In the past, New Year’s Eve was always bittersweet. I spent Christmas with my adoptive family before returning to my lonely condominium in Toronto. By the time New Year’s Eve arrived, I’d be itching for human contact. So I’d do what I always did when I craved a connection. I’d walk to Lobby, my favourite club. On New Year’s Eve it was difficult to get in. But on this particular evening, as on most nights since I became a club VIP, I was welcomed by the bouncer, who directed me to skirt the long line and enter the building. I approached the bar and ordered my favourite drink – a double shot of Laphroaig, neat, with a side of spring water. Within five minutes, I was sitting on a banquette near the wall, sipping Scotch and scanning the room. My criteria for female companionship were simple. I preferred tall, leggy blondes but would occasional approach a red head or a brunette. I liked women who were attractive, confident, and intelligent. I avoided those whose mannerisms hinted at self-esteem issues or overt aggression. I also steered clear of women who arrived at Lobby in packs, since I found it tiresome to…

To say this has been an eventful year may be a grand understatement. Between political, social and natural events, there’s a tremendous amount to feel distressed, and maybe even saddened over. With the final hours of 2012 dwindling away, it would be tempting to allow the weight of this year’s challenges to sit vulture like on our shoulders. But what if we took just a moment – maybe until the end of that cup of tea or coffee you’re enjoying – to look back and find things that happened this year that we’re thankful for? Here, I’ll start us off: ·I’m thankful for everyone who bought my books, and particularly thankful for those readers who took the time to review them online. Nothing both humbles and motivates me more than to know someone’s out there rooting for my characters. (It’s also mildly terrifying, but I’m going to tuck that under the ‘motivating’ part of this point.) ·I’m thankful for all the hard work of my editor, and all the editorial staff, at Carina Press. It’s easy for a new writer to fall to pieces during the editorial process, but it’s so much easier to keep it together when you work…

Really, I couldn’t have planned it better. My paranormal romance, titled A TASTE OF ICE, was released yesterday, December 31 … right in the heart of frigid winter. A TASTE OF ICE is set in a snowy, desolate, historic town in the Colorado mountains. The funny thing is, when I sold my paranormal romance series, The Elementals, to Berkley Sensation/Penguin, the winter release date for A TASTE OF ICE, the second in the series, was set long before I had ever turned in the manuscript. How perfect that turned out to be! One of my goals in writing The Elementals was to change the locations for each book to best suit the storyline of the hero and heroine I feature in each. I really didn’t want to keep them all in one place, and I wanted to expand beyond an urban setting. LIQUID LIES, the first book in the series, takes place in beautiful Lake Tahoe. The third book, coming 2014, will take place … well, I can’t really say because it would give away a major plot point from A TASTE OF ICE, but let’s just say it’s someplace exotic and warm and far off the California coast (hint…

Here we are on the cusp of another new year. It is for some, a time of reflection and for others a time for looking ahead, at a new year of potential and possibilities! In FALLEN ANGEL, the second book in my time-travel romance series based on the Tales of the Sweet Magnolia, I write about two souls, who in search for connection receive the gift of a second chance. A second chance at redemption, at forgiveness, at finding love, even if that means having to travel through time to find their deepest desires. It reminds me that each morning is a clean slate; each New Year stands at the ready to offer great opportunities. That everything that has happened to us shapes us in some way—to strengthen, to give us wisdom, to instill us with gratitude for all that we do have. And to make you realize that there is power in love. There is power in hope. I have learned this year to be more grateful. To realize that all that has happened has brought me to where I am supposed to be and I look ahead to a new year of what can be. What are you…

The packages are all opened and some of you have probably already taken down your trees and decorations. Right now my living room looks like Christmas exploded everywhere. In addition to the decorations, we have new toys everywhere. We have a 2 year old and a 4 year old and so they got a lot of loot. In any case it’s a mess a mess that is beginning to close in on me and tomorrow said toys will find all their new homes in baskets and bins and shelves. So while we’re in these post-holiday days closing in on the end of the year, many of us will begin to reflect over this past year and consider the one approaching. Resolutions, goals, plans, whatever you want to call them, most of us make some sort of game plan on things to tackle in our lives. Whether they be of the professional, personal or spiritual nature, most people generally try to better themselves. I’m one of those. I love to set goals. I love fresh starts and organizing projects. It’s part of my noodly-brain I suppose. I’m geeky, I love calendars and color-coding and all that stuff. But I digress. In…

Ah, the big stress of the holidays is over! The shopping, the baking, the wrapping, the mailing, the decorating–done, done, done. Now it’s time to bask in the post Christmas glow and relax before New Years. To reflect on the past year and look forward to a fresh new one. Time to dream and escape. And speaking of escapes, this is my favorite reading week of the year. I live in the Pacific Northwest. The days here are incredibly short so soon after the winter solstice. The weather outside is gray and cold, perfect weather to snuggle inside with a good book without any guilt. And usually I have a fresh pile of books gifted to me for Christmas. Books I’ve been wanting and meaning to read. Or gift cards just waiting for me to use to buy any I didn’t get. If you’re like me and love to read and escape into a book, if you like romance and spies and adventure and love to laugh, I hope you’ll consider my January 2013 release LIVE AND LET LOVE, which actually came out on Christmas Eve and is available now. LIVE AND LET LOVE is the third book in my…

I’m wondering how this year went by so quickly.  Certain years I’m glad to say goodbye too-to the trials that left a sour note.  Last New Year’s Eve, I remember gratefully toasting away the end of 2011.  We’d had a move, a new school, and a cancer diagnosis that took us all by surprise.  This year though, it feels like we’ve turned a corner.  Last year’s worry has been replaced by gratitude and a new understanding of how quickly life moves, and how fleeting time with our loved ones can be.  This year, I know my family will be toasting to the wonderful news that after a successful round of radiation treatment, my father is cancer free.  We just received the news last week-and it’s the best Christmas gift we could have ever asked for.  The gift of health, the gift of time, of being able to create more memories has just been handed to us.  My children will have more time with their Nonno, my mother will have more time with her husband, and I’ll have more time with my father. Growing up in a North-American-Italian family, the holidays were always filled with an abundance of family, food, and…

What’s most important for me this time of year is feeling that rush of memories and smiles and hopes for another holiday season like my favorite ones from before. I’ve heard a lot from readers who’re enjoying CHRISTMAS ON MIMOSA LANE, and one of the most comment reviews or emails I get is about past and present phenomenon. Yes, folks are loving the book. But more than that, they’re feeling the characters experiences—dealing with Christmases past, dreaming of perfect Christmases future, and embracing the hopeful holiday they want to embrace today. Because we’re never really feeling only now this time of year. We’re also sensing those idealistic holidays we’ve had before and wishing for even better memories to come. In CHRISTMAS ON MIMOSA LANE our characters deal with their memories (both good and bad) so they can focus on the beautiful holiday they’re making now. This is the only way for them to have their chance to be happy. Some of us struggle with being happy, too, this time of the year, while the rest of the world seems to be celebrating non-stop. Pete and Mallory and little Polly’s story is about realizing that you can make your holiday now…

One of my favorite pre-holiday memories is heading to the craft store with my mom just after Thanksgiving. Every year there would be kits to make our own ornaments – paper and pictures, paints and markers, dough for some figures… The store was old and musty most days, but during the holidays the must seemed to lift, leaving only fresh air and possibilities. Over the year I made my own Christmas balls, a couple of disfigured horse attempts, but mostly stars or snowflakes. What I learned from those early attempts is that I’m not overly artistic. I can color with the best of them, but to draw my own pictures? Sad, sad, sad. So, as an adult, I’ve tweaked that tradition just a bit – we head to the mall on Thanksgiving weekend and pick out a family ornament from the ornament maker and have it personalized. Most years the kiddo (she’s 4) also picked out a personal ornament, too. This year it was a princess castle that looks suspiciously like Cinderella’s. One year it was a carousel horse on a candy cane…our family ornament this year is three owls sitting on a branch because, as the kiddo says, ‘it…

Living in a cultural melting pot gives people in the U.S. a wide range of holidays and traditions to celebrate.  At our house, Christmas is the favorite.  We do the traditional things like put up a tree, wrap gifts, and decorate the house, but those aren’t our only ways to enjoy the season.  We also read.  I’m working on revisions to GUARDIAN, my second book, but I’m also making time to read holiday-themed romances.  The festive settings and happy endings add to my generally good mood. Lately I find myself also looking back at the stories we read our son when he was small. He’s in college now, well past the age of being read to, but he seems open to the three of us reading A CHRISTMAS CAROL aloud again.  This is the dh’s favorite Christmas story.  His father read it to their family every year. My favorite story is a shorter, simpler one, O. Henry’s “The Gift of the Magi.”  I don’t want to spoil it for anyone who hasn’t read it, so I’ll just say it’s about the depth of love at the holiday season.  I found a beautiful picture book of that story when the boy…