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

There are two kinds of readers in the world — those who love analyzing a book, talking about themes and metaphors and some of the literary devices used and what the author was really getting at — and those  who hate analyzing, who just want to read and enjoy a book and who maybe want to have a bit of a fangirl gush and tell their friends if they love it, or move on to the next book if they don’t. The first type of reader will often belong to a book group; the second to a book club. But there’s more than one reason to belong to a book group. A book group — well, I call it a literary society, because that’s what they called them in the Regency era — plays an important role in my new novel, THE AUTUMN BRIDE. But it’s not to understand books better — it’s to meet men. Abby and her three impoverished “sisters” (in reality, one sister and two friends) have been taken under the wing of recovering invalid, Lady Beatrice Davenham, who has claimed them as her nieces. Lady Beatrice wants to help the girls to find husbands, but her…

It’s such a pleasure to be here with you at Fresh Fiction today. I always find blogging to be an enjoyable challenge. What can I say about my books that I haven’t said before? I am a by-the-seat-of-my-pants writer. While I have a general idea of where the story is going and who the main characters are, I seldom know the specifics and details of the story. I don’t always know who they might run into or who will have an influence on the character or the story. As I’m typing along, so many characters suddenly walk onto the page. As the author, I feel like I should at least know who the important ones are, but that’s not always the case. I didn’t know that the Rose sisters (The Rogues and Roses trilogy) had a brother until he slouched against a doorframe and introduced himself to the heroine in A DUKE OF HER OWN. I didn’t realize that the Duchess of Ainsley (London’s Greatest Lovers) would in fact have a wonderful lover herself, not until Leo made his appearance. I had always planned for her to be pining away for her first true love and that they would get…

I love Fresh Fiction-love the people who make it happen and love that it is based in my home state of Texas. When I was trying to figure out what to blog around this time around, I came up empty. So I went back to a blog I wrote several years ago and darn, if it isn’t still relevant. I’m changing it up a little so you can see how insecure I still am when it comes to my own writing. (Most writers are. I once heard a NY Times best seller say she pauses in the middle of every single book she writes and wonders if she should send back the advance because she doesn’t think she has another good book in her.) I have five books coming out this year and two next year. I couldn’t suck, right? Yet, insecure me sometimes looks over my shoulder to make sure someone isn’t chasing me to take it all away. More than two years ago LIVER LET DIE debuted and I put together this top ten list. At the time I whined about the fact that Berkley had bought three books from me after only reading three chapters and that…

Like this infographic? Get more writing inspiration on HowToMakeMyBlog.com.

Lately I’ve been interviewed a lot by people who ask me why I write erotic fiction and how I’d describe it. And I discovered a vast population of people that had no idea what it really is. It’s a genre that has kind of snuck up on the reading public, graduating from behind closed doors and plain brown wrappers to now full out discussions on places like Goodreads. I didn’t start out to write in this genre. Actually I didn’t start out to write romance at all. Everyone who’s heard this next part, you have permission to take a break to get a cold drink. I actually intended to write mysteries. My mother and my sister devoured them and that was all I read growing up. I won’t even tell you how old I was before I read my first romance novel. So, okay, I sat down to write the mystery that I’d plotted so carefully, and in a week I had three chapters carefully written. The problem? Two months later I was still looking at the same three chapters. Not a good sign. Then I read my first romantic suspense and I was off to the races. Sort of….

When writing a friends-to-lovers story, there’s always a tricky element of hitting the right balance of believability and intensity. If there’s no conflict, why would people read the book? But then again, you know these people already like each other…they’re friends. So where’s the conflict there? Ah…the problem. In THE OFFICER BREAKS THE RULES, Madison O’Shay isn’t conflicted at all. She’s wanted Jeremy Phillips since she was sixteen years old. Okay, sure, she was too young for him at that point. But ten years later, she’s ready, and he should be too. What’s the hold up? Jeremy Phillips has more hold ups than you can shake a stick at. Battling against his father’s expectations, his respect for his best friend (and Madison’s big brother!) Tim, trying to figure out his own decisions as he comes to a crossroad in his career…it adds up. And now Madison is making moves he never expected, and the poor guy is thrown for a tailspin. Madison and Jeremy got their start ten years ago. But they’re ready to finish things now. THE OFFICER BREAKS THE RULES is book two of the Semper Fi series and is on bookshelves and available for e-readers now! To…