So here, in no order except for how they occurred to me, are the top 10 things I learned while writing THIS YEAR’S BLACK. 7. Pineapples grow in the ground while coconuts grown on trees. Yes, I’m from Nebraska and my stepfather is a farmer, but there weren’t any pineapples growing out in our corn fields. 🙂 6. I am not made to be a fighter. Yes, I know you’re shocked. Doing my MMA research not just on fighting techniques but on the way fighters who are starting out train was a real eye opener and confirmed I am a wimp. 5. Embezzlers are like car salesman. That was one of my favorite bits. Talking to a white collar crime investigator he explained that a bank robber was a thief who took everything at once. An embezzler is like a car salesman who wants to sell you a new car every year – or in their case steal a little bit off the top every year. It was such a great line I had to use it in This Year’s Black. 4. I want my own private plane. We’ll add this to the someday list. *eye roll from the Fab…

In TAMING THE COUNTRY STAR, Kylie Andrews is faced with coming to terms with country star Cole Grayson’s fame—particularly difficult because she grew up in the reflected glare of the spotlight on her famous rodeo father. But in the end, as Kylie realizes, there are a number of good reasons to tame a country star and make him your own!  Here are just a few of those reasons: 1. Love songs. If you think listening to a love song on the radio is nice, just imagine knowing that it was written just for you! 2. Fancy hotels. Although he may spend a lot of his time on tour (and thus hanging out in a tour bus), he can also arrange to stay in some of the nicest hotels in the world—and if he’s yours, you can, too! Cole’s favorite hotel in Fort Worth (Kylie’s hometown) is The Worthington, a downtown landmark. 3. Funny disguises. If the country star you’re setting out to tame is anything like Cole, he’ll sometimes want to go out in public—and in order to do that, he might have to wear a disguise! If you have a great sense of humor, this can be hugely entertaining….

The main character in my debut novel, COUNTING TO D, is dyslexic. I am also dyslexic, and I based Sam’s character largely on my own experience growing up with a severe learning disability. Dyslexia isn’t a cold; it’s not something that goes away. Even though I’m now a published author, I’m still a very slow reader and a horrible speller. Fortunately, I know what is and isn’t required to build a writing career. Knowing how to read fast and properly spell two-letter words is totally not necessary. I still misspell of all the time. Seriously, can somebody tell me when the letter f started making a va sound? Being an author does require an active imagination, and thankfully, that is something I have. Now that I’m a published author, I’ve somehow made it onto the “successful dyslexics” list, and people keep asking me what advice I would give to young, not-yet-successful dyslexics. My answer is that you have two simple choices: you can either strive for average your entire life and fail miserably, or you can accept that you were born exceptional. Every artistic masterpiece, every scientific discovery, every business innovation— every single thing that makes life on Earth worth…

One week before THE MIDWIFE‘s book launch, I received an email from a woman who had been given up for adoption by a Mennonite with a last name that is found in my own family tree. The woman wanted to establish a connection with her biological mother, but her mother was unwilling to meet her. It even seemed that her mother’s family was trying to prevent the meeting taking place. At my book launch, I met this woman who had emailed, but the crowd prevented us from speaking until after the event. Pulling me aside, the woman softly told me more about her story. She told me her friend had tracked down a high school picture of her biological mother—to see if she had red hair like she had growing up—but the picture was in black and white. She told me that she’d found the medical records regarding her birth, and that each page instructed the doctor and nurses not to allow the Mennonite woman to see her own child. The biological mother still lived in the same town where she had given birth; she even had the same last name. Nothing had apparently changed in all those years—and yet…

As a fantasy author who enjoys writing about attacks, draining, and bloody fight scenes, I must confess — I hate violence and fear the paranormal. No, no, no; let’s rephrase that: I am a believer in the supernatural and the paranormal, I just try to avoid it. Just don’t be nominating me to go watch a scary, suspenseful movie with anyone because I can’t do it. I’m a scardey cat. Most readers don’t realise that as wild and vivid as my mind may be, I don’t have the courage to watch scary movies or become involved with an activity that may be too risky or haunting. I am scared of the dark, jump when someone says boo, and I become faint and ghost-white at the smell of blood. I have always been a visual person and my books contain a lot of fight scenes and feature a lot of supernatural abilities. Have I ever been in a fight? No. Well… I may have beat up the little sister now and then when we were younger. Do I enjoy writing about them? Yes, I do. Every fight is different. When abilities and the paranormal abound it makes the possibilities endless. I…

Romance readers are often accused of giving in to escapism.  You’ve heard those critics, the ones you want to roll your eyes at.  They don’t get it.  They seem to think that escapism is a bad thing!  In fact, reading a Romance set in a place or even a time far, far away from your own is the next best thing to taking a long trip and immersing yourself in a different culture. I first started reading Romance in high school, when I was definitely trapped in one spot.  My daily fantasies of running away from the mean girls and indifferent boys, hopping a ship, and going to England, where I would hide in the countryside until a handsome aristocrat noticed me met their imaginative match in romantic stories of Regency pirates.  The freedom that I found in reading about pirates (the ultimate gateway drug to the world of alpha heroes and feisty heroines) carried me through a difficult time in my life.  It also peeked my curiosity about the times and places I was reading about. Traveling the world is a prospect that most of us can only dream about, but just because we might not ever be able…

As a California native, I grew up on the beach. But not the typical beaches you might picture when you think of California. No palm trees, no oiled-up weight lifters, no boardwalk and no laying out for a tan. You see, I grew up in Eureka, happily situated between San Francisco and the Oregon border. The average summer temperature is around 65. The average winter temperature is around 55. We like to call that the temperate zone. As a current resident of Texas, I can’t tell you how much I miss that weather! The beaches I grew up on had one consistent attribute: gray. Gray skies, gray water, gray sand. But it was glorious. My early experiences with going to the beach were in sweatshirts, rolled up jeans and bare feet, soaked to the knees with seaweed between my toes and an ensuing earache. But surfing and swimming…never! There are sharks in those waters, dude. And jellyfish and weirdo slimy, gray sea life that bump against your legs and try to pull you down.  Plus, Jaws was, and still is, one of my favorite movies. Needless to say, I have rather polarizing beachy issues. This might be why—to this day—I…

With a summer movie line-up that looks like the shelves of the young adult section in my favorite bookstore, I guess I’m not the only one who thinks YA novels make excellent cinema. By June 11, 2014, the film adaptation of DIVERGENT had earned nearly 268 million worldwide. In one week, THE FAULT IN OUR STARS raked in 79 million. THE GIVER, a film adaptation of Lois Lowry’s Newberry Medal-winning young adult novel, comes out in August 15, 2014 and a film adaptation of THE MAZE RUNNER by James Dashner is coming September 19, 2014. Hollywood has taken an interest in the young adult market, and they’re looking to what teens are reading to find amazing stories that translate into movie magic. This is by no means a new trend, but it continues to be an advantage for book fans and movie fans alike. Fantastic novels reach a far wider audience once they’ve been adapted, and teens who might not normally read over summer break might be tempted to give the novels a try. YA novels that are adapted into movies are chosen in large part because of you, the fans. You talk about the books you’re reading. You recommend…

Ernest Hemingway exuded a brand of masculinity and a philosophy of life that has been a fascination to both men and women. Men admired his adventures in World War I, the Spanish Civil War and World War II along with his legendary hunting and fishing expeditions. Women were charmed by his masculine self-confidence and good-natured story-telling. Marlene Dietrich called him “the most fascinating man I know” and said he “found time to do the things most men only dream about.”  She was right. He courted life-threatening adventures, glamorous friends while writing articles, novels and short stories that captivated the world. As a former English teacher at Hemingway’s alma mater, Oak Park and River Forest High School, I first explored Hemingway’s high school years as a means of my engaging students in his novels.  My students were quick to view Hemingway as a legendary author who led an action-filled life, but many felt that their own lives paled in comparison to his and that being in school was often “just boring.” My students’ attitudes inspired me to do some research on Hemingway’s life as a high school student.  I studied his yearbooks, his high school writing and even met some of…

As a historian, my historical romance novels have a firm grounding in reality. The settings, the events, the feel can be traced through research and research and research of the period, of the people, of events. In THE WICKED BARGAIN, Ethan’s story of being taken by the Barbary Pirates and sold into slavery in the Middle East is based on fact. The Barbary Pirates exist even to this day. These are not the pirates like we love in Pirates of the Caribbean, nor even Black Sails or the latest Crossbones. Pirating for hundreds of years, they strike fear into any ship they come close to. They raid, seize control of the ship, take prisoners and loot only to sell the people into slavery. History also shows they have arrived and landed on Greece, Italy, Sicily, Spain and up to the British Isles. They leech off the close seaside inhabitants, kidnapping them at night to make a profit off them to buyers in the Arabia and elsewhere. The Western European powers and the United States found the way to be left alone is to pay the pirates a bribe to do so, or, in Great Britain’s power, a well-armed navy escort…