You know how when you start something new, a job or a hobby, suddenly, everywhere you look, you’re reminded of it? The world hasn’t changed, but your perception of it has. Things your gaze would’ve skipped over in the past command your attention now. Like if you start scrapbooking for the first time in your life, and you begin to notice scrapbooking supplies in every store on the planet. (Seriously, what’s up with that?) That’s what’s happening to me right now. I’ve started a new series—the Fixer-Upper Mysteries—and now reminders are everywhere! Shannon Hammer owns Hammer Construction, specializing in renovating Victorian homes in her hometown, Lighthouse Cove, California. One assumes, despite their phallic shape, that lighthouses are incapable of reproducing themselves, and yet everywhere I look these days, I see lighthouses. In ornaments, paintings, real life… Shannon has a dog and a cat. The dog is a Westie, surely one of the cutest breeds on earth. Before I wrote A HIGH-END FINISH, maybe I caught one of those Little Caesar commercials every now and then, but now, it’s a full-on Westie takeover. Knitted into sweaters, woven into purses. And, of course, actual Westies smiling up at me from all sides….

Sure, we all say we root for the protagonists of books, movies, and TV shows, but let’s be honest: we want to see them put through their paces.  Ideally, horribly tough paces, and ideally, while we are eating chocolate in bed. It’s true that the ideas for my debut historical mystery, SNOW WHITE RED-HANDED, started out as a have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too mash-up.  I wanted it all: a heroine who could’ve had a bit part in Little Women AND a castle in the forest.  A cozy whodunit AND intrigue about Snow White and her woodland cottage. But when I sat down to actually write, I had way too much fun putting my heroine in problematic situations.  It’s not very nice of me.  Sigh.  Anyway, the uncharitable checklist for my heroine, Ophelia Flax, looked something like this: 5 Ways A Practical American Girl Could Get Into Trouble in the Black Forest 1. Give her regrettably large feet that no fairy tale princess would ever have, and blisters from the stolen boots she’s wearing. 2. Have her con her way into a maid’s job, and the employer get bumped off soon after.   Will not look good in future letters of reference. 3. Make her realize…

We are thrilled to share THREE CHRISTMASES is available as a pre-order on Amazon. As a pre-order promotion, digital copies purchased on all platforms will be $0.99 (from $3.99 full price) and signed. About THREE CHRISTMASES: As the holiday season approaches in this fourth book in the No Weddings Series, Cade Michaelson strives to be better at balancing work and love, and Hannah Martin’s growing ability to trust is put to the test. Lust and friendship brought us together, but with the increasing demands of my two businesses, Hannah’s thriving bakery, and our successful event-planning company, stability becomes my focus. Then a once-in-a-lifetime career opportunity takes me to the West Coast, and everything goes into a tailspin. Laughter, love, and excitement fill our lives, but Cade refuses to settle into the wonderful bliss we’ve found—he wants spectacular fireworks and an unshakable foundation. Driven like no one I’ve ever met, Cade insists a dream job across the country will be better for our future together, but I worry about whether we can survive the present apart. When intimate time diminishes…and lives get more hectic… Will a little bit of faith be all that it takes? Or will the sacrifice to get there…

As of today, Private Investigator Franki Amato is back on the case! This time she’s investigating the murder of a gorgeous young cosmetics CEO at a haunted plantation home outside of New Orleans (she’s also investigating her banker beau Bradley’s sexy new secretary, but that’s another story). I got the idea for PROSECCO PINK last summer while I was writing LIMONCELLO YELLOW, the first book in the Franki Amato Mysteries. I wanted to go to NOLA to do some research, and my husband and I had friends visiting from Rome, so we decided to split their trip between our home in Austin and The Big Easy. Because Italians are fascinated by the Old South, we took them to a sugar cane plantation: Oak Alley, a.k.a. “the Grande Dame of the Great River Road.” If you’ve never been to Oak Alley, it’s magnificent! Twenty-eight Doric columns surround the three-story Greek Revival house, and twenty-eight 300-year-old oak trees line the walkway to the grand entrance. The downside is that the plantation is located on the Mississippi River, so it’s as hot and humid as Hades. In fact, as I lounged on the veranda sipping my mint julep (two parts bourbon and one part…

It is fun to do guest posts and hard at the same time. What to write? To be honest, I couldn’t think of a a subject for this blog until I remembered one of my secret solutions in the problem solving department. But here’s the problem. It is really so short and direct, it is hard to fill a whole blog post with it. Just like the whole point of most diets is eat less and move more and yet people fill books saying just that in long complicated ways. What to eat, when to eat it, how to exercise, blah, blah, blah. The second half of the books are usually recipes. All those pages and tricky maneuvers and really all they’re saying can be said in a sentence. I could probably pad my solution with lots of steps, and examples. Make it seem complicated like all those diets that tell you to combine certain food, or eat before a particular time. I could tell you that you had to follow some kind of exact order of steps and insist you could only use my favorite kind of pen. But I’m not going to do that. The whole point of…

ONCE HAUNTED, TWICE SHY is the second book in the Peyton Clark series and picks up where the first book, GHOULS RUSH IN, left off. In this series, new divorcee, Peyton, relocates to New Orleans after inheriting an antebellum mansion in the Garden District. It isn’t long before she realizes her house is haunted and the ghost in question, Drake Montague, is a Casanova and then some! When Peyton is put into a difficult situation regarding the safety of Drake’s soul, she makes the decision to allow Drake to possess her. In so doing, he is able to see and hear everything she does and he also bears witness to all of Peyton’s innermost thoughts. While it was incredibly fun to write about Peyton and Drake’s bizarre relationship, I can’t imagine wanting to share my head with anyone, living or dead! I had to put myself into Peyton’s shoes while I was writing about her interactions with Drake. In doing so, I had to imagine what it would be like not to ever have any privacy (luckily, Peyton can tune Drake out when she wants to). So, while I would never want to share my head with anyone, I do…

It’s kinda nuts the way – one moment you’re a daughter (with a big tummy) and the next you’re the mother. Naturally you’re still a daughter but that takes a very big step back in your mind as you look at the tiny bundle of perfection they’ve gently placed in your arms. Now – all of a sudden, you’re not pregnant – you’re the mama! Congratulations and welcome to mayhem. Algorithm definition: Set of rules to be followed or other problem solving operation. Algorithm No. 1. Little People = Little problems. The early years aren’t so bad. Keep them (& yourself) warm, fed & well slept. Throw in lots of cuddles and the occasional tea-party and you have a happy daughter. Little girls are proud to tell the world that when they grow up they’re gonna be just like their momma and marry daddy. (Oh, those were the days.) Algorithm No. 2. Big people = Big problems. Sadly, if we’ve done our jobs right – as they grow, they’ll start to think independently. By mid-teens you might get a slightly disapproving glance from your baby girl when you reach for that second slice or cheesecake. She might stop laughing at…

It was a delight and honor to be part of this very special Christmas book for several reasons. Harlequin chose women authors who were in the military to write these three military romance novellas you will read in this book. They include Lindsay McKenna (US Navy), Delores Fossen (US Air Force) and Geri Krotow (US Navy). I was in the US Navy as an AG3 (weather forecaster) and had created the military genre in 1983 with CAPTIVE OF FATE, Silhouette Special Edition. My other two sister writers, Delores Fossen, US Air Force, and Geri Krotow, US Navy, are also military vets, so the readers are getting the real deal. The novellas will have a uniqueness that no one else can produce because we were in the military and understand how it works from the inside out. We’re able to lend an insider’s knowledge to the novellas as a result. Secondly, with the drawdown and our heroic military men and women finally coming home from Afghanistan, it makes our stories all the more heart-rending and poignant. Delores, Geri and myself know what it’s like to be stationed somewhere else in the world when the holidays hit. And it’s a very lonely…

We’ve all had this happen at one time or another—an urging or longing for a certain something or other that sneaks up on us and lingers until it settles in our bones. Before long, another person mentions the very thing we’ve been deliberating. Soon, we begin seeing or hearing about that certain something everywhere until a groundswell of popularity emerges. That’s what seems to be happening with American-set historical romances. Remember those lush, sweeping, sagas full of romance, drama, sexual tension, excitement, family struggles, and plenty of twists and turns that spans time and geographic locations? Stories that kept us turning pages well into the night? Having grown somewhat weary of reading restrictive English-set ballroom scenes filled with rigid rules, where one dance too many often meant scandal or even a marriage proposal, I purposely set my first novel in the English countryside, far away from London. Immediately, I found I had greater latitude to create a viscount with a large and quirky but close-knit family whose members thought nothing of doing exactly as each pleased—rules be damned. To stir up the mix, I gave them a heroine who’d also been raised in the countryside, but with no memory to…

I had given up on love. I decided it would be easier to write about romance than endure the ups and downs of any more real-life love affairs. So after years of dead-end pick-ups, fix-ups and online dating, I’d reached a point in my life where I was content to be alone. I’d arrived at this decision while in the middle of writing LOVE THY NEIGHBOR for the new Lovestruck Imprint for Entangled. For those of you who might not be familiar with the Lovestruck line of books, the one thing they all have in common is the meet-cute. The meet-cute is the cornerstone of every romantic comedy ever made. It’s where the man and woman meet in a memorable and for lack of a better word, “cute” way. And while I was working away on my novel, determined not to become embroiled in any more ill-fated romances, I experienced my own meet-cute. Picture the scene: it’s the holiday season. Chicago is in the grips of another polar vortex. It’s my best friend, Sydney’s last night in town because her visa is about to expire and she’s forced to leave the States. We’re having a farewell drink at a neighborhood…