When you hear the words indulgence and romance, I’m sure the first thing that comes to mind is Kansas, right? What could be more indulgent than flat, empty prairie and…barbecue? I kid, of course, but somewhere along the way I decided a nowhere town in the middle of Kansas was a great place to set my Entangled Indulgence title, SEVEN-NIGHT STAND. I’m not a city person. I don’t like crowds or traffic or lines, so the upmost indulgence for me is somewhere I can be pretty much left alone. Besides, there’s something about the isolation of a small town in the middle of nowhere that offers a great backdrop for romance. You can’t really hide from your feelings when there’s nowhere to hide, and my hero and heroine both have some feelings they’d love to hide from when their seven- night stand turns into something more. Then there’s the beauty of sending someone living in LA (the heroine, Vivvy) to nowhere Kansas (where the hero, Nate, lives) with the assignment to find something reality-TV-worthy in a place Vivvy herself describes as “flat and boring as hell.” And the fun in having small-town Nate in all his airplane grease glory fall…

Who doesn’t love a paperback hero? That’s why writer’s write. Whether it’s crime fiction, paranormal romance or an action-packed thriller, somewhere in it you will find an alpha male. Strong and sexy with a body to die for, he’s the one who will fight for what he believes in and protect the ones he loves…*sigh*. Which brings me to my favourite alpha male hero of all time…long before he was an X-Men werewolf, Hugh Jackman was a Paperback Hero. In the 1999 movie, Hugh played a tough, Australian truck driver, Jack Willis, who writes romance novels under a pen name of Ruby Vale. That’s where things get a little sticky because Ruby Vale is a real person—and his good friend (played by Claudia Karvan). Ruby is in love with Jack but engaged to marry Jack’s best friend, Hamish. What a plot and what a movie! It’s easy to see why Hugh Jackman has rocketed to fame. One of the questions we’re often asked in interviews is who we’d like to play the hero if our books were made into movies. I’m sure you’ve gathered what my answer would be! In FLY AWAY PETA, my hero Jaime Caruso has never forgotten…

I am a horse girl. Those similarly afflicted know that for every birthday, Christmas, Easter, and visit from the tooth fairy, all I ever wanted was a horse. Fortunately, my daughter was born with the same gene, but she is more skilled than I, and so it happened that she outgrew Delray. Del, now styled, Delray the Wonder Pony, is a 17.1 bay Oldenburg gelding. For those of you won’t don’t speak Horse, he’s tall, dark and handsome. I owe that horse my writing career. Beloved Offspring needed a more skilled mount, I needed something to ride, and so, Del and I—like Lady Eve and Lord Deene—fell into an arranged marriage. We had low expectations of each other, but Del is the honorable sort, so when I showed up at the barn, he put his best hoof forward, much like Lord Deene. Riding is both physical and analytical, also cerebral. To work with your mount, you must listen to him with your body. Your backside must hear his spine, and your hands must hear his mouth. This is hard to explain, but once you’ve had a few rides in this zone, you want to go back there. Some days, I…

I write at a small nineteenth-century desk that I found in a consignment shop called Aunt Teeks. It has a tooled leather top with gold scrolling and two small drawers. The leather is a bit scratched, and the drawers are too small for files, but I love the feel of this desk. When I first saw it in the store, surrounded by larger pieces of furniture from various eras, it called out to me. It had such a nice energy, like something out of a Jane Austen novel. I could see reams of letters being written on that surface in beautiful copperplate handwriting. People in the nineteenth century wrote letters and thank you notes and careful lists of recipes and remedies. They had inkwells and steel pointed pens, blotting paper and wax seals. True, I write on a Mac laptop in bytes and pixels, but I like to think some inspiration seeps through the years and technologies from the old wood to me. In my latest historical ONCE AGAIN A BRIDE the heroine, Charlotte, discovers how greatly furnishings can affect a person when she moves from a comfortable childhood home to the cold, rigid house of her elderly husband. Henry…

I have to confess, as much as I love the strong alpha male, I also have a weakness for “best friend” stories. I can all too easily see a woman falling for a man who’s been her rock, her shoulder to cry on, her safe place. Soul Deep is one of those rare books that allowed me to combine an alpha male with a “best friend” storyline. Marcus is the ultimate soldier—tough as nails, driven by duty, and more inclined to chew on broken glass than talk about his feelings. His partner, Regan, is the exact opposite, a reckless free spirit who always thinks with her heart. Marcus and Regan have worked together for years, so they share an easy banter that comes from a lifelong friendship. They tease each other, insult each other, but when all pretense is stripped away, what remains is a deep-seated respect. This gave me a strong foundation to build upon, and I enjoyed watching their relationship blossom and grow into something deeper. What I like best about “best friend” storylines is how clueless the parties usually are. Everyone can see they’re in love but them. There is something extremely endearing about watching two people…

Zeus had nine daughters. They presided over the various arts and were dubbed the Muses. So usually, when people think about a muse, they think female. I don’t. My muse is music. Male or female singers. Sometimes simply instrumentals. Depending on the day, time, or event, music affects me in different ways. Instrumental music can wash over me and provide me with a sense of calm. I usually put this kind of music on when I’ve already got a creative idea and I’m moving ahead with a story. I like Latin music, Mozart, guitar solos…almost anything except atonal. But when I’m in the “creation” mode, meaning I have to come up with a brand new idea, I pay attention to the lyrics of musicians. Like poets, they are storytellers in short form. The essence of drama, love, passion, and hate, i.e. conflict, comes through in a few short minutes. How do they do that? I mean, really…how do they do that? Thanks to a couple of rock and roll gems, I was inspired to write two of my screenplays. Thanks to a country western tune, I was inspired to write an emotional scene in my next CHEESE SHOP  MYSTERY, TO…

It is absolutely the best time to be a contemporary category romance author. I am normally not a person of great pronouncements—I leave those to my husband, the Main Man—but I will make this one, loud and clear and from any available rooftop. I am one lucky girl to have this gig and being one of the Indulgence authors at Entangled Publishing is the icing and the cupcake! I came to romance just like many of you. I pilfered the romance novels from my Granny and Mama’s stash and hid under the covers with a flashlight reading until the wee hours of the morning. (It was soooo worth being tired the next day—right?) It was a surreptitious education on friendship, glamorous locales, the consequences of betrayal and deceit, the rewards of becoming vulnerable, striving for your dreams and finding true love. These universal truths were wedged between two paperback covers and every page was full of emotion, escape, and a riveting plot. And, while I sit here at my writing desk in the early season of 2013, there are still some universal truths about writing great category romance, the expectations of readers, and the challenge of delivering the same great…

I’m thrilled to announce that I’ve created a new series called Operation Shadow Warriors. BEYOND VALOR is the first of this new series that will encompass many books military romances/suspense stories to come in HRS and HQN. And they will all be related to one another so you’ll get ongoing updates on the characters that you’ve already read about. Operation Shadow Warriors is the brain child of U.S. Army General Maya Stevenson. Those who have followed the Black Jaguar Squadron since its inception, will recognize Maya from HEART OF STONE from the 1990’s era when I created the BJS series. Maya has created Shadow Warriors. She knows certain types of women can handle combat just as well as any man. She’s created this seven-year top secret operation and has garnered forty volunteer women from all the military branches who want to work in combat situations. It is designed to show how woman deal with combat. And from this experiment, all the military branches will either allow or disallow women into combat slots. These forty women have undergone a grueling one year of training with the Marine Corps to be ready for field duty. In BEYOND VALOR, you are going to…

I was thrilled to be asked to write one of the Larkville Continuity stories for Harlequin Romance. But when I discovered I was writing the last book, I was a bit shocked. The last book of a continuity series has to wrap up the entire series and this one was a doozie…8 books! In the final book, readers expect to see that the seven couples from the prior books are all still happy. They want to get another peek at the kids/babies from the books. And, of course, in this particular series they were dying to see the blending of all the siblings. Added to all that I had to toss in the romance of Matt and Claire, the hero and heroine of my book. It was a tall order! Except… When I started putting the story together, I realized what I had was a big family that longed to be happy. With their messed up past and dead parents, they needed a leader. They needed time together and they needed to forgive. So Matt’s story is a story of hope. Not just hope that he’ll become a good daddy to the baby he inherits when his ex-wife dies, but…

As an active and voracious reader, one of the very little delights I have is the anticipation of a new book by a favorite author. Waiting impatiently for the release is a harrowing ordeal; I must avoid previews at all costs because as a reader I fall into the category of “finish the book in one sitting.” So reading a preview doesn’t just whet my appetite—it makes me mad. And I don’t want to get too mad, because then I start to imagine what the book is really going to be like, including the plot and the … Read the rest on Kirkus Reviews