This may be the one and only time our name are ever mentioned in a New York Times article ! Now isn’t this just too cool? And it’s for such a great cause: helping our vets. The three of us couldn’t be prouder. Plus, Laura Holson, the reporter who wrote the piece, was VERY kind in putting up the info on the charity. She didn’t have to do that—but bless her, too. Read down to the part about the making of a cover and find Chris Keniston and myself, Lindsay McKenna — we worked jointly on the cover. Susan Stoker, in the meantime, was on an ocean cruise, unavailable, so the task fell to us to create it without her valuable input. We chose Jason Baca as our model. Tammy Seidick of TammySeidickDesigns.com, took our direction and did a fabulous job. We made a good team. Chris should be lauded for making the cover what it looks like in the final presentation — I just put in ideas, suggestions here and there ;-). We almost forgot to put the dog tags on Jason—that was my biggest add to the cover, haha. We all think it’s a great cover! Fingers crossed…

I’ve always dreamed of traveling to New York City. Ever since I set my Historical Romances there—Edge of Freedom Series (Bethany House Publishers)—I’ve imagined what it must have been like to walk the streets a hundred years ago, to see the ships sail into the harbor and witness the eager faces of the people as they stepped into America from Ellis Island. Alas, life intervened, and the trip I’d thought to take was pushed to the back burner. The desire to travel to the places I wrote about stayed with me, however, which is why I was so excited when my husband offered me the chance of a lifetime…the chance to choose where I wanted to go on vacation. Anywhere. Just the two of us. A second honeymoon, of sorts. While I appreciated the offer, I really couldn’t believe that my hubby was going to let me choose our destination with entirely no input from him. “I get to pick?” I asked, a trifle skeptically. “Anywhere at all?” “Absolutely,” he said. “Anywhere you want to go.” With a broad spectrum of places to choose from spread out before me, I found I didn’t even hesitate. I knew where I wanted…

THE HOUSE BY THE LAKE is an incredibly special book to me. It was inspired by three things: a trip that I took to Berlin, a true story about an old palace in the former East Germany and another true story about a woman who abandoned her apartment in Paris in 1940 on the eve of the Nazi invasion, leaving an un-spoilt treasure trove which was only re-discovered when she died in 2010. All of these things left me asking questions- and with a real desire to not only find out more, but to get to some sort of truth and understanding about the past- and in order to do that, I wanted to delve beyond the facts. So- I wrote a novel. But first, what were the facts that I had? Let’s start with Paris. In 2010, an apartment was re-discovered in the ninth arrondissement that had been abandoned for seventy years after the owner- a ‘Madame de Florian’- fled on the eve of the Nazi invasion. There is nothing unusual about the fact that the woman never returned to Paris, but what was extraordinary, was the fact that Madame de Florian left her apartment exactly as it was…

Although every female booklover can’t wait to read about the hero, whether a handsome cowboy with a soft spot for orphans, a rakish marquis who needs an heir, or a sophisticated jewel thief who donates his loot to charity, it’s the heroines that stick with readers. Here are the 5 characteristics for heroines that readers will sometimes love/sometimes hate, but will always remember long after they give the book to their mother-in-law. Heroines must be flawed. No one liked the girl in high school with perfect hair/clothes/teeth/car/parents…fill in the blank. Unless she happened to be us, that girl was annoying. Make sure heroines have plenty of nice attributes, but there also must be things for her to work on. My heroine in WHAT HAPPENED ON BEALE STREET hates people in her “personal space.” Beth Kirby often balks or runs in the opposite direction if people get too close. Heroines recognize their flaws and strive to overcome them. Just like we don’t like perfection, we also don’t like women who keep making the same mistake over and over. Consider the famous anti-heroine Scarlett O’Hara in GONE WITH THE WIND. Although Margaret Mitchel gave us plenty of reasons to hate her, no…

How does a poet become a fantasy author? It’s an interesting question and one of the few our reviewer Katherine Petersen asked fantasy author Helen Lowe. Maybe it’s the New Zealand landscape? Or her childhood around the Pacific Rim cities? Why not join us as we find out. You started off as a poet, and it really reflects in your writing. How do you see your poetry background affects your storytelling? Helen: Your question is a really interesting one, because it’s made me realise that poetry does always come first for me. By which I mean that my very first scribblings as a child were poetry and every time I have a sabbatical from writing, it is always poetry that I start writing again first. Possibly this is simply because I find it so much easier to complete a poem within the initial creative burst, whereas most short fiction (with the probable exception of flash) and certainly novels, have to be sustained beyond that – well beyond in the case of novels! Poetry and prose are not separate worlds, though, but neighbouring countries, where border crossings are made by way of the rhythm and flow and richness of language, and…

Readers often ask me how I go about creating a fictional world that keeps them turning the pages. Agatha Christie said she never knew “who done it” until the person actually committed the crime. That’s me, I never plot. Neither does Stephen King. Finding the seed of a story and getting it to germinate comes about when I get out of my own way. I might take long walks while focusing on nature or the incredible architecture here in Budapest. Or I might go to one of the famous thermal baths, and just lie back in the warm, soothing waters, and stare at the intricately painted ceilings until my characters come alive. Then I let them tell me their story. My current release, PORTRAIT OF A FORBIDDEN LADY, is book two in the series Those Magnificent Malverns (it also works as a stand-alone). The hero in this story is Sir Robert Garreck, knighted by the queen for bravery during the Crimean War. Cousin to the wild Malvern family, he first appeared in book one, THE SEDUCTION OF SARAH MARKS, when the heroine in that story went walking in the English countryside, and accidentally trespassed onto Rob’s property. I could feel…

Although the Prince Regent spends a fair amount of time flouncing around Regency romances in his custom-made military uniforms and the Duke of Wellington is basically required to show up whenever the Battle of Waterloo is invoked, real historical figures in historical romances aren’t that common, especially not as secondary or even tertiary characters. Characters like that are tricky for writers to pull off, because they don’t want to represent the character inauthentically (or pull the reader out of the story with a glaring factual error). Some writers have done it well. K.J. Charles recently put a real-life group of rebel conspirators in A Seditious Affair, and it was an interesting way to raise the stakes for the characters. Donna Thorland has included a number of real historical figures in her series set during the American Revolution. One of my long-time critique buddies Tilda Booth wrote a steampunk novel about H.G. Wells and his actual wife called Stealing Utopia that is super fun. Or maybe real historical figures are not so rare. When I asked my Facebook friends for other examples, there were tons, everything from old-school romances (Bertrice Small, Kathleen Woodiwiss, Janelle Taylor, and even Georgette Heyer wrote historical…

I love to read. If you’re following this blog, so do you. As woman readers these days, we can pick any book we want from the library or bookstore, whether it’s a long novel, a romance, a popular thriller, or serious history, psychology – anything! But things weren’t always that easy. Back in the 19th and early 20th centuries, novels in particular were considered to be a waste of a woman’s time. She should be working, caring for children, cleaning her house, waiting on her husband, not sitting around enjoying herself! The protagonist of FLICKERS, Violet Winters, is the daughter of a very rich man, a California “robber baron”, back in the 1910s. She can have anything she wants – except an education. Her parents refuse to let her go to one of those newfangled girl’s preparatory schools or a women’s college, and certainly not to one of those big schools like Stanford or the University of California that have just become co-educational. Shocking! Can’t be done! Fortunately, when she marries Maury Rediston, Violet meets his friends back in New England, and several of the women take her under their long-distance wing. They send her letters about books and suggest…

Love at first sight . My hero the Earl of Worthington falls in love at first sight (or after a number of hours). I am convinced that people fall in love at first sight. In fact, a recent study showed that men fell in love at first sight with great frequency. I also know more than one couple who met, married (in short order), and are still together decades later. Her tentativeness gave way, and she held on to him tightly, returning his kisses with more vigor. As he stroked her back, he itched to untie the laces his fingers traveled over, and he paused for a moment. Too much too soon. This lady was the most remarkable woman he had ever known, and he needed to ensure he did not scare her away. She sighed, sinking boneless against him. Two of his good friends had recently married, and it was time he did so as well. He hadn’t believed his friend Marcus all those years ago when he’d claimed to have fallen in love with Phoebe at first sight. Matt did now. Children that actually get along . I quite frankly think that this happens more in books and…

So yesterday, March 28th, was my book’s birthday. And today, March 29th? Well, today is my birthday! Woohoo! Happy birthday to me! As of today, I can officially run for president of the United States. So feel free to write me in. (Not really.) And yet…I’m still waiting to feel like a grown-up. I have a husband, two kids, and a mortgage, but I still feel like a kid inside most days. It feels like I’m playing house. Seriously, even my taste buds never grew up. I have toddler taste buds, and that’s exactly what it sounds like. If a toddler won’t eat it, then chances are neither will I. Coffee? Yuck. Wine? Nope. Sushi? No way. A good old PB&J is still my go-to lunch. Perhaps all this contributes to my youthful appearance. I bought cough medicine at Walmart the other day, and the cashier asked if I was eighteen. And it was a serious question. I’m definitely not complaining there. I was a teacher for eleven years, and I got asked for a hall pass every single year. On the other hand, sometimes I feel so freaking old. Some days I wonder if it’s acceptable to put my…