It helps if they’re hot, let’s just be honest. Even the flawed heroes—the ones with physical or emotional scars—they need to be hot. If a guy doesn’t get your motor running, you’re less willing to take the journey of reading about his mating. These days, the romance genre has broadened bunches. Readers can enjoy heroes from long past, from far into the future and from today. In paranormal romances, heroes often have special powers (although some would say that romance heroes have always known their heroines’ hearts more than any real guy). We love heroes who love their heroine. No matter if the woman is less than gorgeous—or just feels less than gorgeous—the hero needs to see her inner beauty. Let’s be honest, we all feel squishy with a guy who sees a woman’s inner beauty. Heroes are more real to us, and more loveable, if they aren’t terribly hung up on supermodels. Even supermodels get pimples and worry about their thighs being too big. We want a hero who is above all that. I sometimes watch the romances on The Hallmark Channel and I’ve noticed again and again that the heroes and heroines—while not ugly—often look like regular people….

Dear friends and readers — I wanted to share some important news with you in hopes that it will make a difference in your life or the lives of those you love. I have breast cancer. I went in for my routine mammogram in early April and was called back for a diagnostic mammogram, ultrasound, and biopsy. They knew just from the imaging that it was cancer. The biopsy confirmed their diagnosis, revealing that I have invasive ductal carcinoma. Fortunately for me, we appear to have caught this relatively early. The tumor is relatively small — 2 cm — and the ultrasound showed clear lymph nodes. The tumor is made up of the most treatable form of breast cancer, which helps, too. My blood work came back normal, as well. Still, we won’t know whether the cancer has spread until after my surgery on June 5. I have opted for a bilateral mastectomy — the removal of both breasts — because I want to do all I can to minimize my chances for a recurrence of this disease. I’m sharing this story for one important reason: Getting a mammogram saved my life. I don’t know any woman who enjoys getting a…

1. Double—and triple—check your overnight accommodations. I learned this the hard way. When the heat is low, crashing at some dive off the interstate is okay. But when the bad guys are hot on your ass, you need something a little more low key. I crashed in an abandoned pet store one night last May, too tired to check the place out properly. Apparently there was a huge chunk of wall missing. I woke up to an unhappy forest dweller in my face—more specifically, a skunk. Let me tell you, keeping it lo-pro while smelling like skunk isn’t easy to do… 2. Always be prepared to bail. This should go without saying, as any situation could turn critical in the blink of an eye. But what about simple things like sleep—or taking a shower? My best advice to those on the lam would be to make sure your wardrobe consists of simple, easy clothing. Don’t even think about those cute wrap around tops or that killer pair of lace up boots… Fashion is going to have to take a back seat to practicality here. And for the love of God, don’t sleep naked. The last thing you want is to…

I should probably sub-title this post ‘My Favorite Heroine(s)’, but then I might leave one off the list and she might leave the pages of her books to haunt me through the night… There have been several heroines I’ve identified with over my lifetime, but two that are very special to me — that I sometimes still feel are part of me. This first is Laura Ingalls Wilder. When I was little I loved those books. I didn’t have sisters, I wasn’t the middle child, but I did grow up on a farm in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of animals and lots of places to explore. Our local PBS station was re-running all of the Little House episodes the summer I turned 9 and I was in heaven. For an hour every day I got to watch Laura get into all kinds of trouble — and I quickly realized she had some good ideas. Nothing to do on a hot day? Why not wander down to the creek (we had 3 of them) and fish? Too rainy to go outside? Why not explore a haunted house (or my basement) to see what I could find? Not too…

I must admit, I sure would. I absolutely hate taking my car in for repair—I freely admit I’m not the most knowledgeable about what goes on underneath the engine, but even if I was an expert on a car’s inner workings, I know I’d be made to feel lacking when facing what has got to be one of the last male bastions out there—at least in my town. The garage. In fact, it was my experience of taking my car in for a service at my local garage that gave me the idea of UNDER THE HOOD –a garage owned by three women mechanics. I hung around, waiting to hand over the keys, just inside a workshop papered with calendars of half-naked women, while a group of guys drank coffee and talked, perfectly well aware of me but taking their time. Because I was female. When they finally came to consult, before I’d opened my mouth, they just didn’t take me seriously. I imagined how different it could be. How great it could be to ask questions of the mechanics, without feeling like a complete idiot. A few months later, I had the idea to create a garage in my…

Do you have moments that remain in your memory, and you’re not sure why? I’m not talking about the birth of your child, or wedding day, I’m talking about a seemingly insignificant conversation, or a person you met once and then never saw again. Or a random moment that you witnessed, and though you didn’t know the participants it stayed with you, even haunted you. Do you have moments that remain in your memory, and you’re not sure why? I’m not talking about the birth of your child, or wedding day. I’m talking about a seemingly insignificant conversation, or a person you met once and then never saw again. Or a random moment that you witnessed, and though you didn’t know the participants, it stayed with you, even haunted you. Those are the things that this writer draws on. The most common question writers get asked is, “Where do you get your ideas?” The standard answer is from everywhere, and that is so true. I’m inspired by things I read, see, and wonder. Newspaper articles. Random comments by friends. Song titles. Everything. But sometimes… sometimes… I dig back into my memory file, the one that sits on the hard drive…

Who here knows a man like this? There were men Ryder had slept with and never thought much about again. Then, there was a handful whose memory always put her in a good mood, like a cool beer on a warm night. Standing before her was the one man who’d bypassed the pleasant-buzz setting and had zoomed straight into the hardcore, make-your-panties-wet, two-shots-of-Tequila-too-many danger zone. Oh my God, we should all know a guy like that. Seriously. Luckily—or unluckily depending on your viewpoint—Allegra “Ryder” Flacon knows just that guy and she’s done everything she can to ditch him. But where’s the fun in that? For a romance reader (and writer) there’s no fun at all. So of course, the one guy to get past her mile-high defenses is the one man she can’t avoid. And as for Devin Harris? Well, there’s nothing more he loves than a challenge and Ryder Falcon is “a walking stop sign.” I love writing the alpha vs alpha love stories. The kind where the hero falls in love despite the heroines curves, edges and perfect imperfections (to steal a killer line from John Legend). And the heroine falls for him right back. It’s the pledge…

My husband—in the middle of editing my manuscript—looked up at me. “You realize you’re living your dream?” he said. “You’re an author. A published author. ” I paused while wiping down the countertop, the damp rag in my hand. “I am, aren’t I?” “I bet it’s easy to forget that when you’re living your dream every day.” He was right. The hustle and bustle of deadline, preparing to launch my sophomore novel, THE MIDWIFE, being six months pregnant all while staying home with a toddler sometimes makes me feel like whirligig in a straight-line wind, no stopping point in sight. I am not as anxious about my June 1 book launch as I was with my debut, THE OUTCAST; I can actually enjoy these days leading up to it, instead of tossing and turning at night. Yet the anxiety, with THE OUTCAST, fueled both me and my mild case of insomnia. I wrote blog posts, arranged radio, television, and newspaper interviews, and finalized the details for book signings like I was hyped up on caffeine. I’ve done all of these things in preparation for THE MIDWIFE: a story about overcoming loss and learning to love again. But I am also…

Don’t you love summer? The sun, the sand, and oh…the beach reads! Okay, so some of us—me included—do not currently live near a beach. Still…the idea of long stretches of time curled up beneath a beach umbrella (or some other spot of blissful solitude) with nothing to do but read is so very wonderful, isn’t it? Even if none of the above scenarios are plausible in your world, finding a summer beach read is! While my criteria for a summer beach read does not require that the book actually be set in a beach town, I do love reading about these places. As I mentioned, I am currently landlocked due to love, a story for another day (or another book!), but during my childhood and most of my adult years I lived in close proximity to the Texas Gulf Coast. Stories of life in coastal towns are not only part of my past, but they are also part of the novels that fill my bookshelf. Because I loved to read about these locations, I decided to create a series of stories set at the beach—Vine Beach, to be precise—so I could also write about them. Working on all three of…

Tarot cards in a sci-fi novel? It seems kind of a weird mix at first glance, and probably second glance, too. Even in today’s society, tarot cards are met with a wide variety of responses. Some people swear by them… and just as many people swear that they’re nonsense. Then there is the group I fall into – the one who can’t really say one way or another. If you’ve ever had your cards read by someone who does it often, you know what I mean. It’s downright eerie. So how did the cards work their way into a universe so different from our own? It started, as most of my books do, with a “What if?” question. I read Ann Aguirre’s GRIMSPACE (which I highly, HIGHLY recommend if you haven’t picked it up yet). In her future, life after death has been proven not to exist. It’s done really well. But I started wondering what would happen if exactly the opposite were true. What if religion was king? It’s not a revolutionary thought, but the one thing that hit me and stuck was the idea that if there were gods, what if the various ways of fortune telling were…