ONE NIGHT can change everything. At least that what happens in Diane Alberts’s steamy novella ONE NIGHT. British theater star, Justin Holloway, is about to open in his first Broadway show. He should be stoked. But opening night jitters have gotten the best of him; and if one more person tells him to “break a leg,” he just might break theirs instead. When he pushes out of the theatre and accidentally knocks a woman into the street, he does the first thing that comes to mind—pretends he isn’t the show’s lead and tries to charm her into drinks and dinner. Alexis Verdon is not a fan of musicals. Who really goes around singing grocery lists to the store clerk? Too bad she’s promised her bed-ridden sister she would not only attend the opening night of Broadway’s latest jewel, but also get autographs from the entire cast. As if that isn’t bad enough, on the evening before her great sisterly sacrifice, Alexis is knocked flat on her butt by a handsome Brit who won’t take “no” for an answer and insists on taking her out on of all days, Independence Day (hello, we wanted our independence from Great Britain for a…

Spells and spellcasting. The very first spell I clearly remember is salagadoola mechicka boola bibbidi-bobbidi-boo. Put them together and what do you get? Cinderella! A magic coach, horses, a footman, glass slippers and a beautiful ball gown and let’s not forget the handsome prince. What makes the fairy-godmother’s words a spell? A spell is much like a prayer said with a great deal of intent, focus, and will that gives words (or nonsense ones) new meanings. Deborah Blake, an authority on Wiccans, explains that taking a shower can be a magical event. Your intent or goal is to wash away the stress of the day. You focus on the water pouring down on you and visualize your stress being washed away. Your will is to apply energy to the task. Along with the words she uses to increase the impact of the magick “Water, water, wash away all the stress of the day,” your shower becomes magickal. So, is Cinderella’s fairy-godmother invoking magick? Her fairy-godmother cast her spell speaking an incantation to create a specific outcome. She clearly imagined what she wanted. She intended the magic coach, horse, etc. to all appear. She was keening focused on the results. And…

There was a time when an author’s only job was to turn out marketable, respectably error-free manuscripts. At least, that’s what they tell me. It may well be an urban myth. Since I was first published in 2006, writers have been expected to wear many hats—publicity maven, internet guru, webmistress, public speaker, Facebook queen and Twitter magnet. Don’t get me started on Pinterest. It should come with a warning to writers who are easily seduced by time-sucks that “Here there be monsters.” Some my author friends have assistants to help them with such things as promo and posting on social networks. One writer I know pays someone to do her research and another has an assistant who specializes in plotting. While I’d never outsource research or plotting, I have to admit it would be a luxury to have someone to deal with the less writerly aspects of my job. However, my writing assistants are incapable of helping me with those things. You see, typing in a tweet requires opposable thumbs. And an IQ higher than 15. My writing assistants are my two dogs—Mack and Harry. They are a pair of puppy mill rejects who found their way into our family,…

The characters in Neta Jackson‘s Yada Yada novels are definitely three-dimensional. But sometimes even she doesn’t know who she’s dealing with. Which is what I told my wife about the affable doorman she introduced in her YY House of Hope series. I immediately liked Harry Bentley and asked if I could tell his story while she dealt with Gabby Fairbanks, whose scumbag husband was kicking her out of her penthouse apartment in Harry’s building along Chicago’s beautiful lakefront. It turns out that Harry, who looks a little like Louis Gossett Jr., was a Chicago cop who’d risked his life crossing the “thin blue line” to blow the whistle on his corrupt boss. (Of course, we don’t have any corruption here in Chicago . . . but, hey, this is fiction, so I can do anything I want for a good story.) Harry had been given early retirement to keep him on ice until the trial. But his old boss found out . . . Wait a minute. This is turning into a spoiler. Suffice it to say that Harry’s life got a little complicated, especially when DCFS asked him to take in his ten-year-old grandson—who he didn’t even know he…

Publishing and promoting a book is definitely a team effort, and one of the teams whose work I am most fascinated by is the one who created the book trailers for my Civil War historicals, WEDDED TO WAR and WIDOW OF GETTYSBURG. The two trailers are quite different, yet both are compelling. Take a look at the trailers from this page and then read on for an interview with Phil Jacoby, creative producer of Mothlight Creative, the company who made this happen. Jocelyn: Take me through the process of creating a book trailer, from the time you accept the job to completion. Phil: It all depends on the project. We pitched a few directions to the publisher and the decision was made to proceed with the live-action option. Budget and time dictate (to an extent) what is possible in any project so we had to come up with a way to tell the story without overtelling it, lest we run out of time and/or resources. For Wedded to War, for example, from the time the project was approved to delivering the final product was roughly a month or so. Jocelyn: I read on your Web site that the music you used was an…

If you grow up in a less than a Leave-it-to Beaver home environment like Catherine and Thomas did without good role models, there are bound to be some adjustment issues. Heck even with good role models, there will be growing pains. Living and melding your life with another person’s is hard—then when you add in the complications of old emotional baggage on either, or both sides, it can really be really challenging and one has to keep a sense of humor and perspective to survive those early years where a couple is feeling their way around, trying to create their own rhythm—hmmm no sexual puns intended. But now that you went there . . . sex does serve to complicate things. Just sayin’. Anyhow, sex aside, trying to live with another person and be a good, roommate, companion, confidant, support, lover, etc. takes work, as Catherine and Thomas found out.  And there are bound to be a bunch of missteps—like Catherine making Thomas enough breakfast for four men, and the eggs that could be used as hockey pucks that Thomas gamely tried to choke them down, while trying not to look at his watch ‘cause he never ate breakfast and…

I think it’s safe to say there are moments for every writer when an idea flashes and we jump on that sucker with the force of a hurricane hitting land. For me, that idea sometimes comes from watching the news or reading a newspaper. Recently, it came from a place I hadn’t expected. Facebook. Yep, I was scrolling through my personal page catching up with my family and friends and spotted a photo album my sister-in-law had posted while vacationing in Italy with my brother, their kids and my mother. One of the photos was of my mother and a cousin she hadn’t met before. I guess I should be honest and say my mother is at a place in life where there are more goodbyes than hellos to people she loves. I imagine this must be hard. This getting older and losing loved-ones. But then there are moments that can only come with having lived a full life. Moments that are randomly captured by my photography obsessed sister-in-law who secretly located one of my mother’s cousins in Italy. While on vacation, my mother had no idea she’d be meeting a family member for the first time. She learned of…

When readers learn the nickname I use for the hero of my latest book—Sean Owens, the “stuttering hacker”—they usually get caught on the “stuttering” part. A romance novel hero who stutters? What the what? Yes. He stutters, and he’s sexy and awesome, competent, caring, somewhat screwed up in the head—all the great hero stuff. I promise. Today, though, I want to talk about the “hacker” part. Why write a hero who’s a hacker? What’s the appeal? The first thing I knew about Sean Owens was that he doesn’t talk to the book’s heroine, Katie, at all, and it drives her crazy. The second thing I knew was the reason why: he had an enormous crush on her in high school, and he’s afraid that if he tries talking to her, he’ll stutter. The third thing I knew about Sean wasn’t a thing, it was an image of a fifteen-year-old kid sitting all by himself at the front of the school bus, trying not to be too obvious as he watches the beautiful, popular girl he’s got a crush on make her way to the back row with her far-more-popular-than-Sean-will-ever-be boyfriend. This image is at the heart of how I see…

Don’t you just love sequel characters? I know I do. I love returning to a series, discovering the new romance, but also learning more about the lives of the characters from an earlier book. LORD OF THE HUNT, being reissued this month in ebook form, is all about sequel characters. When I finished my historical romance, LORD OF THE MIST, I really missed the characters. The emails I received told me fans wanted to know more about the characters as well. I aim to please, so LORD OF THE HUNT, crafted around a character from LORD OF THE MIST, was born. Along with sequel characters, I also love SECRETS! LORD OF THE HUNT has lots of secrets. The hero, Adam Quintin, has two. First, he’s really the son of the banished lord of Ravenswood Castle. This isn’t a spoiler, you know this right away. His second secret could have two results…fabulous rewards or death! Adam must hunt down a traitor who is conspiring with the French king against England. Adam is willing to risk death for the reward of catching this traitor, but Adam doesn’t care about gold or silver. Instead, he wants to win back Ravenswood for his family….

Once in a while I write a story that touches my heart. When I finish the book, I feel like I’ve been abducted in the middle of the night away from my home and friends. How could I be stuck in a snow storm in the Texas Panhandle when I should be in Harmony, Texas, dancing in the rain? Where are Martha Q and Tyler Wright? Where’s my ranch? Where are my chili-cheese fries from the diner? That’s kind of how it felt when I wrote the end to CAN’T STOP BELIEVING. I lived there, found and lost love there, and the day I mailed the book in, they all left me. Cord McMillan looked like he’d be a hard man for anyone to love. He’s an ex-con thanks to a mistake he made when he was 17. He hates everyone almost as much as he hates himself. All he has is a rundown farm and even working all week in town then farming till dark, he finds he’s about to lose the place. Nevada Britain, Cord’s neighbor, has always had the best of everything only now alone, she fears for her life. Using her last chance, she makes Cord…