Drama isn’t just the stuff of my fiction, it’s the story of my life. Case in point: two days ago, I’d just posted on Instagram when I realized to my horror I’d accidentally (don’t ask!) tacked a list of my passwords onto the post. I instantly deleted it, of course. I wasn’t aware it had gone out on Twitter and Facebook until I got a phone call from my sister-in-law, Doretta, in California. It’s not enough I have to worry about hackers in the Ukraine—oh no, way too tame for yours truly— I had to post my passwords on the Internet. Hours later, when I finally staggered off to bed after changing all my passwords, it was only to toss and turn with nightmares of Ukrainian hackers. My decision to go indie after decades of being traditionally published began in similar grand fashion. It dates back to an incident that occurred before there even was an Internet to speak of.  When my second novel, SUCH DEVOTED SISTERS, came out in the 1980’s, it happened to coincide with the fatwa on Salman Rushdie, with whom I shared the same publisher at the time. Everyone involved with the Rushdie novel had received…

Whenever I tackle a story set in another time or place I really like to see if I can find some actual event that happened there and weave it into my novel. It has long been my belief that the best way to teach or learn from history is to take it out of the larger context and focus it in on one event or one group of people. The step after that is to place myself in their situation—in their minds if possible—and figure out how I might have survived. Such is the case with my latest novel SAFE HAVEN—the third and final installment of my Peacemakers series. In researching the first two books of the series I stumbled across the incredible story of a boatload of European refugees brought to America in 1944 (before the end of WWII) as “guests” of President Roosevelt. These nearly one thousand men, women and children had lost everything in the war—their homes, their businesses, their belongings and in many cases their dignity and their faith. So hooray for FDR for rescuing them, right? Well, sort of. The refugees were brought to the USA by boat and taken immediately to a fort in…

St. Clair was attempting a confession or a condemnation of himself; Milly wasn’t sure which, but she did know she wanted to take him in her arms when he spoke like this. “Every time you describe your role, my lord, you paint yourself as more and more of an animal, and less and less a man.” And he let her see more and more of the cost to him for having played that role. He opened his eyes. “I am an animal, a traitorous animal, but I’d rather be honestly viewed as that than as any woman’s toy, ever.” He touched Milly’s chin, so she had to look him in the eye. “I tortured those officers, Milly. I studied them, toyed with their trust, and determined how best to wrest from them their dignity, their health, their sanity. Among the English I gained the sobriquet, “The Inquisitor,” and I was very, very good at what I did.” His hand remained under her chin, as if he’d will Milly to repeat his ugly words. His gaze pleaded with her to agree with their import, to accept the truth of his self-characterization. “And nobody was torturing French officers, were they?” Milly spat….

“You captivate me. I admire your thirst for adventure…your joy for freedom, your vivacity. I want you because you rouse me as no other woman has done in years, if ever. And I want to burn in the passion I see beneath your cool gaze, a passion I suspect will satiate my every need. I want to see you bound to my bed with silken ropes as I spank you, fulfilling your every dark fantasy. Then I want to ride you hard and deep, until neither of us can move for spending.” These are the words that my hero Lord Anthony Thornton whispered to Miss Phillipa Peppiwell in a moonlit enclosed garden at the Countess of Blade’s midnight ball in my latest release THE IRRESISTIBLE MISS PEPPIWELL. Anthony is a charming, sweet, and an honorable rogue who has some edgier sexual needs, one that he felt free to pursue with the tantalizing Miss Peppiwell because he felt he had finally met his match in a woman as passionate, sensual, and scandalous as himself. Anthony is an eclectic reader and he possesses a collection of naughty erotic books in his library which he reads and shares with his lovely Miss Peppiwell…

When I began writing hockey romances, I discovered that NHL players love to play pranks on each other. For instance, here’s a video showing Patrick Sharp and Adam Burish ordering an unwanted breakfast for two of their fellow Blackhawks. Some might find these type of hijinks immature, but I find them amusingly endearing. Like Sharp and Burish, my hockey players are intense competitors who train and play hard, but I like to balance that by showing their playful side, like in this scene from my book ACROSS THE LINE, book two from the In the Zone series. Calder Griffin has enlisted the help of his teammates to play a trick on one of the rookies… “Okay, guys. Listen up,” Mac said, turning to face everyone like a flight attendant. “It’s time to give Fishy the tie.” Calder and Mac hadn’t been able to give a heads-up to everyone about the prank, but the guys all knew Mac. When he said or did something crazy like this, he was up to something, and unless you wanted to be on the butt end of his next joke, you went along with it. Plus, it was always funnier to see the thing played…

Readers everywhere fell under the spell of NATURAL BORN CHARMER last week, including our special author guest Tessa Dare who shared with us her fondness for the SEP title (and an inside look at her pajama party with SEP and Eloisa James!). Now we’re starting week three of the read-along with AIN’T SHE SWEET? and we’re so excited to get started! Later this week, Sarah MacLean will be joining us for a special guest post, so get ahead and start re-reading AIN’T SHE SWEET? today! And don’t forget to take this super fun SEP quiz to find out who your SEP hero would be! About AIN’T SHE SWEET? Ain’t she sweet? Not exactly. The girl everybody loves to hate has returned to the town she’d sworn to leave behind forever. As the rich, spoiled princess of Parrish, Mississippi, Sugar Beth Carey had broken hearts, ruined friendships, and destroyed reputations. But fifteen years have passed, and life has taught Sugar Beth its toughest lessons. Now she’s come home — broke, desperate, and too proud to show it. The people of Parrish don’t believe in forgive and forget. When the Seawillows, Sugar Beth’s former girlfriends, get the chance to turn the tables on…

Everyone knows how important first impressions are, aye? Grant MacQuarrie, the hero of my recent release HERO OF A HIGHLAND WOLF, wants badly to make a strong first impression on my heroine—he wants to scare her off! Colleen Playfair wishes to claim her inheritance, a Scottish castle in the highlands. But she is an American, what could she possibly know about managing such a large estate. Grant knows. His people have been taking care of the land for generations. As far as he’s concerned, the sooner Colleen leaves, the better. And here you thought he would try to make an impression to woo the lass! Nay, just the opposite. And so, Grant has it all worked out with his Highland wolf pack. They will get all greased up, bare-chested, swing hefty swords, and wear kilts—voila! The lass will take one look at all the ferocious fighting and she won’t last long. Problem solved. Everything can go on as it has for centuries. So this is the plan: Grant’s triplet brothers, Enrick and Lachlan, joined him as they watched the men gathering in the inner bailey. Everyone was dressed in kilts and no shirts. Grant had figured they would look even…

A question that writers get asked a lot is about where we get our inspiration. When making up dozens of in-depth stories doesn’t come naturally to someone, it’s hard for them to fathom how we can possibly come up with so many characters and plots and details. This is no different from my inability to fathom how song writers can create dozens of new melodies and lyrics and hear it all in their head before they ever get it down on paper. The obvious answer is that we’re really good at playing make-believe and weaving it seamlessly with details from our life experiences and people we’ve met. As kids, we were the ones instructing our friends on what we expected from them in our imaginary worlds. We offered backstories and character motivations as though directing a Metro Goldwyn Meyer film and not simply running around in our backyard. Future writer: …and then the bad guy comes in and tries to capture you, but I fly in on my gigantic eagle who picks you up with his feet and we escape. Future accountant: But the eagle’s claws would poke me and kill me! FW: No they wouldn’t, because my eagle was…

It’s wonderful to be back on Fresh Fiction!! Last time I visited, I talked about my muse. Well, she was out while I was writing ENTICING MISS EUGENIE VILLARET, book 5 in The Marriage Game. Although I live in St. Thomas, where the book is set, finding any information between the end of the Napoleonic war and the mid-19th century is difficult to say the least. The pirates had, for the most part ceased to be active and life had become a lot calmer. During the war, England had twice taken possession of the Danish West Indies, but gave it back in 1815. In 1816 St. Thomas had one of the few protected deep water harbors in the Caribbean. It was made a free-port and had attracted a number of different nationalities. It wasn’t until the middle of the century, when the island was hit with a triple whammy, hurricane, disease, and the advent of steamer ships, that it lost its position of power. Believe it or not, most people living here had no idea of that it had been a popular port. As I was pouring over really old books with a friend, a refrain kept repeating it’s self…

Or for me more personally the question is: Why does the story line in WELL READ, THEN DEAD fit so well on Estero Island in Fort Myers Beach? Plot, character and setting are often referred to as the three-legged stool of story. I’ve heard writers fight over, er, discuss the preeminence of character over plot vs. plot over character, but no one seems to want to arm wrestle about the importance of setting. There are folks who think setting is nothing more than background. Not me. Setting may not be the heart and soul of a story but it is the floor, the roof and the walls that hold the characters and the plot enclosed and in touch. And often the setting contributes to the plot. For example, the classic “stranded on an island” story Robinson Crusoe written by Daniel Defoe nearly three hundred years ago has been imitated dozens of time in print and on film but the story line is always about isolation and survival so it really couldn’t take place in say, Manhattan during rush hour. When I decided I wanted to write a cozy mystery set in a bookstore/café, known as the Read ’Em and Eat,…