It’s official. On February 3rd, 2014 amazon.com announced that San Antonio, Texas is the most romantic city in the US. According to the site, the annual sales of romance and relationship books, romantic movies, and love music as well as (cough, cough) adult toys purchased by the people of San Antonio last year rated at the top in the nation. Why is this important? One, because the Romance Writers of America’s 2014 National conference will be held in the Alamo City in July. Two, because I call this city my home and I’m thrilled to find that people are figuring out just how cool we are. Three, ended up being total irony because the day after the announcement was made, I, along with two of my fellow San Antonio Romance Authors (Sasha Summers and Laurie Olerich) appeared on a local morning show called, San Antonio Living. Now understand, we three arrived with great plans to pimp our books and talk about the group book signing we had following Saturday. We didn’t anticipate that we would be asked to give advice for viewers about their relationships. Gasp! This had sudden fame or total disaster written all over it. As they geared…

Sometimes you just know something is meant to be, and that’s the way things went with writing STEAL ME, COWBOY. It was just meant to be.”>STEAL ME COWBOY. Exhibit one–I wrote an unrelated novella this summer, my first, and liked it so much, I wanted to write another novella. I live in Charlotte, as in North Carolina, and was on my way to pick up a pizza when I got the idea to write a story set out west, specifically Montana.  At that very moment, a black Volvo pulled along beside me with Montana plates, and I thought okay, that’s weird. Especially, since in my twenty-one years of living here, I’ve NEVER seen a car with a Montana tag. Exhibit two came at a cocktail party where I met the amazing and wonderful Jane Porter. She told me about her fabulous new publishing company, the Tule Publishing Group, and suggested I write a novella for her imprint, Montana Born Books. Jane knew my first novel, THE WISDOM OF HAIR, was about a hairstylist, so she suggested I write a story about a sassy SC hairstylist who goes to Montana. I don’t know Jack about Montana, but the great thing about…

Community Correspondent, the Cape Crier by Wanda Boyle Author’s Note: Cape Willington, Maine, serves as the setting and background for the Candy Holliday Murder Mystery Series. The scenic coastal village is home to blueberry farmer Candy Holliday and her father, Henry “Doc” Holiday, who run Blueberry Acres—and often work together to solve local mysteries. In this exclusive excerpt, we get an update on local news from Community Correspondent Wanda Boyle. Hello, Capers! Summer is soon upon us, and so is strawberry-picking season! And you know what that means . . . strawberry shortcake! Events and activities are heating up, and the town is BUZZING! So, what’s new in Cape Willington, Maine? A lot! Here’s the latest: I suppose you’ve heard those rumors about the impending sale of Crawford’s Berry Farm, located west of Cape Willington out past Blueberry Acres? No? Well, from what I’ve been told, it’s a juicy story indeed, with talk of a sweetened deal and hush-hush backroom glad-handing. We’ve heard it on good authority that a formal offer has been made for the charming coastal property, with local real estate agent Lydia St. Graves handling the deal. (What could possibly go wrong?) Details are sketchy, but owner…

There are lots of things that writers do to avoid writing. There’s chocolate and pictures of man chest. Also funny pet pictures. You can see all of those in abundance on my facebook page. But I recently got my shipment of new toys for my appearances. (Find out if I’m going to be in your area on my events page or on Jade’s Jewels And yes, I’ll have them at the Adventures in Fiction in Dallas, Feb 15. Meanwhile, Elizabeth Hoyt named my new promo items Squidges and proceeded to put them into poses for the Squidge Kama Sutra. Here’s a few of the pictures. First we have Hello Squidge and the Squidge doing its job. Then we have Downward Facing Squidge and Two Squidges Make a Box. That led to lots of hilarity, but also started a group of us talking about types of love scenes. I contend that there are three basic romance love scenes. (We’re talking the normal male/female two person love scene) 1. Hero in power – usually on top, heroine’s legs possibly up by her ears. Variant A – from behind. That’s always hero dominant, IMO, because she’s usually face planting somewhere. 2. Heroine in…

With Valentine’s Day around the corner, the shops and the media world are full of what you need to do to be romantic. Cards galore, special boxes of chocolates, sexy lingerie and, of course, red roses. I’ll be honest here and say that I prefer my romance to be a little less commercialized. Sure, it’s lovely to get a romantic surprise on Valentine’s Day – and go out for a nice meal at a favourite restaurant – but a romantic surprise ‘just because’ is more likely to steal my heart! The same is true when it comes to flowers. I love getting flowers! I’m very lucky in that my lovely husband, Doc Cambridge, is a flower giver. He is also a ‘just because’ flower giver, which is even better <happy sigh>. He knows too that the way to my heart is not a bouquet of red roses! Don’t get me wrong – I think roses are a lovely flower and we have many rose bushes in our garden. Pink and yellow and white and peach roses. There is even one rambling dark red rose. I just don’t think red roses are especially romantic. I’m not especially fond of them, even…

How many of you are excited for the start of the Sochi games? Yes, there’s a ton of controversy around them. Russia’s anti-gay laws. Putin’s threat to monitor (and possibly censor) communications during the games. The constant worry of Chechen terrorist activities. And yet, when the Olympic torch will be lit Friday night, we’ll hopefully forget about all that for a few weeks. The world will come together to watch athletes prove they are “Faster. Higher. Stronger.” We’ll be dazzled and awed and filled with the warm glow of hope that maybe things aren’t as drab and dire as we think they are. It’s no wonder that with all the excitement and the sense of community that the Olympics make a great backdrop for a good romance. Well, that and the fact that there were over 150,000 condoms distributed to athletes during the London games. Just imagine how the athletes will be staying warm during those cold Russian winter nights in Sochi. 😉 One of my favorite movies growing up was The Cutting Edge. I loved the sexual tension between Doug and Kate. I loved they were both out to redeem themselves and catch that elusive Olympic medal they both…

Parsons’ new book in his historic fiction thriller series is Baden-Powell’s Beads: AKSUM BADEN-POWELL’S BEAD’S is a story that took me four books and four years to tell and spans the history of mankind and three continents. (The fourth book is planned for release later this year.) A story this broad has room for more than one villain. Lij Mered, the self-proclaimed Emperor of Ethiopia in the series’ setting of 2005, is evil enough to have carried this burden alone. He is the mastermind behind the plot to obtain all of the original twenty-four Zulu beads recovered by Captain Baden-Powell in South Africa in 1888. But the opportunity to create a villainess to play into the tale was irresistible. Cheri Hassan is the beautiful temptress who appears in book two, BADEN-POWELL’S BEADS: LONDON, hired, by an agent working within Scotland Yard to obtain four Zulu beads known to be in the United States. She’s also in my new book, BADEN-POWELL’S BEADS: AKSUM. A remorseless killer, she uses her sexuality and influence to obtain money to support her lifestyle and thus becomes the ideal person for this dangerous task, provided she’s paid enough. Creating this character to interest both male and…

I rarely write sequels but RISK TAKER, HRS, February, 2014 and DEGREE OF RISK, HRS, March, 2014 are just that. All are from the Shadow Warriors series. Everything about this 2-book sequel, was different and entirely unique to anything I’ve written before. But that’s what happens when the magic occurs and the author becomes powerfully and deeply into an alchemical process that can never be explained by words alone. These two characters came to me and got my full, undivided attention. They were fascinating, heroic people and I was absolutely swept away by their story. It was interesting to see what happened as I began writing RISK TAKER. I got so deeply involved in the story of “Blue Eyes,” as she is called by the men at FOB Bravo in Afghanistan, that I knew 75,000 words just wasn’t going to scratch the surface of Medevac pilot, Army Chief Warrant Officer Sarah Benson’s life, her trials, challenges and her incredible courage and strength. It took 150,000 words to tell their story. Her distrust of men is deep. Sarah is tired of being hit on at the FOB. She doesn’t see her own beauty, her glacier colored blue eyes, or her passionate…

So I like weddings. Mainly for the cake, but also for some other things. Like the food, the (bad) dancing, the free-flowing alcohol that I rarely drink but am super-entertained by when other people do. You know, the guy who’s had so many Whiskey Sours that he talks super loud and tells really bad jokes only three inches from your face. The woman on her fifth margarita who struggles to balance on her high heels like a newly hired circus clown walking around on five-foot stilts. The grandpa that asks you to dance and holds you a little closer than is physically necessary or appropriate (has this only happened to me?). And then there’s the love. Like almost every other romance writer I know, I like love. Especially wedding love. It gets me thinking back on my own wedding that took place a whole lot of years ago. It makes me remember the look of terror on my now-husband’s face that he was actually going through with marrying me…that he would be shackled to me forever. It makes me remember the two-piece bridesmaid dresses that all got switched around at the dry cleaners, so the afternoon of the wedding all…

George Clooney’s film “The Monuments Men” tells the story of an unlikely “Band of Brothers”– art historians, artists, architects–who raced against time to save Europe’s art from destruction during World War II. But when peace was declared, the Monuments Men’s work had just begun. On August 20 1945, a shipment arrived at the Monuments Men Wiesbaden Collecting Point that was possibly the most valuable single shipment of art in history. Fifty-seven fully loaded trucks, accompanied by tanks, arrived one-by-one on the bumpy road from Frankfurt. Hundreds of pieces of priceless art and cultural objects were unloaded, catalogued, and stored. A browse through the Monuments Men property cards blandly identifies this amazing shipment as Inshipment One. It included paintings by old masters, sculptures, tapestries, and most famously, the centuries-old bust of Egyptian Queen Nefertiti. Now that the war was at an end, the Monuments Men were faced with the enormous task of not only safeguarding, but also restituting, the art that was now under their control. The contrast between the war-ravaged landscape outside the walls of the Collecting Point and the treasures stacked floor-to-ceiling inside, was striking. Outside, there was very little food, shelter or security. Inside were many of the…