My day to day life is very dull. I do paperwork at my day job for a chiropractor. I edit marketing materials in my freelance job. Coincidentally, both jobs require a lot of sitting and typing. My kids are older now, the oldest away in college and the youngest in high school and very self-sufficient and independent. So I might drive her around some, and do household chores or run errands. When I get down time, I’m watching the TV shows that have piled up on the DVR or, if we’re getting really wild, going to a movie with my husband. No one would ever want to read about what I do in my real life. Which might be why I write stories about people who are doing anything but real-life-type activities. Take my Goddesses Rising trilogy. When it starts out, Quinn has a “regular” kind of day-to-day life, if you consider owning a bar and using her abilities as a goddess in a side business “regular.” But right off the bat, she’s racing off to try to stop a leech who’s draining goddesses of their powers. None of them ever get back to normal after that. All three books…

That Dixie Chicks song is on my iPod, and whenever I go for a walk or a drive there’s a decent chance I’ll find myself singing along about Wanda and Mary Ann and the abusive man who deserves to bite the dust.  I sing with relish, letting go of my better nature and diving headlong into a world of vigilante justice where people get what they have coming to them:  their just deserts. In cozy mysteries, the victims of our murders are often the Earls of the world.  They have done Very Bad Things so we don’t feel too awful about their deaths.  Moreover, they’ve wronged enough people to give us an array of potential suspects.  I’ve found, though, that this is a convention I have to bend. Some of my victims start off looking like Earls, but most of them turn out to be likeable folks.  Flawed, but likeable. Take Sherry Harper, the victim in PAWS FOR MURDER, the first in the Pet Boutique Mystery series.  She’s been handed a generous trust fund without ever working a day in her life, she’s completely irresponsible, she’s dedicated to agitating and protesting no matter whom it hurts, and she’s an unreliable…

My day to day life is very dull. I do paperwork at my day job for a chiropractor. I edit marketing materials in my freelance job. Coincidentally, both jobs require a lot of sitting and typing. My kids are older now, the oldest away in college and the youngest in high school and very self-sufficient and independent. So I might drive her around some, and do household chores or run errands. When I get down time, I’m watching the TV shows that have piled up on the DVR or, if we’re getting really wild, going to a movie with my husband. No one would ever want to read about what I do in my real life. Which might be why I write stories about people who are doing anything but real-life-type activities. Take my Goddesses Rising trilogy. When it starts out, Quinn has a “regular” kind of day-to-day life, if you consider owning a bar and using her abilities as a goddess in a side business “regular.” But right off the bat, she’s racing off to try to stop a leech who’s draining goddesses of their powers. None of them ever get back to normal after that. All three books…

Releasing today! THE SCANDAL IN KISSING AN HEIR When Lady Rebecca, daughter of the Earl of Airmont, faked maddness to avoid an undesirable marriage, she never thought she’d wind up secluded from society instead. Now with the Kingsborough Ball on the horizon, she’s determined to sneak out and meet the man of her dreams. There’s just one catch: not getting caught. After losing the last of his monthly allowance in a game of cards Daniel Neville, rogue, reprobate and heir to the Marquisate of Wolvington, receives an ultimatum from his uncle: marry or get cut off without a penny. Faced with limited prospects due to his reputation, Neville can’t help but notice the beautiful young woman at the ball. He’s never seen her before and, better yet, she’s never met him either. This could just be a match made in heaven. When Rebecca is unexpectedly shot at the ball and her cover is blown, the two are bound by the last thing either expected to find: a passion so binding that they will risk everything for the chance to be together. About the Author: Born in Denmark, Sophie has spent her youth traveling with her parents to wonderful places all…

As my protagonist, Maggy Thorsen, recently put it: “If things had gone as I’d planned that weekend, the book would be called Fifty Shades of Sunburn, not MURDER ON THE ORIENT ESPRESSO.” But let me explain: This being the eighth installment of my Wisconsin-based Maggy Thorsen mysteries, I decided my coffeehouse owner should take a well-earned break from the cold and accompany her main squeeze, Sheriff Jake Pavlik, to South Florida for a mystery writers’ conference, where Pavlik is to speak. This wasn’t as much of a stretch for me as it was for Maggy. I now live in Fort Lauderdale and am treasurer of the Florida Chapter of Mystery Writers of America, which puts on the premier mystery writers’ conference in the world, Sleuthfest. For the record, Sleuthfest does NOT pile various warring factions of writers, reviewers and fans onto a night train into the Everglades to re-enact Agatha Christie’s MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS. And if we did, we’d make damn sure the weather was good, the tracks were solid and . . . well, I can’t promise you an absence of critters. They are a bit of a nuisance down here. Anyway, I’d been dying to give…

According to Wikipedia, the Romans made promises each January to the god Janus for whom the month was named. The Babylonians, likewise, promised their gods at the start of the year to return borrowed items and repay debts. The impulse is deeply human, and so is the tendency to let those good resolutions fall by the wayside as daily life intrudes. Yup… no matter how you sugarcoat it, that means most of us will make promises to ourselves that we fail to keep. Depressing. That’s no way to start a brand, sparkling new year! So this year I’m going to make some resolutions right now that I know I will be able to keep. Join me in my attempt to stamp out self-loathing resulting from year end madness! In 2014 I resolve: 1 – To watch what I eat. If I watch it closely enough, nobody can steal the best goodies! 2 – To not buy anything frivolous. After all, the tablet I bought was absolutely necessary for promotional purposes, as proved by the one time I actually used it to update my Facebook page. Perfume? Everyone deserves to smell nice, right? And no one knows the perfume I like…

Check out our feature on Kirkus Reviews: Merry Christmas everyone! I’m confused: Why do people insist on putting the Twelve Days BEFORE Christmas instead of starting on the 25th of December? The twelve days start with the manger and end with presents from the wise men. I want to ask, don’t they read historical romances? Surely, we’d all know the right days if more people read historical romances. Now to be honest, I had to look up Twelfth Night the first or second time I saw it in a novel, and yes, dear reader, that was before Wikipedia, so I used this thing called a dictionary. I know, I know, I age myself all the time, but I love my dictionary. It’s filled with all these interesting facts and a mini history of how words evolved and how they were used over time. But back to the subject: The Twelve Days of Christmas. In Europe and the countries to our south, Christmas Eve just kicks it all off. There should be celebrations and parties and good food, and they should start with Christmas. Not end on the 26th with after-Christmas sales. Really, there should be massive celebrations happening now through…

So, if you’ve read FROM ASHES, then you know the whys of Connor’s weird mood in the beginning of NEEDING HER. If not—eh, well, you find out later in NEEDING HER, I guess 😉 But ever since I wrote his character in FROM ASHES, I’ve known he would get his own story. He had to! I loved him! With how things ended though, I knew it couldn’t just start off all rainbows and puppies for him. He was hurt, and he needed his time to be hurt. Bring in Maci: she’s his best friends’ little sister, and the girl next door. It is everything cliché, and everything perfect for these two characters. I knew Maci would help him out of his funk, I just needed a way that fit them. Since they would have grown up together, they would’ve had to go through that phase where I’m sure Connor couldn’t stand the little gangly girl who always followed him around, and he would have no doubt picked on her. I didn’t have brothers, but I had cousins my age who were boys, and pranks between their friends and me were always happening. I don’t know, to me it just seemed…

Home for the Holidays! It’s a theme that has long been one of my favorites growing up and especially now that we have our grandson—with another grandson on the way! Holidays have always been a special time of year for me, but I’m not sure if it was the visiting or the baking that I loved more. Visiting with relatives was always fun as a child, but easy too because we lived right next door to my Great Aunt and Uncle and two doors down from my Grandparents. It was the perfect way to grow up, giving us three homes instead of just one. The funny thing is we used to believe mom when she told us she heard Grandma calling us. We never doubted it, we just waved bye and ran out the back door and up the hill. Now that I’m a grandmother, I realize that dear old mom was using it as a ploy to get us out from underfoot. But no matter, we enjoyed the time with Grandma just the same. I’m a homebody and love spending time in my kitchen and playing in the dirt in our gardens…although it’s no longer the time of year…

Beginnings are such fun. I love finding new and amusing ways to introduce new people, it’s something I always look forward to. Part of the fun is realizing that there are intense series readers, casual series readers, and brand new readers and my goal is to keep each of them happy. Intense series readers may remember Tim and Lola’s first meeting, because it occurs late in the third book WAIT UNTIL DARK. “That’s our only backup.” The Major pointed to the crew readying the Combat Search and Rescue bird on the other end of the freezing deck. They all looked over to watch the third crew. Unquestionably SOAR. The way they moved, the gear they wore. These were not folks to be underestimated. They flew into full battle with a gun and a stretcher and were notorious for getting their people back alive. They didn’t have the heavy weapons, but they had door guns and an underslung chain gun and Vulcan cannon. The kind of medic you’d want coming for you. “Their pilot,” Tim yelled just loud enough for John to hear him over the icy wind, “Damn, but she’s hot.” “Don’t get your heart caught.” It was an old…