What’s in a name? Funny you should ask. Apparently where my characters are concerned, it’s everything. I try not to obsess over selecting my characters’ names and for good reason, I almost always get them wrong. You see, my characters talk to me, at me, or not at all. It’s the not at all that causes the problem. When my characters don’t talk to me, they don’t talk to each other and the story doesn’t get written. Some people might call it writer’s block, I call it aggravating. I had this great idea for a romantic suspense novel, but the hero would not talk. It didn’t matter how man writer’s tricks I used, he refused to budge. Not one line of dialogue would he utter. In my mind’s eye I could see him standing bare-chested, arms folded across his muscular torso and glaring at me. I glared back and challenged this impressively built hot hunk, “What gives, we’ve got a story to write, you’ve got a heroine to seduce, come on Jack, get a move on.” His eyes narrowed in that dangerous way that causes a woman’s blood to sing. “Make me,” they challenged. Not to be out done by…

On today’s Casa for the Holiday‘s blog stop, the Sourcebooks Casablanca Christmas romance authors are sharing a cute holiday scene from their latest releases… enjoy! From Carolyn Brown‘s THE COWBOY’S CHRISTMAS BABY (The Christmas tree is decorated and it’s time to put the angel on the top.) When every one of the ornaments was dangling from a tree branch, Henry stood and cocked his head to one side. “It’s time to put the top up there. Josh is the youngest, so he gets to do it.” “Good grief! He’s two months old and he just learned to smile. There’s no way he can put the top on the tree,” Natalie said. “Sure he can if we help him. Lucas, you hold this and I’ll hold the baby up there. Grady, you got the camera?” “Right here,” Grady said. Lucas reached up and set the angel on top of the tree and Jack braced Joshua with one hand under his bottom and one at his back. “Right now, snap it while he’s got a hold of one of her wings.” “He thinks it’s edible.” Henry laughed. “If he wants to slobber on it, that’s just fine. Angels love babies as much…

You know what I’m talking about: the first Thanksgiving turkey you ever roasted. How’d it come out? No matter what happened, the meal was an expression of your love. But, memories of disasters can be fun. They stick out in better than the successes, don’t they? Oh, and my first turkey? A crispy golden outside, raw pink inside disaster. I hadn’t mastered the concept of defrosting among other things. But, as I look back, there were some bigger things going on in our little apartment. Brian and I were newlyweds. But, I was too busy introducing my husband to my family traditions that I forgot the little defrosting detail. It was just the two of us since our families lived in different states. I wanted my new husband to embrace the same get-ready-for-Christmas-early tradition that I’d always known. He, on the other hand, told me he didn’t want the “big production” meal. Neither did he want to set up our apartment for Christmas so early. In fact, he’d be fine with a string of lights on the window and sandwiches. But, he made his new wife happy and went along with the program. My “dinner will be ready in two…

While hunched over a bowl of cereal this morning, I came to a few conclusions about my favorite breakfast, and life in general. There are more flakes than raisins. This is a sad truth of life. There’s no way to make this sound any better. Flakes are good for us. Face it. Without the ordinary flakes, we wouldn’t recognize a genuine raisin when we saw it. Sometimes when you’re looking for a raisin, you find a flake instead. Flakes are the regular guys, quietly doing their duty, day in, and day out. They keep things working smoothly without any fanfare. They’re the reliable delivery guys, the factory workers who keep the machinery working. Raisins are hard to find. The heroes of the cereal bowl are often hidden beneath the more plentiful flakes, and because raisins have more substance, they tend to congregate in places where they go unnoticed. They were uniforms and are often found in places flakes don’t want to go—like the bottom of the bowl. The reward is worth the effort. Raisins are the sweet bits that keep us interested. If we knew there were no more raisins, we’d dump the entire box of cereal in the trashcan…

Sometimes you never know where your inspiration might come from. As I began to put together this post, I ran across a blog that offered 105 ideas to blog. There were two that caught my attention. The first one, What 5 things would you buy if you won a million dollars; the second, leave a cliffhanger and answer on another post. Intriguing, but that seemed a little unfair. So as I was contemplating the five things I would buy if I had a million dollars. The list is fairly routine: 1. Pay off my only daughter’s school loans and provide her with a plane ticket any time she wanted to come home to visit. (She is an Integrated Services Coordinator, i.e., Special Education team leader in East Palo Alto County. I live in Oklahoma.) 2. I’d pay off my mother’s debt too. (I think by then 2/3 of my million may be obliterated) 3. Next I think I might build my dream house — and have my apartment downtown during NBA season. (I’m a season ticket holder, you know.) 4. Now I’m pretty sure I’m down to my last 200k. I’d better put half in savings. 5. The last 100k…

It was love. Once. Or lust. An inexplicable pull. A deep, visceral attraction. I’m talking about the item that hangs in your closet. Unworn. Or sits on a shelf, the tags still on.  Once, you stood in a dressing room thinking Oh yeah! And now it resides, forlorn, behind the safe clothing, the outfits you can put on in your sleep. Are they mistakes or glimpses into a rarely acknowledged side of yourself? By a certain age, we know what we’ll feel and look good in. But once in a while, something different calls to us. Like the ankle strap, skyscraper Michael Kors heels, deeply discounted at my favorite off-price store.  They sat untouched and unloved side by side with the cowboy boots, and Merrell’s I usually wore.  Who had I been channeling when I said yes to them? For what fictional black tie event? I had unearthed them during one of my periodic closet purges. As I always did during the de-cluttering process, I gave the shoes one last chance. Oh my. Not only was I taller, I instinctively stood up straighter and sucked my stomach in. My hips looked slimmer.  No wonder I’d bought them. But could I…

I’m so happy to be back on Fresh Fiction today! Since my latest release is a holiday story in the STRANDED WITH A HERO CHRISTMAS anthology, I thought it’d be fun to talk about what makes holiday cooking more fun. And a hot guy in the kitchen is always a bonus, right? In AN OFFICER AND A REBEL, Kelsey wrecks her car in the snow and is rescued by her high school boyfriend’s older brother, who’s now a town cop. He offers to let her stay with him while the storm clears. As they’re talking that night, she mentions how she and her mom always make Christmas cookies, and she’s sad she’ll miss it. So the next day, Nate borrows a bag of chocolate chips, trying to make up for her missing out on her usual tradition. Better yet, he stays to help her measure out ingredients and taste test the dough, which of course requires close proximity and stolen glances. There’s something about a cozy kitchen, the scent of baking food, and ten minutes to kill while you wait for those cookies to come out of the oven. I happen to recommend kissing to pass the time. It burns…

Hi All! Cynthia D’Alba here. Thanks to the Fresh Fiction gang for having me here today to celebrate the release of the second book in the Texas Montgomery Mavericks series, TEXAS TANGO. For the first time in my writing, I put a teenager into my story. GULP. That did certainly stretch my imagination. I have no children. I haven’t been around a teenager in a long time. Heck, I haven’t been a teenager in a long time. However, I had a lot of fun with Noah, my fourteen-year-old. TEXAS TANGO is the story of a widower Travis Montgomery (who has no children) and Caroline Graham, a transient doctor who moves around fulfilling short term contracts. Noah is her younger brother but she doesn’t really know him. She was eighteen when he was born and off at college. Their parents are Christian missionaries who have spent the majority of their time in foreign lands. Caroline was raised by her grandmother, Mamie, as was Noah. Now their primary parent figure, their grandmother Mamie, is close to death. Noah is concerned about her and what’s going to happen to him. In a nutshell, he is an angry teen. Here’s the first introduction to…

Thinking of military heroes brings to mind characters in their physical prime (who doesn’t love a sizzling six-pack?), who aren’t afraid to jump into the fray and do the right thing despite the personal cost. As a paranormal and romantic suspense author, knowing service men and women have faced things most of us have not, it’s intriguing to peek behind the curtain and explore how those experiences change their world view and personal priorities. John Noble, the hero of BULLETPROOF, is one of those dark, bad boy types. He’s a former soldier with a mysterious past. He’s sexy and scarred – inside and out. On a mission protecting an ambitious reporter working a career-defining story, John has his hands full saving Amelia Bennett from the powerful people who want her dead while plotting his escape from the shadow agency he is tired of serving. As an Army wife, military heroes are near and dear to me and they show up in nearly all of my books in one way or another. It’s not just a ploy to prove to my husband that I’ve actually listened to his many stories from training and deployments (though it certainly helps). Writing military heroes…

Lindsay McKenna, author of DOWN RANGE, sat down with our Janene Putman recently to discuss her newest release, what it’s like creating sexy military men, and pulling stories from her friend Michael Jaco. Trained to kill, but built for love… Captain Morgan Boland is at the top of her game, as is her former lover, Navy SEAL Jake Ramsey. Then a military computer selects them to partner in a special op. The mission can’t be compromised by their personal history—and they have truckloads of it. But the Afghan assignment might provide the discipline they need to finally get it together—outside the bedroom, that is. A lot has happened over the two years since they last went their separate ways. And there’s way more to Morgan than Jake has ever given her credit for….