the best part of a romance novel anyway? In sweet romances, sexual tension, rather than sex itself, move the relationship and the story forward. By the end of the book, the reader knows the couple has a strong foundation to build a solid future together. Sweet romances have real people, with real problems. Just because a romance is sweet, doesn’t mean the characters are. They are flawed…

To me, shifter love is intense, commanding, and all consuming. When you have heightened senses it makes sense to me that everything you do is just that much more intense. So when a shifter falls in love, whether with a human or another shifter, it’s all about the passion and connecting. That is why I love writing about shifters. While I love any paranormal element in books that I read or write there is just something about a strong alpha male falling in love that draws me in. I enjoy the entire process from when our shifter meets his love interest, the internal struggle of putting his heart out, the moment he realizes he’d be lost without her, to the final confession of being in love. The bigger and badder the shifter the more fun it is to watch him fall. Am I right? Cole Babcock is the shifter in WOLF PACK, book five in the Shifter Chronicles series, which is my brand new release. Cole is one of those characters that thinks he likes being alone. Only to find out he had no idea what he was missing. He has his new position with the Shifter Coalition, new friends…

A couple of years ago I happened upon an interesting yard sale. It was made up entirely of books. Back in the olden days, before the advent of digital readers, a yard sale exclusively of books was like my own personal nirvana. I ended up buying an odd assortment of paper backs. They were mostly mysteries, some sci-fi, a few westerns (yes, I read them) and a couple of tame romances. When I got home, I found among the fiction, a book on home decorating according to the concept of Feng Shui. For young readers, Feng Shui was a really big thing fifteen years ago. I couldn’t imagine how the book made it into my purchases, but I was intrigued. And let’s face it…a book is a book. If it’s around, I’m probably going to read it. The first few chapters dealt with Chinese numerology and determining from your birth date and birth year, your element. I turned out to be the water element, meaning I would be most comfortable surrounded by gray and blue in my home. Quite content living in a house painted with warm brown tones, I kept reading. Sadly, I found being a water element was…